The January war

On January 4th six fellows turned up ready to play a multiplayer ancients game using some rules I'd cobbled together borrowing ideas from various different sources and adding in a few things of my own.

The Roman side was made up of 31 units totalling 162 points.  The left was commanded by Ben, the centre by Nikolai, and the right by the commander-in-chief, Pat.  The Seleucids, with 163 points in 32 units, were led by Luke on the left, Al in the centre and Matt on the right.

The battlefield was set in a plain between two small rivers, the first of which bounded the Roman position  behind the right flank and the second of which was behind the Seleucid right.  There was a prominent hill just right of centre on the Roman side of the field and a smaller one on the Roman left.  The Seleucid position had two moderate sized hills on each flank.

Overview of the battlefield from behind the Seleucid right.

The Romans deployed their four legions and allies in three lines (I know, that's a lot of Romans to be over in Asia Minor, but let's not let that disrupt us!) resting on the river on the right, with only a unit of Roman cavalry and another of Greek light cavalry for flank protection.  With the velites out front, the Romans presented a formidible sight, but that was not all - their Greek allies and the rest of the Roman cavalry extended the line another by 1600 metres to the left.

The Roman right.

The centre of the Roman line.

The Greek allies.

The extreme Roman left.

The Seleucids put their phalangites and the bulk of their heavy infantry opposite the legions, resting the left on the hill, with two units of heavy cavalry and another of over-strength light cavalry outside the infantry on the left, giving them a slight edge in horse if they could bring it to bear.  In front of the heavy infantry were units of light infantry, two troops of elephants, and some scythed chariots.   Farther to the right were cataphracts, heavy cavalry, more scythed chariots and light cavalry.

The Seleucid right.

The Seleucid centre.

The phalanx.

The Seleucid left, resting on the hill.

The Seleucids took the first move, and over the first few turns the light troops get themselves into missile range.  The scythed chariots are sent off to do their worst, and their worst they do, being entirely ineffective.

So too the elephants prove to be a liability for the Seleucid side.  They are unable to do any damage at all to the Romans, but managed to make life difficult for the infantry around them by periodically rampaging, causing a number of hits on friendly units.

On the Roman right some cunning play sees the Seleucid left under early pressure, and this in combination with the elephants' moodiness gives the Romans the early advantage on that side.  

The early going.  Note the scythed chariots and lights streaking ahead of the main Seleucid line.

Over time the main lines move closer and the light troops begin to fall back, leaving the field to the heavy foot.  The Greek allied horse on the Roman left manage to isolate and outflank a unit of Seleucid cavalry that advances too swiftly as the melee there is joined.

The centres come into contact; the lights begin to fall back; battle is joined on this flank, but the Seleucids appear loath to leave the safety of their hill.

A closer shot of the action in the centre.  The damage markers on the friendly units around the elephant are the result of its frequent rampages.

Before long there is heavy fighting all across the battlefield.  The elephants are finally killed off on the left, but the ones in the centre stubbornly refuse to rout.  On the Roman left a swirling cavalry fight develops with units intermingled and confusion rife.  In what seems like a grave mistake the Greek light cavalry abandons the hill that anchors the Roman left.

The scene around four turns in, looking from behind the Roman right.

The Greek allied cavalry has abandoned the hill on the Roman left, allowing the Seleucids to occupy the high ground with heavy cavalry.

The Seleucids take the abandoned hill opposing their right, but in so doing over-reach, leaving their forward-most unit of cavalry unsupported.    The allied Greeks take advantage of this, isolating the unit and killing it off, but not before it scores a few hits of its own.

The pressure that the Romans are exerting in the centre finally tells, with the elephant of the centre routing, and the phalanx next to it also going.  A great gap in the line 400 metres wide opens up, and the Seleucids struggle to close it.

Centre with elephant and intact phalanx...

...and centre without them!

The Seleucids are now in difficulty in all areas.  They have been outflanked on the left, have had their centre blown open, and are also in some strife on the right; but there at least they are there giving as good as they get.  The question is, can they hold the centre long enough for the phalanx to grind the legions down, and can Matt win a victory on the right?

Things get worse for the Seleucids - a daring attack on the left sees the Seleucid commander-in-chief captured and killed.  The army's morale is shaken as a result, and command and control is significantly reduced.  Despite this, as the fight in the centre continues, the phalangites' superior to-hit factors begin to tell.  The Romans have their line exchange, but the phalangites are now getting into their work.  In legion after legion the hastati are withdrawn and the principes move up as the casualties begin to mount.

The problem for the Seleucids is that they are losing too many units across the field, and in combination with the death of the commander, their morale is becoming increasingly fragile.

An example of the confused cavalry melee on the Roman left - Tarantine light cavalry under the Seleucid banner smashed in the flank by Thracian cavalry fighting for Rome.

By turn eight the situation is becoming tense for the legionaries as the hits mount and the line thins.  The phalanx has gained superiority at points along the line and the Roman centre is running out of reserves.

But then in the cavalry battle on the left there is a sudden flurry of action: the Roman cavalry destroys a unit of Seleucid heavies and in the subsequent morale test the entire Seleucid right flees the field, taking the phalanx with it.

The moment before the rout...

So in the end it was a combination of accumulated losses, the death of the commander and an unfortunately low morale roll that ended it all for the Seleucids.  I would have considered allowing the phalanx to stay on field a little longer if two of the lads hadn't had trains to catch, but I think ending it at the point we did was appropriate anyway, given that the Seleucids had lost a third of their force even before the morale failure.

From my perspective as umpire it was a most entertaining afternoon, and it seemed that the players enjoyed themselves, so all went well.

There are certain aspects of the rules that need tightening up, but they were geared towards new players and I think the rules did what they were supposed to do in most respects.  I was pleased that the players were doing everything for themselves pretty quickly - except for morale tests, which were my job - and my role was soon simply handing out cards, recording losses, answering the odd question and keeping things moving when needed.  Given that three of the six players had never played a wargame before, the standard of tactical appreciation was pretty high, and except for special rules like withdrawal, line exchange and the odd movement subtlety they figured it all out for themselves brilliantly.

So, there we have it - the January war is over, and I've learned a lot from it.  A) how to make better terrain; B) that I can write rules after all; C) that people are perhaps more interested in giving wargames a crack than you'd think; and D) that I'm too old to go out drinking with the young blokes.

Game day arrives...

More Ancients playtesting

After a quiet few weeks on the wargaming front (we had a Christmas party to organise for our English school...) I set up the board for a quick playtest of the basic elements of my 'January project' rules.

I wanted to test out the interactions between the various troop types to get an idea of what the imbalances might be, and to test out a few of the tweaks I've added in.  My small table (as the name would suggest!) is not very big; so I reduced the board and units by about a third to fit them in while still keeping a good cross-section of the troops that will be used on the day. 

Here's how it looked after deployment:

I didn't use any command and control rules, and am actually now starting to think that it may be better to allow all units to move and fight automatically, and to save command points for things like extra moves, combat bonuses, changing lines and so on and so forth.  I'm not sure yet.  It would certainly take out a degree of complexity, but may reduce player involvement too much.  It's something to think about, anyway.

The movement rules worked fine, but that's not a surprise, as they are lifted more or less directly from Lost Battles.  The rules for skirmishing (ie, distance firing) seem to need a little more work.  There needs to be some incentive to get skirmishers out of the way once the heavy lads start to get into the action.  I may introduce an automatic dispersal rule in open ground to encourage players to get them out of the line reasonably early in the piece.

To give you an example, in the picture above the skirmish line looks fine, but in the one below the rate of attrition is out of sync with the rest of the board. We can see that the cavalry combat on the flank in the foreground is quite far advanced, but the heavy infantry battle in the centre has not yet begun.

Another problem is with the scythed chariots and elephants.  I need to add a bit of flavour and (in the case of the chariots particularly) realism to the way they function.

The combat system itself I am pleased with.  I used dice rather than cards for this test, but as the range of results is still the same the test was still valid.  I do still need to sort out a few aspects of it, but it seems to be a good chassis to build upon.

The same cannot be said for the morale system, unfortunately.  It definitely needs some work.  I'm currently stealing from  Neil Thomas's AMW and Phil Sabin's Lost Battles systems, but I need to put things down in writing and think through the modifiers a bit more clearly.

It might help if I could finish a game though - I ended up heading to bed halfway through this!

Anyway, it was a good test and I was able to take a lot out of it.  Perhaps it did not quite provide a breakthrough like that which the Seleucid cavalry have effected in the picture below, but there is pleasing pressure being applied that may eventually lead to a similar end...

Ancients rules - my design guidelines

I'm in the process of cobbling together rules for a game that I'm putting on in January, and thought I'd record my thoughts here as we go along. 

Due to the scenario and my own preferences, I've set myself three main guidelines to adhere to, these being that:

1) The rules must be suitable for new players.  In practice, they must be easy to explain and the concepts must be clear, easily grasped, and easily retained. 

I want players to focus on the broader aspects of command, movement, combat and morale rather than the minutiae.

- The command should be simple enough to explain in one minute and should function to limit what players can do, thereby forcing them to prioritize actions.  The command rules should not, however, limit players to the point that they become irritated.
- Movement rules should allow players to create, counter and exploit local superiority through clever manoeuvre.
- Players should not have to remember modifiers and exceptions in order to work out what the best tactics are.  Combat match ups will be clearly advantageous, disadvantageous or fair, but instead of manipulating modifiers to gain extra advantage players will have some ability to chose where and when to influence combat to benefit their cause or frustrate that of the enemy. 
- The rules must reflect the reality that the key to victory in ancient warfare was breaking the enemy's morale.

2) The rules must be suitable for a multi-player team game.  Within this structure, each player should feel that while their own individual actions impact on the game, planning and co-ordination with team-mates is required to win the entire battle.

- There should be a simple chain-of-command which governs the allotment of command resources and limits in-game communication between participants.
- Players should ideally be kept busy throughout so that they cannot pay close attention to what is going on elsewhere, but that when the chance to observe the action in other areas of the board does occur, that that action should make captivating viewing.

3) Players must feel that the choices they make in the game have a direct bearing on the success or failure of the enterprise. If they win they should be able to single out particular decisions as key; if they lose, the strength of the cause-and-effect relationship should ideally encourage them to consider what they could have done differently both individually and as a team.

- The rules must be simple and well illustrated prior to the game.
- Players must have direct influence in their own sectors but indirect influence elsewhere.
- The game should be fair, interesting, tense and thought-provoking.

So there we have it - a design prospectus. 

Now, if I manage to get half of this to come out in the rules I'll have done better than I expect!

Terrain board update

The basic terrain for my January game project has now been largely completed.  The boards don't look quite as good as I'd hoped; the squares show through, but so too do the joins.  I guess that's what you get for using cheapo materials!  Still, this is an experiment, so I don't mind too much, and once troops are on the table there should be plenty to distract viewers from such quibbles.

I'm quite pleased with how the squares show up under the flock.  They aren't overpowering, but are clearly visible from the right angle.  Thanks are due again to this tool.

Here you can see the beautiful joins in the foam mat... (yes, these mats are from the Japanese equivalent of the dollar shop!).

And with some jumbos for scale.

Despite the joins and the fact that one of the board warps a little, there's nothing that a few troops and a bit of tape shouldn't fix.  I think these should serve their purpose, and next time I make a terrain board I'll know what to do better.  Onwards and upwards, as they say!

A Very Useful Tool

The other day while browsing at the local hardware store* trying to find tools to aid my latest project I happened upon this humdinger pictured below.

The NT DRESSER Ever Grit Sander RS-310P (has ever a name tripped so easily off the tongue?) may not look like much, but I can assure you it is a little piece of grit-surfaced magic.

In the hands of a professional such as myself, this tool allows one to sand straight lines into foam mats, in about two or three runs through, with results that you can see in the next photograph.

As I am putting together a gridded gameboard for a miniatures battle in early January this tool is an absolute godsend.  I was imagining having to melt lines into the foam or, heaven forbid, draw squares in on the board.  Instead, two evenings after my little visit to the Kohnan I have a board comprised of 18 by 8 10cm squares delineated by subtle depressions that I will be able to flock over while still, to the watchful eye, revealing the artful geometry that underpins it.

Or that is the hope, at least...

To finish here is a view of two-thirds of the board, pre-flock:

* Don't tell the wife, but since I've got back into wargaming the local hardware store is a far more interesting place than it used to be...