To play Optio you need the following:
- Miniatures (though, sure, you can get away with flats)
- A non-addiction to dice (therapy courses available at a modest fee)
- A love of a game where you are completely in control
- About 2-3 hours spare time for each game
- A good feel for tactical finesse and timing
Then you need the material aids. These are:
- Square grid battlefield with grid squares measuring 10 x 10cm (for standard 15mm stands) but size is flexible depending on the size of your stands. It must be possible to fit two stands side by side with some additional space for the general or commander (see below)
- Ruleset
- Army-specific Reference Sheets
- Generals and Commanders' counters (you could also use individual miniature figures for these)
- Commanders' underbases with orders counters
- Underbases holding Morale, Order/Disorder and Shooting counters
- Orders counters
- Victory track with counters
Let's go through them.
Battlefield
There are various ways of doing this. I used a printed cloth about 2 metres square. You can get them made up at a branding company like this one or this one in the UK, or this one or this one in the US, or this one in South Africa (where I live). Branding companies are plentiful and it won't be difficult to find one near you.
The artwork for the cloth is available for download here.
Alternatively, you can get wargaming tiles like this one (30 x 30 cm which you can divide into 3 x 3 battlefield squares.
Otherwise just make up your own battlefield cloth/tiles. It's not that difficult.
You need a battlefield with a minimum of 8 x 8 battlefield squares though 8 x 16 is ideal.
For terrain you will need rivers, streams, lakes, freestanding trees (and ideally bushes), hills, ploughed land, marsh, etc. For hills you can make up modular hills (composed of sections) like these ones, adapted to a square grid. A lot of ways of killing this cat (with love).
I did a post on how I made Optio hills here.
Ruleset
This I can make available as a pdf for players willing to try the game out. It's complete and fairly polished, with plenty of diagrams. The ruleset is not long, 35 A4 pages with plenty of diagrams and white space, followed by a section on special formations an additional 9 pages long, also replete with diagrams and white space. Please contact me, either here or by email: justinswanton [at]gmail[dot]com
Army Specific Reference Sheets
These you can make up yourself. I'll do a separate post on how to create a reference sheet using supplied Excel and MS Word templates (with a separate pdf of the back of the sheet). You will need to adapt the armies you have using conversion lists from popular rulesets to Optio. There are available on the forum here. I'm working on others but player input is always welcome.
General and Commander Counters
These are customisable and are available as a pdf download here.
Commanders' Underbases with Orders Counters.
Underbases can be made with something magnetic counters can stick to (see this post) like coffee tin sheeting or non-magnetic ferrous sheets. At the limit you can just keep the orders counters with the commanders, ensuring they are orientated correctly with the commander - or use cubes with the correct order number uppermost. Another cat-killing spree. Artwork for counters here.
Underbases holding Morale, Order/Disorder and Shooting Counters
Artwork available here. See this post on how they can be made up.
Orders Counters
Artwork here.
Victory Track with Counters
Artwork here.
...and that's all you need. Happy gaming!
...oh yes, dice. You'll need a couple of dice.
Edit: Question: would players prefer making up the bits and pieces themselves or slapping down money for a ready-made starter kit? I'm thinking Kickstarter....