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PaintVagrant posted:I think it might be wargames factory that Im thinking of. I always wanted to do a barbarian horde in warhammer historical battles...does that system even exist anymore? The new version is supposed to be available for pre-order this month, apparently. "This year we've been busy working away on a brand new edition of Warhammer Ancient Battles and we're pleased to say that it's just about finished! Weighing in at 208 pages, the new edition will be hardback and full colour throughout. The book is lavishly illustrated with fantastic colour photographs and stunning full-colour artwork. All of our existing supplements will be compatible with the new edition so make sure you’ve got the ones you need! We'll be sending Warhammer Ancient Battles off to the printers in the New Year and when we have a confirmed delivery date, we'll make the book available for pre-order. As newsletter subscribers, we'll send you the information first and you should also keep an eye out for preview pages early in the New Year."
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Jan 2, 2010 05:32
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So does anyone here play the Warhammer Historical series of historic wargames? My LGS has a decent little splinter group of players for it and a nice selection to pick from, and since I just can't get enough of that GW cock (also I love how it encompasses everything from spear and slings to wild west and the rules look solid) has anyone ever tried it out?
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Jan 2, 2010 05:48
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Anyone familiar with Field of Glory? Also, how would I go about getting DBA or DBM rules in the U.S.?
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Jan 2, 2010 06:10
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I'm totally going to end up buying Wargames Factory stuff, probably some Vikings when those hit and Saxons when they come out later in the year. I'm pissed I didn't have enough money in september to get in on the 10 dollar boxes of romans, though. FirstCongoWar fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 06:32
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Bufkhan posted:
Infantry are usually based in stands of 4 or 5 guys, and a platoon is about 5-7 stands, so you've got about 4-5 stands worth of guys there, probably not quite a platoon. You will probably need some more eventually. But for starting out, you're probably not too badly placed in terms of armour - you may need to reevaluate later, of course.
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Jan 2, 2010 06:38
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I've been reading through the Field of Glory rules, and it seems... complex. It's all fairly intuitive but the movement system is even more ticky-tacky than the WFB rules as far as stuff like ranking up and wheeling goes. All of the unit stats make sense but it's all just a little overwhelming on a first, casual read. The troops are done in a similar way to Flames of War, where instead of numbers each unit is defined by adjectives depicting their quality. Roman legionnaires are, for example: Heavy Foot, Armored, Protected, Average, Drilled, Impact Foot, Swordsmen. This is just a ton of stuff to remember at first, but I guess it becomes intuitive at some point. Roman legionnaires have armor and shields, they're good at following orders, and they are good at both charging and fighting. Still, it's weird and very... granular. Edit: and despite the fact that it's compatible with 28mm models I would never play it at that scale. Their "starter army lists" want you to have literally hundreds of guys. The Gallic starter army has 5 "battlegroups" of warriors. Each battlegroup has 8 bases of warriors, each base is supposed to have 3 models on it. 120 warriors! That's the bulk of the army, to be fair, but painting ~160 28mm models is not my idea of a good time. Edit edit: So this isn't completely negative, the books themselves are very interesting and well-put together, available on amazon, and cheap. If you're looking to play wargames on the cheap (you know, relatively), historicals are really the way to go. FirstCongoWar fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 07:49
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Did anybody ever actually play Flames of War Vietnam, or did everyone do what I did and sperg about how cool the models were?
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Jan 2, 2010 11:27
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Lord Commissar posted:Osprey added under the FAQ section. Any real or what if battle of the last 50 years. Army lists cover: # Cold War 1946-90 (America, Britain, China, France, Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, West Germany) # First Indochina War 1948-54 (France, Viet Minh) # Korean War 1950-53 (Communists, United Nations) # Arab-Israeli Wars 1956-82 (Arabs, Israel) # Vietnam War 1957-75 (America, South Vietnam, North Vietnam) # Indo-Pakistan Wars 1965-71 (India, Pakistan) # Angolan War 1975-90 (Angola, South Africa) # Ogaden War 1977-78 (Ethiopia, Somalia) # Soviet-Afghan War 1979-89 (Mujahideen, Soviet Union) # Iran-Iraq War 1980-88 (Iran, Iraq) # Falklands War 1982 (Argentina, Britain) # Gulf Wars 1991-03 (America, Britain, France, Iraq) # Modern 1991+ (America, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia)
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Jan 2, 2010 12:14
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quote:Where does one get 10mm AWI Cav? What kind? My first look at Old Glory's website and I find both British and American Lt. Dragoons in 10mm. EDIT: Pendraken have British dragoons on their website too. Here I'd like to pimp Madaxeman's Wargaming Site, which is excellent when you want to find out what available producers there are for a specific era for a specific scale. I use it a lot when I have a period in mind first and then want to find out where I can get the miniatures. In this case it is less useful as their 10mm section is mostly about WW2, but for 15mm manufacturers it is great with good reviews and lots of pictures. EDIT2; you might want to check out these TMP discussions: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=175148 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=168460 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=163600 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=160379 The pendraken sculpter posts on TMP and in some of those threads, and it seems that they plan on adding more cavalry further on. There's also some talk about whether or not mixing OG and Pendraken is a good idea. There's tons more of threads on it, so just do a search on "10mm AWI". quote:Could you post some pictures of 1mm miniatures??! He probably meant 2mm, which is the smallest size for land warfare I know of. It is ridiculously small.  2mm Indians next to an AA battery quote:plastic multipart historicals? Most have already been mentioned, but Warlord Games also do plastics, mostly Celts and Romans AFAIK. quote:Warhammer Historical series of historic wargames? I only play the napoleonic naval rule set, Trafalgar, but I'd say they are very friendly to the player entering historicals from WHFB/40K since so much of the mechanics are similar to those games. Not counting the movement rules of Trafalgar you're left with mostly "4+ to hit with modifiers" and saving throws, meaning that someone who has played a game of 40K will pick it up quickly. Warhammer Ancient Battles is pretty much 4th ed WHFB with some more detailed formation rules. Fat Twitter Man posted:Anyone familiar with Field of Glory? Also, how would I go about getting DBA or DBM rules in the U.S.? I'll do a writeup on FoG later, but here's my short take on it. I'll mostly compare it to DBA because those are the two systems for historical land battles that I actually play when not at participation games at conventions or something like that. As mentioned before, FoG is much more granular than DBA. Where DBA has 12 bases, a 600pts starter army of FoG is likely to have around 40-60 bases. That's a big step up in how ambitious it is just to get started. I got 2 Carthaginian DBA army boxes and a Gallic DBA box, and I still had to pick up more spearmen, slingers and cavalry to be able to field a starter army. This doesn't just mean more money but also more time. Even if I now have almost the entire army I must proxy a handful of bases so I can't field an entire painted FoG army after a year of playing the game. FoG also takes more time to play, since it is more detailed. You don't just take off casualties or retreat like in DBA, instead you are more likely to slowly lose morale due to attrition. You move to disrupted, then fragmented and finally broken, and you have to keep generals around to improve morale and all that. You have more stats since your weaponry, armour and training has an effect on combat. There's more bases and more variables to keep track of. Now, this is not neccessarily a bad thing. I like FoG, even if I don't get to play it as often as DBA. But it is a completely different game. It's for those days you want to spend an entire evening pushing large groups of metal men on a big board. DBA has the advantage of not taking either that much space nor time, which means you can squeeze in a game on a regular gaming night while waiting for some guys to finish their Railroad Tycoon game. The big number of necessary troops and the time it takes to paint a FoG army means that I think DBA is much more beginner friendly, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't touch FoG if you are not a veteran. Hell, if you go to some of the cheaper companies like Black Hat you can get a FoG starter army for as little as 50 quid, which is what? Two and a half regiment boxes of GW plastics? My take on FoG is that it is very convenient to combine with DBA, especially using the allied rules. Make a Alexander Macedonian DBA army. Make a Thracian DBA army. Now you have two armies that can battle each other, so you can have an opponent borrow your army and you can play DBA. Now buy some more pikes, and you can field a small FoG army of Alexander Macedonian with Thracian allies. Or you can just play DBA those days you want a quicker game. If you go with Carthiginians like me you might end up with many different DBA armies being fieldable from a single FoG army, such as Carthaginians, Gauls and Spanish. If you are in the states, I think Old Glory 15mm could be a good way to jump into FoG directly, since they have some nice starter armies starting as low as 70 dollar. Keep in mind though that almost all manufacturers sell their miniatures without bases, so if you want to get cracking at historicals you need to either buy some ready made bases or make your own out of plasticard or something. Regarding your second question, I'd say that I'd be cheeky and just try out DBA using WADBAG and getting the army lists online by looking at the army boxed sets available, people's painting blogs or the DBA Oline website. If you like it, then you can support the makers by buying the actual rules. Just now in December it was proclaimed that a 3.0 version of DBA is planned, but not when. You can buy both DBA and DBM from warweb.com and there's always some books out on e-bay. Pick the 2004 version of DBA, not the one from 1995. You'll know it from the full colour cover. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 12:26
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lilljonas posted:
Warhammer Historical and Warmaster Historical are pretty idnetical to their fantasy counterparts, with obviously some additional rules to cover one or two special rules/scenarios. If youve played either WFB or Warmatser you could pick up the historical counterparts in minutes. Personally I much prefer Warmaster Historical to Warhammer Historical, but thats more about my enjoyment of grander scale games.
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Jan 2, 2010 13:26
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I think a link to The Miniatures Page in the OP is in order. TMP is the Internet Hub of historicals. It has links to current auctions on e-bay, news from pretty much all rules and miniature makers and several discussion boards for every period. Many rules writers, sculpters and store owners post there. It is also a perfect symbol for the 13 year lag in webdesign that the historical hobby is plagued with. It is ugly and the discussion pages are very often down for maintenance. But beneath that veneer of crappiness there are dozens of history nerds for each period who can answer pretty much any question, no matter if it is a scale comparison between two manufacturers or a question about proper uniforms for your selected Soviet tank company on September 17th 1942.
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Jan 2, 2010 14:17
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Most of my 10mm are Pendraken and I am a massive fanboy of Dave's work. Its dead cheap as well. A lot of my BKC is Pendraken, and I have recently started a American Civil War project using Pendraken. Dont think Ive got any pics of my ACW stuff yet. These are some Pendraken tanks to show quality  Click here for the full 1200x538 image. And heres some American infantry by Pendraken (all the vehicles are Pendraken in this pic other than the Shermans in the background)  Click here for the full 1200x614 image.
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Jan 2, 2010 14:17
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lilljonas posted:I think a link to The Miniatures Page in the OP is in order. TMP is the Internet Hub of historicals. It has links to current auctions on e-bay, news from pretty much all rules and miniature makers and several discussion boards for every period. Many rules writers, sculpters and store owners post there. It is also a perfect symbol for the 13 year lag in webdesign that the historical hobby is plagued with. It is ugly and the discussion pages are very often down for maintenance. But beneath that veneer of crappiness there are dozens of history nerds for each period who can answer pretty much any question, no matter if it is a scale comparison between two manufacturers or a question about proper uniforms for your selected Soviet tank company on September 17th 1942. Done. I'd still like someone to write up something on Trafalgar. I'm kind of interested in Naval warfare games anyway, but the only one I've ever played is the Pirate CCG thing.
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Jan 2, 2010 15:54
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Lord Commissar posted:Done. I'll do Trafalgar later on if there are nobody else jumping at a chance to do it.
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Jan 2, 2010 15:56
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Cool. Also, I went ahead and bought Pendraken's American and British army deals from WarStore. I figure I can get cavalry later on, and this will give me plenty to start painting up now. If I'm reading it right, it's basically 180 infantry from each side plus mixed artillery, all for about $38 per side. Actually the British may include some dragoons.
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Jan 2, 2010 16:16
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No Pun Intended posted:I forgot I had a copy of Sharp Practice flitting around. Do tell us how it plays as it looks interesting. It plays great. But the emphasis is on fun- dont expect any points values, or tournament style play, or even pick up style games. It needs a GM to get its full flavour and it plays to a proper scenario style play. The card activation mechanic is not to everyones liking, especialy players used to traditional UGOIGO style wargaming. Personally I love the card system, it adds some great tension and allows you to use the cards in creative way to spring surprises and narrative twists into the game. We have had 4 or 5 games of it, and so far all the players have finished them with huge smiles on their faces. Saying that the game play itself isnt silly- in fact we have had some incredibly tense moments and twists and turns in the fate of each side that have kept all the players gripped. Also if you dont snigger at playing with characters called Richard Fondler and Major O'Stereotype you are a bit broken.
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Jan 2, 2010 17:27
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Lord Commissar posted:Cool. Pendraken packs often are a good mix- my ACW starter pack had loads of infantry, some cav and artillery. Pendraken also sell specific points costed armies for Warmaster Ancients/ Medieval and Blitzkrieg Commander.
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Jan 2, 2010 17:29
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Serotonin posted:Warhammer Historical and Warmaster Historical are pretty idnetical to their fantasy counterparts, with obviously some additional rules to cover one or two special rules/scenarios. If youve played either WFB or Warmatser you could pick up the historical counterparts in minutes. Yea this was my main draw to it, I play Warhammer already and really don't much care to learn a brand new system, I just wanna play Warhammer, but instead of magic farting elves I wanna be Egyptians slaughtering some Assyrians.
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Jan 2, 2010 17:40
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Is it just me or does that 10mm pendraken stuff look a lot nicer than than FoW models?
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Jan 2, 2010 19:01
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PaintVagrant posted:Is it just me or does that 10mm pendraken stuff look a lot nicer than than FoW models? 6/10 mm owns compared to 15mm
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Jan 2, 2010 19:04
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Have any of you guys played the warmaster-based historical rules? I loved warmaster  (this thread makes me feel like a noob, the only real historicals Ive played are GW-based or board games like tide of iron/axis and allies/etc)
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Jan 2, 2010 19:08
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PaintVagrant posted:Have any of you guys played the warmaster-based historical rules? I loved warmaster Check my posts! ;p Ive played them all extensively and their derivatives like BKC and Black Powder. Warmaster is a great system, and I think the historical versions are an improvement on the original.
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Jan 2, 2010 19:14
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PaintVagrant posted:Is it just me or does that 10mm pendraken stuff look a lot nicer than than FoW models? I think they are! Could just be the paint jobs though :p
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Jan 2, 2010 19:16
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Serotonin posted:Check my posts! ;p You've actually played Black Powder? I've only read the rules so far (but when I get my Pandraken stuff based I will be forcing my wife to play). What I like about 10mm is I can get a decent game going on a 3'x6' table. I could probably play a small skirmish on 3'x3'. It means I don't need a huge room just to play, I can do it right here in my living room. I should check out Trafalgar. EDIT: Hmm. RPGNow.com sells some rulesets in PDF format, too. EDIT2: Hahaha I love Peter Pig!  https://wi.somethingawful.com/d7/d74bf93cb1bac515bebcb95f476d0e7cc870940c.jpg#via=salr
3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 19:17
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Oops not played Black Powder yet. Just read it lots- plan on getting a game of it together in a couple of weeks.
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Jan 2, 2010 19:51
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You're playing in 6mm, right? How are you converting distances? Also, I haven't found any 10mm AWI Indians, but I bet I could find some 10mm F&I ones and they would work just fine. 3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 19:54
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Lord Commissar posted:You're playing in 6mm, right? How are you converting distances? 6mm and 10mm. Converting to cms, but fiddling range bands a wee bit. Rules as written are pretty much in 12inch range band, so we are making each range band 10cm instead. That way both my basing systems for 6mm and 10mm pretty much conform to the suggested frontages of a standard unit (240mm)in the rule book.
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Jan 2, 2010 19:58
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Lord Commissar posted:
Will these do? http://www.pendraken.co.uk/sub%20page/plains.htm or these http://www.pendraken.co.uk/sub%20page/frenchindian.htm
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Jan 2, 2010 19:59
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Serotonin posted:6mm and 10mm. Converting to cms, but fiddling range bands a wee bit. I'm just going the easy route with 10mm and using centimeters wherever it says inches. It's "close enough" to the same ratio. The only thing I haven't decided is if I want to keep 2x2 basing, or maybe go a bit bigger. Serotonin posted:Will these do? The bottom ones definitely will. I can't tell on the others, because they have no pictures. 3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 20:00
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My 6mm Nappies are on 60x30mm bases and we are using 2 bases to equal 1 standard unit. For 10mm ACW (and any other BP projects from here on in) I will be basing 4 figs to a 25x25 base and using 4 bases to 1 standard unit.
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Jan 2, 2010 20:07
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I haven't decided how to base them yet, honestly. Ratio-wise, they should be on 8mmx8mm bases, but that seems kind of weird.
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Jan 2, 2010 20:15
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Lord Commissar posted:I haven't decided how to base them yet, honestly. Ratio-wise, they should be on 8mmx8mm bases, but that seems kind of weird. You are multi basing them right? Thats the only way to go with 10 and 6mm. In fact when the English Civil War expansion comes out this year I will be multibasing all my 15 ECW stuff too I think.
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Jan 2, 2010 20:46
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Yes, probably 2x2. But I don't know how wide to make the actual base.
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Jan 2, 2010 20:52
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Lord Commissar posted:Yes, probably 2x2. But I don't know how wide to make the actual base. 25mm or 1 inch square would be perfect.
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Jan 2, 2010 21:03
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I don't have anything to contribute, and I'll probably never get into historicals, but I'm enjoying the poo poo out this thread and just wanted to thank everyone who posted detailed write-ups and the like.
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Jan 3, 2010 10:34
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Playing historicals on a budget: pick up a free rulebook or use WADBAG. Buy a box of 1/72 plastic miniatures. Now you got a game for five pounds. Anyone out there playing with 1/72 (20mm) plastics? I haven't tried myself because I don't like the soft plastic ordinarily used and the mediocre detail, but it's hard to find a cheaper way to put out a sizeable army. http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx is the go-to site for 1/72 plastics.
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Jan 3, 2010 10:47
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You should get into it. Its like crack. The options are endless, whether that be manufacturers, rule sets, periods, armies etc. You can never have enough. /me looks at huge pile of unpainted lead and groaning book shelf of rulebooks and rocks and sobs
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Jan 3, 2010 10:48
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I can totally see the danger of removing much of the financial hurdle for just getting more and more figures and leave them unpainted in the closet. But you could get about two battlegroups for a FoG out of most Zvezda kits. Anyhow, my Mongol Madness is taking a turn and I don't know if I like it. Turned out the DBA 2.0 changes made the Golden Horde army less flexible, with lots and lots and lots of light cavalry. I'll take this chance to demonstrate how a DBA army list looks. Or three: Mongol Conquest 1206-1266 1x3Cv (Gen), 2x3Cv, 8x2LH, 1x2LH or Art Golden Horde / Successors 1251-1556 1x3Cv (Gen), 3x3Cv, 6x2LH, 1x3Bw, 1x4Bw or 4Cb or 3Wb or 2LH Early and Late nomadic mongols 1x3Cv (Gen), 3x3Cv or 2LH, 8x2LH The actual lists in the book also includes a list of historical enemies, how aggressive your army is (i.e. how likely they are to be defenders) and what kind of terrain they fight in when they defend. But this is the gist of it. Take the Mongol Conquest: First you have which era your army covers. Then you have 1x3Cv (Gen). This means that you have one base of cavalry as your general, and that they are represented by three horses on the base. Then I have two bases of Cavalry with three horses on each base, 8 bases of Light Horse with two horses on each base, and finally I get to choose whether to pick another base of Light Horse or a piece of artillery. The number of models on each base doesn't really matter in DBA in 99.9% of the cases. However, using two horses for Light Cavalry and three for Cavalry and Knights makes it much easier to keep track of a steppe nomad army. As I understand it it does make a difference whehter you have 3 or 4 crossbowmen on a base in DBM though, which is more why you have that number in the first place. Now, in 1.0 the mongols got to choose to have 4 bases of spears or bows or light horses after you got all the mandatory light horses. Now they can't. And the problem in a rock-paper-scissor type of game is that Light Horse is sort of the wet paper bag, extremely manouverable but there's just very few things you can expect them to actually kill. There's also many things that can ruin your day, like bow armed infantry or massed cavalry attacks. So of all these, I instinctively prefer the Golden Horde list, as it includes 6 mandatory light horse but have one base of bows, some heavier cavalry support, and the option of an additional bow/crossbow, warband or light horse element. Here's the swiss army mongol part: by getting 11 bases of light horse, 4 bases of cavalry, 2 bases of bows, 1 artillery and 1 warband, I can field all available options of all three of these armies. Add some auxilia and it also covers the Ilkhanid. Add psiloi (skirmishers) and an elephant, and I also have a Timurid army. And since the bulk of the army is light horse with only two horses on each base, I have five armies covered with only... eh, 35 mounted and 16 infantry. The bad change is that the older list could field an actual infantry battle line, to keep the enemy locked up while the light cav causes problems on the flanks. The Spears could deal with bows, which are deadly against light cavalry, and they could have some hope to keep blades or pikes busy for a little while. Bows could deal with enemy knights. Now, I have to be mostly Light Cav no matter what. I'll likely be the attacker since I'm aggressive Mongols, the opponent will get to pick the terrain. If they have a terrain option with lots of difficult terrain it will really gently caress up a Light Horse army. The Golden Horde army would have at least some other tricks up their sleeves, and the artillery of the Mongol Conquest list can be useful to break a standoffish situation. But on the other hand I also have the comedy option of just fielding a general and 11 light horse, and blame all my losses on fielding only light horse. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Jan 3, 2010 |
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Jan 3, 2010 11:35
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lilljonas posted:Mongol Conquest 1206-1266 Could you explain the abbreviations please? Also, I like how we warhams have divided like a great unwashed amoeba to start to take over the front page of TGD. Someone get me a tabletop naval battles thread & I'll spend even more money I can't afford to part with.
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Jan 3, 2010 12:32
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Cakefool posted:Could you explain the abbreviations please? Sure, I ran through one of them in my post but I can do the rest. At first look a DBA army list looks like algebra, but they are actually extremely simple. Cv is cavalry. That means everything that isn't covered in tons of armour (those are Kn, Knights) or fight in loose, harassing skirmish formations (Light Horse). LH is Light Horse. Quick and agile cavalry like Numidian horsemen, Mongol and Parthian horse archers, those types. Art is artillery. Early bombard cannons, mangonels, catapults, the lot. Bw is bow, Lb is lonbow and Cb is Crossbow. In DBA those are exacly the same. These guys can actually shoot at things not in base to base contact, unlike javelin men or slingers etc. These are instead Ps, psiloi (cy-loi). Rule of thumb is that units relying on massed shooting in thick formations and things like pikes in the ground to ward of enemy attackers are Bows or Crossbows, while dispersed skirmishers relying on speed and manouverability to defend themselves are Psiloi. Wb are warband, your average battle frenzied guy with a huge weapon who likes to charge things. The rest of the elements that are not in my armies: Spear (Sp) generic guy with a stick and usually a shield Pike (Pk) guys with longer sticks than Sp Blade (Bd) disciplined guys who will gently caress you up in close combat, like vikings, legionaires Psiloi (Ps) skirmishers with bows, javelins or slings Horde (Hd) unwashed mob of people, peasants, pilgrims etc. War Wagon(WWg) very rare, mostly used by Hussites. An armoured cart full of guns. Auxilia (Aux) good unit in difficult terrain, mediocre at best otherwise Litter (Lt) very rare, guy being carried around Elephants (El) Heavy Chariots (HCh) Light Chariots (LCh) Scythed Chariots (SCh) Very rare but absolutely bananas against things like Warbands Camelry (Cm) Light Camelry (Cm) Camels are just like their horse versions, but are on steroids against ordinary mounted units. Those are all the units to keep track of, and many (camelry, chariots) are just slight variations. So to read a DBA army list you just check these elements. The number before the element abbreviation is just how many models are on the base. In very rare cases you might have, for example, 6Kn instead of 3Kn. Usually you only have 3 models on the base for knights, but in this case you get to use a base that is twice as deep with twice as many models. This is BAD since you are easier to flank, and if you are repelled you retreat one base depth so you get shoved that much further away. If you get shoved into another base you get destroyed, so that's another reason this is bad. But in 99% of the time this number with be the "normal" one and doesn't matter. So 4x3cv means four bases with the standard number of three cavalry on each base. When you have options, they are of three kinds. You have things like "3x3cv or 3x2LH". This means you have three bases with either all cav or all light horse. Then you have "3x3Cv or 2LH". Then you can freely mix these three bases into everthing from all cavalry to all light horse or something in between. Finally, there are rare cases where you get two choose two loadouts, say "3x4Bw and 2x4Sp or 4x3Kn and 1x6Kn". In this fictional example you would then either have 3 bases of bows and two bases of spearmen, or you would have 4 ordinary bases of knights and one base of knights that is twice as big as normal. Some armies like Medieval French get quite complicated with lots of options, but most armies are like the Mongol ones listed above with just a swap available here and there. I think the average is about 14-15 bases to include all available options. EDIT: checked fanaticus, and I was right on the money with the French: quote:The absolute largest DBA 2.0 army in terms of figures required to field all options has to be the Medieval French 1346-1418 AD (IV/64b), which requires 29 elements (including six elements of dismounting knights, 5x 5Wb and 2x 7Hd) for a grand total of 116 figures. Credit: Cyril Walker Here you have another example where the number before the element type actually matters, since ordinarily a Warband (Wb) would be 3 models on a base with a 20mm depth, but 5WB would require a bigger base. All in all I find this system quite elegant because instead of having an entire Codex or army list it's just a short line of text. So if a friend says he is picking up a new army and I have no idea what it is or how it plays, he can just say "oh, it's 6x3Kn/4Bd, 2x4Cb, 3x3Aux, 1x4Sp or Art" and then I know the entire army. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Jan 3, 2010 |
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Jan 3, 2010 13:13
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