I have been gaming with a few friends in the southern suburbs of Chicago for more years than I can remember. Our little group owes its start and much of it's longevity to Mike Adams, a gentleman and a gamer. Mike has one of the greatest 25mm Ancient figure collections that I have ever seen. I on the other hand started out with Colonial, and Medieval figures. Bill Weber, another of our group, had some WWII figures and Wendel Decker was just beginning to assemble his collection. As a consequence we played a lot of ancient games at Mikes house. Eventually Mike said "Hey! How about you guys getting your own ancients?". What a brilliant idea. So we all started to assemble ancient armies of countries that we liked. Wendel went for Imperial Romans, Bill started a Macedonian / Greek Successor army and I went for Carthage.
Well, we played battle after battle using a variety of rules but they never presented a clear cut game and we were always debating the meaning of these rules during and after a game. Finally 'Tactica" came out. What a great game system this is. It seemed to solve all of our problems except one, we had all these figures now and we did not want to remount and purchase a bunch of different figures. So what to do now? Well we decided to create our own point system to purchase an army. After two years of refining this system we have a pretty balanced set of points for the different types of troops used in ancient battles. Now I'm not saying that this will work for everyone but it works pretty good for us. Try it out and see what you think. If you have any comments you can e-mail me at gjfoxsr@ameritech.net
COST PER FIGURE
| Type of figure | Number per stand | Points per figure | # to hit on D6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light Infantry | 1 or 2 | 2 | 3-6 |
| Medium Infantry | 3 per stand | 3 | 4-6 |
| Heavy Infantry | 4 per stand | 4 | 5-6 |
| Light Cavalry | 1 per stand | 5 | 4-6 |
| Heavy Cavalry | 2 per stand | 7 | 5-6 |
| Cataphract | 2 per stand | 9 | 6 |
| Camels | 1-2 per stand | 7 | 5-6 |
| Elephants | 1 per stand | 25 | 5-6 |
| Heavy Chariots | 1 per stand | 20 | 5-6 |
| Light Chariots | 1 per stand | 15 | 4-6 |
WEAPON COSTS (in addition to figure cost)
| Weapon type | Cost | Special rules |
|---|---|---|
| Pike | 2 | +3 dice for each rank greater than opponent |
| Long Spear | 2 | +2 dice for each rank greater than opponent |
| Bow | 2 | - |
| Sling | 2 | - |
| Javelin | 1 | Only light troops pay for javelin |
| Two Handed Weapon | 1 | +1 per die vs. Cavalry & Elephants |
The above charts have only been used with "Tactica" rules. I have no idea how they would be with any other set of rules. By using these points we have had many enjoyable games. Our group has played with anywhere from 1000 points to 4000 points per army per game and have always finished our games in under 4 hours. Most have only lasted 2 hours or less of actual playing time. This of course does not include the amount of time we spend taunting each other or just gabbing before and after the game is played. I hope that this system will help you play more varied games as I think that "Tactica" is one of the most convenient set of rules out there. They play fast and simple but still give the flavor and feel of the period.
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© Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum
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