The Late Roman/Hun match in Tactica is simply the best simulation of a small disciplined force against a light cavalry army that I ever played. But the light cavalry armies are not simulated as well in Armati, as they are in Tactica. I switched to Armati, because it offers more flexibility in troop composition, without being a Chinese menu, like DBM. It is worth picking up for the nifty stand-alone seige skirmish game alone. Medieval Tactica is actually a better game, IMHO, and simulates the period nicely. Yes, it calls for large numbers of figures, but you can scale it down by simply using a unit roster. For good or ill though, it restricts movement similarly to Tactica. If you are determined to play an Arty Conliffe rules set, try Armati instead, it combat system is consideably better. If you can get 'em cheap, buy them to look at. The medieval book includes a cool set of rules for an Italian wars campaign that my friends and I actually adapted successfully to use with DBA rules. Still, both rulebooks are a real delight to look at, absolutely packed with inspirational pictures. In other words, it has about as many maneuver elements as DBA!ĭBA and DBM have much more realistic and elegant systems for resolving combat. The thing is, even though it requires boatloads of figures, they are fielded in enormous units, so most armies have between 9 and say 15 units. If you like that kind of thing, just play WAB, (and I can't stand WAB, so this is a big concession!) because it allows more maneuver, and you are more likely to find opponents. Its a pretty unorginal, representative system involving a lot of dice rolls. I'm not a big fan of Tactica's combat system either. Your initial deployment isn't just crucial, its almost entirely deterministic of who will win. You can do little other than just plow straight ahead. I think Tactica is a less interesting game to play than DBA, DBM, or even WAB because its CnC rules are so restrictive. (Or in some cases, the only historical opponent of an army is itself!) The number of armies is pretty limited as well, even if you get the Tactica army lists expansion.Ī byproduct of this lack of lists and points systems is that to be sure of a fair fight, you can ONLY fight the 2 or 3 historical opponents of each army. By comparison, even most DBA armies have at least a couple choices of troop types. There is no points system, and with a very few exceptions, each army has no options whatsoever. One big minus for most wargamers is that the Army lists are completey fixed. There are guidelines included for using reduced numbers of figures, but you know how people are, they never use these things, and end up instead not playing a game at all. I agree with the others, part of the problem is that if you fielded the armies as recommended, they required huge numbers of figures. I own copies of both Tactica and Tactica Medieval.