How did you decide which army to play?

[brianredworth]

MY MAIN FOCUS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE DARK AGES IN BRITAIN AND THE NEAR CONTINENT, NONE OF THAT KING ARTHUR STUFF, IF HE DID EXIST I FAVOUR THE THEORIES OF D CARROL THAT PLACE HIM IN Y GOGGLED (THE NORETH). MY SECOND AREA OF INTEREST IS THE SAMURAI CAUSE THEY ARE REAL COLORFULL.

[Noble]

At the moment I will play what I have in the size FOG demands, and that would be Late Republican (Marian) Roman, the only DBM-sized army I have - I will use what I can from that, and add what I need.

Though that's just for a quick beginning.

Normally I strictly go by historical interest (in FOG's case hampered by which army-lists are available) - and my historical interests are legion

Specifically biblical armys, litterally - Hebrews and Jews, and Classical Greece, Hellenistic Successor states, the Roman Republic. Arthurian Britain, the Crusades, and the 100 Year's War.

[brianredworth]

iI JUST FOUND AN ON LINE COPY OF THE ANABASIS,

MY COPY OF IMMORTAL FIRE CAME THROUGH THE DOOR YESTERDAY MORNING.

HMM XENEPHON OR CYRUS ? NAHH DO BOTH.

SEE HOW EASY IT IS.

NOW WHERE ARE MY CATALOGUES.

[timmy1]

For me it is a combination of interest in the history and what is different to what I already have or that will extend what I have. Since moving from DBR to DBM I needed some earlier armies. Started with EIR, moved on to Parthian and Sarmatian as they could be allies that provided things I don't have in the Romans. My Swiss cross the boundry from late Middle Ages to Pike and Shot. Samurai is always fun and does the same, as does my Russian army (which will do as Post Mongol). A club member was disposing of something Elephant that could do Classical Indian, Graeco-Indian or Graeco-Bactrian so that was all new. The Parthians now have armies that fought on both borders, so that works. Skythians came next as a natural growth. Their best ally will be Mountain Indian which I can morph to from Classical or Hoplites. Since the Spartan appealled, that grew into Italiot etc. Norman/Anglo Norman came next, followed by Italian Condotta. I now have all the flavours other than a warband based army. NKE started looking like it was interesting so I built it with a warband flavour. It will be very different in FoG. At that point I ran out of room so that will have to be it.

Note nothing about winning because I don't know enough about FoG to know what wins but all of these will fly. Only Book 4 will pass me by.

[Gottkaiser]

I decided to play Seleucid because I already own a rather large army for WRG. Back then, I decided by asking some fellows who already played if there was an army that hat elephants, chariots, camels and cataphracts, or at least 3 of them. The seleucid had them all, so the choice was made. I still like the large amount of options you have.

[Moberg]

...Awaiting paint on my table is a Medieval Swedish Army from Storm of Arrows. Interesting because I know nothing about Med. Swedish Armies, so I will have fun learning about the subject while I paint them up.

I use FoG to learn more of a particular nation and period. So I'm totally into later medeival Swedish / scandinavian wars of the union 1434-1522 because of course I am swedish.

[SirGarnet]

I will gladly try anything to figure out how it works.

[timmy1]

Moberg, a very interesting period to choose. How does Fog model the fierce men of Dalarna? Ending in 1522 when the Luebeck mercenaries arrive is a good clear date but why 1434 as the start rather than 1397 with the Union of Kalmar?

[whitehorses]

First off I dabbled with 100YW Europe - the 100YW Britian Army is toothless as it has no Lance-armed Knights - then Free Company.
Both ticked all my boxes LOL (Medieval, Knights, Good bowmen, good Heavy Foot & enough Superiors.)
But were unfortunately on the titchy side
So had a good look through SoA & settled on SantaHermanthingummybob Spanish, which as well as having a very nice quality army, also has a colourful history;
First against the Moors, then against the French in the Italian Wars a year or two after the Fall of Grenada, & having an IC in Italy is never a bad thing (though he was only an FC for the Grenada Campaign, if that).

Cheers,
XenaJer

[Moberg]

Moberg, a very interesting period to choose. How does Fog model the fierce men of Dalarna? Ending in 1522 when the Luebeck mercenaries arrive is a good clear date but why 1434 as the start rather than 1397 with the Union of Kalmar?

The wars of the union didn't really start until 1434 when Engelbreckt gathered his fierce men of Dalarna and sacked and burned almost every fort and castle in Sweden (and Skane, Halland and Blekinge).

That started a period of great political unrest when The church, the privy council of Sweden, differnet fractions of noblemen and the king of Denmark fought for power and the crown of Sweden. To that comes, german mercenarys, the dawn of gunpowner and the emerge of the Swedish peasant soldiers who change the way of fighting in Sweden forever. (highly depending on non-professional infantery - see Breitenfield of 1630).

And how does FoG model this. Well I haven´t ever played FoG nor DBM so I cant really say but I do miss the fanatics of DBM. I would like to see a Medium foot, superior, undrilled, heavy weapon for rebellius swedish peasants.

[timmy1]

Makes sense. I presume that an army on the FoG scale that had Swedish Peasant Rebels is not going to have armoured knights. This is based upon the assumption that the fraelse would not have joined with the Dalarna in large enough numbers to make a unit. If this a correct assumption?

[Patonius]

I choose what to play by ease of painting (therefore Numidian and Indian). As my painting improves, I'll choose more challenging armis to paint...

[domblas]

most important is to like it.

u like how they fight and how they look. So that if u win u will have extra fun and if u loose u will at least have the pleasure to manipulate ur army.

of course u have simple armies and complexe ones depends of ur personnality.

[Probert]

Moberg,

I have already painted my Swedish command stands, and am going to start on my first militia battlegroup this evening. I have learned a lot about Swedens early military history as a result of the dice randomly choosing that army. I think I am going to try and have my army represent one of the early forays into Russia/Finland in the late 1200s/early 1300s.




Of course, I have recently finished all my Carthagians, so last night the magic dice told me that the next army I will be painting are the Later Achmaid Persians. So I have just ordered an army of those guys today.

[BiscuitCity]

Well, when I started collecting 15mm (for DBM) all of the players in my area had medieval eastern european armies, like Ottomans, Hungarians, and Germans. I chose Venetians because they are historical opponents for all of those armies, and I was enraptured by Mirliton's Condotta range.

Being of northern Italian descent I felt a bit of a connection to the army and I had always been interested in the history of the period. And being Italian, its no surprise when the army loses, so really there's no pressure at all when you play since any result other than a crushing defeat will be an improvement upon history.

[randynovotny]

I am currently building what I hope are correct armies for the later Hungarians, Later Ottomans and Wallachian/Moldavian armies. I'm relying on the Beta lists. Then I will work on a Hussite army. I have always been interested in Central/Eastern European history as my ancestors came from the Bohemian area. I'm also interested in the Balkans.

[Rattleshirt]

For me the choice was made. A buddy just got back into wargaming via FoG after a 15 year hiatus. He basically handed me Storm of Arrows and said, you wanna do the Hundred Years War? He's British, so he obviously wanted to play the English. So, medieval French for me... just ordered a starter list from Old Glory.

He and I are going to build a gaming table in his basement, so basically if he said, you wanna play *insert game you hate the most here*, I would've said yes.

[daleivan]

I was given a copy of FoG by my best friend Mark, ending a ten year hiatus from ancients. My first army had been Seleucids. I'd always wanted to put together a Roman army, and had been intrigued by the 4th/5th century period for a long time. So, I was all set to put together a Dominate/Foederate army once Legions Triumphant came out when I learned of a new 15mm range Late Romans and Huns from Khurasan miniatures range due out in a few months, so decided to go with the other Roman army I've been interested in for a long while, Late Republicans. I'm currently waiting on an order from Old Glory. I may build enough to fight Roman Civil war battles, because I think that's an interesting (and frequent in the mid-1st century BC match up.

Then it will be the Later Romans and Huns/Goths.

[Landsknecht]

I saw the movie "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" a few years ego which gave me interest into collecting an Ottoman Empire army. I'm so happy they will be covered in the new book coming out.

I collected Late Romans when the group I was playing with were playing Palmyrian versus Sassanid games. I really liked the Sassanid army I was playing against so I had to get one myself.

Holy Roman Empire I collected because of my German heritage.

[JimmyThePict]

I live in Pictland, so Early Picts wil do for now, till the Late Picts arrive in a future book, then I'll give them a go.