Medieval warfare. A period of extreme fanaticism to a cause, be it religiously or secularly based. Men who threw their lives into the maelstrom of bloody hand to hand combat, often enduring horrendous wounds and deprivations of all kinds. Leaders who were revered and blindly followed simply because they spoke well or were good fighters. Men who fought for God, Wealth and Honor.

One of my SAGA subscribers recently lamented the lack of a good, clean, period specific tactical level rules set for the Dark Ages/Medieval period. After thinking about his statement, I looked through my collection of two dozen rules sets dealing with the pre-16th century and realized he was absolutely correct.

I found myself tackling this major project with an excitement and sense of accomplishment that has eluded me when working on Dark Age rules sets previously. The result is For God, Wealth and Honor, a set of tactical level rules for the Dark Ages/Medieval period.

Aim

What is the aim of these rules? What am I trying to portray? First and foremost, they must provide a mentally as well as visually stimulating game. They must be player driven, not rules driven. A gamer who has never played this period before must be able to sit down and be able to play and win the game with reasonably sound tactics, not a knowledge of the rules. Common sense and good tactical ability, not die rolls or rules-lawyering are the keys to victory. Emphasis is on an orderly, sensible system whereby a gamer who uses sound tactics will win.
Secondly, the rules must be playable within an evening of three hours. Shorter games are usually determined by the number of stand or unit losses (DBA's four elements or ARMATI's variable number of 'key units'), while others have no set time limit (many WRG 7th games can take well over four hours). Both of these types of system work fine for the scale they are aimed at, the grand tactical, but are inadequate for the scale of the game I am interested in.

There must be no paperwork All the information should be visible on the ames table. By using casualty figures, order chits and various positions of banners and stands within a unit, there is no reason to have any record keeping other than to total up the losses at the end of the game. The idea is to keep it clean and simple.

The first of many rules priority which had to be addressed dealt with the scale of the game. Personally, I feel that the 450-1500 A.D. period is not adequately covered by rules which are 'grand tactical' or strategic in scale. Any cursory reading of Hans Delbruck, Charles Oman, Jobn Beeler, Philippe Contamine or J. F. Verbsuggen gives us valuable insight into the sizes of armies during this penod. Most battles consisted of under 10,000 men per side; many were under 5,000. At the tactical level, the control and feel of a historical period can be explored and introduced. Grand tactical games often end up being homogenized and sterilized in order to satisfy that key factor playability.

There is a 'hands-on' character to battles of this period which can not be replicated with large man to figure ratios. With this thought in mind, a ratio of from 1:15 or 1:20 castings per actual warrior became standard.

Use of a tactical scale also allows the use of 25mm scale figures, hundreds of which are available from Wargames Foundry, Gripping Beast, Guernsey Foundry and Essex, to name a few. There are many lines of exceptionally well researched and attractive castings at reasonable paces. Armies of from 150 to 250 castings per side not only look great on the wargames table, but with 25mm scale, the figures have personality, an all-important aspect of war in the Medieval period. Certainly, 15mm can be played as well, but with the scaling down of the man to figure ratio, the larger figures do have advantages.

With a tactical scale such as this, the important variables of armor, weaponry, personal skill at amms and command control are of utmost importance. An un-armored warband of peasant levies rarely stood up to a skilled band of armored fighters, no matter what the ratios of total troop strength.

Studies

In my studies of the battles during this period, whether you were outnumbered by 2-1, 5-1 or even 10-1 meant little when compared to the qualitative differential between the troops and the leadership caliber of the opposing generals. With these facts in mind, the charts and tables of combat effectiveness and leadership ability were drawn.

As I alluded to earlier, a problem with existing grand tactical rules for our period is that most lump 3000 years of history into one game system. This works well for the stylized game, where Romans are little different than Saxon huscarls in fighting ability. In a period specific tactical game, however, many of the interesting variables which makes each historical era unique can be brought into play.

For example, in For God, Wealth and Honor the importance of religion in the armies of Medieval times is covered. This is reflected in a simple yet interesting rule dealing with the aspect of having priests/mullahs/holy men present during battle. Their appearance, perhaps even alongside that of a holy relic, banner, standard or the like often had a profound psychological and morale impact influencing the behavior of the fighting men in their army.

The compelling studies of the psychology of attack and defense (the perceived inferiority or superiority of the opponent) dictate a new way of looking at morale and its impact on battle. Morale is based upon the relative perception a unit has of its ability to survive. A garrison unit of Lombard foot will probably not stand up in the open to a charge of mounted knights. Not only do they realize their inferiority, they also are frightened to distraction by the charging warhorses. Place them behind an obstacle, however, and their whole mental state changes. Now they perceive that they are 'safe' from the knights.

Archers are an interesting study as well. Most chronicles mention the success of archers standing up to a charge is dependent on their perceived ability to stop the attack from getting to them. To replicate this, I have given archer units the ability to be under Defend orders. This allows them to fire an intense barrage of arrows (Crecy, Agincourt) into the advancing horse. If possible, the commander may have wisely placed tbem in closer formation (shieldwall), which also bolstered morale, or better yet, behind an obstacle or uphill of their attackers.

Skirmishers are rarely mentioned in many texts. Their value was as scouts and screening better troops from harmful missile attacks. They did not stand up to heavier troops in battle. If attacked, they run. If caught, they die.

Cult of the Leader

The very real importance of the leader/hero cult status, probably the most important aspect of warfare in this period, had to be resolved. This again is fairly easy to amalgamate with an easy, yet effective rule. Charisma carried an enormous amount of weight during the period in question Men would often follow their liege lord to certain death if he so directed them. These important aspects of Medieval warfare must be included in order for a rules set to be realistic and reflective of warfare as contemporary chroniclers and warriors experienced it. All of these points and many more have been integrated into the rules to give them a definite and different feel in regards to the 5th through 15th centuries AD.

A point which I dealt with early on in forming the rules had to do with limitations on command control. Most bands of fighters during the 5th-15th centuries were locally led by a familiar figure who would be realistically gauging his chance of survival in a campaign. Given the choice, even the most highly loyal warbands would take time to rest or simply watch someone else do the fighting. To replicate this facet of Medieval warfare, each general in an army is allowed a certain number of order chits, dependent on his quality.

Each turn, some units will be without orders. They sit. If the general decides to take part in hand-to-hand combat, he issues no orders at all until finished. Here the all-important and often overlooked value of the rearguard or Reserve division comes into play. A smart leader will either place the CiC or a good quality general with a small number of units in reserve. The reserve leader can then take command while the other is covering himself with glory...or running away in disgrace.

Movement

So far as movement goes, I elected to have two types; one for warbands outside of effective enemy combat range (Strategic Movement) and another shorter move for units once they have moved to within 300 yards of any enemy (Tactical Movement). The rationale is that when troops were committed to batde, their reactions slowed as the excitement, nervousness, noise, brutality and sheer chaos of battle began to overwhelm them. It became harder to control them.

What about the abilities of troops to move faster when out of close proximity of an enemy? It is true that when no danger directly threatened them, warbands elected to appear quite brave (their commander had his eye on them so long as he was not distracted by enemy within attack range). Therefore, I elected to allow the extra movement to any troops outside of 300 yards of any enemy.

What happened when you sent your finest group of Viking huscarls into a woods? They might just race through there at amazing speed; or possibly be delayed for a while; or maybe not came out again for a long time. Variable terrain delays make it imperative that you avoid it if possible if you are depending on timing an attack.

Once a warband lost its cohesion, it was in trouble. There were various stages of this. Normally, at the beginning of a battle, units were stable and in some semblance of order. As losses occurred and attacks were made and repelled, this order began to fall apart. Further erosion resulted in the unit breaking.

Once fear and demoralization took effect, the warband would most likely fall apart and eventually become decimated. These stages usually were reached by a gradual process, but in the maelstrom of close combat, units could be reduced in minutes. The dice will rarely save a foolish move. If you place your prized Varangian Guardsmen unsupported in the open facing superior numbers of armored cavalry, your move will probably be rewarded with their utter destruction.

Even more exasperating is watching your troops loot the enemy camp. In the joys of pillage, all cohesion is lost and the unit fragments. They will be fairly useless for at least two game turns. Another trade off. Is it worth it to garner the points for the sacked camp, or will your looters be overwhelmed while partaking of the riches which they are fighting over?

See, you must make many tactical decisions each turn. The dice will not rectify a bad decision. If you throw your heavy cavalry against a unit of Scots spearmen, uphill and in schiltron before severely wearing them down with missile fire, your horse will lose.

Weaponry, armor, tactical position, quality of fighters, charisma of the general, order status and the condition of the warband all are important in determining the winner of a close combat. Again, dice are of minimal factor, though the element of chance does have some beanng on the outcome. Melees may be over in one turn or sway back and forth for quite some time until one side or the other breaks from morale failure or losses. Since this is the most important aspect of battle during this period, it is also the most elaborate. Yet, each melee can be calculated and fought out in less time than it takes in most grand tactical rules.

The ideas which I have been developing for the rules are not new. A reading of most well-researched texts covering this period presents them in their historical context. All that I have done is to build a framework around them so that they may be utilized in a gaming situation. I arn looking forward to introducing For God, Wealth and Honor at HISTORICON 97 this July. They are currently being playtested by several major wargame clubs across the U.S. and in England. Included with the rules will be a number of basic armies from which to build your forces. Scenarios and a campaign system will also be part of the final product, making it complete so far as a gaming system goes.

As with any new release, they will have their proponents and detractors. In any case, I am enjoying them and will be running a regular column in SAGA about their development and use as the year goes on.