Rise of Rome: Republican Rome at War is the first companion for Osprey/Slitherine’s Field of Glory ancients wargame.
Rise of Rome is the first companion for Osprey and Slitherine’s Field of Glory wargame. The companion focuses mainly on army lists, with enough potted history to break up the large number of lists for the various forces covered in the book. Interestingly, there are more enemies of Rome than Roman army lists in the book.
The book claims that it is complete with Army Lists, Historical Overviews and Maps. I wouldn’t call the selection of maps complete by any stretch, most notably a map of the kingdoms the book covers. There are two maps: the Siege of Alesia and the Battle of Trebbia. Neither are explained in the surrounding text or captioned. The Siege of Alesia is mentioned simply as the culmination of Gaius Julius Caesar’s conquest of the Gauls. The Battle of Trebbia is noteworthy because the book says Hannibal’s elephants all died following it.
Let it not be said that the book fails in its goal, which is to provide army lists for use with the Field of Glory wargame. It does this well. I mentioned that it contains more lists of enemies than it does for Rome. This is a very good thing, as the authors focuses more on a time frame and geography rather than a single nation. If you want to fight a battle around the Mediterranean in the time of Republican Rome you will find an army list to help you out. The lists are clear by Field of Glory standards and are organized by the game line’s signature sidebar.
Like the main rulebook, the companion features many pictures of painted miniatures as well as reprinted plates from past Osprey titles in full colour throughout. There is also an index which performs a similar function to the table of contents in the front, due to each army taking up only 3-6 pages. However, the maps and illustrations are included in the index, if they were ever needed for reference.
The lack of actual historical information is the book’s main failing, though completely excusable and expected. Undoubtedly there are many references available for gamers looking for more information. To pad the book with more detail would have diluted its purpose. However, a better direction may have been to include more details about the troops and less condensed histories. Realistically, for the intents and purposes of fielding a Pontic army, I care more about what a Thureophoroi looked and fought like – the better to find suitable miniatures – than I do about the history of the Pontic people. Personally, I find it much easier to find histories than descriptions of soldiers and equipment.
Weighed objectively, this is a minor quibble over a book which fulfils its stated purpose with style. It is very easy to fill the book with descriptions of soldiers, their equipment, tactics, histories, battles until the point where the book is so bloated it no longer provides an easy reference and must be split into separate volumes each costing $22.95 CAN MSRP. I would rather have all the lists I need for a specific period in a single book rather than a library of books which each merely amount to a page or two of tables.
I say the book is well worth purchasing for all Field of Glory players interested in the period. It gives comprehensive lists for Rome, its allies and enemies.
I am not an expert in this period, but based on the Themed Tournaments appendix, the following lists are missing from the book: Thracian, Syracusan, Galatian, Hellenistic Greek, Ancient British and Early German. I imagine that this is because they are better covered in other books, notably Immortal Fire: The Ancient Greeks at War and Legions Triumphant: Imperial Rome at War. The Field of Glory website lists which armies each book covers.
Next week, more Warhammer Orcs.
Tyler
Thanks for the review. As for the historical stuff, I think it is refreshing to see the essays on the over all events of each nation. This provides historical context of each army, something that most army list books fail to do. If you are a FoG player, the lists themselves are pretty self explanatory. The photos generally give you an idea of what the troops look like so you can make your own educated guess as to what colors they wore.
I really like this book and will probably buy some of the others for source material. I am not an FoG player but I think these will be good resources for other games as well.
John
Nice review. I was intitially very pro FOG. I went through the learning curve and found that I enjoyd the game. But I soon found out that it was nothing more than a tournament game really. I want to fight opponents who my army actually fought against. I couldn’t care less about a Republican Roman army fighting knights.
I see the army lists as a way to propogate the tournament mentality and to force you to buy more of their products as well as more Ospreys at over inflated prices. Why put more pictures in as it would reduce the sales of Ospreys.
I bought the Republican Rome and Greek army lists but cancelled the others I had pre-ordered. I had them all on order at one point. The focus seems to tournament oriented I just had enough. Since I’ll never play in a tournament I can decide the make up of what ever army I want to create a scenario for. I think it very unlikely that armies fought using a point system,
You make some good points John Smith, but I disagree overall. The tournament mentality is also something I oppose and I know I will see it when I play at the local club. I will play without complaint because I also play fantasy and sci-fi.
On the other hand, we choose our opponents, and many, many hobbyists collect paired armies and run scenarios with friends, or if they are very lucky, their friend will collect the opposing army and you can do the same.
These lists are helpful but not essential for this. However, personally, I can buy the books to save me the time of doing the research and playtesting, get an idea of what a balanced scenario is, and then be perfectly happy to throw out the point values for the purposes of a scenario.
I will not be buying all the books, and don’t see why anyone would. Plus, it’s hard to complain that a series of army books promote a-historic enemies when they are organized by period and region. At least they got that right.
I have only read different reviews and I have not had the pleasure to read through the rules and supplements yet. That said I like army lists and point systems and I do not play tournaments. I like the points system and lists for several reasons (1) It allows me to put together a quick army that is close enough in abilities to make for a “fun” fight (2) My opponent may not know anything about the time period (3) I don’t have the time to research all of those time periods and will often want to try new armies for the sake of trying new armies (4) I am very busy and do not have a regular schedule to play nor a group of friends to hang with, I like being able to put together a 1000pt army (or whatever is reasonable for this system) and showing up at the game shop and being able to find somebody to play a game with. Point systems and army lists allow you to do these things. I would love to have the time to do all that research and everything – but I don’t. The army books sounds just like what I need for my hobby interests. I would like to have color art for each unit time with weapon descriptions and tactics. Helps me play the period.