I wonder which Periods of Antiquity you folks do play?
Because the Poll limit you to only one possible answer, choose your favorite Period and comment which further Periods you also play.
Which Periods of Antiquity do you play?
Which Periods of Antiquity do you play?
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Because of the RPG Pendragon I do collect some 6th century stuff. My interests are more medieval and later though.
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I mostly play fantasy and fantasy RPG's so my answer is a combination of none and all. I have been more and more interested in Indian settings or themes in RPG's... There is an excellent setting called Southlands that I own for the Pathfinder 1st system that has some India-like cultures. I would be very interested in some hard plastic sets.
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Late Bronze Age - Specifically the Trojan War. Have started collecting minis to play Warhammer Historical Battle or Of Gods and Mortals. Not investing heavily yet as I hope the WGA Trojan Chariot will be the start of several Trojan War kits.
Early Empire - Have the SPQR starter and have assembled an additional German force. Will collect a Victrix Imperial Roman and Dacian force. Truth be told I love the concept of SPQR but really disliked the rules. Haven't picked up the revised rules yet. May just play smaller games of WHB or Hail Caesar.
These forces also do double duty with the Broken Legion rules with the addition of some mythological/fantasy elements.
I do find all eras of antiquity at least somewhat interesting with the possible exception of late antiquity which I mostly find depressing.
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Because my current Ancients collection is mainly made up of Britons and Imperial Romans and the Britons are easily my favourite historical faction of them all (if you hadn't guessed by my faction name or profile picture), I'll have to go with Early Empire for the poll, but in all honesty I'm interested in any era of Ancients or Dark Ages.
@JTam What was it about SPQR that you disliked? I personally enjoy playing the original edition - if you found issues with the original book I've developed my own errata for it which ironed out the biggest ambiguities, which I can PM you with if you like, along with the Warlord official erratum if you don't already have it. I can also answer any questions anybody here has with the original edition, and am writing my own army lists for additional factions that the main rulebook missed out (plus a fantasy/mythology add-on, because I can 😉) if anyone's interested.
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I play from the Hellenic Period to the Late Antiquity, but we could only choose one 😁
I have armies for all those ages, in various stages of completion.
As rules, I use SAGA, Hail Caesar, Dux Britanniarum and Dux Bellorum.
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I am not currently playing any of the ancient periods but have interest in all of them to varying degrees. I currently have quite a few Hellenistic minis, both Greek and Persian but I also have a number of Early Saxons and Late Romans as I would like to do my own take on a possible Arthurian setting.
And for Mrs. GG I have a number of Germanics, Gauls and Britons as well. However what few Early Imperial Romans I have are now destined for eBay (where all my Roman Republic minis went already) to help fund my new Quar plans.
There just is not enough time to build/paint everything and then play all the cool games.
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For me, it's Hellenistzic and Late Antiquity.
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@Caratacus
My dive into the SPQR (1st edition) rules was superficial so I could be completely wrong.
But from memory my problems were this:
1. Way too much dice rolling. Example - 20 "Barbarians" attack 9 Romans. On the charge the Barbarians roll SIXTY dice. The Romans have a sword and shield and can make their opponents reroll TWENTY SEVEN dice. This is before they strike back And this is a fight with only 29 models. This could get completely out of hand.
2. Points costs and/or balance completely out of wack. I didn't do any list building so I could be completely wrong. But I based this off of the starter set and the ASSUMPTION you are getting two reasonably balanced forces. You get two "regiments" of 8 Romans and 40 Gaulish Warriors and 12 Gaulish Archers.
If this is a points balanced match up the points are really, really wrong. Maybe a Legion can win against the Gauls in a 1 to 5 fight, but it doesn't work like that when a reinforced squad fights a beefed up platoon. It should be a massacre. If it is a massacre the points balance is wrong. If it's not a massacre, it's a balanced game, but a stupid one.
(Note they don't even have enough Romans in each unit to take advantage of the formation rule).
Now it could be the contents of the starter box are not balanced and all my above points are invalid. If so it would be nice if Warlord had a starter with something resembling balance forces.
It sounds like you enjoy the rules, and that's great.
I did really like the concept, the scenarios, and the "campaign" aspect of the rules.
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Sidenote: Warlord is having a really nice sale on the SPQR starter box as we speak.
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If I was to do Imperial Rome I think I would try Infamy! Infamy! By Toofatlardies. I tend to like their game design concepts.
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@JTam
"1. Way too much dice rolling. Example - 20 "Barbarians" attack 9 Romans. On the charge the Barbarians roll SIXTY dice. The Romans have a sword and shield and can make their opponents reroll TWENTY SEVEN dice. This is before they strike back And this is a fight with only 29 models. This could get completely out of hand."
I see you've fallen into a trap set by one of a fair few mistakes in the rulebook - only those models that actually make it into base contact should be able to fight, rather than the entire unit, so those Gauls won't usually be rolling as many as 60 dice. Yes the combat section in the rulebook gives the impression of otherwise, but if you look at the Wild Charge rules for any barbarian faction, it states that each model gets a bonus attack "regardless of whether they get into base contact or not", meaning that it's highly likely the lads at Warlord thought of the rule of models only being able to attack when in base-to-base contact later on (quite rightly, because models at the back of a unit shouldn't be able to attack enemies they can't hit) and updated the Wild Charge rules, but forgot to update the combat rules section earlier in the book.
Certainly we play it this way and it feels better in terms of realism, less dice being rolled (though as a Tyranid and Ork player in 40K I have no qualms about rolling loads of dice), and also when applied this way the points balance feels right - in battles between my Britons and Romans there have always been only a few surviving models on the victorious side - meaning it's likely that they had playtested the points with the base-to-base contact rules in play and intended combat to be resolved that way.
"2. Points costs and/or balance completely out of wack. I didn't do any list building so I could be completely wrong. But I based this off of the starter set and the ASSUMPTION you are getting two reasonably balanced forces. You get two "regiments" of 8 Romans and 40 Gaulish Warriors and 12 Gaulish Archers."
I agree Warlord made a questionable decision with the starter set - I think some of the Gauls are meant to fight on the Roman side as Mercenaries, as Mercenaries can be used in non-Campaign games if there is an imbalance of points, and Rome can take Gallic mercenaries, though of course it would have been much less confusing if they had just added some more Romans instead, to balance out the sides properly without the need for Mercenaries. But then, at least it can be fixed by buying some extra Romans and who could say no to more figures? 😉
@Grumpy Gnome I did look at Infamy! Infamy! and while it's good that the Lardies put in the effort to make playing the two sides feel particularly different, I really don't like any Ancients game that lumps Britons, Gauls, Germans and Dacians into a generic 'Barbarian' army list, because it is in effect a Romanism which demeans these cultures as faceless savages that are all supposedly one and the same, when they were not at all. Something that also put me off Broken Legions. Also a game with little in the way of faction variety is not complete in my eye.
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I have not played Infamy! But have watched it played in numerous videos, read various battle reports as we all as read/watched several reviews. It is not perfect. But I did not get the impression it lumped all non-Romans as generic “Barbarians.”
Some flaws in the game are noted here...
https://hippolytastinyfootsteps.blogspot.com/2020/09/first-thoughts-on-infamy-infamy.html
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@Caratacus
Reference Broken Legions, I personally felt there was enough differention between the "Barbarians". Germans get werewolves. Britons chariots. And if I remember correctly Dacians get their own list (with Vampires).
But if you were looking for more variety/flavor, the author of Broken Legions has more indepth rules/lists on his website...
https://mark-latham.com/products/broken-legions/
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Lucid Eye recently came out with a new line of ancients:
https://www.lucideyepublications.com/rome?page=4
I think Lucid Eye makes some of the most beautiful miniatures in the business.
It looks like the new line include Republic Romans:
Some of the Romans have the small pectoral plates and others mail. (I remember listening to a good podcast about the changeover).
I really like the kneeling third line.
And Macedonians:
Any subject matter experts want to weigh in on the authenticity of the miniatures?
Lucid Eye also has some gorgeous Amazons, Sea People, Trojan War era and later Greeks in their "Ziggurat" line.
https://www.lucideyepublications.com/ziggurat?page=5
Great time to pick some up:
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Warlord Games started their Black Friday sale. Some nice discounts on Hail Caesar starters, Ancients blisters, etc.
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Most interest in Ancient Asia since the Chinese had mass production of Bronze weapons and Crossbows, etc. and their opponents are fascinating. But India has some interest and I do have a lot of ancients that think would be cool for a “fantasy/history” campaign of Alexander’s march in that country (I would add dragon hunts, etc. to it)
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My view of antiquity is heavily based upon the Total War mod Europa Barbarorum (both 1 and 2). Which starts around 280b.c.e and runs for a few hundred years. Fun times, I should download that game again. I would love to kit bash some armies based around that time period.
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@William Ings I must have played several hundred hours on both 1 and 2. Very complete and amazing mods.
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DEI for me. When I get around to painting my Ancients I fully intend to use DEI assets for as inspiration for the painting.
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@JTam For Eileen and myself Broken legions is our main taster, Victurex and the old WGF figures our playing pieces, complete with fantasy lines. We got the Viking game, Ragnorock, but not many figures. Iv`e Shieldwall which I rather like using figures by Gripping beast. Thats my lot I now purchase any nice plastic figure I like from the Sprue shop.
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@Geoff Maybury
Shield Wall the Hail Caesar expansion?
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@JTam No a rather nice buget print set of rules for skirmish games in the Late roman through Viking and Normans. Ground scale is what your figures are and 1man is 1 man. No, 5" command control .a good leader with stout aids Keeps the shield wall firm. When it breaks the aid command of the lost sections can still save the day. As a rather nice Viking raid on a village for its sugested scenerio only cost about £6 . It really has a feel of the fog of war when fighting with mele weapons the more varied your scenery the better. Same guy did a American Civil war game, in completly the same style .I`ve got that to but can`t remember the name(Stone wall ) keeps flashing into my head we used the rules for "The Lost Regiment Books" using 15mm civil war and 25mm Orcs.
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@Geoff Maybury
I recently read the first book in that series.
That's a great game idea. Using 15mm humans and 25mm orcs is a really clever way to show the disparity in size and power.
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I quite enjoyed the Lost Regiment series and did consider a gaming project based on it, with using GW Kroot models for the Tugar.
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@JTam Had some real good games, only finished because the two players with the bigest majority of figures moved to London with their jobs. Still got some bits hanging around in the shed, would have loved 28mm with Perrys, then 54mm horses and something for theTugar? It played well we used the "Stonewall" rules and orc ruled from DD
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