Recommendations for Ancients rules?

[Deleted]

I've been thinking a lot about Ancients lately. Not only have I been taking a dive into Greek classics, which obviously include a lot of famous battles of that fashion, but I've been re-watching my favorite Harryhausen films, and looking into Tony Bath's campaign notes, and all this influence is nudging me away from Medieval European inclinations farther back in time. 

Has anyone here had much experience using rules specifically for Ancients? I looked up the subcategory at Wargame Vault, which is the wargaming version of DrivethruRPG, and there's several promising titles in their top ten list. Clash of Spears seems to be the highest rated product. It appears to be a relatively new rules set, though. I'm wondering if you guys can recommend me something more classic and time-tested in this vein. 

[waysoftheearth]

Start here: www.wrg.me.uk/WRG.net/History/wrg.html

[flightcommander]

You might take a look at DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis) if you haven't already. waysoftheearth recently posted a link to a copy of the 1.0 edition, which has been superseded several times. The rules are quite brief, and the army lists are terse to say the least. The system goes back to the age of Mesopotamian chariot warfare and ends with, essentially, the War of the Roses. Later editions (the current is 3.0) elaborate on the historical armies and the rules, but the timeframe is roughly the same and the rules amendments (to my crude understanding) are geared toward pruning exploitable edge cases.

The game posits armies of precisely 12 units each, with each unit comprised of a single functional type (eg Bow, Spear, Light Horse, Heavy Chariot) and a corresponding number of figures on rectangular bases of specific sizes. It is mainly geared towards tournament/competition/campaign games, although that shouldn't be taken as a constraint. It's meant to be played with miniatures in (mainly) either 15mm or 25mm scale, however it will be very easy to try out by just cutting up some paper to the appropriate base sizes and labelling them as appropriate.

The current rules are somewhat difficult to purchase in print. However, there is an introductory version readily available via the History of Wargaming Project website (which also publishes the Tony Bath book), which has all the rules but an abbreviated set of army lists.

[waysoftheearth]

DBA games are playable in around an hour (rather than an all-day, or all-weekend affair, per many other wargames).

However, DBA also offers "Big DBA" --with three times as many elements per side--for those who like more miniatures on the table.

[nagnar]

I agree with DBA being the best choice to start with. There is also a module for playing DBA 2 or 3 on tabletop simulator. With DBA however you really want to learn first from someone else who knows the game and not start with reading the rules. The rules writing style in DBA is notoriously hard to comprehend.

The current popular ancients rules in my area in order of increasing complexity, number of figures required and length of games are:
De Bellis Antiquitatis 3 (DBA3), Art De La Guerre (ADLG), Impetus, Mortem et Gloriam (MeG)

[geoffrey]

Apr 1, 2021 17:00:09 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

DBA games are playable in around an hour (rather than an all-day, or all-weekend affair, per many other wargames).

An hour-long wargame sounds right up my alley.

[flightcommander]

I'm also going to recommend Peter's Paperboys, which are 25mm paper miniatures designed and illustrated by the massively talented and prolific Peter Dennis of Osprey Publishing fame. These are paper miniatures and terrain you can purchase mostly á la carte, which can be printed at any reasonable size (you'll need to do some fiddly math to get it right). More options for wargaming on the cheap! He's covered some Ancients — Republican and Imperial Romans, Gauls, Greeks, Carthaginians (including elephants!), etc, as well as Age of Sail, ECW, AWI, ACW, and many others. Worth checking out!

[derv]

Apr 1, 2021 14:34:53 GMT -6 @ampleframework said:

I've been thinking a lot about Ancients lately. Not only have I been taking a dive into Greek classics, which obviously include a lot of famous battles of that fashion, but I've been re-watching my favorite Harryhausen films, and looking into Tony Bath's campaign notes, and all this influence is nudging me away from Medieval European inclinations farther back in time. 

There are a bunch of rule sets out there. It depends a little on what sort of game you want to play. I'm fond of Osprey's latest series of affordable wargames. Men of Bronze or Of Gods and Mortals might be of interest.

But, there are many free rule sets floating around out there too. Check out Miniature Wargaming+ for an idea of what's out there.

By the way, Tony Bath's Society of the Ancients is still going strong.

Apr 1, 2021 18:14:17 GMT -6 flightcommander said:

I'm also going to recommend Peter's Paperboys, which are 25mm paper miniatures designed and illustrated by the massively talented and prolific Peter Dennis of Osprey Publishing fame.

Some of these are complete games. I purchased his Jacobite '45 to get a look. The miniatures are very well done. You have to cut and build them, but there's no painting required. The rules are fairly basic. There is also a bit of history on the period. A good introduction to the hobby. I considered picking up the HG Wells Little Wars book too.

[Deleted]

DBA looks like the most intriguing option so far, at least for starters. Simple, hour-long, chariot-heavy combats are right up my alley. Thanks.

[Finarvyn]

My favorite wargame of the era is PRESTAGS, with rules from the biblical times to early Renaissance. This game was my go-to in the 1970's.

The rules are here for some reason. I suspect one could make counters pretty easily and play. Some ideas about the unit symbols are here.

I'm sure there is a thread or two on this here at ODD74.

[Deleted]

Oh, wow, yeah. I could easily print those out and paste them onto cardboard or something for counters.

[stevemitchell]

Worth taking a look at in the "simple, hour-long" category--One-Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas. This has separate rules (but all based on similar mechanics) for nine different historical periods, including Ancients. Scenarios are designed to be played within a 3-foot by 3-foot area, with usually only six units per side. A unit is a single base, from 4 to 6 inches wide, with as many figures as you would like to put on it, with any size of figure. For the Ancients period, there are four troop types: Infantry, Archers, Skirmishers, and Cavalry. Sorry, no Chariots, these would be considered included with the Cavalry. Mr. Thomas also provides 30 generic scenarios, and a system for randomly determining the composition of each side's army. There are certainly more complex and detailed Ancients systems out there, but this works very nicely for quick, intro-level battles.

If you want to take a deep dive into boardgames Ancients, I'd recommend the Great Battles of History series from GMT Games. The Deluxe versions of Alexander and SPQR are probably the best places to start (with the Deluxe Julius Caesar in the works). Complex, but rewarding and a hell of a lot of fun.

[Otto Harkaman]

Vassal is finally allowing SPI game modules to be posted since Decision Games, who own many of the game rights, gave the OK.

Here is the link to the PRESTAGS module
www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:PRESTAGS_Master-Pack

[rsdean]

Apr 2, 2021 5:07:51 GMT -6 @ampleframework said:

DBA looks like the most intriguing option so far, at least for starters. Simple, hour-long, chariot-heavy combats are right up my alley. Thanks.

I posted this on the Discord, but for the benefit of anyone else who might be interested, my older son has been working on a group of related chariot era DBA armies this past year:

junkyardplanet.blogspot.com/search/label/Bronze%20Age

Both of my kids were sort of raised on Hordes of the Things (fantasy DBA), and we had a revival of activity in late 2019 when the younger one (who’s been too busy with grad school for most gaming) suddenly decided to invest in a copy of DBA 3.0. The pandemic has limited us to occasional remote games, but we are gradually figuring out how our various armies work in the newer version of the rules.

I’d second the recommendation for One Hour Wargames in general, although the ancients set up described above, with heavy foot, archers, skirmishers and cavalry is somewhat of an amalgam of opposed fighting styles. Cyrus’s army in the Anabasis would probably fit, but you’d have to fuss with the random army chart to get Greeks vs Persians or Romans vs Gauls to work. On the other hand, the collection of scenarios all laid out for 3x3 tables is probably worth the cost by themselves; I’ve ported one over to DBA/Hordes experimentally without too much problem, so that should generally work.

[DungeonDevil]

PRESTAGS for chit-based.
WRG Ancients (I've got 6th edition) for minis, although as it is infamous for being very difficult to understand the author's (Phil Barker) convoluted language, I would also give a vote for DBA.
I would imagine that, with a little tinkering, CHAINMAIL would also be perfectly fine.
I know I've got other Ancients rulesets on Ye Olde Bookeshelfe, but I don't have the time to look.
Has anyone tried SWORDS & SPELLS for historical Ancients?

[thorswulf]

I suppose the question is how much time, money and effort are you willing to put forth? I recently played SPQR by Warlord Games and enjoyed it. It is more of a large skirmish set of rules, rather than the DBAmodel.