Slitherine

Hello follow FoG enthusiasts!
As I have written on past posts, I'm a veteran of WRG and DBM rules. Then sold off everything when my kids were born! Now I'm "taking the plunge" again.

One of the things I've always enjoyed doing was putting together a "wish list" of armies that I would like to collect, paint and play. I've done this for FoG and would like to come to you all and ask you for list suggestions that you may have put together and played successfully.

Here is my "wish list"

1. Summerian
2. Later Mycenaean
3. New Kingdom Egyptian
4. Urartian
5. Classical Greek
6. Early Successor (Focusing on Ptolemaic)
7. Han Chinese (Eastern)
8. Late Heian to Muromachi Japanese
9. Mongol Conquest
11. Later Ottoman Turk
12. War of the Roses Lancastrian

Thank you in advance for any suggestions/recommendations you can offer. I think this time around I'm keeping all my armies! I enjoy this hobby much to much to let them go again

Take Care,
Skip

One thing I've tended to do when doing an army is to also try to do a historical opponent for it. Often the opponent may use some of the same troops as the first army I've chosen so this can graduate from additions to the first army until it gets to the point where I do the second. For example, starting with an Alexandrian Macedonian army from which I've expanded into being able to do Late Achaemenid Persians and Hoplite Greeks.

With any of the successor armies it should be easy to expand that to painting enough troops to be able to field two successor armies as historical opponents.

Having matched opponents makes it possible to set up historical scenarios and it is always nice to have a second army if a potential opponent is new to the hobby or just does not have his own troops available.

Chris

Shadowbend wrote: Here is my "wish list"

1. Summerian
2. Later Mycenaean
3. New Kingdom Egyptian
4. Urartian
5. Classical Greek
6. Early Successor (Focusing on Ptolemaic)
7. Han Chinese (Eastern)
8. Late Heian to Muromachi Japanese
9. Mongol Conquest
11. Later Ottoman Turk
12. War of the Roses Lancastrian

A few thoughts on the list:

I am a big fan of doing early armies that are pretty flexible, so if you decide you want something a bit different you have a solid starting point.

Classical Greek and Early Successor both can feed into a number of other period armies (Persians, all the other successors, Carthaginians to some extent, etc).

War of the Roses could be the basis for other medieval armies, although the masses of longbows are pretty distinct. Mongols can help out for a number of armies, the LH alone is a useful base for a bunch.

The others are probably more limiting on that front. After that a lot depends on what you are planning on doing. Historical match ups, more compeition style games, scenarios or whatever.

If I had to pick on for me personally out of hte list to start with I would do Ottomans who have a great history, a fair amoutn of internal flexibility on make-up and are a solid competitive and fun to play army.

You want something that you will win with more often than not if you are keeping it.

Therefore, you require:

1, LH army
1, shooty cav army
1, swarm army (Thracian or Dominate Roman)
1, winner (Later Anglo Irish or Catalan Company) for when you really know what you are are doing, and finally
1, Santa Nova Herminidad thingy so you can roll over your opponents in open tourneys.

Just a thought.

(I have none of these and have lost every one of my games...)

timmy1 wrote:You want something that you will win with more often than not if you are keeping it.

Therefore, you require:
1, winner (Later Anglo Irish or Catalan Company) for when you really know what you are are doing, and finally


Just a thought.

(I have none of these and have lost every one of my games...)

I have both of these and firmly deny I know what I'm doing. ...

From the original list,

No dark age army
Mongol and Ottomann are quite similar
No elephants
No romans
No real knight army

Catalan is a good idea, as an opponent for Ottomann (and they would probably have picked a quarrel with anyone just for the hell of it).
Ptolemaic is an odd choice though!

One of the players at my club has Catalan Grand Company and Thracians, both of whom seemed to have enjoying fighting anyone and eneryone.

Does this say something about him?

Ah, its a game of toy soldiers - collect the armies that you want and don't worry about if it makes any sense. To be frank, people that want to be logical and orgnaised about the hobby are missing the point really as far as I'm concerned, whimsy and changing interest are all part of the fun. Have a list by all means but make sure that you are willing to change it at any point for no apparent reason. You may have decided that you want to collect enough armies to do a bronze age campaign but then look at the new 28mm plastic 17C figures and decide to buy enough to do Gustavus Aldolphus on the table (crazy name, crazy guy). Then if you fancy buying and painting some Orcs also up to you. Your fellow historic gamers might sneer - but they play with toy soldiers for Christ sake - 99% of the population sneer at them for his fact.

Really, buy the toys, paint them, talk some bollocks about history and enjoy - all the rest is taking it far to seriously which is what the real world is for.

Although good call on the Sumerians buy the way - just finished painting my 20mm plastic Sumerians and they look grand. I mean, any army that has war donkeys- how can you resist? Admitedly they are crap on the tabletop but they are battlecarts pulled by the donkeys of death, fully recomend getting them first.

azrael86 wrote: Ptolemaic is an odd choice though!

I think the Antony and Cleopatra version is pretty interesting and a bit different.

azrael86 wrote:

timmy1 wrote:You want something that you will win with more often than not if you are keeping it.

Therefore, you require:
1, winner (Later Anglo Irish or Catalan Company) for when you really know what you are are doing, and finally


Just a thought.

(I have none of these and have lost every one of my games...)

I have both of these and firmly deny I know what I'm doing. ...

From the original list,

No dark age army
Mongol and Ottomann are quite similar
No elephants
No romans
No real knight army

Catalan is a good idea, as an opponent for Ottomann (and they would probably have picked a quarrel with anyone just for the hell of it).
Ptolemaic is an odd choice though!

Hi Azrael;
The Ptolemaic choice was purely and emotional one. When I began playing WRG 7th a number of years ago, I knew nothing about the hobby, the armies or the history for that matter. I "ended up" with a Ptolemaic Egyptian army as my very first and came to enjoy it very much even though I lost most of the time. Playing with it started my interest in studying the time period learning more about the armies and tactics. Now, so many years later. I really want to re-create that first army if for no other reason than to see if I've become a better general!

Skip

durrati wrote:Ah, its a game of toy soldiers - collect the armies that you want and don't worry about if it makes any sense. To be frank, people that want to be logical and orgnaised about the hobby are missing the point really as far as I'm concerned, whimsy and changing interest are all part of the fun. Have a list by all means but make sure that you are willing to change it at any point for no apparent reason. You may have decided that you want to collect enough armies to do a bronze age campaign but then look at the new 28mm plastic 17C figures and decide to buy enough to do Gustavus Aldolphus on the table (crazy name, crazy guy). Then if you fancy buying and painting some Orcs also up to you. Your fellow historic gamers might sneer - but they play with toy soldiers for Christ sake - 99% of the population sneer at them for his fact.

Really, buy the toys, paint them, talk some bollocks about history and enjoy - all the rest is taking it far to seriously which is what the real world is for.

Although good call on the Sumerians buy the way - just finished painting my 20mm plastic Sumerians and they look grand. I mean, any army that has war donkeys- how can you resist? Admitedly they are crap on the tabletop but they are battlecarts pulled by the donkeys of death, fully recomend getting them first.

Durrati you are my kind of player!

When I started playing 7th edition all I wanted to do was figure out what the "perfect" army was (god I don't know how many times I heard or said "what's the BEST army"!). Tournaments were enjoyable for the most part but looking back on them, the required hours of "rules lawyering" arguments I could have done without. Even through DBM there was a great amount of time spend on getting things to that supposed "just right" place and our games would go on for 6, 8, 10 hours while the minutia of rules interpretations were agonized over.

Now, after almost 25 years in the hobby, I have two kids a wife and a house and I just want to PLAY! . I now enjoy the research on the history of the periods, learning about the different cultures, tactics, dress and equipment of the armies and I choose my armies because of things like sentiment (Ptolemaic Egyptian- my first army ever), visual appeal (Han Chinese and Japanese- Amazing looking on the table), interest (Uraritan- after reading up on the culture it just sounds like an army I want to field) and just pure fun (Sumerians- neat looking figures, easy to paint and, as you said, any army with WAR DONKEYS!!...)

I don't have as much time to play these days as I used to, but I enjoy the time I do have a lot more than I did before!

Take Care,
Skip

I like to have two period-matched opposing armies ... great for when a friend comes over.
Alexander vs Late Achaemenid Persian is an example. You can play either side, the armies are well balanced against each other, and generally the rules and lists are based on matching in-period armies for accurate results so things tend to make sense and historic tactics can be used with effect. You get to research both sides, which I find leads to a much better understanding.
Good for scenario's too.

Maybe Hittites for your egyptians, persians for your greeks. Just some ideas.

timmy1 wrote:One of the players at my club has Catalan Grand Company and Thracians, both of whom seemed to have enjoying fighting anyone and eneryone.

Does this say something about him?

Best not spill his beer.

Shadowbend wrote:
Hi Azrael;
The Ptolemaic choice was purely and emotional one. When I began playing WRG 7th a number of years ago, I knew nothing about the hobby, the armies or the history for that matter. I "ended up" with a Ptolemaic Egyptian army as my very first and came to enjoy it very much even though I lost most of the time. Playing with it started my interest in studying the time period learning more about the armies and tactics. Now, so many years later. I really want to re-create that first army if for no other reason than to see if I've become a better general!

Skip

Good reason. I don't mean it's bad, just it's not the usual answer people get for a successor army. Generally the selection process seems to favour the 'pick anything you like' Seleucid, Alexander (purist or later with elephants), with occasional Lysimachid(ooh, thracians) or Pyrrhic (for the heroically inspired).

Good luck on that I still have Classical Indian, which is nothing like as scary now as in its heyday under 7th, with LB and HW foot and chariots with 6 fighting crew.....and superior elephants.

azrael86 wrote:

Shadowbend wrote:
Hi Azrael;
The Ptolemaic choice was purely and emotional one. When I began playing WRG 7th a number of years ago, I knew nothing about the hobby, the armies or the history for that matter. I "ended up" with a Ptolemaic Egyptian army as my very first and came to enjoy it very much even though I lost most of the time. Playing with it started my interest in studying the time period learning more about the armies and tactics. Now, so many years later. I really want to re-create that first army if for no other reason than to see if I've become a better general!

Skip

Good reason. I don't mean it's bad, just it's not the usual answer people get for a successor army. Generally the selection process seems to favour the 'pick anything you like' Seleucid, Alexander (purist or later with elephants), with occasional Lysimachid(ooh, thracians) or Pyrrhic (for the heroically inspired).

Good luck on that I still have Classical Indian, which is nothing like as scary now as in its heyday under 7th, with LB and HW foot and chariots with 6 fighting crew.....and superior elephants.

LOL Wow that put a smile on my face. I too had a Classical Indian list under 7th ed.

Shadowbend wrote:
LOL Wow that put a smile on my face. I too had a Classical Indian list under 7th ed.

Two Chariot reminiscences:

1. Not sure what it was (it might have been Aztec?) but charged shaken chariotry in the flank. Chariot crew fight and win, naturally.

2. vs LIR, over caltrops, into legions, up4 at contact: dead legions. Of course, still lost the game.