Of Armies and Hordes (Ganesha Games)

[DS615]

I'm not sure how you can play a fantasy game without Army Lists.

Very, very easily.  They're a hold over from older games that were full of charts and percentage modifiers meant to replicate specific historical battles.  To your point, playing a Fantasy game with them makes no sense to me.

I make and decide on the troops I use. I do not want to pick and choose them from a list, limiting my choice, where someone allows me to use my own figures. It doesn't matter how many choices I have (except I can't have more than 50% of those, or 11% of them, or 18% of left handed ones).  A cage is a cage no matter how gilded.
They aren't necessary.  I do not like army lists.

But these rules use them, and a lot of people really like them, so they will probably enjoy it.  That's why there's more than one ruleset out there, because different people like different things.

The area movement I find interesting. I would like to see some AARs to see how it works out in practice. Also, I just like reading AARs. 

[andyskinner]

I think you've got the wrong impression about army lists for this game.

These rules provide lists, but allow and encourage you to make your own.  They provide the system to design your own specifications for a unit.

I for one would be happier starting off with lists that provide most of what I want, then tweaking the things I picture differently, rather than having to stat up every figure in my army.

andy

[DivisMal]

Very, very easily.  They're a hold over from older games that were full of charts and percentage modifiers meant to replicate specific historical battles.  To your point, playing a Fantasy game with them makes no sense to me.

I make and decide on the troops I use. I do not want to pick and choose them from a list, limiting my choice, where someone allows me to use my own figures. It doesn't matter how many choices I have (except I can't have more than 50% of those, or 11% of them, or 18% of left handed ones).  A cage is a cage no matter how gilded.
They aren't necessary.  I do not like army lists.

But these rules use them, and a lot of people really like them, so they will probably enjoy it.  That's why there's more than one ruleset out there, because different people like different things.

The area movement I find interesting. I would like to see some AARs to see how it works out in practice. Also, I just like reading AARs. 

Well, I guess, this is just a misunderstanding then. You neither have percentages for troop choices nor these troops in the game (as written above). Army lists (offering examples of troops that fit a certain faction) are offered for free as expansions because many people like them.

[Hobgoblin]

Yes, the "lists" in this are more like a very extensive bestiary (with many times the entries of the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio put together) than a Warhammer Armies-type thing.

For example, the undead list contains a huge range of undead troop types (from armoured skeleton pikemen to zombie orcs), but there are no restrictions on how you combine these. There's nothing like "0-2 units of 10-16 armoured skeleton pikemen"; you could have all your entire army consisting of any of the unlimited troop types.

And the "Limited" and "Personality" labels are essentially the same as the Personality traits in Song of Blades - just to ensure that some degree of balance is preserved. Of course, you can ignore those limits if you want more of a superheroic battle; it's just a guideline.

So really, it's one of the most open-ended systems available. You can design whatever you want. A useful point of comparison might be with Mayhem. It's a great game, but one that I don't tend to play that much because it takes so much effort to stat up an army. The main reason for that is that you don't get any "baseline" profiles with the rules. So it's tricky to work out what the profile for your reptilian bird-riders or half-orc skirmishers should be. And that's a shame, because Mayhem is a brilliant game. This one gives you all the freedom of Mayhem along with hundreds of sample profiles - hardly a bad thing!

By the way, the free halfling list is up on the Ganesha site.