Now that Kings of War : Historical is out and in peoples hands, people are going to want to play with the rules. Our local group (the Ohio War Kings) have not previously been into historical gaming - so the vast majority of us do not have armies applicable to these rules. There are a couple of people with KoM armies that can be adapted (both Japanese apparently - interesting), but the majority of us are going to be making new armies.
I've got two reasons to start building some historical armies. First is we decided to do a Historical escalation league - and while I'm running the league I also plan on participating. The second is, that as a pathfinder, I want to be able to do demos of the historical rules - and to do that I need two 1000 pt armies.
I want armies that would logically be fighting - so it really wouldn't work to have Spartans and Aztecs as the demo forces, as these groups never met and clashed, being from completely different parts of the world and different ages.
I'm not a big history buff (even though my Dad was a professor of History and Political Science), so it took a bit of looking to see what forces would work.
One early idea was Crusaders vs Army of Islam - but unfortunately there was not Army of Islam in the book (I have heard that they are working on this as it is a glaring hole - and the nice thing about the format of the book is they can easily put out a 1-2 page PDF to solve this.
Another idea (still on the table for later) would be Conquistadors v Aztecs - a classic confrontation. However my initial search did not find any miniatures for this era.
Perry Brothers has some really nice stuff, but they seemed to me to be concentrating more on civil war and War of the Roses. While the War of the Roses makes sense - the two sides of this are basically identical - and I wanted the forces to be different from each other.
I have been looking at the Fire Forge range (I do kind of like crusaders), which has some nice Teutonic and Templar knights - but their Islam range is just not there yet - they have archers and heavy infantry (but they are $2.00 a piece - making building an army of them would be pretty pricey).
The other name I had heard was Warlord Games - and they have their own historical game "Hail Ceasar". Their starter set for that is Celts v Romans. Looking at the lists, models and prices, I thought that could be a classic historical battle. The Celts (Barbarians in KoW:H) would be hordes of fighters, while the Romans would be fewer, elite units.
I built a Celt list based on their Celt army (and easy army now has a Kings of War Historical version - check it out at kowh.easyarmy.com) - and it nicely came to 1000 pts.
This still leaves 10 pts in the final list.
The Romans are fewer, elite units
I've got two reasons to start building some historical armies. First is we decided to do a Historical escalation league - and while I'm running the league I also plan on participating. The second is, that as a pathfinder, I want to be able to do demos of the historical rules - and to do that I need two 1000 pt armies.
I want armies that would logically be fighting - so it really wouldn't work to have Spartans and Aztecs as the demo forces, as these groups never met and clashed, being from completely different parts of the world and different ages.
I'm not a big history buff (even though my Dad was a professor of History and Political Science), so it took a bit of looking to see what forces would work.
One early idea was Crusaders vs Army of Islam - but unfortunately there was not Army of Islam in the book (I have heard that they are working on this as it is a glaring hole - and the nice thing about the format of the book is they can easily put out a 1-2 page PDF to solve this.
Another idea (still on the table for later) would be Conquistadors v Aztecs - a classic confrontation. However my initial search did not find any miniatures for this era.
Perry Brothers has some really nice stuff, but they seemed to me to be concentrating more on civil war and War of the Roses. While the War of the Roses makes sense - the two sides of this are basically identical - and I wanted the forces to be different from each other.
I have been looking at the Fire Forge range (I do kind of like crusaders), which has some nice Teutonic and Templar knights - but their Islam range is just not there yet - they have archers and heavy infantry (but they are $2.00 a piece - making building an army of them would be pretty pricey).
The other name I had heard was Warlord Games - and they have their own historical game "Hail Ceasar". Their starter set for that is Celts v Romans. Looking at the lists, models and prices, I thought that could be a classic historical battle. The Celts (Barbarians in KoW:H) would be hordes of fighters, while the Romans would be fewer, elite units.
I built a Celt list based on their Celt army (and easy army now has a Kings of War Historical version - check it out at kowh.easyarmy.com) - and it nicely came to 1000 pts.
- 6 Regiments of Warriors
- 1 Regiment of Light Cavalry w/ Woad (gain Fury)
- 2 Troops of Archers
- General
This still leaves 10 pts in the final list.
The Romans are fewer, elite units
- Heavy Warriors Regiment w/Rotate ranks (Iron Resolve) - Legionaries
- Heavy Warrior Regiment w/Testudo (Foulkon(2)) - Legionaries
- Praetorian Guard[1] Regiment
- Praetorian Cavalry Regiment
- 2 Small Bolt Throwers - Scorpions
- General on Horse
- Eagle Bearer[1]
this comes in at exactly 1000 points. No only that - but there are almost exactly half as many Romans as there are Celts - the Barbarians are 151 models, while the Romans are 74 models. The Romans are Me 3+ and De 5+, while the Celts are Me 4+ and De 4+. But I am expecting the numbers to balance out the skill.
So far I have the Praetorian Guard, which my wife got me for my birthday (though it had been opened and the Marcus Aurelius figure is missing - so we'll see how that gets resolved through Amazon). My sons also ordered me the Celt army (and got a shipment notification today (and they even paid for express shipping!)). Top that off with finishing my friends Basileans as Crusaders - and I've got a couple of busy months ahead.
One last thing - a couple of friends and I have been talking - and we were only aware of the sites I mentioned, plus Gripping Beast. We knew there were others out there, because there were pictures in the book. So I thought to look in the credits - and there were all the web sites for the pictures / models. I thought I would list some companies URLs here to make it easier to source historical armies
Because it is all fun and games . . .
Reading your post when you mentioned Arabs I immediately thought of Gripping Beasts Plastic range, but you already went there! Another good option (and the one I'm taking) is http://www.victrixlimited.com They have elephants and Greek cavalry on the way. I think you have chosen two great starter armies though and I look forward to seeing how they come together.
ReplyDeleteWorth trying Hail Caesar in its own right, maybe.
ReplyDelete