I believe a campaign is the ultimate in miniature wargaming. It gives the wargamer the feel of what a campaign was really like in "those days". My only problem is that I didn't have the time to write a whole set of strategic rules, or the talent to make a good strategic map and game counters. So I decid ed to buy a strategic boardgame and use it as the framework for my campaign. This article details the modifications I made to SPI's game THE CONQUERORS to convert it to a suitable strategic miniatures campaign format.
THE CONQUERORS comes with two beautiful maps of the ancient world: going west past Italy, and as far east as Babylon. Thus it provides the strategic area in which most of the ancient world's most famous campaigns took place. THE CONQUERORS provides a counter mix of historical unit types that fought in the ward depicted in the game - Alexander vs. Persia, Rome vs. Macedonia and Antioch and which can also be used for all the wars in between. Wargamers need only match their historical figures to the counters in the game to reconstruct the historical forces needed in the campaigns. This completes the first step in converting the game counters to miniatures.
Values
The next step lies in converting game counter values to miniatures values to reflect the actual number to troops in volved. To do this I multiplied the values in the game's Tax ation Table, used to raise revenue in the campaign, by 100. The values arrived at ranged from 1,500 to 3,000 points. To this amount I added additional revenue from the various classes of cities on the maps at the end of each campaign year when the players rolled for their taxes. The values I assigned to these cities are listed in the City Revenue Table. This rule gave cities real strategic value and generated numerous sieges and battles for the possession of cities.
Cities that are sacked and looted yield double the value listed on the City Revenue Table, but are worth nothing the rest of the campaign, so be careful about adopting scorched earth policies.
Using the points generated through these procedures, I pur chased troops according to the troop point cost in my tac tical miniatures rules. Using information from my miniatures rules again, I purchased troops in numbers that correspond to historical unit strengths. I then assigned these "miniature units" to their corresponding historical counters from the game and used the counters to make all my strategic moves.
The conversion to naval miniatures works essentially the same way, only the player buys ships, marines and seamen instead of infantry. I based the cost of these troops on what similar infantry would cost and used my tactical naval rules to determine just how many marines and seamen each ship required. Naval artillery could be purchased at the same cost as land artillery listed in the rules you use for your tactical land battles. Raising naval forces this way maintains an ac curate cost ratio between land and naval forces.
This still left the problem of determining how much an actual ship should cost. Not having any information on the cost of ancient ships, I decided that the cost of a ship should be related to the number of marines, crewmen and rowers on board. Assuming the highest possible cost for all these troops added together, I arrived at the base price of the ship. Next I bought ships in numbers equivalent to the number of ships each naval squadron counter was supposed to represent and assigned these squadrons their own strategic counters for map movement.
The game rules only allow the player to raise armies and fleets during the winter phase of the campaign. Conse quently, most battles were fought (aside from accidental en counters!) the last turn before winter so losses could be recovered. I changed this. What I did was make a rule allow ing a player to buy forces anytime he wished: D class troops only take one turn to train; C class troops take two; and B class troops take three turns. Or, if a player is really hurting for manpower, he could hire mercenaries that could be available at the beginning of the turn they were hired -- at double the usual cost for the type of troops hired.
"A" class troops could only be raised from veteran B class troops. Units that accumulated ten veteran status points were advanced to the next higher level. Points are ac cumulated according to the Veteran Status Points Table. Units that are destroyed lose all veteran status points ac cumulated throughout the campaign. Units that fail a morale test and run off the battlefield lose any veteran status points accumulated during the battle. Destroyed units may com bine with other units of the same type of troops and having the same or lower classification. Combined units will assume the classification of the unit with the lowest classification in the combination. I use a similar system for gaining commander experience.
At Start
Each player starts with an A class commander, two B class commanders and any number of lesser commanders. To in crease his experience, a commander must be the supreme commander during a battle. Using the 10 point system, he may gain experience by asccumulating command ex perience points. He gets one point for losing a battle (if anything, he should learn from his mistakes); two points for a draw; and three points for a victory (no extra points for killing the enemy commander in single combat). See the Command Experience Table for a concise version.
Conversion of terrain from the strategic map to the table top is easy. I used maps from some old tactical wargames I own and randomly selected one for a battle that was fought on clear terrain on the strategic map, and two, with their terrain transposed onto each other, for battles on rough terrain.
The terrain was set on the table the way it was shown on the map and each side of the table was assigned a point on the compass corresponding to the same position on the map the terrain was derived from. The courses of the armies on the strategic map when they entered the same hex would automatically determine which side of the table an army would enter: if an army heading north entered combat if would set up on the southern side of the table.
If a person doesn't have any old maps, I suggest drawing several using the terrain generation proceedure in the WRC ancient rules, number them, and then randomly select one when a battle is fought. Another method would be to make maps of actual battlefields from the ancient period and select them as above.
A wise player won't spend his entire treasury buying land and naval forces. During the course of the campaign he may find his army isolated from a friendly city that can supply it and will have to rely on the supply train he should have brought with his army. Units of supply cost one point each. One unit of supply can support 100 points of land or naval forces, rounding up fractions of 100. This may seem inex pensive, but you will be surprised how fast it adds up. For example: a 100 point army only costs one point per turn to supply, but two 1,000 point forces, say one land and one naval, cost 20 points per turn. If your treasury is low, sup port costs can really hurt, so plan carefully.
Naval forces must have supply convoys traveling with them so they don't have to put in at a port at the end of each turn as called for in the rules. In addition to paying for the supply points, a player must pay for the ships and crews to carry the supplies. A single transport ship can carry ten supply points or 250 points worth of troops. Transport ships don't have to be repurchased when empty, only restocked.
Cities also have to be supplied to withstand long seiges. If a city is beseiged it may not have enough supplies on hand to prevent attrition of the garrison below thatwhich can withs tand the siege unless supplies were bought and stockpiled beforehand. The Attrition Table lists the attrition against an unsupplied garrison, army or navy.
All movement on the strategic map is simultaneous, and all counters must have their exact movement plotted from beginning to end each campaign turn. Total movement may never exceed a unit's normal movement plus maximum force march movement. When two opposing forces enter combat, all movement on the strategic map is halted until the battle is resolved. Five movement points are equal to one week in time.
Naval movement runs the risk of encountering storms. I abandoned the game's storm encounter table in favor of two seperate tables: the Storm Encounter Table and the Storm Loss Table, anytime a fleet made a campaign move (not for each hex entered during a campaign turn) it had to roll on the Storm Encounter Table. If a storm was encountered it had to roll on the Storm Loss Table.
The game has a forced march table which lists losses from fatigue when a player force marches his army. To convert this to point values for subtraction from a player's miniature army, I multiplied the losses listed on the table by ten and subtracted that number of points from the point value of a player's army, if necessary, after a forced march. This is where experience really counted, so distribute losses as follows: "D" class 50%, "C" class 20%, "B" and "A" class 15% each; and within each class, where applicable, 40% of the losses would go to infantry and 60% to the "cavalry" (horses, camels, elephants, etc.). The modified table is reproduced here.
The siege table supplied with the game provides a quick, abstract means of assaulting and besieging cities, but a more detailed set of seige rules can be obtained in Tony Bath's book SETTING UP A WARGAMES CAMPAIGN (sold through The Courier Supply Depot). Those wishing to "ac tually" fight it out will have to resort to the siege/assault rules in their miniature rules.
I hope these modifications to this excellent game will help you get started on the campaign trail.
City Revenue Table
Training Time Table
Command Experience Table
Garrison Strength Table
Storm encounter Table
Storm Loss Table
Attrition Table
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.SUPPLY
MOVEMENT
FORCED MARCHES
SEIGES
Taxation Table 1 1,300 points 2 1,500 points 3 2,100 points 4 2,300 points 5 2,600 points 6 3,000 points
A Class City 100 points
B Class City 75 points
C Class City 50 points
D Class City 25 points
B Class Troops 3 turns
C Class Troops 2 turns
D Class Troops 1 turn
Mercenaries same turn
Ship Construction 3 turns
Veteran Status Points Table
1 point: for being in a battle
1 point: for meleeing in a battle
1 point: for each enemy unit a unit destroys or helps destroy
1 point: for a loss
2 points: for a draw
3 points: for a victory
Force March Attrition Table
.
#Additional Hexes
DieRoll
2
3
4
5
1
0
0
0
0
2
10
10
10
10
3
10
10
10
20
4
20
20
20
30
5
20
30
40
40
6
30
40
40
50
A Class City: 250 points
B Class City: 150 points
C Class City: 100 points
D Class City: 75 points
1-4: No storm
5-6: Storm
1
No ships
2
1 ship
3
1 ship
4
2 ships
5
3 ships
6
4 ships
1st turn 5% of force
2nd turn 10% of force
3rd turn 15% of force
4th turn 20% of force
5th turn 25% of force
6th turn Eliminated
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© Copyright 1983 by The Courier Publishing Company.
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