Spare us, oh Lord

With reports of a horde of Vikings having landed nearby, the local thane has called out heathguard and villagers to stand against the northern menace.

Here they come!

The archers on the Saxon right are quickly overcome.

In the centre the marauders cross the stream, to be hit by a hail of javelins.

The Saxon left is also assailed.

But the first northmen across the stream, undaunted, charge into the shieldwall.

And the rest follow.

The fighting is furious, and the lines begin to waver on both sides.

It seems for a moment that the Vikings may have had enough.

But it is not so.

Instead, it is the Saxons who begin to give way.

The fighting on the Saxon right is vicious.

The line may hold...

But the Vikings have come too far to give up.

In the confusion they cut down the Saxon thane, and the battle is won.

With the route to the village now open, we avert our eyes from the Vikings' rapacious appetites, and prepare instead for Wales vs England in the rugby...

Five minute Punic War rules.

A friend and ex-workmate now living in the States has been over here visiting friends and in-laws for the last couple of weeks and having a good catch up. As it happens, since he last left Japan he has become a genuine, card-carrying wargamer, and was thus eager to hook up for a game of something. We hastily arranged that he and whoever else was interested could come over to the school yesterday after classes finished and I would have something organised to play.

Everything was a bit last minute, and as I wasn't quite sure how many people might turn up I prepared an easily-expandable Naval Thunder game and also readied my Dark Age figures just in case Dux Bellorum seemed like a better fit.

Naturally, such prep as I had done all went out the window when the two who turned up announced a firm desire to play Romans against Carthaginians!

Being caught short, I had to come up with rules off the top of my head. This is what I went with.

GROWN SLIGHTLY BALD: five minute Punic War rules.

Turn order.

Dice for initiative. Both sides roll a d6. Highest score chooses who moves first this turn. Ties are won by the Carthaginian player.

Active player moves and/or fights, one unit at a time. Two units activate for free, but from the third unit onwards player must roll 1 or better on a d10 (faces read 0-9, not 1-10) to activate, with the number needed increasing by 1 for such subsequent successful activation. Units may only be activated once per turn. When an activation roll is failed, play passes to the other player.

And repeat.

Movement. 

Units move in unit-width increments (8cms for my 15mm figures). Heavy infantry move 1, medium infantry, elephants and light infantry 2, heavy cavalry 3, light cavalry 4. May pivot up to 45 degrees before moving an increment. Pivots greater than 45 degrees use up a full unit width of movement.

Light troops can pivot as much as they like with no penalty; elephants use up a unit width if they pivot at all.

Light troops can move through other friendly troops if there is room for them to move through fully, but cannot be moved through themselves except by other lights.

Light troops can disengage from melee (one unit width is used to about face, the rest to move away from the melee) but cannot shoot or melee again on that turn. Heavy cavalry can disengage from combat with infantry in the same way.

Units cannot disengage if they are sandwiched by attacks to front and rear, or on both flanks.

Units attacked in flank can turn to face on their turn if not already engaged to their front.

Hit points.

Units have 4 bases, each with 4 hit points (lights have 4 bases each worth 2 hit points). When a base is lost, roll for morale. On a 5 or 6 another base is removed (4,5,6 for last base or if fighting elephants). Elephants only have one base and only take 4 hits. When all bases are gone, a victory star is given to the enemy.

Shooting.

Only medium infantry and lights can shoot. Range is 1 unit width. Roll 2 dice, hitting on 6s. Must have line of sight, and distance is measured from centre front of unit. Lights may shoot before or after movement; light cavalry may pause  to shoot during movement and then continue movement.

Melee.

Units fight to their front, and only on their own turn.

Heavy infantry roll 4 dice.
Medium infantry, allied infantry, heavy cavalry roll 3 dice.
Light infantry and light cavalry roll 2 dice.
Elephants roll the same number of dice as their opponents.

Hits are scored on rolls as given below.

Flank attacks: units attacking flank or rear add 1 die; heavy cavalry add 2 dice.
Elephant terror: elephants that roll and hit on a 4 count that hit and get to roll it again as well.
Elephant rampage: when an elephant takes a hit, all units within 1 unit width must roll 1d6. On a 6, they also take a hit.

If playing again I would have heavy cavalry attacking heavy infantry in flank or rear also count 5s as a hit. 

Units which charge into melee and destroy their opponents immediately may use any remaining movement to contact and fight a second melee if desired.

Generals.

Both sides have one general, and generals must be attached to a unit. General adds 1 to melee rolls, but takes a 2d6 leader death test if his unit is hit, dying on a double 6. Only roll once per melee for leader death. A dead general counts as a victory star for the enemy. If a general's unit is destroyed while he is attached to it, the general is counted as killed as well.

Generals may 'teleport' to another unit in their army but may not add combat bonuses in the same turn they move.

Terrain.

Units in hills or woods or meleeing into hills or woods use 2 dice maximum, but add extra for flanking or generals as normal.

Victory.

When you have 50% of the enemy unit total in victory stars, you win.

Sample Armies.

Rome: 4 units heavy infantry, 4 units, allied infantry, 2 units light infantry, 2 units heavy cavalry, 1 general.

Carthage: 2 units heavy infantry, 3 units medium infantry, 2 units light infantry, 1 unit elephants, 2 units heavy cavalry, 1 unit light cavalry, 1 general.

Deployment.

Put a screen down the middle of the table (table for our 15mm game was 150cmx90cm). Players deploy their armies secretly, up to 1 foot in from their respective board edges. When armies are revealed, Carthaginian player may have two units swap places if desired.

The game.

Slightly confused deployments!

Early game.

Late game chaos - units everywhere mixed up!

Both players enjoyed themselves and it was very hard fought. Carthage pulled away from a 4-4 victory star deadlock to finally win 6-4 (7-4 in fact, because Rome lost her general as well in the concluding melee).

The rules relied heavily on concepts from Neil Thomas's and the Commands and Colors: Ancients rules, but with a couple of little Prufrockian touches too. For something dreamed up and explained on the spot in real time, I was quite proud of them!

Pharsalus Battle Day

We had our version of the Society of Ancients' battle day here in Japan today. The object of this year's study was of Pharsalus, and we used bespoke rules to try to explore the battle and some of the possible outcomes.

With six players and myself as umpire, it was an excellent turnout, and everyone got into the spirit of the event. The rules were simple: play a card (move, charge, hold, skirmish, fall back, etc) and act. Combat was by dice roll, with units needing different scores to hit against different opponents. Players had Tribune pieces which they could play to save hits or to add dice to an attack, and there was an appeal to fate option by which players could ask for a re-roll by screaming their side's watchword, with the re-roll option then passing to the other team and remaining with them until someone on their team had used it.

Each player had his own secret victory conditions, and was able to score 'dignitas' by hitting the enemy, surviving past a certain period, using his tribune effectively, and so on. The intention was to keep players interested and to give them an incentive to command their section in a historical fashion.

For me, the game was a great success, and it was wonderful to see people getting caught up in the moment and to watch the battle re-enacted in the way it was.

I'm not going to say too much as I intend to put the bulk of my reflections into an article for Slingshot, but here are a few shots of the deployment and some of the action.

Many thanks to all who participated in making this a great day.

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.

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!

Playtesting my ancients rules

Have been very quiet here of late for many reasons, mostly family related.  Still, I managed to playtest a rough draft of some ideas I have for simple, multiplayer, newbie-friendly, ancients rules.

I've borrowed ideas from from Lost Battles, Commands & Colors: Ancients, Unhappy King Charles, Friedrich and no doubt other places as well and tried to put them together into something that resembles an interactive card game using miniature and gridded terrain.

The first playtest showed that the building blocks work, but that there are plenty of improvements to be made and puzzles to be solved, so I'm pleased.  The test game was just looking, in isolation, at how combat between two lines of infantry might go.  Here are some shots of the test in progress, showing different stages of the turn.

1) Command phase.  Orders are sent out.

2) Attack phase.  Cards are played.

3) Combat phase.  Combats are resolved and hits allocated (only one in this example).

4) Reinforcement phase (further along in the game) where commands can be used to feed in fresh troops.

5)  And back to the start (this about eight turns in).

There we go.  It's all a bit messy at the moment, but hopefully things will improve as it gets more streamlined.

Anyway, time to go and watch the All Blacks play the red rose of England.