I bought a huge number of painted French Foreign Legion and Arab figures several years ago in 15mm. I finally decided to use them. As most of you know, one of the things required to wargame is a set of rules. I game several periods and decided a few years to reduce the number of sets I use.

I wrote a set of U.S. verses Moro rules and sent it in to the Heliograph about a year ago. I thought these rules would work with only a few modifications for legion games. All I had to do was add Cavalry and grappling hooks and modify the movement rules for different terrain.

Movement has increased and now accounts for desert terrain and cavalry. Three dice are rolled verses two in the Moro rules. I basically use the same unit sizes as for my Moro Games. French infantry and Arab Rifle units are 10 figures including the leader. Arab Melee units (no rifles) are 20 figures. Arab and French Horse/Camel are 12 figures. French Machine guns have a crew of 2 and cannon have a crew of 4. I make French base morale 70% to 90%. Arab Morale varies from 60 to 80%. Feel free to change the unit sizes and the base morale. These are the values I use in my games.

I’ve added grappling hook rules to allow the Arabs to scale French fort walls. I admit I don’t know historically what was used. A grappling hook makes more sense to me because you need wood to build a ladder. I have yet to read “Conquest of Sahara” by Douglas Porch.

I’ve kept the same action concept from my Moro rules where each side rolls to activate any unit. This still works quite well. For bigger games, I’m considering allowing each player on the winning side to activate a unit. Finally, feel free to modify or add to these rules as you see fit. You can add on rules for breaking down the fort gate, use a D10 die roll less than the number of figures for a morale check or change the grappling hook to a ladder.

Scrubs of the Desert French Foreign Legion Skirmish Rules

Rules Notes
Rules