Slitherine

Hi guys, my girlfriend occasionally plays FoG with me and what she needs is an own army she can identify with. So my task for the 2nd half of 2011 is to paint an army for her. Okay, I think I will also play with them once in a while.
But which?

So far she doesn't know exactly which one she wants, but she has some requirements:
-it must include horses (so no B&G army)
-it shouldn't be asian (so no EotD army)
-it should be easy to play for a beginner

Regarding the last bullet, I proposed taking an army with mainly drilled, decent quality troops, she thought it would be easy to take an army with only one or two predominant troop choices. I warned her that such an army could become boring after some time and isn't necessarily easy to play. What do you think?

Oh, wait, my requirements:
-it must be quick and easy to paint
-it would be nice if it would match my existing armies, MRR, Numidians, Normans but this is only a bonus.

Cataphracts are easy to paint. Maybe Palmyrans. Would the Queen Zenobia thing be a plus for her?

Parthian is in the same book as your first 2. Relatively easy to paint and only needs 2 troop types, LH and Cataphracts. But then she'd beat your MRR and Numidians day in day out.

Wait we need a LOT more information.

1) Hair color
2) measurements
3) Photos would be a real plus.

In period you could do ancient Britons with Queen Boudicea. Impact foot and Chariots. As long as you dont take skilled swordsmen should do quite well against you.

Palmyrans as previously mentioned.

Huns or one of the babarians with gobs of horse. Visigoths or vandals that have charging lancers and some other stuff.

You could get a sort of match up my taking Charlemagne as long the normans are run pre-Knight.

If you are interested in a later period some of the late medieval Like margaret of Anjou's Lancastrians.

You could take Cleopatra's later Ptolemic.

A successor army might be a good choice. It's usually easy to run one of these as pike or pike plus drilled mounted with a few supporting troops to start with. After that it's easily to expand by adding more troops types to the basic mix. Later Seleucids (but without all the possible elements in the menagerie), Later Macedonians or Pyrrhic could all be good choices. Ptolemaics as late as Cleopatra probably wouldn't be a good choice since by that point there troop choices are relatively weak and aren't going to be easy to play.

Chris

Guys, guys. I know very little about FoG but just wanted to let you know that MY GIRLFRIEND thinks toy soldiers are cool.

I would also suggest a successor army, preferably Selucid. It has lots of options and can do quite well, and plenty of mounted in nice shiny cataphract armour.

So my task for the 2nd half of 2011 is to paint an army for her

Nice to see shes a priority

Thanks for the suggestions, guys!
Something with cataphracts is a good point!
I don't think that it is an argument that the army was led by a woman.
An army that can beat mine is a good thing.
I fear a successor army is exactly what she doesn't want: it has "too many" options (she fears that fact will complicate things for her) and I forgot to mention that it isn't preferable if the army is one that "everybody plays".

One of my suggestions was Fatimid Egypt as opponent for my crusading Normans. Although not very easy and quick to paint, would that be a good choice for a beginner or is cavalry, bow and cavalry, lance to hard to play with? At least they are pretty expensive and have to be used right.

MatthewP wrote:

So my task for the 2nd half of 2011 is to paint an army for her

Nice to see shes a priority

Coming on the desk in 6 months is top priority!

Class comment in a thread relating to your girlfriend ...

Muhaha, now I see. The traps of a foreign language....

Mehrunes wrote:Muhaha, now I see. The traps of a foreign language....

Keep working on those language skills. No girl can resist a cunning linguist.

Mehrunes wrote:One of my suggestions was Fatimid Egypt as opponent for my crusading Normans. Although not very easy and quick to paint, would that be a good choice for a beginner or is cavalry, bow and cavalry, lance to hard to play with? At least they are pretty expensive and have to be used right.

I like the Fatimids, but against Normans they will need some practice. They win by picking on the flanks, shooting or letttering the normans collapse against the Spear units. I would worry it would be fail the fun test.

After two hours browsing the companion books, she cornered some favourites:
Late Dynastic Egypt (interesting mix of chariots, hoplites and decent archers)
Alexandrian Macedonian and the various Successors (drilled core troops + variations when wished for)
Abbasid Arabs, Fatimid Egypt, Ayyubid Egypt (much good quality mounted + mixed bodies of spears and bows and drilled)
Nikephorian Byzantines (many drilled troops, all the cool byzantine stuff)

Except the Late Dynastic Egypt, there are some historical counterparts for my Romans (mainly the greek successors) and my Normans (whether in North Africa or the Holy Land).

What do you think are the easiest armies to play and to face my armies (even the anachronistic ones)?

Of course it's also important if there are nice miniatures to buy and paint.
Personally I fell in love with Legio Heroica's Muslims.

My girlfriend sends her regards and thanks for helping her to decide.
Nevertheless: No photos.

You need to think strategically. At some point, her vision and/or judgment will improve, causing her to leave you and the army behind.

So consider the morph potential of these choices.

Mehrunes wrote:
Late Dynastic Egypt (interesting mix of chariots, hoplites and decent archers)
Alexandrian Macedonian and the various Successors (drilled core troops + variations when wished for)
Abbasid Arabs, Fatimid Egypt, Ayyubid Egypt (much good quality mounted + mixed bodies of spears and bows and drilled)
Nikephorian Byzantines (many drilled troops, all the cool byzantine stuff)

Egyptians are fun, but will only ever be Egyptians.

Alexander brings the Mighty Morphin' Macedonians. They are a platform for all manner of Hellenistic and other armies.

Abbasid and other Arabs are loads of fun, and can morph into a wide selection of armies in the Middle East with minimal nose-holding. You can get to everything from LPIA to Muslim Conquest, Khurasanian, Islamic Persians, Ayyubids, North Africans, etc. up until the Ottomans (where the figures are a lot different).

Nikephorians are OK, but the tend to morph into other crappier Byzantines, unless you paint up a bunch of non-Byz figures to build Komnenans.

Hope this helps, even though she won't give pics (reflecting her healing judgment already. . . )

As you are painting it, it could be an army with a lot of options as long as it has few compulsory troop types so you can paint only a very simple subset of the army. Then if she gets experienced enough to decide that she needs some other troop types you can paint up some of the optional troops.

E.g. Palmyrans you paint up a load of cataphracts and light horse. If she gets bored or decides she needs some foot, paint up some of the Roman optional troops.

hi
as the playing wife of a wargamer its nice to know that you are buying and painting an army for your girlefriend. i started of with vikings in the days of wrg 6th addition and in 25m just becouse i liked them. i have a palmyran army in 15m and have played it in fog it gives a good feel for the rules .my first fog army was bosphoran.i have also used swiss and warring states (as it was painted up mostly in shades of pink for my daughter when she played in dbm) however these last 2 may not fit in with what you say she had in mind. what ever you decide to buy i hope you girlefriend enjoys playing and after a few games she may have different ideas about armys. i will be looking forward to seeing her progress as there are very few of us ladys playing and wish her lots of luck.
lynda
(still playing after 30 years despite husbands advice,having a baby,and in the early days some problems with male egos.however i may not be playing to much in the next year as i am undergoing treatment for breast cancer)

Success to you on ur treatments, lynda


I have an Abbasid army and it's pretty easy to use. I run a big wodge of crap foot and use eithe bow cav or lance cav around it. Fairly easy to paint a large part of it. Some of the cav should be pretty fancy.