One of the chief problems that gamers face with any rule system is that nebulous factor called morale. Just as in real life, it's one of those intangible factors that can pro~e very difficult to accurately reproduce on a tabletop battlefield. Morale usually encompasses training, leadership,'unit cohesion, and combat experience. It also translates into how well a unit will handle casualties before disengaging from combat. To get an idea of morale actually works in combat, we can look to antiquity. I'll use the Bronze Age Sumarians city-states of the Middle East, since they are the first civilization with a written history that we know. The Sumarians built their city-states on the flood plains of the Tighs-Euphrates River valley (what is now modern Iraq). Each city-state (about 100,000200,000 people) shared a common religion, language, commerce, and military tradition. A monarch who acted as chief priest and appointed representative of the gods ruled it. Actual administration was left the priesthood, who carried out the building of dams and levies to control flood and irrigation along the river valley. A city's bureaucracy was housed in ziggurat temples (mud-brick pyramids), while taxes were collected as tithes of grain to feed the king's court and warhors. The most common reason for wars to break out was fighting over water and territory. Such a border war broke out between two Sumarian city-states around 2500 BC. Due the fact that subsistence agriculture was labor intensive, an average Sumarian army might have had 5,000 warriors. As civilization progressed, armies, could sometimes number 50,000 men. Armies rarely had more that 50,000 men a side, since most agrarian societies couldn't afford the cost of having that much manpower idle when crops needed harvesting (also another reason while the campaign season ran from the spring to the autumn). However, not even the might of Imperial Roman could afford to field more that 300,000 legionnaires out of an empire of 100,000,000. Sumarian warriors were equipped with bronze weapons, armor, and shields. This equipment might weigh 60-70 pounds as a warrior carried it into battle. Most of the weapons (whether sling, spear, or sword) relied on muscle power, so an "average" soldier might tire out after 45 minutes of active combat. Unfortunately, like most ancient histories, the authors failed to list any orders of battle so we can only guess at unit composition! Due to the size of an army, there was little a general or commander could do influence the outcome of a particular battle once his forces were deployed. Assuming that most ancient warfare was fought by groups of these armored men huddled together in close order, the outcome of a war could be decided in the space of a single day. Imagine the opening charge between the two Sumarian armies on the marsh banks of the TigrisEuphrates River under a steamy desert sun. The two sides taunt each other as the skirmishers race to cover the advancing infantry. Suddenly, the King of Ur leads his handpicked troops in a blood curdling charge. Simultaneously, the enemy responds in kind. The scene becomes mayhem of death as they become locked in combat. Kinetics If you think of the above scene in terms of kinetics, when two objects collide something must give, the shear force of the impact would initially wipe out the front ranks. After a while, both sides would slow down due to muscle fatigue (unless one side got fresh reinforcements). At some point, some one would panic and trying run away. However, there's nowhere to run, since the back ranks are locked in combat with their backs to the riverbank. Now imagine the horrifying sight of seeing routing comrades being slain on your own bronze spear points. This probably proves to be too much for most of the soldiers, so the rout spreads throughout the whole army of Ur. The gaping holes in the ranks insure victory for their non-routing enemies as they cut down and pursuit the defeated Sumarians. Based on archeological evidence a defeated side could expect to sustain 4050% casualties, while the victors might have 10-20% casualties (besides seeing the victors' claim that the outcome of the battle was due to the will of the gods). So what does this translate into ideas for improving wargaming rules? First, units almost never fight to the last man (there are many instances of even Japanese samurai fleeing to fight another day or switching sides in a campaign as the fortune of their overlord daimyo sagged). Secondly, given equal forces, units should start taking morale tests when they start losing 25-30% of their original strength. If a unit loses than that, then some sort of cumulative morale modifier should be applied. If a unit breaks starts fleeing from combat, and the pursuing enemy catches up to them, the routing unit should be removed from play and considered destroyed for game purposes. However, if the routing unit manages to escape destruction, it should have a chance to rally near it lines (another reason why ancient armies fought in close order on open terrain). Units nearby the routers should also test for morale to see if they too rout. This represents the spread of panic and fear throughout the ranks due to the original routing unit. Unequal Units Combat between unequal units (i.e., Roman legionnaires against Carthaginian citizens or Mycecean Greeks fight Phoenician militia) should see morale modifiers applied to individual units, depending on their training and status. So the better the unit, the more staying power they have on the field (even though they can still rout off the board, given the right die rolls). Barbarian or nomadic units might have variable morale (i.e., high morale when their chieftain or khan is alive and in command and then plunging low when a stray arrow mortally strikes him in the helmet). After the fiasco that I had With Before the Gates of Troy and its unwieldy combat mechanics, I've decided to use Warhammer Ancient Battles (with a modification concerning counter charges) for the next time I game ancients. The mechanics have all of the morale modifiers that I've talked about (though it's really beer & pretzels, like most ancient wargames). Warhammer Ancient Battles even has a campaign system that could work well for the Bronze Age or Age of Empire period (500 BC - 500 AD). Back to Dispatch July 2001 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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