How game design impacts unit choice
Oathmark is an interesting fantasy miniature game. For the most part each army in the game has access to the same types of units. A Dwarf Warrior has different stats than an Orc Warrior but they are essentially the same class. A more heavily armoured troop with a hand weapon and shield. This differentiates them from the Soldier, which has lighter armour and a shield, as well as the Linebreaker, which has heavy armour and a two-handed weapon. There are some monsters and army-specific creatures that you can add to your force but, for the most part, the armies in Oathmark use the same tools as each other. You are playing Oathmark because of the activation and combat systems and not for the chrome of distinct units.
I have been thinking about this aspect of Oathmark for the last week as I have been deciding what to do with some of the Undead models I have. The Necropolis Undead army I purchased has quite a few models that I can’t really shoehorn into an Oathmark force except by having them ‘count as’ a different monster or creature. I have Desert Scorpions, Mummy Vultures, Crypt Serpents, multiple Sphinx and Sand Wurms. None of these can be used in Oathmark without coming up with my own stats. And I am not sure that I would really want to bring them into Oathmark as they seem to break one of the underlying assumptions about the game. It isn’t about what type of troops that you have but how you use them.
The Mummified Undead army for Age of Fantasy Regiments has stats for almost all of those units and, if I wanted to subscribe, an army building tool to let me create stats for the rest of them. Interestingly, if I translate my Oathmark army to Age of Fantasy Regiments I am left with a decidedly unappealing army. It seems bland and lacking and there is more to it this than just the difference between a high and low fantasy environment.
Age of Fantasy, and its variant games, was originally intended to be a way for people to use their Warhammer Fantasy armies with a simpler set of rules. So it has a single, and direct, design goal - Warhammer Fantasy but simpler. So if the Khemri army in Warhammer had a unit then the Age of Fantasy Mummified Undead army had it as well. The same concept applies to the unit and character upgrades that are in each army list. As far as I can see, there is no independent criteria that is informing what units and upgrades are in an Age of Fantasy army other than this.
As an aside, there are differences in the army lists for Age of Fantasy Skirmish and Age of Fantasy Regiments. The size of the units and and the rule systems have made it necessary to limit some units and unit upgrades in those games.
Special rules
Warhammer Fantasy has always, to me, seemed to be more about smashing huge armies of characterful models and monsters at each other and seeing whose special rules were better. Which is why I was always left feeling that I lost my games of Warhammer because I didn’t deploy my units to avoid a charge or forgot what special rules an enemy character had that would invalidate my troops. And while Age of Fantasy doesn’t have it, I have thought that Games Workshop’s rules development was always coming out with a new army that was ‘rock’ and turned every other army into ‘scissors’. Age of Fantasy has fixed much of this by limiting the number of special rules in the game and also making them much more generic.
Oathmark has simplified the application of most of the special rules by using them to represent aspects of units that are typically visually distinct. The troops with pointy spears will slow down a charge. The fellows with heavy armour are harder to hit than the fellows with none. The unit with shields can use them to reduce your attack dice. You can look at a unit and typically see what it will do when you attack it or it attacks you. Nothing about a miniature used in Warhammer or even in Age of Fantasy will tell you that it is Fearless when a visually similar unit is not. For instance, the High Elf Swordmasters, Lion Knights and Phoenix Guard all look like heavy weapon bearing models but they all have distinct special rules with, to my mind, nothing to visually inform you of that.
Characters
Oathmark also has character models but they are not individually overpowering and come into their own via the Command(x) ability which helps them make it easier to activate units as well as activate multiple units. In Age of Fantasy Regiments you can have a large line of troops that will be responsive and activate when you want them to. In Oathmark that may only work if you have troops with a high Activation stat. In other cases, like Goblins and Orcs, you will have to add characters with the Command(x) ability along your line to keep your force moving.
The positioning of kings and generals in AoF Regiments is impacted by the type of rules that the character has. Those characters typically have special attacks or rules that make them, or their unit, more effective in combat or a mount that gives them similar effects. Characters can apply buffs or debuffs to troops which limit the positions that they are deployed into.
Oathmark characters have a broader and more generic effect while Age of Fantasy characters are very specific in their application.
Hobby versus campaign
In some respects, the main difference is that Oathmark is focused on a gaming experience while games like Age of Fantasy are focused on a wider hobby experience. You buy interesting looking models, paint them and then take them to the table and create a narrative experience 1. Oathmark sometimes feels like a board game. You have large armies on the table but your focus is on the strategy of the game. Age of Fantasy feels, to me at least, as if it is an over-the-top high fantasy story that has the opportunity for crazy in-game moments where your Undead Giant is taken down by a band of plucky dwarves who are then done in by a Necromancer travelling on a Sphinx. There might not be a lot of strategy in the latter experience but it makes for a fun moment.
The author of Oathmark is, at his core, a developer of campaign games. I suspect that for him the overall story of a campaign is more important than the individual moments in a battle 2. In Oathmark there are more unique and interesting terrain types to add to your campaign Kingdom than there are unique units to add to your army. In contrast, the campaign system in Age of Fantasy is three pages long.
Age of Fantasy is a gaming experience that is based on replicating and reusing the miniatures from a company, Games Workshop, that is in the business of selling miniatures. GW made a lot of fantasy figures and gave them all special rules that made people want to buy them and use them in their games. Oathmark takes a more historical approach and says that your units of two-handed swordsmen is basically the same as your unit of troops with heavy axes. Age of Fantasy follows the GW path and gives them both different special rules so you have a reason to use them and give them a distinct effect on the battlefield.
Having it all
Happily there is no reason why you can’t have it all. In Oathmark there is a Linebreaker unit that is equipped with two-handed weapons. The miniatures for themminiatures for them from North Star have options for two-handed swords as well as axes. Age of Fantasy has a High Elf army list that has Weapon Masters that are equipped with two-handed swords and Lion Warriors that are equipped with axes. Clearly AoF equivalents for the Sword Masters of Hoeth and the Lion Knights of Thrace from Warhammer Fantasy.
I can make units of ten Elf models using the North Star figures with each weapon which gives me a unit of 20 Linebreakers for Oathmark and a unit of 10 Weapon Masters and 10 Lion Warriors for Age of Fantasy. Oathmark doesn’t care what the weapons are in a unit of Linebreakers and Age of Fantasy only cares about the weapon the unit is using and not whether or not it has lion pelts as a fashion accessory.
This unit equivalency quickly fails once we start looking at character models since Oathmark really doesn’t care what your King or General model looks like 3 since it doesn’t have, and can’t get, any abilities different than any other character in the army.
Now none of this would really be an issue if I hadn’t picked up two armies that were filled with units that can’t be used in Oathmark and cry out for a ruleset like Age of Fantasy. Luckily I managed to pick up two forces that can fit into both games easily. Ogres and Chaos Warriors would have been more difficult, if not impossible, to use in Oathmark.