Anyone play WAB?

[CleverBarbarian]

Hey there!, I'm a big fan of Warhammer Ancient Battles, but I've had real problems finding other people who share an interest, even on some GW game based forums:smallfrown: Is there anyone here who plays the game? I play most eras, Roman, Dark age etc. so whatever army you guys have I can talk about :smallsmile: . Cheers!

CB

[the_tick_rules]

sorry, nope.

[Pilum]

Yeah, I do. Got about... 1500 pts of Early Imperial Roman (the list from the book) in HaT's 1/72 plastics. Cracking models, and worth resisting the siren call of Foundry et al for. Getting said army for about £20 is a bit of a bonus too, especially as I'm running low on:
a) Storage space
b) Money, and most importantly
c) Wifely patience :smallredface:

That said, I'm looking at a Parthian force next. Was a bit of a toss-up between them and yer Generic Barbarian Horde, but they'll play more differently and of course I won't need many models.

[CleverBarbarian]

Now I'm not ashamed to say that I don't know what a Parthian army is :smalltongue: is that the preatorian army? Also I don't use Foundry at all, don't like the models. I'm a Gripping Beast man:smallbiggrin: Go for the "Barbarians", as you say, they're great to play with:smallsmile:

[Hazkali]

I don't, but I'm interested in getting some (English) Civil War miniatures at some point. I've looked at the miniatures of a couple of companies, PerryMiniatures and Renegade Miniatures; are there any other good ones?

[Pilum]

Parthians are essentially a horse archer army. and could be said to be the origin of the term "parting shot"; or rather "Parthian shot" given their mobility and love of feigned flight. They're an interesting mix of the very lightest cavalry:

Parthian Light Horse (http://www.hat.com/Othr7/Allari11P.html)

and the heaviest:

Parthian cataphracts (http://www.hat.com/Othr7/Kup27P.html).

They gave Crassus a rather nasty (and terminal) surprise at Carrhae, I think it was, in 53?BC. You can't get much more different from a Roman army without going Medieval!

Hazkali, as for 25/28mm ECW figures, there's also Old Glory, possibly Irregular if you're on a budget, though if you're on a REAL budget you can get 1/72 plastics: Review site. (http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/PeriodECW.html). Really though, you're probably best putting "English Civil War miniatures" or "30 Years War miniatures" into the search engine of your choice and seeing what comes back.

ETA: Actually Hazkali, looking at your location, have you tried these guys?
Durham Wargames Group (http://www.durhamwargames.co.uk/) Looks like they have a show on this Saturday too (9th), quite a few traders there too to have a look at (and get catalogues from!). Good luck!

[Eldpollard]

I've never heard of this game, but it intrigues me.

[Hazkali]

Pilum: WOW! Thanks! I would have totally missed that show! I thank you muchly.

EldPollard: Warhammer Ancient Battles is basically Warhammer 4th (or is it 5th?) edition rules, printed and adapted for use with historical miniatures. There are many different sourcebooks availiable for forces from different time periods, such as Ancient Chinese, English Civil War, Romans, etc, so on and so forth. If you don't know what Warhammer is, then there's a good thread floating about with a fair description by your's truly.

[Pilum]

No problem Hazkali, glad to have helped (and maybe even introduced you to a new set of players, who knows?).

Just thought, never actually mentioned much about who the Parthians were; well, the wiki on them seems to go with what I know about them (though admittedly not as much as I'd like), but essentially they took over Persia and quite a lot of the surrounding real estate, invariably from the Seleucids I think. Ended up being booted out themselves by the Sassanid dynasty, who, interestingly enough, apparently continued their calendar and lines of kings from the death of Darius III against Alexander and generally acted as if the intervening 500 years simply hadn't happened! :smallsmile: I would dearly like that to be true, it's such a wonderfully... human way of thinking.

Personally, I really like the way everyone more-or-less goes off the same stat line (obviously). Makes the little differences really noticeable, more so than the fantasy version. Suddenly that regiment with WS4 and light armour/shield DOES look 'elite'; especially when you're a peasant armed with a loincloth and a pointy stick. I do find ECW quite intriguing, and especially enjoyable if one uses M&M's as ammo counters! Encourages long-range fire too. :smallwink: I'm not so sure as to keeping the cannon as unreliable as in the medieval/fantasy rules though, but that's just my opinion.

[CleverBarbarian]

Cheers Pilum for the Parthian info. Might lok into that myself :smallwink: Anyhow, ECW is a pretty interesting period. I've been thinking about getting a Covenanters force for a while, but just ended up buying more Vikings :smallbiggrin: I agree that it is cool that everything has the same stat-line, it just makes things so much more believable (and makes my Huscarles kick earse :smallwink: ) Out of interest, does anyone know if they've done an ACW rules set?

[Pilum]

Officially, no. Unofficially? If you dig around on the internet, probably. I know not long after 3rd edition 40k (?? The one that junked all the modifiers and went to "cover saves" instead) if one poked around sufficiently there was a "Warhammer Panzer Battles" WW2 ruleset doing the rounds that seemed reasonably popular. But that was ultimately fan-based. Nothing to stop you trying to do your own, of course :smallcool:

Heh. Just googled; seek and ye shall find... :smallbiggrin:

Lots of variants!!! (http://www.3vwargames.co.uk/whammer/index.html)

[CleverBarbarian]

:smalleek: ALL HAIL THE WISE AND MIGHTY PILUM! (bows a lot) Why is it google never work for me :smallfrown: anyhow, thanks lad, that's a big help :smallbiggrin: Time to raise the star-spangled banner. Shame I have to paint blue now :smallsigh: Back on topic, anyone got hold of the Age of Arthur book? I hear the saxon list is pretty cool.