I had one of those ebay impulse bids the other day and ended up winning a copy of Warmaster Ancients. It looks really good as a quick and fun set of rules. I also like 10mm as a scale, so put the two things together and it could be a project for next year? Oh dear...
I was thinking of using the Anglo Saxon, Norman and Viking lists as a model for specific armies, basing the troop types and composition on the lists in the Shieldwall WAB book. This includes lists for the various AS kingdoms, the Welsh / West Welsh, the Irish, Scots, Danes, Norse etc, giving proportional figures for the relative mix of troops and units within each army.
It shouldn't be difficult to convert these over to the Warmaster format? On his Warmaster site, Rick Priestley even has a couple of relevant lists, including an early Saxons and early Danes:
I quite like the idea of mid-Saxon battles i.e. late 8th to early 10th century. There are some interesting and varied armies e.g. West Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian, Welsh, Strathclyde, Cornish (West Welsh), Danish, Irish and so on...
There are also some humdinger historical battles like Brunanburh (937) Ashdown (871) and Hengestdun (838). The location of the latter is only a mile or so from my parent's house in East Cornwall, so I've always had an interest in replaying it.
Heh - you will never look back after you have tried Warmaster.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, it is a very enjoyale and pleasing ruleset that have so far never let me down.
If you should have any questions or want to read some battle reports just head on over to my blog which is entirely devoted to all things Warmasterian :-).
(http://www.warmasterdk.blogspot.com/)