Ancients

OK, this is a long story, that gets embarrassing towards the end, before a last minute snatching of self respect from the jaws of shame.

It is one of Charles Grant père's fantastic books that bears responsibility for my interest in Ancients. I chose a copy of ‘Wargame Tactics’ as a school prize when I was 11. At the time I knew nothing of Byzantines and Sassanids and certainly could not spell or pronounce either. Yet Grant’s description of armoured horsemen, mixed spear and bow units and, of course, elephants, captured my imagination in a way that tediously one-sided Romans v Barbarians clashes never did.

Not long after, I bought the ‘Shock of Impact’ rules. It is now fashionable to deride the modifier laden rule sets put out by TTG in the 80s, but I loved the way different armour and weapons interacted to generate the combat values, and the points system was the ideal companion to the Grant scenario books.

It took only a few decades and the onset of this project for me to decide I finally had to acquire early Byzantine (or, perhaps, Late Roman) and Sassanid (or Sassanian these days, apparently) armies. Even though I had no other armies in that scale, Pendraken 10mm was my first choice; but then when I bothered Leon about the lack of elephants he admitted that they would have to await a complete remodelling, not due until 2014 at the earliest, much too late for my imminent start on this project, right? (Some years have passed since then, it is 2022 as I type, and still no sign of the remodelling or the elephants. No reflection on Leon, he has been busy producing a huge range of far more commercially viable figures.) So sanity, in terms of budget and terrain at least, was restored and I chose Baccus 6mm. Unfortunately, the ever obliging Reinforcements By Post did not do these armies ready painted and then closed down the custom painting side of the business. Not before I had bought a bunch of carts, civilians and tents from Baccus for some of the scenarios, which now look at me reproachfully along with the 6mm ancients terrain I have. Wonder how much I can reuse with my Napoleonics..?

At this point I took a hard look at my ancients ambitions and realised that what I wanted were vast armies of well painted 10 or 15mm, and there was no way I had the time or skill to do this myself. (Dr Phil Hendry's amazing work is the gold standard on this stuff, but 28mm is way beyond my painting abilities and pocket). What I did have was a significant stock of boxes of suitable plastic figures. Only one issue. They are fantasy figures. (Go here to understand how something so shameful found its way into my collection.) Needs must though, and in the absence of my long dreamed of Byzantine/Sassanian forces, I would paint up and use the fantasy types.

But procrastination has its advantages. In late 2015 Forged in Battle announced a Kickstarter campaign to launch 15mm Roman and opposition armies. My fellow Torontonian, Nick the Lemming, had got some great figures from their first Kickstarter, so I lost my crowdfunding cherry and invested. In the end, I decided that 3rd Century Romans were not late enough for me, so I splurged the whole amount on Sassanians (plus some buildings and civilians). It took me a while, but about a year after they arrived I got them all packaged up with instructions and sent them off to Fernandos in Sri Lanka for a coat of paint. That whole experience was extremely good. Lots of feedback during the painting process and I was very pleased with the final result when it arrived back about 3 months after leaving the Great White North.

The next FiB Kickstarter was the Dark Ages, which handily included all sorts of Byzantine armies. In the end I plumped for the Justinian 6th Century version (I am Belisarius!) These now sit in a box under my painting table awaiting the time and patience to draw up instructions, and the money to fund a round trip to Sri Lanka for them. If the first few Ancients battles are Sassanian civil wars, you'll know why.

Despite 'Shock of Impact' having played such a large role in my early fascination with ancients, even I have moved on rules-wise. I'm not looking for buckets o'dice and single 28mm figure removal, so Warhammer Ancients and its successors are out. DBA/DBM is all a bit too stylized for me, as is Warmaster. For a while I was convinced that I could write a set that would combine more recent developments in command & control and morale with my 80s-era love for granular weapons and armour combat mechanisms.

I couldn't.

So it was a great relief, a few years ago, to hear Neil Shuck and the late, lamented, Mike Hobbes, waxing lyrical about Sword and Spear, a set of ancient rules with some rather nifty command & control and combat mechanisms. I bought them, read them, still liked them, but have yet to play them. My Sassanians are based up for them, so we'll see.

Could've been worse, I could've been playing with orcs...

I intend to use Ancients Fantasy Ancients for the following Scenarios: 3, 8,