Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

Fellow Warriors

Well, we were at 249 members today and just as we were poised to hit 250 we
lost someone. I can't help think it might have been out of frustration at
the amount and tone of recent mails. So, here's the plan:

Once a thorny rules issue gets to about exchange #3, I am going to take the
perps offline and work it there (meaning my personal and those involved with
the issue) and come back to the group once we have a solution.

Please assist other members by making sure the subject line of your mails is
as descriptive as possible. So they know when to delete us, of course. :)

If you think there is an issue with the rules, pictures and *especially* your
recommended fix should be included, preferably with the very first mail. The
old problem-solution thing.

Thanks
Jon


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 4/24/2002 05:59:27 Central Daylight Time,
gbk@... writes:


> If anyone had the time to respond and explain how Warrior would give me the
> answer to my gaming problems that would be great.
>
> Thanks - Gerard
>

Gerard,
Warrior has only been out for two months. And it is based on a game engine
played by many players for several years (effectively the 70's) but is quite
subtly different from the rules that game engine comes from. These two
things are causing some slight growing pains, which I am confident will melt
away in a short time.
Already, offline from the group, Don Coon and I have worked out what was
really only a miscommunication between us that was easily solved through the
use of pictures of what he was talking about. Unfortunately, I let that
discussion go on too long before we got to that point. I will fix that.
I would also tell you, from long experience in the Ancients hobby, that there
is NO rules set where the company is as responsive to the needs of its
players as we are at FHE.
So, I'm your guy. Tell me what you want and need to know about Warrior. I
sure want to keep you. :)

Jon


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[joncleaves]

Tom, I saw Tony Figlia at Cold Wars. Boy I actually do miss those Graf
cons.....


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jon,

this mail may just have prevented the loss of another member of the group...

However, I am concerned about the number of questions and disagreements about
the rules.

Currently I am trying to decide on a set of ancient rules that will give me and
the group that I play with the things we want from a game.

The idea of a well written, easy to understand set of rules is what interested
me in Warrior.
Myself and the group that I play with are not competition players, we play for
fun and history.
What I want is a set of rules where I can reach a point of not having to always
read the rules and argue about them in order to play.

I have not played Warrior and am still deciding whether to buy a copy or not...

all the various mails recently have started to make feel that they may not
address the things I want to get from gaming in ancients.

If anyone had the time to respond and explain how Warrior would give me the
answer to my gaming problems that would be great.

Thanks - Gerard

>
> From: JonCleaves@...
> Date: Wed 24/Apr/2002 05:15 CEST
> To: WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [WarriorRules] Membership and issues
>
>

> The idea of a well written, easy to understand set of rules is what
interested me in Warrior.
> Myself and the group that I play with are not competition players,
we play for fun and history.
> What I want is a set of rules where I can reach a point of not
having to always read the rules and argue about them in order to play.
>
> I have not played Warrior and am still deciding whether to buy a
copy or not...
>
> all the various mails recently have started to make feel that they
may not address the things I want to get from gaming in ancients.
>
> If anyone had the time to respond and explain how Warrior would
give me the answer to my gaming problems that would be great.
>
> Thanks - Gerard
>

Gerard,
I feel for you. I have been there. But, here is a caution...What
you seek exists but it is going to require a little work up front for
you to get used to whatever rules you choose. A second caution,
something I have experienced...once you play Warrior you will be
forever changed. Let me explain briefly.
I was introduced to this gaming system sometime around 1985. Some
on this list may remember Graf Germany, the sound of artillery rounds
falling in the background, Tony Figlia running weekend long games of
Empire III. I moved and over the years tried whatever the local
gaming community was interested in. Tactica, Armati, Fast Play
Ancients, DBM, DBA, Archon, and Warhammer Ancients. I always found
myself coming back to this system. All of those other games are fun
in their own way. The authors each have their own areas of focus but
none of them felt right in comparison to Warrior. I always felt as
if there was something missing.
Warrior is a robust system. It has some absolutely outstanding
game theory basics. Morale is key, you do not always get to do
exactly what you want with your troops, command and control are
improtant to succeed at both of the above, you are not constrained by
having to set up in "battle lines" but the results if you don't can
be catastrophic. Sure it has some compromises that sometimes make
you scratch your head. However, these compromises seem right and do
not sacrifice the right feel of ancient warfare for playability. The
discussion on this list is a forum for discussing these compromises.
I appreciate the level of thought and discussion that this community
puts into these discussions. I have asked questions in other forums
regarding other rules systems and have not received anything like
what I get here. I often believe that some of the other systems,
when faced with a need for a compromise simply asked what is the
easiest thing to do. I think the Warrior authors asked how do we
make this playable but not sacrifice a close simulation of what
ancient warfare was like.

My two censt.

Tom Keegan

[scott holder]

The idea of a well written, easy to understand set of rules is what
interested me in Warrior.Myself and the group that I play with are not
competition players, we play for fun and history.What I want is a set of
rules where I can reach a point of not having to always read the rules
and argue about them in order to play.

>Gerard: Hi. Please hit our web site at
www.fourhorsemenenterprises.com for some background as to why we're
doing what we're doing.

>I don't think you'll find a long-term set of rules that you don't need
to refer to from time to time. Yes, a simple set of rules need little
consultation but as Tom referred to earlier, those gaming systems seem
to result in the "same" game time after time. Please everybody, I'm not
slamming *anybody's* ancients system, lord knows I've played and
playtested many over the years. But, there *is* something that brings
people back to Warrior and I've always felt it was the intellectual
challenge associated with the game and the never-ending stream of
tactical situations that result from each battle.

>You will need to consult the rule book, especially at first, because
this is not a simple set of rules. There are nuances and subtlety that
those of us playing since 5th edition daze are *still* picking up. But,
I can tell you from Fast Warrior games is that once you know the basics
of the system, you really don't need to refer to the rules. Getting to
that point *does* take some time and many many games to play. But, I
have a good example from this past weekend. One of my travel buddies, a
former 7th ed player but he abandoned that shortly after DBM (aka 8th,
9th, and 10th Edition) was released. Has never played the game since.
I set up a Fast Warrior game Thu night, his Skythians against my Ancient
Spanish. We played the game in less that two hours and at the end of it
he said "it's all coming back to me." Now will he play again? Probably
not since he's looking for something else in ancients play. But, I
bring this up to hammer in the point that once you know the system, even
after 7+ years of not playing, it's tough to dislodge it from your
brain.

>This complexity notwithstanding, you will find the logic flow of
Warrior easy to follow and as well as could be done, it is very well
written. That's one thing the recent debate on "fit" has hidden, mainly
that the rules are overwhelmingly cross-referenced and clearly written.
When I entered into this partnership with Jake, Jon, and Bill, it was my
intention to rewrite the rules. I'm very very very glad I did not. The
only thing "missing" is an index and I'm working that angle as well.

>As Jon stated, you won't find many rules groups as responsive as this
one, particularly from the author(s) of the various components. Jon and
I have the unique position of being author and "implementor" in terms of
the writing and umpiring (there's some odd symbiotic relationship that I
think helps in the development of the rules themselves). Plus you have
myself and Bill as the List dudes who can attempt to answer questions
about what we've done and where we are going.

Whew.

Scott
List Horseman

I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but to me, it would appear that
the majority, not all, of the queries regarding the rules that have been
raised, are due to not actually reading the rules and seeing what it is
that they say, but trying to interpret them to see what it is that they
mean. This may be a throw back to that 'other' set, when that was the
norm and is what caused that 'other' set to be abandoned by the majority
of gamers here in England. It is probably best if 'Warrior' is taken as
a brand new set of rules and read and used as such, not assuming that
there are only minor changes from that 'other' set and that we know them
and only have to find the differences. This last bit has been said
before and is very hard to do as long time gamers know where the rules
derived from and quite often assume things from the rules which are not
there.
Thats my two penneth anyway.
Keep up the good work.

Les

gbk@... wrote:

> Jon,
>
> this mail may just have prevented the loss of another member of the
> group...
>
> However, I am concerned about the number of questions and
> disagreements about the rules.
>
> Currently I am trying to decide on a set of ancient rules that will
> give me and the group that I play with the things we want from a game.
>
> The idea of a well written, easy to understand set of rules is what
> interested me in Warrior.
> Myself and the group that I play with are not competition players, we
> play for fun and history.
> What I want is a set of rules where I can reach a point of not having
> to always read the rules and argue about them in order to play.
>
> I have not played Warrior and am still deciding whether to buy a copy
> or not...
>
> all the various mails recently have started to make feel that they may
> not address the things I want to get from gaming in ancients.
>
> If anyone had the time to respond and explain how Warrior would give
> me the answer to my gaming problems that would be great.
>
> Thanks - Gerard
>
> >
> > From: JonCleaves@...
> > Date: Wed 24/Apr/2002 05:15 CEST
> > To: WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [WarriorRules] Membership and issues
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> WarriorRules-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[joncleaves]

Les said

<<It is probably best if 'Warrior' is taken as a brand new set of rules and read
and used as such, not assuming that
there are only minor changes from that 'other' set and that we know them and
only have to find the differences.>>

I could not agree more.

In addition, based on our experience at Cold Wars, quite often a simple literal
reading of a rule was all it took. I did my best to make the text as literal as
possible, and think I succeeded *enough* that just reading them literally solved
95% of any issues.

<<Thats my two penneth anyway.>>

And an important 2 pence it is....

Jon

> >I don't think you'll find a long-term set of rules
> that you don't need
> to refer to from time to time. Yes, a simple set of
> rules need little
> consultation but as Tom referred to earlier, those
> gaming systems seem
> to result in the "same" game time after time.
> Please everybody, I'm not
> slamming *anybody's* ancients system, lord knows
> I've played and
> playtested many over the years. But, there *is*
> something that brings
> people back to Warrior and I've always felt it was
> the intellectual
> challenge associated with the game and the
> never-ending stream of
> tactical situations that result from each battle.

I, as a non-dice-luck-kinda-guy, would speculate that
what brought me back has more to do with the capasity
of the 7th, errr Warrior, gamers rather than any rules
complexity. I still play DBM, but I was near enough
to the top at one point to realize that it requires
only a narrow set of doctrinal tactics in order to be
successful consistently. Warrior, and it's presedent
numerically named system, offer something more. So to
make a clearer statement, it is the diverse tactical
doctrine and the caliber of player. My opinion here,
not logic.

boyd


=====
Wake up and smell the Assyrians

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Guys,

thanks for the several positive responses that were sent out...

I think I will order the rules and have a closer look - especially knowing that
there are friendly people available to help & explain stuff.

Thanks - Gerard
----- Original Message -----
From: JonCleaves@...
To: WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 12:50 PM
Subject: Re: [WarriorRules] Membership and issues


In a message dated 4/24/2002 05:59:27 Central Daylight Time,
gbk@... writes:


> If anyone had the time to respond and explain how Warrior would give me the
> answer to my gaming problems that would be great.
>
> Thanks - Gerard
>

Gerard,
Warrior has only been out for two months. And it is based on a game engine
played by many players for several years (effectively the 70's) but is quite
subtly different from the rules that game engine comes from. These two
things are causing some slight growing pains, which I am confident will melt
away in a short time.
Already, offline from the group, Don Coon and I have worked out what was
really only a miscommunication between us that was easily solved through the
use of pictures of what he was talking about. Unfortunately, I let that
discussion go on too long before we got to that point. I will fix that.
I would also tell you, from long experience in the Ancients hobby, that there
is NO rules set where the company is as responsive to the needs of its
players as we are at FHE.
So, I'm your guy. Tell me what you want and need to know about Warrior. I
sure want to keep you. :)

Jon


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Don Coon]

> However, I am concerned about the number of questions and disagreements
about the rules.

This game is still relatively new, and a shakedown period is to be expected.
Trust me. These rules are VERY clean. The disagreements you are seeing is
smoothing out little wrinkles. The game plays fine.

> The idea of a well written, easy to understand set of rules is what
interested me in Warrior.
> Myself and the group that I play with are not competition players, we play
for fun and history.
> What I want is a set of rules where I can reach a point of not having to
always read the rules and argue about them in order to play.

Any game that simulates real life combat will be by necessity, complex.
There will be bumps that your group will experience. This forum is a great
way to get over them more quickly.

> I have not played Warrior and am still deciding whether to buy a copy or
not...

I highly recommend it.

> If anyone had the time to respond and explain how Warrior would give me
the answer to my gaming problems that would be great.

Again, there is going to be a certian investiture of time required on your
part to learn the game. There are concepts that will take a small effort to
get a handle on. As you get more games under your belt, you will be amazed
how easy the game plays.

Don

[Kelly Wilkinson]

Gerard,
Welcome aboard! I know you'll not be disapointed!
The Four Horsemen are all decent guys and I know that
at least 2 are gentlemen by an act of congress! All
kidding aside, I think you will discover that you've
hitched on to a great bunch of guys that will support
their system! Glad to have you with us!

Kelly Wilkinson

"Back on Lurking Mode"

(Blah, Blah, Blah!)

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