Meeples & Miniatures – Episode 140 – To The Strongest
Download Episode 140
Welcome to episode 140 of the Meeples & Miniatures Podcast
In this show, hosts Neil Shuck & Mike Hobbs chat to Simon Miller about his fast-play Ancients mass battle rules: To The Stongest.
We hope you enjoy the show
You can purchase To The Strongest, the chits, victory medals, and download the army lists here
Tales of @NeilTheDwarf 
Guys, sorry about the audio quality on the front and back of this episode – the main interview is OK though
Continued frustrations with audio recording and Skype 7 – we will be switching to Google Hangout again once the current batch of shows has been published
best I try and get G+ hangouts working then
Hey Mike, can you give a bit more detail about activations please. Does a players turn end when a unit fails to activate or does the batton just pass to another of your units? I guess what I’m saying, does one player try to activate his entire army, before the other player does?
Also. for casualties, is it just a draw to hit/save – remove unit, or do units take multiple hits?
Ta
Dave
hi Dave
your army is made up of a number of commands each command has a general and x number of units (usually 6 – 8)
a normal sized army will have 2 -3 commands
so in your turn you choose a command and start activating units, once you fail an activation that command is finished and you choose another command and do the same until you have finished all your activations for all your commands
you can activate units more then once but you cant swap between commands, once you have finished activating units in a command its done you cant go back to that command
with casualties, light units take 1 hit and they are removed, most normal units take 2 and large units take 3, hits can be removed during a turn though as an activation (plus a test)
its very fast, very bloody and really makes you think about the right tactics to play
hope this helps
Mike
That was an interesting episode: I had a look at the playtest set of these rules but got waylaid by Sword & Spear which really grabbed me. The square grid and particularly the cards on the table aspect did put me off – I think it was mentioned that Warbases do an alternative token but I cant actually see that on their website.
In practice is it easy enough to keep track of which units are in which command or is some kind of marker used? I wonder in particular as there was reference to a unit(s) switching flanks.
Finally, the question (perhaps to Mike as I think he has played both) inevitably is, how do these compare play-wise with Sword & Spear? Perhaps it’s unfair to ask before you’ve had a chance to review the latter!
I’ve a feeling they will give different gaming experiences, and suspect “To the Strongest” will be appearing at a table near me very soon….
The chits are available from Simon’s Bigredbat shop. I agree, I much prefer them to playing cards.
As far as keeping track of which units are in which command…you generally need to keep a note, very much in the same way as you do in Impetus or Hail Caesar.
Play wise they are quite different – despite the easier movement rules of S&S, TtS is another step simpler. I find S&S a lot more ‘interactive’ due to the way the dice activation works, and also, to my mind, gives some harder decisions to make. You are also far more likely not to be able to activate units during a turn.
TtS is the quicker game to play.
An enjoyable show. It was interesting to hear about To The Strongest, which sounds like a nice set of rules. I especially like the activation mechanic with its push-your-luck element. I could see it being a great game to introduce non-wargamers to the hobby.