Sunday 1 November 2015

Asculum 279bc

I'm still playing with my simple ancients rules, yesterday I played a game based on the battle of Carrhae. I didn't take any photos but the Romans were heavily defeated. If I had held back the Parthians and been the typical impatient wargamer the Romans would have been annihilated. A good historical result for such simple rules. I have recently pondered making the heavier/elite units more valuable for the victory conditions but in this battle the few Roman light troops were more effective than the legions. So I think I'll leave things as they are with each destroyed unit counting the same.

Today I set up a game based on Asculum 279bc, Pyrrhus against Rome. I used Commands and Colors Ancients as a guide to set up the table and first to eight destroyed units was the winner.

 The armies are closing.

 The Romans are about to be outflanked.

 On the other flank the Romans charge home and get the upper hand!.


 But Pyrrhus rallies his men and with the aid of his light horse rout the Romans.


 The rest of the Roman cavalry are routed.

 Pyrrhus proceeds to roll up the Roman line, killing a Roman general in the process.
 The phalanx crashes into the Romans. For this battle I classed the Roman hastati and princeps as elite medium infantry and the triarii as elite heavy infantry. The Epirot phalangites are all classed as heavy.

 The Romans fight back.

 But the Roman flanks are beaten.

 Pyrrhus is unstoppable.

 It's down to the triarii, oh dear!.



 Most of the Romans are wavering now.

9-3 to Pyrrhus.

Friday 30 October 2015

Ancient wargame rules clarified.

My ancient rules are very basic by design with a lot of it in my head. I thought I should explain some of them.

Here are some of the manouvres...

 In this shot the Gauls (on the right) are about to charge into the Romans.
 The nearest unit of Gauls move straight forward and pivot to face the Roman flank but cannot move further in this turn and are unable to contact the Romans.
 The next Gallic turn the warriors may charge into the Roman flank to get a plus two bonus.
 In this shot it is the Romans turn as they surge forward without pivoting the Gauls must conform to the Roman front.
 Like so.

Pivots can be up to 360 degrees and may be performed at the start and/or end of any move.

Shooting and moving, I neglected to state in the rules doc. that all units except crossbows and artillery may move then shoot without penalty. I also allow elephant and chariot crews to shoot at the same effectiveness as a missile armed unit as they can shoot on the move and have a stable platform to shoot from.

Also not in the original posted rules was that a natural twelve dice score is always a success and a natural two is always a failure. So a unit in combat can always win against the odds and even the proudest Guard unit can fail.

Modifiers, I am trying to keep the modifiers to a minimum so I can remember them without looking at the rules sheet. Some modifiers could be scenario specific as I intend to use these rules with scenarios based on the Commands and Colors scenarios.

Any comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Thursday 29 October 2015

Ancient army statistics

Here are some stats for my developing Ancient Wargames Rules published earlier this week.



ANCIENT ARMIES

POLYBIAN ROMAN
TYPE                                         WEAPON                ARMOUR                     COMBAT MODIFIER
HASTATI                                  PILA                          MEDIUM                        +1 ELITE
PRINCEPS                                PILA                           HEAVY                            +1 ELITE
TRIARII                                 SPEAR                         HEAVY                            +1 ELITE
LEVES                                  JAVELINS                     LIGHT                               NONE
VELITE                               JAVELINS/SHIELD         LIGHT                               NONE
CAVALRY                         JAVELINS                       MEDIUM                           NONE
LIGHT HORSE                 JAVELINS                       LIGHT                                  NONE

SELEUCID
TYPE                                         WEAPON                ARMOUR                     COMBAT MODIFIER
PHALANGITE                          PIKE                         HEAVY                             NONE
ARGYRASPID                           PIKE                         HEAVY                            +1 ELITE
THUREOPHOROI                SPEAR/JAVELIN          MEDIUM                         NONE
ARCHER                              BOW                             LIGHT                              NONE
GALATIAN                         JAVELIN                        MEDIUM                         NONE
COMPANIONS/AGEMA    KONTOS                    HEAVY                              +1 ELITE
LINE CAVALRY                   SPEAR                        MEDIUM                           NONE
CATAPHRACT                    KONTOS                    HEAVY                             NONE
SKYTHIAN                           BOW                        LIGHT                               NONE
ELEPHANT                     PIKE/BOW/JAV.           ELEPHANT                      NONE
SCYTHED CHARIOT         ---                          HEAVY                               FIGHT ONCE

AUXILLIARIES AND MERCENARIES
TYPE                                         WEAPON                ARMOUR                     COMBAT MODIFIER
SPANISH SCUTARII               PILA                         MEDIUM                        +1 ELITE
GALLIC WARRIOR                JAVELIN                    MEDIUM                       NONE
CRETAN ARCHER                BOW                           LIGHT                             +1 ELITE
THRACIAN PELTAST          JAVELIN                     MEDIUM                         NONE
THRACIAN                       RHOMPHIA                  MEDIUM                          +1 ELITE
SLINGERS                          SLING                          LIGHT                                NONE
NUMIDIAN HORSE          JAVELIN                      LIGHT                                NONE

INDIAN
TYPE                                         WEAPON                ARMOUR                     COMBAT MODIFIER
ARCHER                               LONGBOW                 MEDIUM                        NONE
JAVELINMAN                     JAVELIN                      MEDIUM                         NONE
SKIRMISHER                      JAVELIN                      LIGHT                              NONE
CAVALRY                          JAVELIN                        MEDIUM                        NONE
4 HORSE CHARIOT         BOW/JAV.                    HEAVY                             NONE
2 HORSE CHARIOT         JAVELIN OR BOW       MEDIUM                          NONE
ELEPHANT                     BOW/JAV.                     ELEPHANT                       NONE
  

You will see that I simply classify pila armed troops as elite as I'm trying to keep the list of combat modifiers as small as possible.        
There are many ancient troop types not yet on these lists but it should be easy to expand on them.
I intend to publish some explanation to the rules next.

Wednesday 28 October 2015

Seleucids and Romans and some Pike and Shotte.

 I had a game of my Ancient rules with Later Seleucids and Poly Romans yesterday.
 Plenty of soldiers on the table.
 The rules worked very well again.
 The cavalry battle was fierce but the Seleucids eventually won it.
 A view down the Seleucid centre.
 A  very enjoyable afternoon. Seleucids won 13-10.
 At the Shildon show I bought this Conflix building.
 I needed an excuse to get it on the table. So I had a game of Pike and Shotte today.
 Cromwell with his Ironsides.
 Cavaliers opposite him, I gave them the "Ferocious Charge" rule.
 Royalist foot.
 The Roundheads hold the high ground.
 The Royalist right wing.
 The toys are Warlord, Foundry and Essex.
 The bloke in the blue breeks has fainted!.
 Commanded shotte with firelocks.
 They fell foul of the Green coats and routed.
 Cavalry clash.
 Royalist shotte occupy the farm.
 I used the red counter to clearly show shaken units.
 I love that house!.
 Old Robins foot are disordered.
The Royalists fail to take the hill and with Cromwell winning on the flank and the other Royalist flank victorious but spent the victory goes to Parliament.

Monday 26 October 2015

Seleucids and Indians

Today I'm featuring a battle using my Ancients rules. Seleucids face the Indians on a largely open plain. Here are a few shots of the action...
 The toys are mostly Museum Miniatures with some Tabletop too.
 A look down the Indian line. I have some new ones to paint up that I bought at Shildon last week.

 Antiochus and his Companions are in a bit of a fix, wavering, and attacked in the flank by elephants.
 Some of his cavalry charge home.
 I had twelve elephants in this battle.
 Horse archers, artillery and bow armed skirmishers.
 Many different troop types were a good test of the rules.
 When a unit charges another the charged unit must conform to the charger then another charger may attack the flank or rear if they are in the right arc.
 Wavering units are marked with the red counters.
 The Seleucid left wing is defeated.
 And their centre is heavily engaged.
 Antiochus joins his phalangites in the centre.
 But is surrounded and defeated.
 Maiden Guard outflank the pikemen.
 I played the battle till one side lost twelve units, the Indians won 13-9.
I'm very pleased with these rules, they are just a version of the Horse and Musket ones I published recently. They suit my way of playing solo, I'm sure that other players could break them and find them full of holes big enough to drive a bus through.
Here they are...

ANCIENT WAR GAME RULES

ROLL FOR WHICH  SIDE TAKES THE FIRST TURN THEN TAKE ALTERNATE TURNS

TURN SEQUENCE :   MOVE ALL UNITS AND GENERALS, USE GENERALS TO RALLY WAVERING UNITS, COMBAT ( SHOOT OR MELEE IN ORDER DECIDED BY THE PLAYER WHOSE TURN IT IS ).

ONLY THE PLAYER WHOSE TURN IT IS ROLLS TO RESOLVE COMBAT.

MOVEMENT : UNITS MAY PIVOT AT THE START AND/OR THE END OF THEIR MOVE

MAXIMUM MOVES ARE:   LIGHT HORSE, LIGHT CHARIOTS , GENERAL ON HORSE  12          MEDIUM HORSE  10       HEAVY CHARIOTS, ELEPHANTS, HEAVY  HORSE  8          LIGHT INFANTRY, GENERAL ON FOOT 6      MEDIUM INFANTRY 5     HEAVY INFANTRY 4 ARTILLERY 2

EVASION:
LIGHT HORSE MAY EVADE HEAVIER ENEMY WHO MOVE TO CONTACT THEM, LIGHT INFANTRY MAY EVADE HEAVIER ENEMY INFANTRY WHO MOVE TO CONTACT THEM. EVADE AT 1D6 INCHES FOR LIGHT INFANTRY AND 2D6 FOR LIGHT HORSE AND CHARIOTS, IF CAUGHT BY THE CHARGER THEY AUTOMATICALLY WAVER AND MUST FIGHT.

LIGHT INFANTRY MAY INTERPENETRATE ANY FRIENDLY UNITS.

DIFFICULT TERRAIN IS ONLY PASSABLE FOR INFANTRY, HEAVY INFANTRY MOVE AT HALF SPEED.

COMBAT: UNITS HAVE THREE CONDITIONS: FULL STRENGTH, WAVERING OR DESTROYED.

TO CAUSE AN ENEMY UNIT TO WAVER ROLL TWO D6 AND SCORE NINE+, TO CAUSE A WAVERING UNIT TO BE DESTROYED ROLL TWO D6 AND SCORE NINE+. A NATURAL TWELVE ALWAYS SUCCEEDS AND A NATURAL TWO ALWAYS FAILS, THERE ARE MODIFIERS TO THE DICE ROLL.

SHOOTING RANGES:     JAVELINS 3    BOWS, SLINGS 8    CROSSBOWS, LONGBOWS 10    ARTILLERY  24 - ALL SHOOTERS EXCEPT CROSSBOWS AND ARTILLERY MAY MOVE AND SHOOT IN A TURN, ALL SHOOTERS HAVE A 45 DEGREE SHOOTING ARC.


COMBAT MODIFIERS: 
+1
ELITE TROOPS

GENERAL WITH UNIT

HORSE VS. NON SPEAR OR PIKE ARMED FOOT IN MELEE

FORMED INFANTRY IN MELEE WITH LIGHT INFANTRY

HEAVY INFANTRY IN MELEE WITH MEDIUM INFANTRY

HEAVY HORSE IN MELEE WITH MEDIUM HORSE

MEDIUM HORSE IN MELEE WITH LIGHT HORSE

FIGHTING ENEMY DOWNHILL



+2
ENFILADE SHOOTING

FLANK ATTACK

ENEMY IS WAVERING

ELEPHANTS IN MELEE WITH HORSE

HEAVY HORSE IN MELEE WITH LIGHT HORSE

+3 
REAR ATTACK

IN MELEE WITH ARTILLERY

-1
ENEMY IN COVER

IN MELEE WITH ENEMY UPHILL

ENEMY ARE CATAPHRACTS

-2 
WAVERING UNIT IN COMBAT

ELEPHANTS IN MELEE WITH LIGHT INFANTRY

ENEMY IN FORTIFICATIONS

HORSES FIGHTING PIKEMEN FRONTALLY

-3

HORSES FIGHTING ELEPHANTS

ARTILLERY IN MELEE

SCYTHED CHARIOTS:  FIGHT ONCE AND THEN ARE REMOVED FROM PLAY BUT DO NOT COUNT AS A DESTROYED UNIT.

COMMAND:  GENERALS MAY RALLY A WAVERING UNIT BY JOINING THE UNIT AND ROLLING NINE WITH TWO D6.    EXCEPTIONAL GENERALS MAY HAVE A BONUS OF ONE OR TWO.

A GENERAL WITH A DESTROYED UNIT IS REMOVED AS A CASUALTY BY SCORING TWO WITH TWO D6.

VICTORY: SCENARIOS SHOULD HAVE A NUMBER OF OBJECTIVES FOR EACH SIDE, OBJECTIVES BEING UNITS DESTROYED OR GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS CAPTURED etc.

FIRST SIDE TO SCORE THE REQUIRED NUMBER IS THE WINNER.