Comments on: Rise of Rome Review

By: SSG Robinson

SSG Robinson — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:04:49 +0000

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.

By: Coyote

Coyote — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:51:09 +0000

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.

By: John Smith

John Smith — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:28:44 +0000

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,

By: John

John — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:24:41 +0000

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