Ancient Wargaming, or Sell Me On Field Of Glory

[Manilianus]

Funny story. A year ago I entered the hobby with buying FoG. I preordered rulebook and first 2 expansions, but sold it shortly after gewtting my copy, due to lack of funds. Now that I am rich I want to get back again to it. The problem is - is this the best "historically accurate" system of ancient warfare that is available? The abstractness of DBA doesn't appeal to me, I like to go to details.

Could FoG be called ASL of Ancient Wargaming?

 

[prymus]

Hi, I don't do Ancients myself but more than a few years ago there was a lot of hype about "Tactica". I remember reading in "Midwest Wargamers Newsletter" (now OOP and merged with the Courier into "Historical Miniature Gamer" mag) that they were historically accurate, and a lot of fun. I don't know about availability though, but from the reviews they got it sounded like they gained a lot of popularity. They looked to be very well put together with a lot of color inside, and easily understood. Hope this helps.

 

[jwb3]

The problem is - is this the best "historically accurate" system of ancient warfare that is available? The abstractness of DBA doesn't appeal to me, I like to go to details.

My friends who are big on ancients miniature gaming do not seem to be able to settle on a good rule set. They've tried DBA, DBM, DBMM, Warhammer Ancients, FoG, I think Warmaster Ancients, and possibly a number of others. They keep restlessly moving from one to another, looking for the Holy Grail, but never quite giving up on any of them. Based on that, I'd say that FoG is not substantially better than the others.

They do consistently play DBA, but all agree that it's a chess-like abstraction -- not so much an ancient minis game, but really in a category by itself.

I don't know if they've looked at the game prymus discusses, BTW.

Could FoG be called ASL of Ancient Wargaming?

I'd have to say not -- except in the sense that making sense of the rules is a big part of the challenge. The rulebook for FoG has been criticized repeatedly by my friends for being hard to find stuff in, despite all the pretty colors.


John