WFB using Warhammer Ancient Battles Roman army.

[Deathscythe91]

I've got a nice sized roman 28mm army by warlord games and I am curious how well they can be used in WFB. Warhammer Ancient Battles is pretty much a historical port of WFB 5th? Or so without magic. I am wondering if anyone has ever tried it or have any advise about running my roman army in WFB.

[Mr Mystery]

I reckon you'd get on well using The Empire as a rules template.

It's not exact seeing as it represents a more Napoleonic era, but the infantry certainly match.

Really depends on what you have in your force :)

Actually.....scratch that.

High Elves might be your thing. Highly disciplined on the battlefield, has units of spear armed Fast Cavalry, Archers, light Chariots (which don't function as historical ones did!) plus heavy infantry. Seems fairly Romanesque to my mind.

[Zaonite]

I've seen a Roman Army press ganged into playing as Empire. Works quite well. Base sizes are the same. I don't see a problem! :D

[Katharon]

Warlords.com my man. They have the best models for the best price and amount.

[Katharon]

I reckon you'd get on well using The Empire as a rules template.

It's not exact seeing as it represents a more Napoleonic era, but the infantry certainly match.

Really depends on what you have in your force :)

Actually.....scratch that.

High Elves might be your thing. Highly disciplined on the battlefield, has units of spear armed Fast Cavalry, Archers, light Chariots (which don't function as historical ones did!) plus heavy infantry. Seems fairly Romanesque to my mind.

Empire is certainly not Napoleonic. More like War of the Roses or Wars of Succession (think 3 Musketeers).

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Either way the only issue I've come across is scale, a lot of these ancients minis aren't heroic scale and they look puny when going toe to toe with fantasy armies. But that's a personal gripe rather than a reason not to.

[Theblackprince]

The scale is a little different but you can do a few things to build up your bases and it becomes hard to tell. I'm working on a samurai army myself. I would love to see some Romans on the board.

[Mars Ultor]

If this thread is relevant to anyone still, I have a good deal of experience between the (now defunct but available) Warhammer Ancient Battles and Fantasy. I've been giving this some thought because I'd like to do a "Beyond the Wall", kind of Hadrian's Wall with the George R.R. Martin theme with Orcs and Undead. The problem is not base size certainly or really even scale of the Warlord's minis, as the Italians were known to be shorter than Celts or Germans. The real problems, as I see them are:

1. Anything with T4 (or higher!) is going to give your Romani a problem, as just about everything in your army is a S3 (well, not your pila - and those can be devastating on the charge, but they are worked out in HTH instead of shooting). Scorpios and balistae would help.

2. Points costs are not well matched up: basic Orc 5 pts who is T4 is probably pretty hard to handle in HTH when it comes to the gladius. And a Black Orc? Something about 12 pts that's a killing machine with WS, S, T all 4 vs. your Roman who is 17 pts. with heavy armor and large shield. It's a close call. If any army is built to stand against a fantasy army, it would be the ROmans. But I think that you'll be relying heavily on your legionaires and auxilia won't hold up very well. Cataphracts will probably be a necessity.

3. Magic - I'd suggest using Empire magic if you're going to use magic at all. Call the Lore of Heavens wizard a priest of Juppiter, Light = priest of Apollo, Death = Hades, and so on.

4. You should be able to make rules like Drilled and Testudo work with no problem. But if you have horse archers then you'll have to figure out if you want to use WFB light cavalry rules or keep the ones from WAB (somewhat different).

I'd suggest trying a game and adjusting the points of your soldiers accordingly. Hope that helps, and I'll probably be trying it myself!