What are the Most Realistic Ancient Wargames Rules

[VonAkers]

Wow Guys
Thank you all for the Prompt and Enthusiastic Responces , you are all Awesome.
I will try a Slightly Modified Hail Caesar , and also try TTS, and advise.
Cheers

[AdamPHayes]

Hi Guys .
I cant seem to find any Ancient Wargames Rules that I am happy with .Some seem ok others ..well not so much.
I am after 5 things

1 Realism/ Historical
2 Reasonable Playability.
3 Fog of war ( ie I dont want total control .. or i would  play chess , )
4 The period is 450BC TO 050 BC ( Pelopenesian War/ Greek Punic Wars / Punic Wars
5 Reasonable time frame 4/5 hours .
Your Thoughts Please

Archon, the ancient period version of Piquet, gets the balance between playability and historical accuracy about right. Our small group have always found the games very entertaining and appreciated the options in the rules to tweak the character of armies in relatively subtle ways to  reflect our historical understanding. Archon definitely ticks the box for fog of war.  The card-based turn sequence eliminates the tedious certainty of when movement, charging, melee and morale tests will happen.

Time wise, we have played12-16 units a side games in 3 to 5 hours and larger games in a day. Main focus has been Punic Wars and Successors but also used successfully for Bronze Age chariot games.

[bluewillow]

For me I really think Advanced Impetus fits your needs, particularly for the Greek Persian wars and Roman Carthaginian period .

Large diorama basing of units, no fussy casualty removal, light infantry are useful, troops can move swiftly if well drilled and well lead, impetuous troops charge Willy nilly, cavalry move rapidly, always a chance of disorder, command means something, morale is everything, uncertainty on a dice roll, generals can be rated, wing commands etc.

I returned to ancient gaming with them and have never changed my opinion of them.

Big battles or small battles can be played between 1 hr to 4 hours with a result. Good campaign system and well supported.

My two cents
Cheers
Matt

[Panzer21]

That's certainly a good call, fun and spectacle-wise, but it would tend to give you an hour-long game and so fall foul of 5. (Of course, you could always play several games in the time slot...)

The other thing is that doubling the frontage doubles your movement (in BW) and effectively halves the depth of the table, which would tend to make the game even quicker (30 to 45 minutes, perhaps). So the case for Big Battle is that it gives you a longer game and allows you to keep something like the intended table depth.

The big bases would look fantastic, though!

I think the problem with tripling DBA to produce Big Battle DBA doesn't stop the manoeuvring of individual elements to gain an advantage. In DBA that's 1/12th of your force, in BBDBA 1/36th yet the effect and result is the same.
In an army of 36,000 men 3000 v 1000.

I understand the desire to upscale DBA, but BBDBA needed work - what we got was DBM...🙄

It also allows the "firework" effect where elements separate off for advantage when maintaining a battle line was essential. This is a failing of a lot of ancient rules, Impetus, Armati, WRG and most older sets.

I'm a bit puzzled why someone wanting a "historically realistic" set of Ancient rules would consider Hail Caesar; ever since WHAB these fall under the "game" tradition rather than simulation......

Horses for courses I suppose.....
Neil

[JW Boots]

Methinks there is no such thing as realistic rules. A wargame is not a simulation, it is an interpretation.

In most cases this means the view, vision, and preferences of the author. I struggled with this and ended up writing my own rules (The Warrior, which is a supplement for the ancient and medieval period to Der Söldner) and based these on the MATRIX wargaming concept in such a way that players can play the game based on their interpretation of history…

[Moriarty]

You won’t get a set of rules to ‘realistically’ simulate ancient warfare. Best off finding a set you enjoy playing.

[Dice Roller]

You won’t get a set of rules to ‘realistically’ simulate ancient warfare. Best off finding a set you enjoy playing.

Yeah, I tried telling him that and he threw a wobbler.
Oh well.

[Hobgoblin]

I think the problem with tripling DBA to produce Big Battle DBA doesn't stop the manoeuvring of individual elements to gain an advantage. In DBA that's 1/12th of your force, in BBDBA 1/36th yet the effect and result is the same.
In an army of 36,000 men 3000 v 1000.

I understand the desire to upscale DBA, but BBDBA needed work - what we got was DBM...🙄

It also allows the "firework" effect where elements separate off for advantage when maintaining a battle line was essential. This is a failing of a lot of ancient rules, Impetus, Armati, WRG and most older sets.

I see what you're saying, but isn't this largely offset by the bigger table and the command-based PIP allotment?

When we've played BBDBA (actually BBD3H2 - so perhaps there are some HOTT-related wrinkles in there ...), we've played on a 6 x 4' table, and the game has essentially been command vs command, at least for the first half. With the rules for demoralised commands (which are quite punitive), I don't think you can generally afford to treat elements any differently from in a single-command game.

Oddly enough, one of the things I like best about the DBx family is that it tends to support the preservation of the battle line. But perhaps I'm missing the 'fiddly' potential of zones of control and so on because most of my opponents are sufficiently casual players that they can't exploit such things!

[Panzer21]

I think you have hit two points:
- Your group has made adaptations to vanilla BBDBA
- You play with a like minded set of individuals

First, I have nothing against DBA or BBDBA - it's what brought me back to ancients. That first edition was seismic; here was WRG and Phil Barker with a 2 page set of rules that were simply genius.
Played them to death.

Like most, I wanted more toys on the table - looked forward to DBM and was sadly disappointed.

BBDBA seemed to offer an alternative, as did the suggestions for historical battles. The problem was it was just using the basic DBA rules with more individual elements. The assumption was that most would be forced to move and fight in groups, but the reality was it simply played to the "element fiddler" - that person who was obsessive about angles and measuring and moving single elements to gain the best advantage.

Such people seem to have taken over DBA from all the additional text allowing this or forbidding that.

If BBDBA had gone another way - increasing the base size to something like Impetus and worked around armies of say 12-24 elements - more thought could have been put into command and control - PIPs are all very well for basic DBA, but are erratic - 1 move only one group can move, next six; it encourages that gambler attitude and planning move to move.

As I say, it's horses for courses at the end of the day. Who you play is often more important than what rules you play....

Neil

[guitarheroandy]

Really interesting reading through this thread. Glad that a solution has been found for the original poster.

Personally, I believe that the only way to approach this kind of question is to decide what your own particular interpretation of your chosen period's warfare actually is. Do you stick with the traditional theories on which countless rules have been based, or do you find yourself angling for something different because you just see something particularly interesting in some of the newer theories?
Personally, I'm really enjoying reading Hans Van Wees' 'Greek Warfare, Myths ands Realities' which is 20 years old now but presents a rather different picture of early phalanx warfare to that portrayed in most rules I've played over the years. Similarly I'm really enjoying the work of several authors who are challenging the long-held perceptions of early Roman warfare and the way these combine with Van Wees' thinking presents a fascinating alternative narrative around warfare in the Mediterranean in the 5th - 3rd centuries BC.
Quite how these can be portrayed in wargames rules I don't know but it's fascinating reading and all makes far more sense to me than the traditional narratives do. For me the reading, the research, the pondering and the debate combine into one of the joys of the hobby...

[Longstrider]

Personally, I believe that the only way to approach this kind of question is to decide what your own particular interpretation of your chosen period's warfare actually is. Do you stick with the traditional theories on which countless rules have been based, or do you find yourself angling for something different because you just see something particularly interesting in some of the newer theories?

Indeed. It seems to me that "we don't know and we'll probably always be wrong" is no more or less believable than "we have a good idea and anything challenging it (whatever "it" is) is probably wrong" are both just statements of position; they're not arguments. I think there's certainly merit in having the debate, but if we're just looking for games we like I think my preferred approach is to have a good commentary from the author. Namely, state what they're seeking to have their games do, and what the model they're trying to simulate  - if any - is.

[Hobgoblin]

I think you have hit two points:
- Your group has made adaptations to vanilla BBDBA
- You play with a like minded set of individuals

You're dead right on the second point - and I'd agree that that's how DBx (and any) rules should be played.

I'm not so sure about the first, though. I just checked the DBA rulebook (page 15), and it's as I remembered and as we've played: a command that loses a third of its starting elements (a few exceptions aside) is demoralised, which is a hugely punitive condition. And two demoralised commands out of three loses you the game. So there's every incentive to keep your elements formed up for mutual protection.

That's the point I was attempting to make earlier: you don't have a 36-element army that allows you to do fiddly things (because you can lose 11 elements before losing the game); you have three commands that can't afford to lose more than three elements each (typically - there can be uneven splits). So it's more like three conventional games side by side than one with a more flexible, granular army.

Also, the 6' x 4' table is what the rules seem to be pointing to for BBDBA: twice the regular width and a bit more depth if you want.

As I say, it's horses for courses at the end of the day. Who you play is often more important than what rules you play....

Absolutely!

[TheDaR]

I hold the view that every player has to define what realism is on their own and then find a rule set that caters to it.   Is Diplomacy really any more or less realistic than DBx or Hail Caesar or TTS, given the scale each is intended to model?

I mean, you have to address the premise that the general has a birds-eye view of the battlefield and that commands will cause strict and exact movements in response to any sort of direct order is so divorced from the reality of that time period before moving on.   These days people don't seem keen on triple blind games with written orders that are adjudicated by some sort of umpire or referee whose official battlefield view will not exactly match any of the active players.  And if you're starting from a premise that doesn't match how the commanders of various battles actually fought, how important are more fiddly details like the tactics of smaller formations like line exchanges?

So right from the get go you have to figure out what abstractions are important to you.   Is it to simulate the outcome of a battle, such that pitting two armies with their historical orders of battle against each other in historical terrain creates a perfectly historical result?   Is it to get the feel of what a general could and couldn't do?   Is it a more game-like abstraction that creates merely "plausible" battle outcomes?  Do armies have to be symmetrically balanced, or historically appropriate pairings?  Do you care about the movement of large formations or even entire armies, or is it more relevant to zoom in on the action of the smaller logical units (a line/troop/platoon/etc)?

Once you know higher level what you want, then you can start picking out quibbles about details like line rotations, terrain rules, effectiveness of massed or individual missile fire, etc.

[Panzer21]

You're dead right on the second point - and I'd agree that that's how DBx (and any) rules should be played.

I'm not so sure about the first, though. I just checked the DBA rulebook (page 15), and it's as I remembered and as we've played: a command that loses a third of its starting elements (a few exceptions aside) is demoralised, which is a hugely punitive condition. And two demoralised commands out of three loses you the game. So there's every incentive to keep your elements formed up for mutual protection.

That's the point I was attempting to make earlier: you don't have a 36-element army that allows you to do fiddly things (because you can lose 11 elements before losing the game); you have three commands that can't afford to lose more than three elements each (typically - there can be uneven splits). So it's more like three conventional games side by side than one with a more flexible, granular army.

Also, the 6' x 4' table is what the rules seem to be pointing to for BBDBA: twice the regular width and a bit more depth if you want.

Absolutely!

I suspect we don't necessarily disagree (the limitations of electronic discussion).
What I would say is that 2 directly influences 1; I have played DBA with different people who interpret the rules in radically different ways.

I suspect you have a short-hand for your games that all the players subscribe to - your groups interpretation of the rules if you will.

Imagine introducing a player who wheels and manouvres his individual elements to gain an advantage in his command; questions every move of his opponent; introduces radically different interpretations and ultimately wants to exploit the rules to win.
Now play that game for several weeks......

It's partly why I haven't played DBA in a long time.

I think BBDBA is as good as anything, as long as the players play it in a certain way; I do think it could have been better! ?

Neil

[Hobgoblin]

I suspect we don't necessarily disagree (the limitations of electronic discussion).
What I would say is that 2 directly influences 1; I have played DBA with different people who interpret the rules in radically different ways.

I suspect you have a short-hand for your games that all the players subscribe to - your groups interpretation of the rules if you will.

Right - I see where you're coming from.

Imagine introducing a player who wheels and manouvres his individual elements to gain an advantage in his command; questions every move of his opponent; introduces radically different interpretations and ultimately wants to exploit the rules to win.
Now play that game for several weeks......

It's partly why I haven't played DBA in a long time.

Ha - that sounds hellish! Yes, we play to see the story of the battle play out. And while we've often played D3H2 with purely historical troop types, it may be that the HOTT influence is a curb on excesses (because dragons and flyers are perfect, in HOTT or D3H2, for hoovering up oddly positioned elements).

I think BBDBA is as good as anything, as long as the players play it in a certain way; I do think it could have been better! ?

Have you seen the new DBF? We haven't played it yet, but it's probably the clearest and cleanest iteration of the rules family yet. It's fantasy but allows for purely historical battles and forces too.