Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Tom McMillan]

***Warrior is an historical miniatures game. Having the wrong figs,
bad-looking figs, unpainted figs and/or bad-looking terrain is counter
to our
company
philosophy (which, in this regard, is the same as the rest of the
miniatures
hobby). A player would not be allowed to play with just element bases
representing a unit - we don't think he should be playing with a piece
of BDU
cloth
with no trees on it representing a woods. It looks like hell. It
makes it
very difficult to recruit. It takes away from the hard work of the
opponent
who kills himself to make his army look right only to have the other
guy using
peltasts for aztecs and cardboard for hills.

What I'd like help with is solutions, not more restatements of the
problems.

Thanks!
Jon ****

Could not agree more, in all respects. One of those many chestnuts
bandied about for decades.
The problem is, wargamers being wargamers, that the situation will
not improve unless there is some competetive advantage toward bringing
decent terrain. Currently it is a signifigant disadvantage. You can
bring all sorts of shapes and sizes of felt cloth, but not of nicely
terrained hills.
One idea we tried many years ago was - and bear with me on this, it
was thought through more than first appears- that the TD or someone
rates everyone's terrain from 1-5. if your terrain outscores someone by
3 or more, you get 10% extra troops.
Now before we chime in with the evils of subjectivity, that no one
would want this burden, that it will just annoy people- think about it.
To score 3 better you either need to have truly outstanding stuff and
play someone with poor quality, or have quite nice stuff and play
someone with junk. Still, there is enough of a fear that your opponent
will outdo himself that hills might actually rise out of the ground,
and woods might have foliage. it would take very little effort to
score a 2. Bring average terrain, and your opponent can lay out a
scratch built Forbidden City.
However, frankly, it has been my experience that Warrior and its
precursors were never big on aesthetics. A '3 primary colours' paint
scheme seems almost universal, and many people do not flock bases.
There actually seems to be something of a preference for a 'toy
soldier' look, and terrain has followed pretty much the same mindset. -
Tom.

[Mark Stone]

--- On March 25 Tom said: ---
>
> However, frankly, it has been my experience that Warrior and its
> precursors were never big on aesthetics. A '3 primary colours' paint
> scheme seems almost universal, and many people do not flock bases.
> There actually seems to be something of a preference for a 'toy
> soldier' look, and terrain has followed pretty much the same mindset. -
> Tom.
>

I guess I have to say I'm really quite offended by this.

The last time I saw an unflocked base at Historicon or Cold Wars was more than a
decade ago. By and large the quality of figure painting has gone up over the
years, and we have had some truly outstanding armies on display of late: look
at the Greek army brought by the Toronto boys to Cold Wars last year, or any
army painted by Greg Hauser.

Those who have stuck with the evolving rules system that is now Warrior reflect,
in my opinion, some of the best qualities the miniatures hobby has to offer. We
have a wealth of historical knowledge in this group, however sharply divided
historical opinions may be. The standard of sportsmanship has gone way, way up
in the time that I've been playing, and is much higher than in certain other
rules sets that I'll decline to name.

And to pick on the look of our figures at this point is not just rude, it's
silly. There are some great looking armies out there, and everyone I know
playing at the national level has some concern to see that they are fielding a
good-looking army.

Your view strikes me as a shallow stereotype, outdated, and unproductive to what
as otherwise been quite a productive discussion.


-Mark Stone