This article originally appeared in Pyramid #19

Pyramid Pick

ARMATI

Published by Quantum Printing
Written by Arty Conliffe
$16.95

For the record: I never considered myself an Ancients or Medieval miniatures player. But I wanted to be one. Desperately.

Fifteen years ago, in high school in England, I was painting up Roman legions by the cohort. Then I picked up a copy of Wargames Research Group's 5th edition ancients rules and . . . couldn't understand a word of them. So I packed up my Romans, and waited. And waited. Then, a decade and a half later, Armati came along.

Armati is the opposite of everything non-miniatures players hate about miniatures rules. Armati is clean and concise. It can be picked up after a quick read-through. Its cover is bright and attractive. It's well laid-out with plenty of examples given. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on miniatures to field an army. You'll seldom run up against a rules lawyer. And the rules are written in English.

This last point can't be stressed too strongly. Most Ancients and Medieval miniatures rules — even the so-called "quick-play" ones — seem to be written in some sort of a cross between engineeringese and Swahili. When I tried WRG's 7th edition rules just two years ago, and then De Bellis Multitudinus (DBM), I quickly became bogged down.

But not only is Armati literate, it's a fascinating exploration of warfare in the ancient, medieval and renaissance worlds that could well addict you to the clash of Macedonian phalanxes and thunder of Mongol hoofbeats. . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: May 1, 1996

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