Over at Adult Swim Bunker, the conversation as of late has been about Magic and it sucking. Here's the philosophy -- wizards and their various accoutrement cost so much points wise that it's barely worth fielding them due to their randomness.
So why don't we throw down with some historical?
Jeff wants to build a Gengis Khan army. I'd love to do Romans or even an English Pike-&-Shot force. In the interest of fun, there's nothing to say that these two armies can't fight each other. Heck, some historical rules are so detailed (Field of Glory, anyone?) that you can use ancient tactics and army composition and expect the requisite results.
Not only that, the miniatures are less expensive. And finding them isn't a total unknown. Stuff by longtime Citadel sculptors, the Perry brothers, is available locally at The Panzer Depot. It's even plastic. Heck, Bretonnians, Empire and some Lord of the Rings minis could be "pressed into service" (as Rick Priestly says) for historical battles.
In many ways, it seems like a good solution to some of the cheese in WHFB. The rules for Field of Glory are renown for their balance (my understanding is the GW Historical rules are none too shabby, either). Not only that, Osprey, Slitherine, and even Games Workshop are not interested in selling you minis for historical; they don't manufacture them.
One last bonus -- lots of the historical guys paint up their forces and build their terrain to "re-enact" ancient scenerios. In the end, they aren't so concerned about who wins the game -- they just want to analyze all the strategic possibilities of the conflict and watch it unfold on the tabletop. So our final frustration with tabletop gaming, overt competitiveness, could be cooled as well?
So maybe in this day of frustration with rules balance, cheese lists and sucktacular Magic, it's time for us to go to the root of our hobby and wax historical with our minis.
Who knows? We may learn a bit about real tactics and even learn some history on the way.
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2 comments:
Warhammer Historical (the medieval and ancient rules set) is due up for 2nd ed pretty soon. It would be fun to try it out. I would love to have a group of historical wargamers that I knew could both win and lose gracefully. If people pick a historical game to play, I'm in with both feet.
Sounds fantastic. For what it's worth, the guys at Panzer Depot are pretty good at losing and winning gracefully (in my experience playing Flames of War with them one random afternoon). Let's make it easy though... Warhammer Historical. We all know the basic rules (rank bonuses, etc). The models are the sizes we know. The Perry Bros. have a zillion of 'em (Foundry Miniatures). Heck, we may even get away with playing the game at the Bunker *gasp*
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