I placed just about all the 15mm ancients figures I had on the table. Half were besieging, half were besieged. The town of Opar was surrounded. In England, I had observed a part of a game... DBM, of course... which purported to employ some sort of siege rules supplement, but it fell flat. All it did was to tack on to the usual DBM sequence a phase wherein the besieger could erect a ladder, construct a ramp, etc. And all this within the normal time span of the turn, which in itself, is a closely guarded DBM secret. All present agreed that the missing, key, ingredient, was a phase separate from the 20-minute? 30-minute? tactical half bound, a much longer phase which would enable long term projects (ramps, mines, etc.) to be undertaken. I set up a sequence of four phases within the bound, two short term, two long term: a. Besieging force's tactical phase: here, the attackers move their troops around the field, fire simultaneously with the defenders, rally disorganized units, erect ladders to scale the walls, and engage in an assault or two. This phase represents one day's activities. b. Strategic phase: a long term period, in which the passage of time is decided by the toss of percentage dice... 01 to 33 5 days 34 to 66 10 days 67 to 100 20 days If the period exceeds 5 days, the besieging force gets a chance to erect a section of ramp. Other activities include reinforcements and desertions for both attacker and defender, destruction of a section of ramp by the defending force, repair of wall sections, and the allotment of what I term "Sorti Points" (SP), which can be used to assist in combat during the tactical phases. c. Defending force's tactical phase. Another one-day affair during which the defending troops get to make sortis outside the walls of the town, fire simultaneously with opposing missile troops, move around the field, rally, etc. d. Strategic phase. Another long term period, similar to Phase b. The victory conditions are essentially set during the strategic phases, for the besieging force must batter its way into the town before a total of 180 days have passed. In our first test game, Jim Butters besieged, while Cliff Sayers defended. The engineering capabilities of Jim's troops were sadly deficient... during the entire siege, they constructed only one small section of ramp. Since it required three complete sections to reach the height of the walls, Cliff's defenders could concentrate solely on the scaling ladders erected by the attackers. Note that each strategic phase, a passage of time equal to either 5, 10 or 20 days occurred. If a 10 or 20 day period elapsed, then the besieger could attempt to erect a section of ramp. A 5 day period was deemed to be insufficient for ramp building. The percentage chance, C, of erecting a section was: C = 50 + (Time Period) Thus if 20 days passed, the chance, C, equaled 50 + 20, or 70 percent. Jim never seemed to be able to make his dice throws. On the other hand, Jim's luck concerning his reinforcements was phenomenal. Each strategic phase, percentage dice were thrown and the following table referenced: 01 to 33 Defender receives 2 stands (inf or cav) 34 to 66 Besieger receives 2 stands (inf or cav) 67 to 100 Each side loses one stand If a side received reinforcements, and felt lucky, it could attempt to double the reinforcements to 4 stands... a 50$ chance of doing so. If the dice throw was not successful, no reinforcements arrived. Butters the Besieger seemed always to receive 4-stands of reinforcements; rarely did his dice fail him. The town of Opar had battlements as depicted in Sketch No. 1 on the next page. The front wall of the town measured 36 inches, and each 6-inch length of wall (give or take an inch) was considered a separate section for assault purposes. Digression. The town was constructed of items (walls, gates, towers, etc.) produced by Ian Weekly; these are currently being distributed in the USA by Brookhurst Hobbies of Florida. It should be noted that most wall and tower sections currently being manufactured are nicely modeled, but all provide a very narrow parapet - perhaps 1/2-inch in width - on which to place stands of troops. This is in keeping with the actual dimensional relations of the real-world castle section being modeled, i.e., parapet widths were not overly large. The result, however, is that it's quite difficult to balance a stand of troops with a 1-inch deep base on a 1/2-inch deep parapet. Robin Peck and I visited Ian Weekly in past years, and convinced him that the wargaming world would accept a wee bit of architectural inaccuracy in his models - a wider parapet than normal - if it allowed sufficient space on which to place stands. And so the happy ending is that all the Weekly items, both 15mm and 25mm, have adequate room on their parapets for troop placement. End of digression. Note that in the sketch of Opar, of the six 6-inch wall sections along the front of the town, four have gates. These are critical, for as soon as the attacking side wins control of a section containing a gate, the gate is instantaneously opened, and into the town may pour all the attacker's cavalry. Until then, the besieger's mounted troops are essentially observers. In contrast, the defender's cavalry can be fairly active. As long as the defender controls a gate section, then on his tactical turn, he opens the gates and the cavalry may sorti out, engage in combat, and immediately retire, after which the gates are closed again. Gates figured rather prominently in our second game. Here, the sequence of events was: a. Brian Dewitt, as besieger, managed to capture a section of wall which contained a gate. b. At this point, Brian left the game - familial affairs beckoned - and turned his forces over to me. "Fear not!" said I, "After all, didn't I write these rules myself?" c. On my next tactical phase, with my men defending the open gate, through the gate and into the town went my heavy and medium cavalry, driving back the defenders. d. On the next defender's tactical phase, however, an attack on my infantry manning the walls was successful... my boys were driven from the wall, and the besieging forces regained control of the wall section. The gate was slammed shut! e. My cavalry within the town were now isolated and couldn't be reinforced. My first counter-attack to win back the wall section was unsuccessful; the defenders still held the walls. f. For my second counter-attack, I tossed in The Horde*, trained troops who feed on raw flesh. I won the wall back, opened the gate, and freed the cavalry. * I should note that some time ago, I purchased a 1,000 point Roman Patrician Army with which to play WRG 7th, and The Horde was a contingent in that army. I have no idea of what type of troops they are, but aside from numbers, they look rather grungy and ratty. The Horde consists of 4 stands, each of some 8 figures; 4 stands, a total of 32 figures, presents an impressive array in 15mm scale. When Brian turned his forces over to me, I think some 130 days of time had passed, the result of dicing during the strategic phases. There were, therefore, 50 days left within which to win. For the besieger, the definition of "winning" was referenced to Sketch No 2. This is a map of the region within the town. Note that the town is divided into a number of areas, 15 in all. Each area can hold two 4-stand units. The key area is the one marked "HQ". If the besieger can capture this area, he's won the battle. Note that each 6-inch section of wall has an area directly in back of it; troops in this area can assist the wall's defenders against an assault. Thus when a wall section is assaulted, there are two defending units participating in melee: the unit on the wall, and the unit in the area directly in back. Similarly, the attacking side designates two assaulting units. Melee is always 2-units-on-2units... well, sort of... I mentioned in my description of the strategic phase, on the first page of this article, that each side received "Sorti Points" (SP) to assist in combat. These SP are used to add stands to the two units already in combat. Note that in the diagram of Sketch No. 2, the defender has an area called the "Reserve Zone". In melee, each SP played permits one stand sitting in the Reserve Zone to "waft" into combat, regardless of the location of the melee. A maximum of 5 SP may be played in a melee, hence the maximum number of reinforcements for the 2 units already in combat is another 5 stands. The besieger also has a Reserve Zone. Since use of the stands in the Reserve Zone is the only way to pour additional units into a combat, each side wants to keep an adequate supply of troops there. Against this, of course, is the need to keep units in the field as front-line troops... which means that each tactical phase, the commander must decide as to how many stands go to reserve and how many go to the front lines. This was a first cut at siege rules, and the games in which we engaged revealed lottsa holes. One anomaly, for example, is the long time span (twice per bound, resulting from the strategic move phase) that pops up between each 1-day tactical phase of besieger and defender. Perhaps only one strategic phase per bound should be used. Supplies, plague, mines, etc... all these will be gradually melded in as the siege rules progress. I've noted in the past, however, as attempts to make a set of rules more "historical" progress, one tends to go too far... let's hope it doesn't happen here. Back to PW Review April 1995 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 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