Historicon and Ancients Rules

Dear Terry,

Did you make it to HISTORICON? If you did, I hope you had as much fun as I did. My good friend, Bob, and I tried out several ancienta rulesets: DBM; Ancients A - Z; and Classical Hack. DBM was the ruleset used in the well- presented game of the Gallic attack to relieve Caeear's siege of Alesia. The beautifully sculpted terrain appeared to be very faithful to the topography of the battlefield and the hand-cast siege works aere visually convincing as well as practical from a gaming standpoint. The latter is especially important and many othervise qood games suffer from an inadequate appreciation of practicality. The game played well and saw a narrow Gallic victory as Vercingetorix barely made his escape. Gallic losses, however, vere very high and probably would haue led to a collapse of the Gallic coalition and eventual defeat (according to the game master). A very enjoyable game with a lot of context to add to the flavor.

John Manning and and Andy Zartolis hosted a wonderful 25mm game pitting New Kingdom Egyptians against Hittites, at Megiddo, using their Ancients A-Z ruleset. The rules are easy to understand and yielded a fast moving, bloody battle. In fact, Bob and I both had more fun playing this game, despite being on the losing side, than we do when winning in other gamea. The rules abstract a few things, like formation changes, and are designed more for providing a fun game than a simulation. That's not to say that it's unrealistic or ahistorical. We felt the battle portrayed the ebb and flow of battle better than almost any ruleset ve've ever played, regardleas of period. I'm not sure how much of that was the function of the scenario, but surely the rules must recieve much of the credit.

Each side is alloted a certain number of impulses each turn and can only move as many units as they have impulaes. Players roll for initiative. Movement sequence is determined by random drawing of chits, so one never knows exactly who's gonna go next. We really liked that. Fire is very straight-forward: count the number of firing figures, figure in a couple modifiers, and roll a die for each firing figure. A roll of 6 on a D6 kills. Simple. Effective. Melee is similarily handled. I wish I knew the rules better, 'cause I'd like to be able to do them justice in my description. But having only played them once so far, I can only say that I liked them so much, I bought a copy the very next morning.

The third ancient game we played was one which saw Caesar defending the lighthouse at Alexandria. The rules used were Classical Hack. They appear to differ greatly from DBM and Ancients A-Z in concept and execution. It's more detail-oriented then the other rulesets and reminded me of WRG 7th ed., with similar troop types and a wide variety of modifiers. The game was fun, but I believe the scenario didn't provide the best example of how tbe rules play. The gentleman who hosted the game a member of the Jogglers (I apologize - I can't remember his name), was a model game host. Upbeat, informative, and just plain fun.

In fact, all the game hoats were great. Not only did we play in some great games, learn some new rules, and learn a little history, we also got some great ideas on how to run good games.

I noticed in the last issue of the newsletter an ad from 19th Century Miniatures for their lines of ancient and Medieval ships and crews and I just thought I'd add my unsolicited support. I've got 6 medieval cogs with crews and 16 Greek Successor galleys with crews. The ahip models are well designed, tough, easy to paint, and a blast to play with. The figures used are Chariot, Museum and Essex all top notch. 19th C. also provides easy-to-play rules for use with the ships. One of the most appealing aspects of these lines of ships is their potential use in campaigns. They really expand the possibilities. Also available are Dragon ships and The Galleys at Lepanto. Lots and Lots of good stuff. Also, the proprietors, Steve Jameison and Steve Thomas, are great guys. Long-time gamers, great game hosts, and all-around super guys.

I'd better scoot. Lunch time is over. Take care. And thanks for a great, always enjoyable newsletter!

Historical Warhammer

Dear Terry,

I enjoy your publication and have been paying even closer attention after reading your comments on WARHAMMER. Following the Jervis Johnson articles in WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED, we started playing Dark Ages and Crusader scenarios using the WARHAMMER rules and the new Old Glory figures. We applied for a new simple period-specific modifications, and the resulting games have been fun and very satisfying. My preference ror singly based 25mm figures led me to reject the various WRG sets and ARMATI, and I prefer WARHAMMER to TACTICA and MEDIEVAL TACTICA because of WARHAMMER's much greater flexibility and its use of heroes, which I think is more fun and interesting for these periods. Anyway, I intend to use your scenario booklets to come up with sone new situations and scenarios. Please continue to update me on any new ideas you have concerning WARHAMMER and SAGA, and ir you ever decide your subscribers might like to see a short write up of our modifications or a scenario description, please let me know and we'll submit something. [Ed. Plesse do, Steve!].

I realize most of your readers are probably skeptical. I personally feel a purely historical version of WARHAMMER marketed to historical only wargamers might do very well, as many people are so repulsed by the fantasy artwork and figures that they choose to avoid the rules completely and thus lose out on the smooth mechanics.

[Ed. We managed to play a huge WARHAMMER game based upon the Battle of Clontarf, the scenario taken from my BATTLES and LEADERS booklet. There were three of us on each side and we had over a thousand figures per side. This proved to be too big for the rules. There were too many die rolls, each fairly irrelevant it seemed. Why roll for a hit, then for damage, then for saves? It would be so much easier to combine the rolls and tables into one. Also, the game dragged as one side had to watch all the mechanizations of the other. This was our own fault for picking such a large game, but we've played with thousands of figures per side in WRG gases with no such problems. All in all, I would have to say that WARHAMMER would have to be radically altered to become a viable alternative rules set for our period. Not that this could not or should not be done! I feel that there are many aspects of the rules, not least of which is the easy to understand language and clean system of play, that would be attractive to many gamers.

Steve is right, the odious artwork and color photos of orcs and such nonsense, while considerably jacking up the sale price of the rules, do little to enhance their attraction to me, at least. By the same token, the numerous, helpful dioramas are a welcome inclusion, as are the explanations of why things work the way they do. The various sectioning of the rules, i.e. advanced, basic, etc., are all nice touches as well. I guess that if WARHAMMER were put out as a historical set, modified and edited with that intent in mind, I feel they might very well prove a lucrative and well-received endeavor. Only rewriting and publishing them in this form will the marketability of such rules be proven or disproven].

Coming Soon

Dear Terry,

Thanks for the postcard! Sorry it has taken me so long to renew, I have been trying to organize myself to get an article done and send it to you with the renewal. I hope to have something real for you within a month - though I don't know how scholarly it will be--I'm not a student anymore and cannot withdraw books from the university library. Any and all research has to take place in the library which nakes it tough.

Anyway, I've got an outline done an am using my own books as resources, but want to spend a day at the library since most of my sources have to do with Sub-Romans and the article is a wargamer's guide to the Saxon (Anglo-Saxon) armies, starting with Federates in Roman service, Migration period. early kingdoms, Anglo-Danish wars. Each heading will have a short history of the Saxon Military at this time, organization/muster, and a scenario or two. At least that's what it looks like now.

[Ed. This sounds great! Any of you earlier SACA subscribers will remember Mark's impressive articles on the Arthurian Wars. . I Can't wait to see these new ones.]