Several HISTORICONs ago, Bob Hurst and I lugged a ton of 25mm ancients figures to the convention site, and kept some 10 gamers (5 per side) happy for about three hours. Rarely have I looked at the rules since then, but I took them off the shelf some three months ago, and decided to bring them up to date. An army is composed of 3 wings, with each wing allotted an assortment of heavy and medium troops, both mounted and foot. We also have archers and slingers and javelins... in short, all the recognizable patterny of the ancients era. Each unit has a data sheet which lists 3 basic parameters: a. A number of boxes to be crossed out (about 12 in number). The boxes are clustered in groups of in 2's, 3's or 4's. b. A morale level which is associated with the above boxes... as more and more boxes are crossed out, the morale level decreases. Each time a group of boxes is crossed out, the morale level, which starts out at 85 percent, goes down by 5 percent. c. Also associated with each group of boxes is a number indicating the number of Hit Dice (10-sided dice) that each stand will toss in melee. A fresh heavy cavalry unit starts out with 4 dice per stand, hence a 3-stand unit gets 12 dice to toss. Medium infantry start out with 3 dice per stand, and so on. All in my ancients 25mm army are mounted on 2-inch by 2-inch stands. A unit is defined as being composed of either 1, 2, or 3 stands. There is no need to have a greater number of stands per unit, since the actual strength is denoted on the data sheet, i.e., the remaining boxes, the current morale level, and the Hit Dice describe all the necessary unit parameters. In a game played in mid-July, my right wing units were attacked by those of Tony Figlia's, who commanded the opposing left wing. At the start of the battle, as I was taking troops out of the box, I didn't properly balance the table top forces, and one of the results was that there were 9 right wing units under my command, while Tony had 12... hence he was able to muster a heavier force than I. In the first phase of melee, Tony brought forward, as a lead unit, a 3-stand heavy cavalry unit, and contacted a 2-stand medium cavalry unit of mine. The second phase consists of both sides attempting to bring up supporting units for their lead units. Initially, the way I had written the rules, a side could call on any unit, anywhere on the field, as a support. There were no restrictions. The chance, C, that the unit "ran over" to assist was defined as: C = + (Morale Level of unit called upon to assist) - (Distance between lead unit and unit called upon to assist) Some 5 minutes into the game, and it was apparent that too many units... some of them way, way out in the boonies... were being called upon to help sister units out. We immediately introduced the restrictions: a. Dice were thrown to determine the maximum number of assisting units.., either 1, 2, or 3 b. Only units 12 inches or less from the lead unit could assist. When Tony's heavy cavalry contacted my medium cavalry, then, tossing dice for the chance to bring in supports (using the chance factor, C, given at the top of this page) I managed to bring in as a support, a 3-stand unit of medium infantry. Tony, in contrast, brought in a 2-stand medium cavalry unit, plus a 4-stand medium infantry unit. Dice allotments for both sides, read off the data sheets, were: My Guys Tony's Guys Dice Per Total Dice Per Total Stands Stand Dice Stands Stand Dice Heavy Cavalry 3 4 12 Medium Infantry 3 3 9 4 3 12 Medium Cavalry 2 3 6 2 4 g Total Dice... 15 32 But wait... we weren't through yet! The above dice are termed "intrinsic dice", since they come with the unit, regardless of opponent. The unit gets these dice simply because it exists. There's another set of combat dice arising from the particular melee, i.e., the type of opposing unit. Each unit, in turn, is referenced against the most powerful opposing unit, and a matrix is used to pull off the number of dice resulting from the pairing. In the above melee, all my units were referenced with the opposing heavy cavalry unit, and they each picked up 1 die. In contrast, Tony's units were referenced against my most powerful unit, my medium cavalry, and his heavies picked up 4 dice, his medium cavalry picked up 1, and his medium infantry picked up 1 die. The result was that Tony tossed a grand total of 38 dice, and I tossed 17. You will note this is definitely a dice tossing game. Throws of 1, 2, and 3 are hits on the opponent's force. I forget how many hits were inflicted on my force, but after spreading them out amongst my 2 units, sufficient boxes were crossed out on both of them such that their morale levels were down around 60 or 65 percent. After casualty assessment, i.e., recording hits, each of the units on each side takes a post-melee reaction test to see if it holds position or falls back. The test consists of tossing percentage dice, and adding the toss to the remaining morale level of each unit. The total is then referenced to the following chart: Under 100 Unit falls back 20 inches, loses another 2 boxes 101 to 130 Unit falls back 8 inches, loses 2 boxes Above 130 Unit holds position Note that to hold position, the total must be greater than 130. When my two units tested, each with a morale level of around 60 percent, their totals were far below 130, and both fell back 20 inches, losing even more boxes. After some 5 turns, it was apparent that I was outmatched, outgunned and outweighed... in just about every melee, Tony managed to bring up more supporting units than I. And you'll note that, given the horrendous numbers of dice to be tossed, the presence of a supporting unit is not to be ignored. My own flank, the right, was a lost cause, and I looked at our left flank, commanded by John Shirey. John's opponent was Fred Haub, and both were going at each other, hot and heavy, with their heavy cavalry. Note that, in combat, a lead unit can call upon a maximum of 3 support units, hence there is a maximum of 4 units per side in melee. I don't recall anyone ever getting all 4 into the fray, but on occasion, I saw 3. John had just completed a flank attack on one of Fred's units. This advantage gave John an additional stand's worth of dice. I think John totaled about 300,000 dice. Fred, in turn, having successfully called on a fair number of supporting units in melee, was counting his dice, and had a grand total of 32. No matter. It wasn't the hits, so much as the resulting post-melee "hold position" test. John's forces fell back, my forces fell back... the battle was lost. Back to PW Review July 1994 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com