Warhammer Ancient Battles (often referred to as "WAB" and sometimes Warhammer Historical) is a ruleset for miniatures wargames produced by Games Workshop's Warhammer Historical Wargames imprint. It is a rulebook for historical wargames developed from the popular Warhammer Fantasy Battle by Jervis Johnson, Rick Priestly and the Perry brothers.[1]
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Games of Warhammer Ancient Battles model hypothetical battles between historical armies.[2] Battles are fought between armies of miniatures.[3] The game is played on a table laid out with model scenery to look like a battlefield, on which the units of miniatures are maneuvered. Large numbers of Dice are needed to resolve combat and shooting - handfuls of them.[4]
Several of Games Workshop's staff had begun experimenting with using Warhammer rules to play historical games[5] before Warhammer Ancient Battles was written, and Wargames Illustrated magazine included some articles that had been written on the subject. This led to the development of Warhammer Ancient Battles as a spare-time project.[6] It was published under the name "Warhammer Historical Wargames." Based as it was on Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer Ancient Battles served as a bridge for fantasy wargamers to discover historical wargaming but also attracted wargamers who had never played the fantasy version.[7] Games Workshop eventually brought the project back in-house, with Rob Broom running the Warhammer Historical Wargames department that promoted an increasing number of books.
To accusations that the rules were only a throwback to an earlier era of wargaming, Jervis Johnson pleaded guilty. The rules, he said, were intended to be fun and informal, rather than dominated by requirements of super-detailed historical accuracy. And, the designers had rejected the approach of contemporary rule sets as being too abstract.[8]
The game rules were heavily based on the fifth edition of Warhammer, with magic dropped and more detail added for ancient weapons and formations. The two games have developed in different directions since. Modifications to the core rules have been included in some of the more recent supplements. The WAB 2nd edition consciously took the rules even further from its fantasy origins.[9]
Following the success of Warhammer Ancient Battles Warhammer Historical branched out into other areas:
The rules are written for individually based figures and this approach was in marked contrast to the element based rulesets current amongst ancient historical wargames when the rules were first published.[10] Standard bearers, musicians and officer figures are given specific advantages - seen by some as giving the rules more character.[11]
A second edition ruleset was released in April 2010. The revision aimed to encourage linear battle formations and to make flank attacks easier.[12] Changes include allowing cavalry to make march rules despite infantry and capping bonus troops in melee for the number of ranks of the formation to 2.[13] The first edition had had some elements that derived from its origin as a fantasy set and the revision aimed to remove them. Hence, the influence of characters has been reduced.[14] Adrian Goldsworthy approved the changes that encouraged shallow formations (except for phalanxes and others that did fight in deeper formations) but was sceptical about the open order rule which to him smacked of "light heavy infantry" - a wargaming myth in the view of Goldsworthy.[15]
The core rulebook includes army lists for "Early Imperial Roman" and "Barbarian" armies. A range of supplementary books has been released to provide more army lists, each focusing on a particular period and place.
The game is supported by a high-traffic discussion group on Yahoo! Groups, the WABlist, and Warhammer Historical Forums (the former a non-Yahoo message board). In addition another group WABMedievalBattles focuses on the medieval period.
In the UK, Warhammer Historical runs a gaming weekend twice yearly.
Not all players play WAB "out of the box". The historian Adrian Goldsworthy prefers the rules because he finds figure removal a more natural way of recording casualties than is offered by element based rulesets. However, the rules he plays along with his club have a number of additions and he fields an Early Imperial Roman army based on a list that he has devised himself.[17]
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