AMW unit roster card

As a follow up to a recent experiment with Ancient and Medieval Wargaming, I decided to make a quick unit roster card template to cut down on the need for on-table markers.

The plan (obviously!) is to print these out on blank business cards, place them behind the table edge, and use them to keep track of hits, special rules, etc.

Eagle eyed viewers will note that this is very plain. I would like to pretend this was planned to save on printing ink, but the gruesome truth is that I'm very bad at getting things like this to look nice...

AMW Dark Ages Bash

I've had a bit of a hankering to get some figures on the table so I decided to give Neil Thomas's Ancient and Medieval Wargaming another crack.

The rules have a big failing when playing a standard ancients type affair in that elephants are far too powerful and that there's no easy fix for this (so far that I've seen, anyway).

Partly for this reason and partly because I've been distracted by other things, I haven't played the rules as much as I'd intended to when I first bought them.

But they had something about them, and like the magic item beloved of fantasy novels, whose true purpose is fortuitously revealed at just the right moment, or the unopened letter from a deceased acquaintance that, finally read, gives vital plot direction to the heretofore wayward strivings of a hero or heroine, it seemed they might one day come in useful.

And so it has proved.

On browsing the shelf the eye alighted on AMW, and the timing seemed just about right.

The Saxons.

The Saxons, who would be defending a small hill, are made up of three different troop types. In the front we have the nobles. Classed as infantry with medium armour (5-6 saving throw), they get an integral missile bonus in the first round of any combat, and can form shieldwall. They are rated elite, so pass morale tests on a 3-6.

The middle row is made up of peasants (fyrd?), who are classed as infantry with light armour. They too can form shieldwall and get an integral missile bonus. Peasants (despite the name!) are average quality, and pass morale on a 4-6.

The back row is made up of archers. They are levy troops with light armour and bows and pass morale tests on a 5 or 6.

The Vikings.

The Vikings are a mirror image of the Saxons, except that they are warband infantry instead of shieldwall infantry.

In front are the huscarls, who have medium armour and are elite for morale purposes. Being warband, they get extra dice in the first round of combat.

The units in the middle row are bondi. They are also warband class, but have light armour, are average quality, and have the ability of fire off up to two arrow attacks on turns in which they are not engaged in melee. This is actually a pretty handy ability to have, especially against shieldwall infantry.

In the back is a unit of thralls; these being levy light infantry with javelins.

The Battlefield.

Stylised battlefield:
Unit key: 1s = nobles/huscarls; 3s = peasants/bondi; 6s = light infantry.

As mentioned, the Saxons set up on the hill to make good use of their shieldwall. The Vikings intersperse huscarls and bondi along their line to give themselves the best chance to turn the enemy's left flank while wearing down the centre and right with missile fire before engaging in melee.

Moving first, the Vikings move in as fast they can. On the far right they close the distance to the archers and aim to charge in against the light infantrymen to prevent their arrows from doing too much damage.

Archers picking off the bondi as they approach.

This plan is not completely successful - the archers score three hits early, and at the time of the above photo, they still had another volley to come. The archers would not be laughing when the bondi got into contact with them on the following turn, however!

As the Vikings come into bow range, they halt to let the bondi - with 'integral archers' of their own, if you recall - attempt to get some early hits on the shieldwall.

But if the northmen think these worthy fellows are going to be disconcerted by a few arrows, they are wrong...

While the left and centre holds back to fire off their speculative arrows, the bondi and huscarls on the Viking right immediately charge home. The defending archer light infantry is no match for the bondi warband, and they are soon destroyed, allowing the bondi to turn and outflank the endmost unit of peasants who are already in melee with the huscarls.

Observing this, the Saxons come under pressure to take action of their own. After some consideration they send forward the right to engage the Viking light infantry and leftmost bondi unit.

The picture below, using our previous scheme, shows a representation of the situation around turn eight. Note that the archers have been defeated and the Saxon left is outflanked.

The Saxon right engages; unfortunately, failed morale tests for coming out of shieldwall are catastrophic. This allows the Viking light infantry to gain an unforeseen advantage over the peasants on the far right.

Now that both wings are under threat, the centre of the Saxon line comes forward to attack the bondi and prevent any more losses to missile fire. But they wait to engage the huscarls.

The centres engage.

Surprisingly, the Saxon advance is a great success. They get the better of their opponents, and over the next couple of turns force morale checks which the Vikings fail.

But this does not yet make up for the situation on the wings, for the Viking left has now swept the enemy away there as well.

The Vikings break through on the left.

It is turning into an interesting inside-out battle: the Saxons are endeavouring to break the enemy centre while the Vikings are working their way inwards from the wings. The Vikings have got a significant advantage in unit numbers though, which in AMW can be hard to overcome.

This is what our scheme looks like after about fourteen turns. The three units of nobles in the centre are putting genuine pressure on the Viking line, but their wings have vanished, and they are running out of time to win.

As a quick rules aside, in AMW, if a 'heavy' unit (i.e., a non-light unit) exits the battlefield off the enemy's board edge, it eliminates the exiting unit but also forces the enemy to remove two units from the game. Once a side is reduced to two units, it has lost.

The obvious threat then to the Saxons is that the Vikings can send one of their units to exit the board and win the game, and the only way to stop them is to destroy four units themselves in the two or three turns it will take to get a Viking unit off the board.

The picture below shows how the Saxons have split the Viking centre and the fight has devolved into three fierce contests.

Returning to our scheme, it can be seen that the Saxons have expanded the opening they've made in the centre...

But in the end, they can only destroy two of the four units they need to claim victory.

A triumph then for Viking determination and guile as they exit a unit off the field and claim the win.

It was interesting to see how close it was in the end, and it was a really enjoyable game.

I did make a couple of errors. As one example, the Saxons did not need to go into shieldwall formation until they were under attack by the enemy. To go into shieldwall is automatic, but to come out causes a morale test, and a failure there causes significant damage. A number of units were obliged to charge out of a shieldwall formation they should not have been in, and this was costly in terms of Saxon resilience.

The upshot of such mistakes is I have seen there are more tactics to use here than in, say, Thomas's other popular set, One Hour Wargames, and I am satisfied that there is something here worth pursuing, for Dark Age warfare, at least. The rules have an old school feel which is close enough to other dicefest games such as WHFB that some extra ideas to add interest could be incorporated without too much trouble.

Anyway, if anyone has made it this far through, thank you for reading, and I hope it was worthwhile!

Ancient and Medieval Wargaming (AMW) with John

For me, one of the great delights of the internet age is the ease with which one can meet like-minded wargame enthusiasts from around the world and not only share ideas and a bit of humour but also actually get to play a bit.

VASSAL is so far the best tool I've encountered for play by email games, but Cyberboard does a good job as well.

One gamer I've been lucky enough to have a bit to do with over the past few years is John Acar, and the latest in our long line of VASSAL matches was concluded just recently. What follows is a brief report. All of the screenshots included here are from John's VASSAL module for the game, which can be found in the file section of the AMW yahoo group.

This rules used were Neil Thomas's Ancient and Medieval Wargaming, in this instance pitting Macedonians vs Classical Indians.

I set up first as the Macedonians, putting my heavy infantry in the centre, cavalry on the wings, and light infantry on the left ready to take up a defensive position in the wood.  John responded by putting his heavy chariotry on the wings - those on the left supported by his two elephants - and the weaker bow-armed infantry in the centre.

Deployment with Macedonians up top and Indians below.

In AMW the first side to eliminate six of the eight enemy units wins, so my plan was to close as quickly as possible in the centre and trust that my phalanx could defeat his bow quickly. I hoped to beat him on one wing with an outflanking move and hold him as long as possible on the other.  I felt that there was not much I could do to counter the elephants except pray for really good dice.

Heavy chariots are superior to my companion cavalry in AMW, so I imagined that John's plan would be to use that superiority to his advantage, try to win on the flanks, and unleash the jumbos onto my poor unsuspecting heavy infantry.

Over the next few turns the Indians got into bow range and fired off a volley or two, but without conspicuous success.  My cavalry held back on both flanks, daring his chariotry to advance.  On his left, they did.

The Indian shooting improved dramatically as the turns clicked over, and John's chariots charged in on the left.  My hypaspists promptly responded with a charge of their own into the flank of the chariots, and then the hypaspists in their turn were smacked into by an elephant.

Confused?  Hopefully the screenshot below will help.

In the centre the phalangites continued their slow advance, peeling off the rightmost unit to guard against the attack by the second elephant.  On my left, nothing much happened except for the light infantry accepting that they were on the wrong wing and trying to get to the other as quickly as they could.

It was now my turn to charge, and the phalangites piled in.  They managed to rout the unit opposing the left of the line, but the bowmen in the centre put up strong resistance and the struggle turned attritional.

On my right the horse and chariots traded blows, with the supporting hypaspists disappearing rapidly thanks to the attention of the elephant on their flank.

The fight continued, with the leftmost unit of Indian foot swinging round to outflank my phalanx.  The chariots of his right also turned and gave every indication that they would come down off their hill and engage my infantry line.

As the elephants got more into their work, both the hypaspists and flank guard decided they'd had enough.  They broke, and my right centre abruptly collapsed.

It was still slow going in the centre, and (to coin a phrase...) it became apparent that the battle was 'going ill with us'.

John seized his chance to get the other chariots involved, and they charged into the line as well.    The elephants re-positioned themselves to inflict more carnage on the exposed infantry, and my light infantry flung javelins for all they were worth.

In the centre, the second unit of bowmen finally gave way.

The chariots were by now carving up my phalanx, but I hoped that my cavalry's belated arrival on that wing would take care of that.  The freed-up phalanx ploughed into the third unit of bow infantry who continued to put up a brave fight.

Unfortunately (but not unpredictably!) my centre now gave way, and the clever plan I'd had of holding back the companions on my left was shown for what it really was - rubbish!

Ignoring the javelins coming their way, the elephants began feasting on the light infantry.

We were in even graver difficulties now, and, barring some extremely good fortune, it seemed to be just a matter of time before John's men ground me down beneath their remorseless attacks.

My cavalry charge was a failure, and the elephant slammed into my last unit of infantry before we could see off the final unit of enemy bow.  "All is lost," we cried, "especially honour!"

The chariots of the Indian left then roused themselves to finish off my companion cavalry and the rout was complete.

In the end it was a comfortable victory for John and his Indians.  He outplayed and outclassed me here, steamrollering my unfortunate troops with good deployment choices and strong play.

I'm afraid to say that if I were a Carthaginian they'd have hanged me after this performance!

So well done John; and all going well we'll attempt to get a rematch in at some stage this year.

Ancient and Medieval Wargaming playtest

Hello again; it's been quite a while between posts...  I recently picked up Neil Thomas' Ancient and Medieval Wargaming off the shelf for something to read while backpacking the boy to sleep, and in so doing reminded myself that I still had it!  I'd played it once before with a few drinking buddies, and once or twice with Luke, but had not revisited it since then so decided to give it a shove.

I did not set up any terrain; just a Polybian Roman force (5 x hastati/principes, 1 x triarii, 1 x velites, 1 x cav) against a bunch of Gauls ( 4 x warriors, 1 x fanatics, 1 x skirmishers, 2 x cav) in the open to see how it would go.

The game lasted four turns, with the Gauls having the better of it on the wings but the Romans cleaning up in the centre.  A&MW seems to be quite a limited game, but was fun nonetheless.  The cavalry combats take a lot longer to resolve relative to the infantry ones, so it's difficult to see there being much scope for envelopments of the Hannibalic variety unless the onset of the infantry clash is delayed.  There is clearly room for tactics, but light infantry are in for a bit of a tough time as they cannot evade (though they can break off after a turn of combat if they are faster than the enemy).  The Gauls need a bit of terrain to give them a fighting chance, so perhaps I'll give it a run through again with some woods on the battlefield.

Anyway, here's a shot of the board at battle's end, with the Roman centre having disposed of its opponents and marched a heavy infantry unit off the board to complete the victory...

Nice to get a wee battle in again after a while...