Lion Rampant - Adapting for the Ancient Period

Recently I hit something of a snag, I've been painting up some Romans, Gauls and Germans in 25mm, planning to use them in skirmish level scraps (village raids, patrols and ambushes and the like) when it occurred to me I haven't got a set of suitable rules.

No problem, thought I, to the internet, a quick search for Ancient Skirmish Rules will soon see me straight. Saga, nope too late, Dux Bellorum, ditto, and so on. For the Roman period, there seems to be no skirmish rules, only massed battles (well with the possible exception of some Warhammer thingy, but no).

Since I've always been tempted by the idea of collecting middle ages skirmish figures (choosing between the First Crusade/Outremer, collapse of the Byzantine Empire, Mongol Invasions or Wars of the Roses period being the main stumbling block at this time), and with a "Must only buy terrain this year" Salute coming up, I indulged in a copy of the Lion Rampant rules by Osprey and having read through it occurred to me the rules covered exactly the scale of fighting I was looking for in my Ancients.

The task I've set myself is to convert the rules to be suitable for the mid-late Roman Republic, which involves the following steps:

• Adapting/creating suitable troop types to cover the options available and getting as close as possible to fair "Retinue" points
• Coming up with suitable leader tables for the Gauls, Germans and Romans (and possibly the Gladiators if I intend to play some gladiator revolt battles)
• Suitable renaming of everything to be less medieval
• Tweaking various things like challenge rules etc to better reflect the ancient setting.

With luck, I'll soon have two rule sets for the price of one, expect to see updates here at some nebulous point in time.

New Project: Chain of Command Platoons

Why not add to the lead pile

Having recently acquired a copy of the Too Fat Lardies rules Chain of Command, and having had a couple of test games with stand in models (the sight of Roman legionaries advancing into the MG42s of the Gauls is not one I will soon forget), I have decided to bite the bullet and add to my not inconsiderable painting pile with two platoons. After a bit of consideration, I picked late war western front (Italy or France/Germany) and the Americans and Germans for the forces I'd use.

First up, the Americans. I chose to go with an Armored Rifle Platoon, which consists of the Lieutenant and Platoon Sergeant, two large infantry squads, a smaller HQ squad, a machine gun squad with two medium machine guns and a mortar team as standard. In addition I got some support options, a 57mm Anti-tank gun, a flamethrower team, a mine clearance team, an observer team for a mortar battery, an M8 armored car, an M10 tank destroyer, an M24 Chaffee and an M4A3E8 Sherman.

To face down the green machine, I picked the German Panzergrenadiers, with a leutnant, panzerschreck team and three squads of two teams, each with an MG42 and a small clutch of riflemen. To back up the core platoon there is a sniper team, an extra senior leader (probably some form of senior NCO), an MG42 team, a mortar battery observer, a mine clearance team, a motorbike with sidecar, a Pak 40 Anti-tank gun, a Sdkfz 234/3 armoured car, a Stug III, a Panzer IV and a Tiger 1.

The rationale for choosing these forces was, as usual with me, they offer a variety of play styles. The Germans are fairly simple to play conceptually, each fire team has a lot of firepower, plus panzerfausts to keep tanks on their toes. This also means that a section or team can perform fire support or maneuver roles, giving tactical flexibility. Their weakness comes from a lack of senior leaders (one to the American two) which hampers activity on the field or deployment, and a general fragility due to limited numbers.

The Americans play very differently. With their large squads of riflemen and separated out firepower in the medium machine guns and mortar units, the Americans have great resilience, but need to coordinate their firepower and movement more carefully than the Germans. The presence of two senior leaders also allows the Americans much more flexibility in battle in terms of patching up unit morale, directing the action and deploying troops. The Americans can also bring serious anti-tank firepower by adding bazookas to the infantry squads.

So with the forces assembled (although I won't deny it is entirely possible more supports will be acquired at Salute later in the month), the painting shall soon begin. Assuming my other unpainted projects don't get in the way. Like the 100 or so 28mm Gauls currently occupying the painting table. Bah.

Border Wars

360 AD, the Caucasus

So this is the first mad project which I've embarked on in a while. The plan is to fight a mini-campaign in a fictionalised historical scenario, based in part on actual history, just tailored to suit my available forces.

The Setting

The basic premise of the campaign is that instead of heading west towards the Danube when threatened by the Huns, the Goths (or at least a sizable portion of them) headed south through the Caucasus, invading and effectively destroying the Iberian Kingdom. The new Goth nation is naturally rather fragile, and holds a critical location between the Sassanid Persian and Roman Empires. These two powers both see the opportunity to force the Goth nation into submission and gain an edge over the other, so send forces to take over or subjugate the Goths, while fending off the other Imperial power. Of course, to the north, the Hunnic horde is approaching.

The players will take the role of the commanders of the Roman, Sassanid and Hun forces, while I as ref will play the Goths (and probably mostly get massacred). Each player faction will have some home provinces, but most of the action will probably take place in the new Gothic kingdom.

The Rules etc.

The plan as it stands is to use a DBA campaign style, with forces moving between distinct geographical regions. Of course, rather than use the simple rules there, I want to fiddle massively and bring in new challenges and details.

Firstly, I will not be using the DBA rules for fighting the battles, I will be using my standard rule set (The Shock of Impact). This will take some adaption, so for example, rather than getting 12 bases, I intend to give each player a field army of 1200 points for each year, instead of losing one base each turn of an unsuccessful siege, losing 100 points etc.

Secondly, I want to introduce Victory Points, as I highly doubt we will finish the campaign by annihilation of two factions etc. This will both allow a leader board of sorts, but also allow for alternate victory conditions (get twice as many points as the rival powers etc). These will be earned for taking and holding regions, winning battles and destroying enemy forces. The plan is that you will also be able to buy VPs with gold, representing promoting yourself at home etc. to enhance your prestige.

And finally I plan to add an economic element, where regions earn gold which can be spent on various things. These include (at the moment), spying on enemy armies to learn their composition, attempting to reduce the morale of enemy forces (maybe by bribing soldiers to desert, or poisoning), giving bonuses to troops in your own forces to attempt to raise morale, improving the chance of successfully ending a siege (whether by having better siege engines or inducing treachery), increasing the siege readiness of a location, feeding an army maintaining a siege during winter and hiring mercenaries. Gold will also have to be stored in on map locations, so can be seized by enemy forces.

As of yet I'm still working on the details of what things will cost, but the aim will be to ensure that winning battles and regenerating troops as per the DBA system will be cheaper than hiring mercenaries to make up for bad decisions.

Each campaign year will consist of selecting a field army, three seasons where campaigning is possible, then a withdrawal to winter quarters. Movement of field armies will follow the standard DBA campaign limitations and sieges will be prosecuted in a similar manner with a few tweaks that I'm still working on. If and when field armies meet, there will be a battle fought out on the table.

In terms of what I expect to write up, I plan to write up all the battles that are played out, plus give an update at the end of each campaign year of the armies movements and VP status etc. The battle reports will probably be delayed until after a given campaign year so none of the players can get a sneak peak at the others' armies without paying for their spies!

Random bits and bobs

As things stand I intend for two of the factions at least (the Romans and the Goths) to have a couple of unique tricks. This may be extended to the Huns and Sassanids if I can think of something reasonable for them. The Romans will be able to hire troops from the Western half of the Empire if they wish to as well as Gothic mercenaries. These will function identically, but will just give them some extra options in terms of troop types.

The Goths will behave very differently to the other factions. Rather than regenerating troops in the normal way, they will be able to disband their army anywhere and assemble a new one at the capital, up to a strength dependent on how much of their territory they hold. This new army will be unable to act for one season but then will be able to move and fight normally. This is mostly to keep the Goths in the game as a potential spanner in the works of the major powers.