Slitherine

My friend (Henry V on the forum) were at a Flames of War tourney about a year ago and noticed an ancients/medieval tourney going on in the next room. He expressed an interest, but only if he could be the English 100YW (he's a big fan of Med. Total War). Being the good friend that I am, I agreed to be the French and so our project began.

I did some research on rules and found that FoG was the definitive up-and-coming. The tourney we saw was not FoG. We both agreed to get FoG + Storm of Arrows and to go with 25mm figs because we prefer the visual spectacle of the bigger figs, not to mention they're a bit easier to paint. We noted that most 25mm tourneys are at 650 pts w/ 40 MU, so we started our armies from there. Amusingly enough, we both thought we'd work towards the 600 pt "Starter Armies" and tweak the last 50. My, how plans have changed.

We also set intermediate goals along the way to play intro games with a couple of BG's per side to learn the rules. Most recently, over the last couple of months we've played games with ONLY painted figs at 350 pts in Dec., 450 pts in Jan., and 550 in Feb. this gives us a chance to learn the rules and get armies painted over time. Also, we've been playing the games at our local gaming store which caters to WFB, 40K, and FoW, with hopes that we'll be able to get others hooked. That was another reason we felt it was important to go with painted figs ONLY. Nothing less impressive than a demo game with un-painted lead/plastic.

The reason I...LOVE...THIS...GAME is that the focus is more on maneuver/attrition levels, rather than sweeping huge numbers of figs off the table like the games mentioned above. That is one of the comical aspects of or friends stopping by to watch a game. Their comments are that everything "looks the same as the last time I stopped by", while our emphatic responses relate to being "disrupted here, fragmented here, and broken here, so it's only a matter of time..." Also, the variability of results keeps the game exciting. I've had a unit of brigands run over field-fortified longbows to win a game, while other games front-rank-led superior knights "whiff" and get run down.

Anyway, it's not much of an AAR, but I just wanted to rant about how great I think the rules are. I'll try to get some pictures of our upcoming 650 with camps in March.

Best Regards,
George

I completely agree. The friends in my gaming group have focused on a different time period from you. We have armies from Alexander the Great to Late Roman Republic. Personally, I have a Spartan, Persian, and Parthian armies. They all play very differently. Yesterday, I took my Parthians against my friend's Alexandrian Macedonians. It was a very close run game. In the end, the Macedonian heavy cavalry was fragmented and there were a few disrupted units on both sides.

Someone watching from the sidelines would probably think it was a boring game, but actually it was quite tense. The light horse would move forward and shoot up the pike. The pike would maneuver and chase away the light horse in order for the generals to bolster and remove loss of cohesion. The Parthian cataphracts never got into the fighting. Every hit and cohesion check was important. Exciting stuff.

changed mind