Yep, lately I have been positively surprised by several manufacturers starting to produice quality plastics for Ancients. Will improve the hobby a lot, I am certain, since until now the rather high prices of all metal armies were rather offputting for newcomers.
Warlord games is one such company, they have Romans, Celts and Vikings as well. Wargames Factory too. Victrix is great for Napoleonics and Zulu Wars and of course, Perry, the best miniatures on the market (they used to be the main GW Fantasy sculptors) have ACW, Napoleonics but have also recently launched their first medieval range: Wars of the Roses. A bit late for our scope, but awesome quality and at 15 GBP for 36 model a dream for eventual Bretonnian players. And then there is HAT who bring out some cheap El Cid models, very accurate as it happens, but rather static and of poorer quality, however, they come in plastic at 8 GBP for 40 models, so quite attractive especially for newcomers and perfectly fitting our period.
Regarding Efty's assumption that I have my little obsession with the Dark Ages, I don't really, but since there are 3 people with 28mm armies from that period, it would be a pity for newcomers to start with periods that are totally incompatible, it leads to silly games and eventually frustration since balance between ages is not very good.
But I DO own 2 armies in 20 mm plastics for Antiquity, Republican Romans and Macedonians, Andrei has Greeks and Carthagians and there is a big Persian army belonging to Razvi as well. We used to play a lot, especially ROmans vs Carthagians, but to be honest 28 mm is rather cooler, especially for people to get a start and actually start buying some armies. This is why I am such an advocate of creating at least a core of people (5-10) who can play against eachother, and the Dark Ages provide the most variety and the most supplements: Northern Europe, Britain, Western Europe, Spain, Italy, North Africa, Greece, Russia, Asia Minor, basically everything from Ireland to Jerusalem and from Morocco to RUssia. And they are all decently balanced and well covered. The truth is, ANtiquity still lacks balance and unless you play Romans or Carthagians, MAcedonians or Persians or ROmans or Barbarians, you don't have that many options. To be honest I do not see many people starting a Ligurian or a Palmyran army, or an Indian one... Depending on which antiquity age you chose, you only have 2 options and this is not that great. And for those who would love Samurai, they almost never fought against anything else but other Japanese or Koreans... Also not that practical for forming a core group.
3000 Pts is a lot, but again, it depends. If you want something remotely epic, you can't achieve it with 3 units a side. Troops are significantly more expensive than in Fantasy. Anyway, this means nothing since nobody forces you to buy all your army at once, we all use or used proxies at some stage, until we can build that army. But one needs to start somewhere.
Again, I agree Ancient Battles works for many periods, but apart from the Dark Ages, no period gives you more than 3 attractive options. There are several supplements, and you can clearly see that the Dark Ages are by far the best represented in options and balance:
Chariot Wars - Biblical Age. Not that attractive imo. Israelites, Egyptians, Sumerians... Perhaps could provide some fun games, but it was a very weak book, one of the first they got out and it really never caught on. I really don't see players starting this kind of armies and miniatures are also a pain to come by.
Alexander - Great book, 2 excellent armies, but that is it. Macedonians are amazing and they score very high in tournaments, but for fun their only real opponent would be the Persians. And when you try to get a third player, he can chose between Skythians and Indians. Would you like to have to chose between Skythians and Indians ?
Hannibal - Same story, excellent book provided you only have 2 players (which is why we bought 20 mm armies when only ANdrei and I played WAB), but a third player really has very little options that would not lead to frustration at being hammered by either Romans or Carthagians. Celtiberians, Ligurians, Early CElts ? Really ?
This problem would be somewhat fixed by the long-awaited "Successors" book, dealing with Alexander's successors in the Eastern Mediterranean, and which would provide the ROmans and Carthagians with some worthy opponents, but unfortunately no such book exists yet.
Spartacus - Romans (with limited options) and Slaves. And that's it, and you can't even really combine them with anything else since the ROman armies in the book are limited to the Italian Penninsula.
WAB Manual - Imperial Romans and Barbarians. Again, 2 options and that's it, to cover a large timeframe (1st Century BC - 4th Century AD). A third player would have to chose among these 2 same options and he probably would not buy an army since he could use his friend's miniatures who already has ROmans / Barbarians.
Age of Arthur - Good Book, very attractive, but again in an age and area which can only accomodate 3 players, more would have to start buying the same armies and modify slightly, but that would be it. I love this period, but I sadly find it impractical for creating the basis of a larger group. Perhaps later I will make an Early Angle or Saxon army to pit against ROmano-British
. I would very much love to.
Armies of Chivalry - Armies from all across Medieval Europe, starting with the 13th Century. I worked on this book and I can tell you it's a load of crap. Armies are untested, no unified view was adopted, every author just submitted whatever his mind thought an army should look like and that was it. No balance, no fun, no nothing, stay away until they bring real supplements, not one-pagers.
Vlad the Impaler - Great Book
. The best, of course. Kidding. It's okay, but again Eastern Europe is not THAT cool, you can play Turks, you can play Romanians and perhaps Hungarians but that's it. And miniatures are VERY HARD to come by.
And then we have the Dark Ages, covered by 3 Books, all of which are very well written and balanced. YOu have Shieldwall, El Cid and Byzantium, giving you a load of options and due to the migratory nature of the period, armies from all 3 actually DID fight eachother. Arabs and Vikings fought virtually against everybody in the 3 books and you can find plausible scenarios for almost any combo of lists, unless you insist on playing Welsh or Bulgarians. Didn't think so. But here we have at least 6 or 7 good armies players can chose from and still have variation and attractive, balanced games. Vikings, Saxons, Franks (with great variety between the lists), Moors, Spanish, Byzantines, Russians and Arabs are all very good lists and not merely there to make up the numbers like most secondary lists in antiquity books. You can try your luck with Irish or Italians or Turks even and still come out on top of ANY encounter.
This is why I think that at the moment the Dark Ages provide the best period to game. They are very flexible, have many options and variety and the lists are good, fun and well balanced. And because they are the Dark Ages, chaos ruled and chaos enables us to twist historical fact that bit more in order to allow more match-ups that would not seem absurd. The beauty of the Dark Ages for historical gamers is that you could have almost anyone fight against anyone, there was almost nothing an ambitious leader could achieve and thus entertainment is guaranteed.
Whoa, wrote a bit. I hope I could make my case clear and explain a little why I prefer this timeframe for players who are interested in buying their first army. Afterwards, the possibilities are of course endless. But the hard truth is, Samurai will forever be confined to that poor island of theirs, waiting in vain for interesting peoples to come and fight them. None came until the 19th Century and when they did, the Samurai failed abysmally. And Romans were wonderful, but they achieved the Pax Romana which is of course a blow for WARgames enthusiasts
. We thrive in war, invasions and chaos.
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