Weekender: Mantic Historical Gaming & We Want Tabletop Robot Wars!
July 23, 2016 by lloyd
Welcome to The Weekender. We're going to be delving into some news from the week and beyond and talking about Mantic dipping their toe into Historical Wargaming...
Check Out Team Yankee Leopard Week
Make sure that you check out the Team Yankee week as we even have some games of Top Trumps where we argue over the best units in the game.
Hobby Lab Scatter Terrain Challenge
We're taking a look at a few of the different Project Logs in the Hobby & Painting Forum for our Scatter Terrain Challenge.
- Gaist - Desolation Of Urethane Lane
- Sirchristopher2 - Bottle Cap Barrels
- Eilif - Modular Urban Terrain (Base Ten Blocks Link)
Keep at it folks and we'll cover more of your work as the challenge progresses throughout August too.
News Time
Let's see what's been in the news...
- Age of Sigmar Start Collecting Forces - Get yourself started with some of the new factions in Age of Sigmar.
- Seven New Malifaux Crews - Seven new crews match up with the new Masters for Malifaux.
- Robot Wars Back On Sunday - A look ahead to the return of Robot Wars on Sunday in the UK!
- 4Ground's Gen Con Releases - What are 4Ground taking to Gen Con?
Will you be watching Robot Wars?
Mantic Stepping Into Historical Wargaming?
As well as their being an existing fan project aimed at bringing Historical Wargaming to the Kings of War rules system we've been hearing whispers from the ether of a new set of rules being worked on by the Rules Committee and Mantic themselves.
We start some speculation as to how this might work and delve into some of the details we do know about at the moment.
What this does mean is that Lloyd MIGHT finally dip his toe into the realm of the Historical.
If you have Pics of Romans for Lloyd you can post them in this forum topic - click here.
Kickstarter Time
What's worth backing right now?
- Mauser Earth: Skirmish Game - Wonderlands Project bring 50mm War to Paris.
- Near & Far Storytelling Board Game - Fancy a narrative adventure and a wander through mysterious lands?
Catch The Weekender XLBS tomorrow with a Free Backstage Trial
...and don't forget to take part in the Great Wargaming Survey 2016!
Have a great weekend.
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"Will you be watching Robot Wars?"
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Happy Saturday!
Happy Sunday
Wait too early……
Morning folks…Mantic straying into historical sounds interesting though it’s already a flooded market place. So they’ll have to do something completely different to what’s already out there.
I think the ‘sandbox’ style design (if it indeed does go that way) could be the big thing that brings people to it as a way to play Historical games with little hassle.
BoW Ben
Happy Weekend!
It’s the weekend!! Must get some hobby in…
I spy someone who wob’t want to play with my fixed “Rise of the Kage” set given that I’ve sorted tge floppy spear problem by replacing them with the very sharp NorthStar metal spears!
As I commented on the Malifaux crew post, the new crews (including the Gencon special edition) are available to order through their online store until the end of Gencon.
http://www.wyrd-games.net/news/2016/7/20/gencon-newsletter
Ryan Laukat designs awesome board games… Near and Far is just the latest. He has his own visual style and there are cross-overs with Above and Below.
@lloyd I’d leave historical modelling – too many spears and spiky bits…lol
At one point Manticore said they were going to make rules for historical armies, with Romans sited as the example. Could this set be that?
I’ve being using Romans as Dwarfs in KoW and the feel is great, very interested to see the new rules.
Morning… @Lloyd ancient rules deal with different eras fighting each other so its nothing new 🙂 DBA and Field of Glory etc..
@Lloyd, Warlord’s historical games (Hail Caesar, Pike & Shotte, Black Powder) are actually very simple. Not complex at all. Check them out. A very easy in to historical wargaming.
Good call @harpoon71 – plus they’re also very modular, in the way that it sounds Kings of War Historicals is going to be. You have your basic rules / units and add special rules to give armies or units period / faction flavour.
Can’t wait to see Mantic take a historical event, change a few things, then act like it’s a totally new thing. Follow that up with a crappy Kickstarter and tons of complaints about quality and changing the package after pledge close and SHAZAM! A proud new division of Mantic is born.
A proper explanation of the structure and functionality of Roman armies would be a series comparable to @oriskany‘s Barbarossa articles.You are looking at over 1000 years of evolution and enforced changes. So here is a very short version Early Rome – ruled by kings and was organised along lines similar to the other Italian states. Wargear and ways of fighting not too far off what the Greeks were using. The term legion then meant the entire army. Then they got rid of the kings and became the Roman Republic. Around the 4th century BC they became more organised and featured… Read more »
The regal period is literally prehistoric and we know nothing reliable about its army at the time. Mention of hoplite-style warfare is much later and not from an especially reliable source. It might be true, but it could just as easily be anachronistic, especially given that it’s not certain if the Greeks were fighting in a phalanx before the middle of the sixth century. A friend of mine has just completed his thesis on Archaic tyrants and is of the opinion the phalanx is as late as the early fifth century.
Beasts of War entering a team into Robot Wars? That seems like a fantastic idea! Love to see the videos for that. Kudos if you do a behind the scenes documentary about ‘What The Team Got Up To In The Hotel Room’
I think we’d either end up with a machine too deadly for the show or one sooooo crap it would end up being battered far too early haha.
Always going to be a great weekender when @Lloyd gets his Willy out to show it off!
Warlord Romans are nice and chunky, should be just what you are looking for.
Great show lads, I will bring some warlord, foundry and Aventine romans up tomorrow to show the size differences. One of us Lloyd. One of us. One of us
Romans? *Yawn* 🙂
lol… so true
Cool, see yeah then!
Romans actually DID fight Egyptians, jut not the kind of Egyptians you’re probably thinking of. I assume you’re talking about the Old Kingdom Egyptians, bronze weapons with the curved Kopeck swords. They are over a thousand years out of sync with Rome. The Romans however DID fight and conquer an Egyptian kingdom, largely through a rather complicated bit of political nonsense involving succession. But the point I was trying to make is that that kingdom was the Egyptian Ptolemaic kingdom which fought the Romans, which where more in line with Macedonia in terms of military and fighting style. As for… Read more »
Xanthippos was a mercenary Spartan general fighting for the Carthaginiansin the first Punic war with some success, I would imagine he would have brought his own cadre of experts with him if not a few units of Spartan mercenaries.
Didn’t know that, Xanthippos you say?
But I imagine it didn’t go that well for the Spartans given how one sided in favor of Rome the fighting on land was in the first Punic War.
He was a good tactician who reorganised the Carthaginian army and routed a Roman army at the battle of Tunis and captured the Roman Consul. He tried to persuade the Carthaginians not to confront the Romans head on over open ground but to use broken ground where the light infantry and elephants would have the advantage. I’d not heard of him myself until I started to delve into the structure of the Carthaginian army and their diverse mercenary units.
Get ye to Polybius Book One! The ‘mercenary’ aspect of the Carthaginian army is overplayed. It’s largely the result of Roman propaganda, (the Carthaginians are weak and need to pay people to fight for them). Much of what is called ‘mercenary’ when in the Carthaginian army is called ‘auxiliary’ in the Roman army.
The Old Kingdom ended over two thousand years before the Roman Empire. The New Kingdom is the more famous Egyptian army. Kopesh were used throughout.
I’m currently doing a Roman army from the Republican period using Victrix figures which compare in size to Gripping Beast ‘Saga’ figures.(can’t upload a pic from my iPhone). So are the larger end of 28mm figs. I chose this period as the Romans had some pretty stiff opposition against the Carthaginians, Phyrrus of Epirus and the successor states. So you can match your Romans against Hoplites, Pikes and Elephants together with some of the vicious Celt and Spanish tribes. With a bit of tweaking you could go from early Republican period up to the beginning of the Marian period reforms.
Why is posting pics so awkward…
@lloyd
I have PMd you a pic (hopefully!)
WG EIR are only 28mm and significantly smaller than GW/GB.
If you want EIR wait for Victrix (plastic) or go metal and check out Aventine Miniatures. IMHO the best EIRs around!
http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/catalog/index.php/cPath/53_74
Cheers
Andy
Pretty sure there was a robot wars board game…
Always wanted to put a mate in a bin on roller skates with a walky talky and say we had a voice controlled bot. That said always objected to the name robot wars, but I guess rc diy tool and mobility scooter motor collisions doesn’t have the same ring to it… That and not allowing competitors to have flame throwers or electrical discharge weapons.
Will the ultimate robot wars question be answered, what was georges gender????????
GAH!!! Talk about the old roman fighting styles!!! Must also be part. In the days of the Early Republic, the Roman army’s first sight as a “Recognizably Roman” army, ie. Gladius short sword, big shield and Javelin. The Roman army was actually a levy, any Roman who owned land could, and would, be called to war in the Legion, which at that time was pretty much their name for an army. These people would be divided into about five groups depending on a mix of wealth, age and experience, and the levy had to pay for their own gear. The… Read more »
We’re really not sure how the legions and auxiliaries operated in relation to each. Much is made of very little in the classic depiction. Much is also made of the Marian Reforms, when it’s likely that the property requirement was all but gone by 107 anyway. Roman soldiers were also always paid a stipend prior to Marius, and it doesn’t appear as if this was increased until Caesar. Payments for the legionaries’ arms were taken from this stipend, and that didn’t change under Marius either. Marius’ innovation seems to have been to offer land to settle on at the end… Read more »
Couple of things, the name Marius’ Mules actually comes from the equipment of impedimenta, this was a cross braced wooden carrier on which a Roman legionary would carry several days worth of rations, all of their tools and equipment for conflict. They actually drastically reduced the baggage train even though each contiburnium (unit of 8 men) had a mule. The auxilia after 25 years of service were given Roman citizenship as were their children, but you also still had citizens entering auxillia units but as far as I know there is no definite reason for this. Auxillia also were likely… Read more »
“Although an auxillia cohort is as bad as fighting a whole unit of houscarls.”
Can you expand on this?
I can do; The Auxilia trained or were in combat for 25 years, drilled on a regular basis and were a regular army. If we consider those 25 years would most likely be at the peak of the persons life and combat effectiveness this would lead some one in the early medieval period to be between 16 and 41 which would be at the close going on to be the end of his life as a persons 50s would be the most likely time of death if they managed to make it to their 30s. They were equipped in an… Read more »
Ha! I had misread ‘bad as’ as ‘bad at’ and thought you were saying auxiliaries weren’t an effective fighting force lol.
Lol, fair enough.
I used bottle caps as the turret for many of my ork thing’s.
I wonder if the X Wing rules would make a good template for a Robot Wars game, with control of the house robots determined by a dice roll, or controlled by a third player.
LET THE WARS BEGIN!!!!
Also change the rules for movement, so that unlike in X Wing, where you had to stop and move back until the bases were touching, you now push the robot in front of you as well and continue moving.
The house robots had hard-and-fast rules, so they could be controlled with fairly simple AI.So when a robot enters – or is pushed into – a corner patrol zone, they’d be attacked. I’m sure there were other rules, but it’s been ages since I’ve seen the show 🙂
that was pretty much it mate, only attack what entered the cpz? combat patrol zone I think. And when a robot was shown to be imobilized they would send some out to finish them off and set them on fire.
The guy who wrote TO THE STRONGEST is having a sale on bigredbat until Monday 25th it’s another historical ruleset hardcover £19.99
You can use historical miniatures for any ruleset I should get back to sculpting my 28mm Hebrews…
I have been looking at these for a while now
didnt rome have a few bust ups in egypt? http://img.allw.mn/content/yz/m2/u16352ay54eac678046ee182809545.jpg
Against Greek-influenced armies and nomadic auxiliaries.
Carry On Cleo 🙂