Today we have Michael Riddick, a good friend of NDNG, who talks about his game Magnum Opus which users in a new way to play ancients miniatures. Even if you do not play this period, you will love Mike’s approach to gaming and writing rules. Find out more in Instagram by looking up magnum_opus_wargaming
by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell
Here we are, at last, with a new version of ‘Hail Caesar‘ by Warlord Games. I hesitate to say ‘Hail Caesar 2‘ or call this book a sequel since even though this is an update to the original book, the main rules remain pretty much the same.
The original Hail Caesar book came out in 2014, and while it’s certainly time for a refresh, you can easily still play Hail Caesar with either book, though the newer one opens up Sieges and Late Medieval, clarifies diagrams, and includes generic scenarios. Let’s dive right in.
By Richard Steer
I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the impact of 3D printing on the historical wargaming hobby. My primary concern has been the threat that printing poses to the local shops and manufacturers who rely on selling products for their livelihoods, and what this means for the future of the hobby as we know it.
Into the middle of one of these periods of reflection, a new kickstarter landed that has reminded me of the huge potential that 3D printing has for growing the hobby: Potbelly Miniatures’ campaign launching a range of 28mm Hellenistic Judeans.
By Paolo Paglianti
Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) revives one of the best ranges of “ancient” miniatures, the long time disappeared Corvus Belli. Let’s see if they are good, unboxing the packs PSC sent to us.
By Paolo Paglianti
For ages, 15mm soldiers have been in metal, as many plastic versions of the soldiers were too flexible, with fewer details and of the wrong scale (1:72). Just a few years ago we began to see 15mm miniatures in hard or soft plastic, specifically for WW2 setting from Battlefront and Plastic Soldier Company (PSC). Now, for “ancient-medieval” Simon Hall’s set of rules, Mortem et Gloriam.
(By the way, ).
The first armies available are Imperial Roman and Gothic barbarian hordes, together with Sassanid and Hunnic: quite a good start for the later Imperial age. Could we miss the opportunity to check them out? So, let’s open the “Pacto starter armies” to see how good they are.
Believe it or not, it’s the first time since I was 16 I haven’t been playing 3D (tabletop miniatures) wargames for 12 weeks. I can’t remember a period so long in which I totally suspended my gaming activity. Even when I got married, or moved from one job to another, or had my newborns, I always managed to sneak in some wargame nights with friends. Probably, a good psychologist could have a say on this, but I am also pretty sure most of you will agree with me.
Even if I am an avid PC gamer (and I also work for a videogame publisher, Slitherine, totally focused on strategy games), I always wanted to play the “physical” game. Collecting the miniatures, painting an army, deploying on the table with a friend and some good beer is something socially unique. For this reason, I never played before the Pandemia. Boys, I did a mistake.
by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell
Wait what? Ancients? Medievals?
I’ll be honest I had ZERO interest in wargaming this period until I started attending HMGS events a few years ago. Every single Cold Wars, Fall-In or Historicon had a lot of tables with ancients being played, and tournaments as well in scales such as 15mm, 25/28mm.
While my only games at the time were Flames of War and then later Team Yankee, I would still walk over and take a tonne of pictures and gawp at the nicely painted armies. What seemed crazy to me was that you could play just about anything and the rules covered it, for example you could have Egyptians vs the Ming Dynasty, Persians vs Aztecs.
As it turns out, my good friend Scott Roach (NDNG author Obsidian23) had boxes and boxes of ancients in his gaming basement, and a deal was struck. I would grab his 28mm Romans, and we could play Hail Caesar as we were already getting into Black Powder (both rulesets from Warlord Games). Then, however, he started talking about DBA, Impetus, To the Strongest, and at the HMGS events they were playing L’Art de La Guerre… Ugh.. what to pick?
