[Review] Age of Hannibal

[Nick the Lemming]

Did a review of those new rules on my blog, which can be found here:

https://nickthelemming.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/review-age-of-hannibal/

Bottom line - now I have to decide how much money I want to spend on yet more Punic Wars figures...

If you're in the market for some simple, quick, but still atmospheric rules for the Punic Wars and similar conflicts, you can't go wrong giving them a try. There are a lot of ancients rules out there, but these ones really stood out to me.

[Steve J]

The link didn't open for me

[lowlylowlycook]

This should be the correct link.

[Nick the Lemming]

Thanks, should be fixed now.

[fsn]

The link didn't open for me

Perhaps you're not worthy? 

[Steve J]

Most definitely unworthy

[Leman]

Bought my copy and was surprised, and pleased , to see how much support material there was to go with the rules including free scenarios, a Punic War scenario book, free paper buildings , a very reasonably priced downloadable paper city walls, towers and gates and discussion of the rules on a number of the Little Wars TV videos.

[Dave Fielder]

There is also a TV version from Little Wars TV for those who don't like words ... http://www.littlewarstv.com/age-of-hannibal1.html
This is a good set of rules

[T13A]

Hi

Just one word of warning - the rules claim that they can be played with units on any similar sized bases - I would take that with a very large pinch of salt. I have used the rules 3 times with friends (based on scenarios from the rules) and with figures based for Impetus and To the Strongest! which means they are all 8cm frontage with various depths depending on unit type. The rules 'recommend' and the author uses 4cm square bases for all unit types (with 6mm figures). I would suggest that the rules, as written, cannot be played properly unless units are based all the same on square bases. I suspect that little or no playtesting was done with units other than those based as the authors. The fact that our units have twice the frontage of those 'recommended' also brings up issues with movement distances and ranges.

That said, bearing in mind they are a 'fast play' set of rules they have some simple and interesting mechanisms and I suspect give a good game if your figures are based as above. For me the problems that came up during play due to the fact that our bases were not square (and not around 4cm to 2" square) means that I will not be using them again.

Just my tuppence worth.

Cheers Paul

[Leman]

Hence the joy of starting from scratch with 6mm figures and 40mm square bases.

[Nick the Lemming]

Hence the joy of starting from scratch with 6mm figures and 40mm square bases.

It's like you saw my order to Baccus and Minibits...

Obviously if you're using 80mm bases, you're going to have to take into consideration ranges and table size. My own Sword and Spear based figures (on 80mm bases) are too big for these rules unless I go for a massive table. There's always the option to count each stand as two units, but that does get a bit messy when one is killed off.

[Dave Fielder]

I think using 80mm width is the problem here, you'll need to double the table size and in order to squeeze a scenario in. Had a similar issue when playing a Bloody Big Battles scenario with troops on a 60mm frontage, the rules worked better with smaller bases (30mm sq for BBB). For Age of Hannibal, those with 40x20mm basing (Warmaster Ancients?) will be able to get a better feel of these rules.

I also played a Warmaster Ancients game last night (Romans v Britons), first time for a few years, rules still pay well and proved easy to remember all the key points.

[Leman]

I play BBB with a mix of single and double sized bases as this speeds game play. Column formation still works with a single base in the lead. My 10mm armies tend to follow the one inch square pattern, but my 6mm are now on 30x20 so they can also be used with the 1871 rules. Going beyond 30mm frontage does make the use of double size bases a little less practical.

[T13A]

Hi

The point I was trying to make was that the rules clearly state:

"All that matters for game-play is that the opposing armies are based in like fashion." (Highlighted as per the rules).

Well all my, and my friends, ancient forces are "based in like fashion" and the rules simply do not work without an awful lot of 'fudging', rather too much for me.


Cheers Paul

[Nick the Lemming]

Hi

The point I was trying to make was that the rules clearly state:

"All that matters for game-play is that the opposing armies are based in like fashion." (Highlighted as per the rules).

Well all my, and my friends, ancient forces are "based in like fashion" and the rules simply do not work without an awful lot of 'fudging', rather too much for me.


Cheers Paul

That's still the case, it's just that you need a larger table of you have larger bases. You can still use the rules as written.