Slitherine

In this era of unlimited tolerance, even for the intolerable, surely two mature armies can engage in a consensual martial relationship without feeling stigmatized by wargaming society?

second bullet

Polkovnik wrote:

hammy wrote:If for example you had 10 different armies and I also had 10 then there would be a reasonable chance that if we decided to play a game we would not be able to produce a pair that actually fought

Not sure I agree with that Hammy. If two players have 10 armies each across a range of periods (say one from each book) I think it would be very unlikely that they couldn't find a historical match-up.
Also in my experience, most players that have a lot of armies have some like Romans and Successors that fought a lot of different opponents, so it is even more likely that a historic match-up is possible.
There are four of us in our group that play regularly, all with quite a few armies (although none of the very obscure ones as far as I know). I think we could find a historical match-up for every army we have between us.

In a bored moment I thought I'd see I could get 2 armies from each of the 13 books that would not make a historical matchup, not sure I've succeded but here goes.

RoR later jewish - Gallic
SoA med Welsh - Condotta italian
IF Kyrenean greek - Classic indian
S&S Middle Bulgar - Cuman
LT gepid - Caledonian
EE Hussite - Timurid
DaF Christian Nubian - Nikephorian byzantine
WFTS Andalusian - Anglo danish
STE Nubian - Median
OfO Feudal german - Early med irish
EotD Zhou - Med malay
B&G Toltec - Pacific NW Culture
LS Early Elamite - Samnite

As much as i'd like to have reasonably historical battles without having multiple armies and my fellow clubmates having likewise it is difficult.

hammy wrote:Consider one of the new members of my club. He only has an Early Achamenid Persian army. I don't think I have a truly historical opponent ...

What about Classical Indian ? Surely that's a feasible historic match-up ?

Polkovnik wrote:

hammy wrote:Consider one of the new members of my club. He only has an Early Achamenid Persian army. I don't think I have a truly historical opponent ...

What about Classical Indian ? Surely that's a feasible historic match-up ?

Feasible in the sense that yes it probably happened given that the EAP empire abutted India and included Indian troops however I don't believe it's covered by any of the histories that have come down to us.

Also, it depends _which_ EAP you use. I've played EAP vs classical indian in a themed competition, but we had medising hoplites. Armoured hoplites, Immortals and protected sparabara vs unprotected archers and not even the max is not enough elephants. Mmmm - tasty.

Feasible in the sense that yes it probably happened given that the EAP empire abutted India and included Indian troops however I don't believe it's covered by any of the histories that have come down to us.

Also, it depends _which_ EAP you use. I've played EAP vs classical indian in a themed competition, but we had medising hoplites. Armoured hoplites, Immortals and protected sparabara vs unprotected archers and not even the max is not enough elephants. Mmmm - tasty.[/quote]

Given the Persian tendency towards regional government. you might surmise that an EAP drawn from Bactria/Sogdia for an Indian campaign might well look more like Bactrian Greek (though without the Greek bits!) - mostly heavy and light horse. Without the imperial applecarriers and greek pointy-stick chaps not such a sure thing for Persia facing all those chariots...

grahambriggs wrote:

hammy wrote: The fundamental thing is that because of the variety of the period it can be very difficult for players to find accurate opponents.

Consider one of the new members of my club. He only has an Early Achamenid Persian army. I don't think I have a truly historical opponent although I suppose my Neo Assyrians could morph to later Assyrians and just about be OK. Finding 10 armies that I can't provide opponents for would be hard but I have 25 or more amries and can morph to get perhaps 100.

Unfortunately not. Unless he is able to morph has early persians into Medes. Surely though, your club must possess the sort of low, rat-like beings that use Skythians?

If you can morph to later Assyrians you can probably also do Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) who did fight Cyrus.

Chris

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a gamer first and foremost (by way of board games, RPGs, CDGs, fantasy / sci-fi wargaming, ...), and that picking up nuggets of history as I go along is a nice bonus rather than a necessity for me. I suspect I'm in the minority, but it works for me.

MikeK wrote:In this era of unlimited tolerance, even for the intolerable, surely two mature armies can engage in a consensual martial relationship without feeling stigmatized by wargaming society?

Even these days I would say that is a dicey proposition.

Sad result if you ask me. I would not turn down a game only because it is unhistoric, but would prefer at least some degree of a theoretic possible historical meeting between the armies.

Mehrunes wrote:Sad result if you ask me. I would not turn down a game only because it is unhistoric, but would prefer at least some degree of a theoretic possible historical meeting between the armies.

By 'Theoretic possible' are you implying the removal of geography(i.e. Mayan vs Tibetan is OK) or do you mean something more limiting?

Because even if you mean the former it is going to mean a lot of armies won't get played much, if at all. The risk then becomes that the manufacturers don't supply the range, etc

imuch prefere games with historically feasable match ups but am happy to play out of period...at the end of the day getting a game is much more important.

Luckily my 2 opponents (dad and Uncle) and I generally have armies that could have fought each other at some point though there are 1 or 2 that dont have historical opponents for between us....strangely enough these are the armies that have the worst win/lose record!

azrael86 wrote:By 'Theoretic possible' are you implying the removal of geography(i.e. Mayan vs Tibetan is OK) or do you mean something more limiting?

Personally I would say "theoretically possible" or "historically feasible" both mean the armies existed at the same time, and were close enough geographically to have actually fought.

I normally tell myself that if e.g. Romans are fighting Kushans, that's just about feasible because they both neighboured the Seleuicds and they might be invading simultaneously and quibbling over the spoils

Horseman wrote:Luckily my 2 opponents (dad and Uncle) and I generally have armies that could have fought each other at some point though there are 1 or 2 that dont have historical opponents for between us....strangely enough these are the armies that have the worst win/lose record!

That is interesting. Do you play the 'odd man out' armies less, or are they just odd armies that you are fond of? Or just one of those unusual things like the unit that always holds or the general that always dies?

Skullzgrinda wrote:

Horseman wrote:Luckily my 2 opponents (dad and Uncle) and I generally have armies that could have fought each other at some point though there are 1 or 2 that dont have historical opponents for between us....strangely enough these are the armies that have the worst win/lose record!

That is interesting. Do you play the 'odd man out' armies less, or are they just odd armies that you are fond of? Or just one of those unusual things like the unit that always holds or the general that always dies?

Just to clarify I haven't actually played for several years now and used to play with wrg 7th edition which was a frustrating rule set (and I never really liked DBM) Hopefully I'll be able to poke my old man out of "retirement" soon and get him playing FOG...I'm itching to actually start playing again!

To answer the question - The "odd men out" My Dad has an Assyrian army with no biblical opponenets to match against, IIRC they have never won a battle but my Dad had a fondeness for them because he loves the paint job, their main weakness was inherent in the ruleset....the worst infantry that just couldn't compete and imploded when contacted by anything remotely half decent!
And now I think about it that was probably the only army that had no historical match up in the end (our ever growing army collection!) My uncles Spartans were another stand out "odd man out" until the purchase of a Syracusan army that could also double up as different greeks!

lawrenceg wrote:I would vote for all three.

Yup - I'm happy to get a game

Polkovnik wrote:

azrael86 wrote:By 'Theoretic possible' are you implying the removal of geography(i.e. Mayan vs Tibetan is OK) or do you mean something more limiting?

Personally I would say "theoretically possible" or "historically feasible" both mean the armies existed at the same time, and were close enough geographically to have actually fought.

Exactly that, Polkovnik. Of course with enough fantasy, you can get many contemporary armies to fight each other.

Mehrunes wrote:Exactly that, Polkovnik. Of course with enough fantasy, you can get many contemporary armies to fight each other.

Don't need in many cases fantasy, just science fiction (viz. Pournelle, Turtledove, etc., or the alternate history battles for which the rules are almost universally used).

I find the most engaging approach to be aliens plucking troops from Earth at various times for their own sinister purposes, perhaps kept in stasis, etc., whatever is needed to generate a good game.

Need a clear line (*cough*) to be drawn between science fiction and fantasy.

Mike

Good luck getting themed games in the middle of America .Most People I know dont have multiple armies (FOG SIZE) to play in more than one theme and most people donot have armies from the same book .