Ancients wargaming - attempt 328
[product ids="938, 945, 338, 342"] I'm not exactly sure why, but my optimistically announced reboot of ancients wargaming seems to have taken the 'failboat' into the sunset. I could blame Guy for running from one wargaming project to another. We certainly tease him enough about that on the WSS podcast, but it wouldn't be fair. It's been a busy year and what hobby time I had has been devoted to other projects I can play with friends closer to home. I suppose this how these things seem to go.
However, a leopard can't change its spots. The ambition to play with small legionaries and scale hoplites never goes away. The tide in the wider wargaming world seems to be turning too. This spring Mortal Gods and Men of Bronze were published, then in summer SPQR came along. The former and the latter are very much skirmish games with a somewhat 'flexible' attitude towards history. That's perfectly fine - I'm certainly not after a strict simulation (assuming that's possible) - but not what I'm looking for. The review of Men of Bronze in WSS 103 left me a bit cold. I'd really like to try To the Strongest sometime, but I don't see myself painting large armies. Perhaps it'll all come back to WAB again, as it has for Guy. And perhaps not.
TooFatLardies is developing a new ancients set based on their Sharp Practice rules, which would require slightly fewer figures than WAB. I understand its focus would be on the role of morale in ancient warfare, based on the theories of Lendon's Soldiers and Ghosts (which I recommended before, but I'm a fan...). That I could totally get behind! For now, all of this has just led to a few purchases. It appeared I had no Imperial Roman figures at all. Shock horror!
In the meantime, I was disappointed to discover that apparently - but please correct me if I'm wrong - nobody manufactures Roman cavalry in 28mm wearing masked helmets. We featured an article a long time ago that 'cavalry sports' helmets are for sports ánd battle after all.
