Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Medieval Adventures => Topic started by: Atheling on March 13, 2020, 01:57:32 PM
-
Had a great game of WAB last night using the Shieldwall supplement.
It's been many year since I last played WAB and it was great to jump back into what I consider to be an old friend as far as rule sets go.
The game you see is played on the (mostly finished) terrain for a game that Durham Wargames Group have planned for Partizan involving a large scale Viking Raid Holy Island. It was a pleasure to be invited to play on such lovely terrain.
More pics and a run through of the game on my blog here:
http://justaddwater-bedford.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-return-to-wab-and-shieldwall.html (http://justaddwater-bedford.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-return-to-wab-and-shieldwall.html)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XEVyvTEivBI/XmtYxUbvzQI/AAAAAAABDL8/ssf7tXvFZnQKFmmq4dGmCOSOOvKhbmc1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/wab%2B1B.jpg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j7qLpVsVoJ0/XmtY_fL7aYI/AAAAAAABDMU/jEaZTFkflq8J7tGHT8aaLRnmtXcMaB6XACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/wab%2B1G.jpg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VuT1d5_nNis/XmtZCXm884I/AAAAAAABDMc/GxCVzWJWmzAZCHyMAorFwz3ycMsulTMLACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/wab%2B1H.jpg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TnkCTw8cTc8/XmtZGl5lwvI/AAAAAAABDMo/rAaMG9ymZMc70wOLDi-ZmIACTMrRjudHwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/wab%2B1J.jpg)
-
Great pictures Atheling; looks like you have a healthy group of gamers there.
-
Ah, the good old days!
-
Great pictures Atheling; looks like you have a healthy group of gamers there.
I'm not so sure about healthy but they're nice people :) ;)
Ah, the good old days!
They were Tim 8)
-
Thor's thunderbox, but that's a handsome collection!
I do like WAB, it's very comforting somehow.
-
I’ve never played WAB , but I have all the books , and Shieldwall is a corker . I love the black and white illustrations.
-
Thor's thunderbox, but that's a handsome collection!
I cannot take the credit for the armies as none of them belong to me. I do have a large Norman army that might have tilted the odds a little lol
I do like WAB, it's very comforting somehow.
That's very well put mate. It is. 8)
I’ve never played WAB , but I have all the books , and Shieldwall is a corker . I love the black and white illustrations.
Well, we might be putting on a ye olde WAB Dark Ages Campaign Day or Weekend in Durham- it's just chat at the moment but you know how these things can grow!
You'd be very welcome.
-
Very nice!
-
Thanks Tonhel :)
-
Oh great! Love your post.
Shieldwall was always my favorite WAB supplement, and I still think, it’s a very good set especially for Dark Ages/Vikings/Early Medieval times. I love the many nuances with which basically three different armies are nicely touched up, so that they actually feel like small kingdoms in a changing world!
-
Oh great! Love your post.
Thanks :)
Shieldwall was always my favorite WAB supplement, and I still think, it’s a very good set especially for Dark Ages/Vikings/Early Medieval times. I love the many nuances with which basically three different armies are nicely touched up, so that they actually feel like small kingdoms in a changing world!
Agreed. I think that the nuanced lists and perhaps the characters to some extent made the game a heck of a lot of fun to play. I stuck with it for years until WAB 2, of which I though the rules were a great improvement on WAB 1.5, and the WAB V.2 army lists, which I really didn't get a long with at all; the lists far too vanilla for my tastes. We ended up using the 'old' supplements with the WAB V.2 rules. But, as time went on, the lack of campaign weekends (which we all used to attend religiously twice a year) and Hot Lead and cold Steel (at GBHQ) died out the use of the rules just fizzled away.
I have some wonderful fond memories of those Campaign Weekends :)
-
I always felt WAB was a good set of rules for Dark Age stuff, since the games always felt like big skirmishes rather than big battles. The Shieldwall supplement was probably the best - loads of flavour
-
Sorry for stealing this thread...
But,
Yes, loved WAB, golden years.
WAB 2 was a great improvement on game play.
Yes agreed lists for V2 were a bit vanilla but intended for tournaments.
The supplements were still the best for campaigning etc.
My favourite was Alexander, but Shieldwall was a close second.
I remember playing in a Sumerian campaign weekend, where we got 6 Sumerian armies together! On the Sunday we played a huge multiplayer game, very cool.
Lots of chariots!
-
Sorry for stealing this thread...
Steel away Tim :)
But,
Yes, loved WAB, golden years.
WAB 2 was a great improvement on game play.
Yes agreed lists for V2 were a bit vanilla but intended for tournaments.
The supplements were still the best for campaigning etc.
My favourite was Alexander, but Shieldwall was a close second.
I mostly agree. I think the tournament based lists of WAB V.2 are part of the reason why folk started drifting away from WAB, except for the obvious one; the closing down of WH.
I remember playing in a Sumerian campaign weekend, where we got 6 Sumerian armies together! On the Sunday we played a huge multiplayer game, very cool.
Lots of chariots!
I remember seeing that fab looking army. At an event? Or was it on the WAB forum?
-
Great looking armies.
All of my dark age figures were originally based for WAB, I have since switched to Triumph!
I still have all the supplements and rules, it is a great game, but much more time consuming for a big battle (in preparation and playing time) and I found it hard for doing presentation games with new players.
-
Great looking armies.
All of my dark age figures were originally based for WAB, I have since switched to Triumph!
I still have all the supplements and rules, it is a great game, but much more time consuming for a big battle (in preparation and playing time) and I found it hard for doing presentation games with new players.
My biggest gripe with WAB was once a unit started fleeing it could go anywhere! Fleeing units often had a more disruptive influence on the game than the combat at times! In a way, that was part of the fun.
I've been looking at Swordpoint as it seems to have fairly prolonged combats which really suits 'Dark Ages' and Medieval warfare.
-
My biggest issue with WAB was the time constraint to prepare for a battle and then play it. I used to spend hours making up all the little unit sheets, which I enjoyed doing, but still was a slog to prep for big battles.
If you get a chance, take a look at Triumph!
With Triumph, shield wall battles end up being a pushing match back and forth between lines, until something bad happens, a hole in the line or a flank gets wrapped and one side crumbles. Exactly what you would expect. When using the grand tactical rules when commands broken commands need extra command points to keep them from routing off the board or simply evaporating.
It worked great for Hastings which is really an asymmetrical battle. The rules have a built in mechanism for stands of troops surging forward when they "win big" doubling their opponents score. With this tactic, skirmishing troops and light Cavalry can yank heavy foot units out of a line when they try to chase them off.
The Norman knights have a good chance to shatter heavy foot, but then risk getting pulled in and possibly surrounded if they do not have support.
Ran that battle more than a dozen times at conventions, really one of the best historical refights I have managed to pull off in my opinion with about 50-50 win results for the two sides.
-
My biggest issue with WAB was the time constraint to prepare for a battle and then play it. I used to spend hours making up all the little unit sheets, which I enjoyed doing, but still was a slog to prep for big battles.
If you get a chance, take a look at Triumph!
Is that the DBA based game?
-
It has similar mechanics to DBA, it was written by guys that played a lot of DBA in past.
The core mechanics are stands face off with a contest roll on a D6 plus/minus some factor, and it still uses random command points for moving troops, so from 10,000 feet looks very similar just like ADLG does, but when you get into the details it has a lot of changes.
One being that is uses a point system for the different troop types, so losing a stand of skirmishers does not have the same impact on the army as losing a stand of knights. Also, the troop types and their abilities are expanded which makes a significant difference on how they play on the battlefield when compared to DBA. For example Triumph has chariots where in DBA chariots were just Cavalry on larger bases.
My progression in Ancient rule systems was pretty much WAB to DBA to DBM, back to DBA, then to Triumph, with side trips into FOG, Tactica and ADLG plus numerous other systems. I really like Triumph because it gets to a sensible result with a very low amount of rules overhead. I feel like I am playing the army and tactics, not the rules.
-
It has similar mechanics to DBA, it was written by guys that played a lot of DBA in past.
The core mechanics are stands face off with a contest roll on a D6 plus/minus some factor, and it still uses random command points for moving troops, so from 10,000 feet looks very similar just like ADLG does, but when you get into the details it has a lot of changes.
One being that is uses a point system for the different troop types, so losing a stand of skirmishers does not have the same impact on the army as losing a stand of knights. Also, the troop types and their abilities are expanded which makes a significant difference on how they play on the battlefield when compared to DBA. For example Triumph has chariots where in DBA chariots were just Cavalry on larger bases.
My progression in Ancient rule systems was pretty much WAB to DBA to DBM, back to DBA, then to Triumph, with side trips into FOG, Tactica and ADLG plus numerous other systems. I really like Triumph because it gets to a sensible result with a very low amount of rules overhead. I feel like I am playing the army and tactics, not the rules.
I'm going to try out Swordpoint.... well, that was the aim but I might have to do the 'social distance' thing due to an underlying health condition :(
My first year back into wargaming after a hiatus of more then a few years too :'(
Still, it will leave me with plenty of time to get some serious amount of brushwork under my belt for after the apocalypse ;) :D