Two or three HMGS conventions ago, one of the dealers decided to divest himself of his ELITE MINIATURES range of figures, and I took advantage of the opportunity to acquire several hundred renaissance 25mm figures. Acquisition solves only one-third of the problems concerning ginning up a specific game... the second step is to get the figures painted and based, and for the final step, set down on paper a rules set (heaven forbid that I use a set of published rules... Yuch! Pfeh! Ptooey!) It turned out that I was doubly motivated concerning a set of renaissance rules. I received a letter from Ian Weekley indicating that, in anticipation of my visit to his home in Norwich, England, he was assembling a 30mm renaissance army - two armies - and requested that I bring with me a set of rules applicable to the period. Now began the intense research necessary to generate the rules. First, as always, I delved deeply into my library of Classic Comics, Volumes 1 through 210. Next off my bookshelf came the noted work, THE ART OF MOONING DURING THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD, by Professor H Kolmak of the Centre For Provocative Wargaming Analysis, and finally, I referenced Professor Kolmak's other well known text, EROTIC RENAISSANCE POSES, OR 48 THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR HALBERD WHILE OFF- DUTY. The reader will note that I spare no effort in my researches. I have long noted that in the introductory portions of the rules sets oi the great wargaming rules writers, Bowden, Barker, Conliffe, et al, the author always states that for the particular era in question, he researched 325 battles, or 239 battles, or some such figure, to obtain sufficient information on which to base his calculations. Then, in his finished product, he incorporates this vast and complicated array of complex data... it shows up in such items such as "blades... +3" and "spears... +4" (or is it the other way 'round?), and "archers score on a die toss of 6." But back to the renaissance rules. Here, each side is divided into three groups (two outer wings and a center... term them all "wings" for convenience) . Each wing has its own Captain (commander) and two parameters must be tracked for the wing: a.First, each Captain has a number of Combat Points with which he may assist his units, temporarily raising their fighting capability. b.Second, each unit starts out with 100 Efficiency Points (EP). These EP decrease when a unit takes fire, when it f ails to pass a morale test, and when it engages in melee. A unit is taken from the field when its EP go down to zero. Problem One problem that immediately raises its head with the renaissance period is the proliferation of weaponry and troop types. A fairly huge matrix can be generated to pair off all the weapons and troops against each other... most rules sets do this. I chose the simple way out... if your unit is "better than the other guy's", your unit gets a plus in melee. And for every way in which it's "better," it gets yet another plus. For example, in one of our games we had some heavy cavalry bearing down on untrained foot. The heavy cavalry amassed their melee points as follows: +30 In all melees, all stands start out with "something"; this "something" is defined as an intrinsic +30, just for being there. +30 The heavy cavalry are facing infantry. They're definitely "better" than the infantry. +30 The cavalry are facing untrained troops. This is another "better". I should note that markers are used to denote "instantaneous" casualties, and every time one of the above items is listed, the enemy unit receives a marker. Which means that even before the melee started, the opposing infantry collected three markers. The values listed above are on a per-stand basis. The cavalry unit had three stands in it, hence with each stand worth 90 points, the total number of cavalry points were 270 Combat Points (270 CP). In contrast, the unlucky untrained infantry had no "betters" to refer to in the table, and hence placed no preliminary markers on the opposing cavalry. The infantry began, and ended, with their intrinsic +30 per stand. Their three stands thus totaled 90 CP. The CP totals of both units are referred to the chart shown below. Note that additional markers are placed on the combatants as a direct result of the melee. Each 100 point increment merits a dice toss on the chart. Thus the cavalry's 270 points merited three tosses, the first two at a CP=100, and a third at CP=70. The poor untrained infantry got one toss at a CP=90. 100 --------------------------------------------- Enemy loses 4 Efficiency Points CP --------------------------------------------- Enemy loses 8 Efficiency Points; Enemy unit receives 1 marker 1/2 CP --------------------------------------------- Enemy loses 12 Efficiency Points; Enemy unit receives 2 markers 01 ----------------------------------------------- All the dice tossing and noting of Efficiency Point losses can be termed the casualty phase; there remains the problem of determining who won the combat. Here, 3 factors come into play: S The number of stands in the unit, i.e., unit size. M The number of markers carried by the opposing unit. This is an indication of the casualties caused to the opposition. Note that this M factor is the total of all markers placed on the unit. Since a fire phase precedes melee, the opposing units, even before the melee takes place, may have collected an assortment of markers, each of which temporarily weakens it. D: A 10-sided die toss to provide the random element. These factors are combined to get a resultant total, T, and the side with the higher total wins the combat. The factor T is computed as: T = D x (S + M) I've noted that many rules sets look at only a single factor ... the M factor, i.e., which side caused the most casualties ... to determine the winner of a melee. To my mind, however, this is way too simplistic an approach. This method almost always guarantees the larger unit a victory, since the larger unit invariably scores the most casualties. on occasion (rarely, I must admit) I even toss in a 'morale' factor to account for a certain amount of fanaticism. I should note that I use a very similar chart for the firing procedures. Each unit totals its firing CP and refers to the chart. Each firing unit is given number of points depending upon its weapon. For example, each stand of trained bowmen is given 30 CP. If a 3-stand unit of bows fires, it totals 90 CP, and if it fires twice, it totals 180 CP. The 180 CP permit it to refer to the chart twice: once at a CP=100, and a second time at a CP=80. We've tried the rules a couple of times, each time adjusting the procedures in accordance with suggestions received at table- side. In one battle, I commanded the center wing of Lord Walte's army, and, in theory, we were supposed to be the attackers. My wing had about seven units in it, including heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, a cannon, etc. But my "attacking" wing's high water mark seemed to be about 24 inches from my baseline. I never even reached the center of the field. From across the board charged Tony Figlia's heavy cavalry and drove me back in melee after melee, to my own baseline. On my left, Bill Rankin's left wing of Lord Walte's forces didn't do any better. The opposing forces, ably led by Fred Haub (who must"ve read the rules, an unpardonable sin) whomped the Rankineers. I tried to explain to the opposition that they were supposed to be on defense... this fell on deaf ears, and they kept coming forward, spreading markers of destruction. Prior to and just after HISTORICON, I hosted Tom Elsworth, who flew over from England for the convention. We spent a great deal of time talking about the "recognizeable patternries" of the renaissance era, i.e., what was it that would make a set of rules applicable to the period, i.e.- "renaissancish". For one, the rules had to account for certain formations... the Swiss, the Spanish, the Swedish, etc. Troop and unit types. Here, the Simon archives came up with a 1968 ARMCHAIR GENERAL (Vol 1, No 4) in which Pat Condray discoursed on the army content of the 30 Year's War (1618 to 1648) and later. Around this time, said Pat, pike units were being supplemented with musket and arquebusier units. I decided that my renaissance period would not go that far in time... I was interested in the 1400's and the 1500's. Which means that for the most part, I'd have separate pike units, sword and buckler units, arquebusier units, musketeer units, etc. Firing. The rules had to allow for the caracole. And there should be a distinction between arquebusier and musketry fire. One thing I picked up from the Condray article was that the arquebusier was a "... less accurate handgun ... (than the musket) ... having about half the range and twice the rate of fire of the musket..." Leadership? Nothing too extraordinary here. Evidently, leaders are leaders regardless of the era. Mercenaries. Some of the troops should be unreliable. This, in particular, may be difficult to implement. The problem here is that if, during a battle, a huge contingent of one player's forces walks off the field, this makes for an unhappy player. We also decided that the various weapons had to be reflected in the rules. Maces and swords and lances and pikes and halberds and so on... somehow, they had to show up in the lists. This, of course, bodes ill for my melee procedure using the "you get something for being better than the other guy". Back to PW Review August 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 (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com