OK, I've read about Warhammer Ancients, but had never actually seen anyone play it. But lo and behold, while wandering around the open gaming area, here's my friend David playing in a WA tournament. So I sat down to watch him and his Samurai army take on the Persians (hey, it's just as historical as WRG tournaments, right?)

Now, I don't know much about his army of Kawanajima 1561 Samurai commanded by Shingen, leader of clan Takeda (honest, I had him spell this out for me so I would get the historical designation correct--David knows a lot about Samurai), but I do know a thing or two about wargame battles. From what I can discern, this is a you go-I go system with some sort of unit initiative rating to see who fights--and inflicts casualties--first. And you spend an inordinate amount of time rolling dice. Lots of dice. Dice to your heart's content. A dozen or more dice when two units hit. The maximum was 18 dice. Maybe it was 19. The dice were awfully small to count.

First you roll to hit. Then you roll the hits to see if you "wound." Then the other guy rolls for saves. Then the other guy rolls to hit, and then rolls again to wound, and then you roll for saves. The number you need on a d6 is determined by unit stats--each figure has a weapon speed which is compared against another figure's stat and that tells you what you need to roll to hit. It's usually a 4+, sometimes 3+ and sometimes 5+, but just about always 4+. Then, and here I get a little fuzzy on the procedure, the wound number is calculated, presumably between two stats. And then, the save number is looked at.

Now, hits and saves, or hits and damage, rolls are pretty standard, but this extra step is the difference. To be fair, both David and his opponent seemed pretty familiar with each other's armies' stats, so the calculations were done almost immediately and always without looking up a the standard chart.

Most line infantry and cavalry die on one wound, but the bigger heroes and commanders may need multiple wounds before they fall. There are rules for musicians and standards and some unit modifiers ("Stubborn" seemed a big one, which to my unenlightened mind meant "no morale roll"). There's something called wrap around, which appears to be that if you have won a battle, you bring more men from the rear to hit the flank of the enemy. That must give you more dice.

There's no opportunity charge, as I watched a Persian unit wheel within a literal inch of one of the Samurai units. I don't know what the scale is, and I can't remember what the movement rate was, but if I was that Persian at the far end of the row...

David noted that he designed his army in a historical manner, rather than tweaking it for tournament play. If he were more bloodthirsty, he noted that he could form a big unit of cheap peasants and stick a hero of some sort in the front rank. The peasants don't take morale, the hero dies last, and you get a lot of dice. That last part is especially important.

In any case, they seemed to have a good time, though I think the math could be calculated out. After watching a few turns, it seemed that they were both rolling 4+ on d6s at each step (again, sometimes 3+ and sometimes 5+) and that it pretty much was a bloody draw. I believe David lost, as his Samurai cavalry broke because he didn't have a special banner to allow a unit to stick around when under 5 figures, and that was the beginning of the end. Not having any missile troops (well, he had three figures' worth) hurt, too. The Persians had a large unit of bowmen, plus some sort of wagon troops that dismounted infantry, not unlike a modern APC roaring to a halt and discharging infantry. I never claimed to know much about Persians other than those who fought Alexander the Great.

More Cold Wars 2002

Welcome and Introduction
Opening Impressions
The Dealer Area
On Conventions and Venues
Warhammer Ancients: Samurai vs. Ancients
The Pit: Card Game
Carribean Smackdown: Inn of the Angry Iguana
Borodino 2002
Swordfish Attack and Lord of the Rings Games
GM Help Desk
Attack of the Virginia Air Cavalry
Gladiator
And Another Cold One
Other Images of Cold Wars

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com