Anyone tried ARES?

[Hobgoblin]

I noticed that ARES, by Majestic 12 Games, was on sale today and snapped it up. I dimly remember that it seemed to be widely touted as an alternative to Song of Blades and Heroes about the time I was getting back into gaming seven years ago, but I had completely forgotten about it.

Has anyone played it much? Any thoughts on its strengths and weaknesses? The rules seem intriguing so far - perhaps at the token-laden end of things, though I presume one could put the tokens on roster sheets rather than the table.

[Tloluvin]

I wouldn't say we play it regularly, but we keep going back to it.  The standard system IS pretty token laden and is a bit cumbersome without a few tweaks; but it is also pretty easy to modify.  If you make your standard line troops one hit and don't let them 'borrow' actions that makes a huge difference.  Leave those abilities to the big baddies and the heroes.  The exception to that is the points system.  The rules give a lot of detail on how to assign points but it is married to the hits and ability to borrow actions.  Magic can be pretty powerful, but costs a ton; so if you're going to use that part of it you'll likely wind up with a large game.  On the other hand there is lots of flavor to be had there.  Once you get a handle on it and if, like us, you focus on scenarios rather than points fights it is a blast.  The comparative attack/defend combat system just feels right.  Well worth a little effort to get to know, IMHO.
-Joel T.

[Hobgoblin]

Many thanks! That's all good to know.

Tokens are a funny thing - I don't mind them in Saga, where they're a huge part of the game, but I do find lots of different types on the table top a bit annoying. It does occur to me, though, that they could be kept off the table if each unit had a card/sheet on which its playing card was placed.

[The Bibliophile]

I am a big fan, and as you say, to keep from cluttering up the board you can keep the tokens off to the side on unit profile sheets. As Tloluvin mentions, I tend to ignore the point-buy system and play more narrative-focused games, cobbling together warbands that feel right rather than add up to a certain point limit. It works particularly well for smaller warbands (5-12 figures). I think it actually predates “Songs…” by a few years, and it checks a lot of my boxes that “Songs” didn’t after a certain point. For me ARES has the perfect amount of crunch for what I’m looking for.

[The Bibliophile]

I had forgotten until just now that I actually did a fairly lengthy write up of my first game with these rules on my blog, SCRUM IN MINIATURE:

https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2017/12/lost-city-of-azermathy-ares.html

[DS615]

We used to play it all the time for years.
It's one of my "perfect" rule systems, along with Full Thrust.
It's fun, fast, gives the right feel, and it's dead easy to modify for anything special you want it to do. 
We used it for Westerns for a long time.