The Empire Responds to the invasion of the Uruk Hai

It’s no secret, I do not like learning new rules. I’ve tried to pick up the Hail Caesar rulesets, I just look at the pretty pictures and read the history side of things. I cannot be arsed to learn the rules. A major mental block occurs and I just put the lovely books to one side.

Then I came across Warhammer ancient battles. It was as if a Christmas tree had lit up in my head. It’s allllll the same

Rules as the old warhammer. Completely suitable for 4th through 6th edition. All the stats and special rules just lift out and drop perfectly into my games and best of all I pick it up intuitively, with next to no effort as I already have this framework burned into my soul from years of play.

A few of the supplements give extra depth and nuance with some additional flavourful rules like Parthian shot for your skirmishing light horse archers. Testudo, extra weapons options, war wagon rules, extra artillery options, more formations and more troop types and abilities. More than I can ever faithfully get through in a lifetime if added to the plethora of Warhammer supplements over the years. It’s given me a new lease of life in my fantasy wargaming, I’ve been able to invent my own troop types for classic races and do so with authority, integrity and good fun.

I don’t need new rules. I don’t need to

Teach my mates any new rules. I don’t need to rebase or adapt any of my miniatures!!!! Huzzah!

I am going to Incorporate the war wagons from WAB into a mega game in April of warhammer fantasy. And some rules for pike block formations with abilities for light horse to add extra dimensions to fantasy gaming.

I’m forced to consider the point of new rules. If you have an existing ruleset, all be it ‘out of date’ or extremely well known and well trod. If you get extra pieces to add in to a well established, large player base ruleset without having to by and learn a whole plethora of stuff from the ground up then does it really matter that it’s not a ‘perfect ruleset’!?

Does it matter if it isn’t as streamlined as many designers now would want? I don’t think it does. I think the merits of knowing the code rules and having plenty of people already with familiarity and miniatures ready to go more than out weighs the detracting factors. I’m only going to learn hail Caesar/kings of war if the collection gets soooo unwieldy in scope that I want a super paired back rules system to pop at quickly. But I really don’t care about ‘quickly’ so far. I like the intricacy and layering of these elements. It’s a great flavour generator in games.

Perhaps I’m just classic in my tastes