The master plan: two glorious days of wargaming over the Memorial Day weekend, a continuing campaign, and participation by all. Helas! Not "all" showed up, and so the campaign effort was scaled down. I had, at first, drawn up a map of islands, and of provinces, and independent states, and home countries, and logistics points, and so on. But the final effort involved only four of us, and so I redrew the map, which resembled the one shown in the sketch below. You'll note that there's a slight resemblance to the map of Europe: there's an island empire (England) in the north-west, there are a couple of kingdoms on the main body of land (Europe proper), and there's an unexplored, unexploited area (Africa) to the south across the sea. Armies move from province to province, one area at a time. I chose the island in the north-west. I had two forces; one I sent east across the sea to invade the mainland, and the other I directed to conquer the provinces within my own island. Each player had two forces, and each force bore an amazing resemblance to a DBA army. Bob Hurst recently emptied his storage shelves of all his spare 25mm ancients figures, rebased them, and, using the DBA army list as a guide, grouped them and remounted them into genyooine, 12-stand DBA armies. Each army was placed in its own box (there are over 20 armies), and Bob's intent is to bring them to HISTORICON for sale. In our weekend campaign, each time any of us fought a battle, we'd reach, without looking, for a box of troops, and that particular army was the one with which we were blessed. I fought in three battles, and the results of my selections were: first, an Illyrian force, then a Marion Roman force, and lastly, a Thracian army. You'll note that, because of the blind selection procedures, as each of our armies made their way from province to province, the composition of the force varied radically. Prior to battle, we couldn't tell what type of force we would field. Despite the fact that we were using DBA-organized troops, you can rest assured we did not use the DBA rules! With the exception of John Shirey, who runs the DBM tournaments at HISTORICON and COLD WARS, none of us at table-side was a DBA/DBM fan. Since I was drafted to write the campaign procedures, I ginned up a set of ancients rules oriented towards the campaign structure. For example, whenever any of our armies entered an unknown province, we'd dice (50% chance) to see if an inherent garrison force existed to oppose us. If so, we'd set up a 10-stand unit to face our 12-stands. The garrisons were purposely made slightly weaker (10-stands) than our own forces because the campaign system really didn't want them to win, but only to hold us up and weaken our armies as we trudged across the map. In essence, therefore, the garrisons were to give a good account of themselves, get whomped by our invading army, and then run off the field, leaving the conquered province in our hands. Sometimes this worked, sometimes not. For example, in my first battle with the Illyrian army, as I approached the garrison, for my first contact, I ordered 2-stands of infantry (veteran status) to charge forward and close with 3-stands (regular infantry) of the defender's. Unfortunately, I forgot that one of the veteran infantry stands had my Commander on it. Even more unfortunately, my dice throws were atrocious, and my vets lost the engagement and fled, taking the Commander with them. The Commander's Military Capability (MC) factor was 55% (all Commanders were graded) , and he was required to toss below this number to survive the combat. The poor fellow must have been horribly wounded in the encounter, for he keeled over. Having lost their Commander, my Illyrian stalwarts immediately gave up the ghost... the battle was over, the garrison had won, and I was forced back, out of the province. My other encounters with garrison forces had happier endings. And in the last campaign turn, I entered Bill Rankin's home province, to face, not the 10-man garrison force, but Bill's defending 12stand army. Bill's army box turned out to contain 12 stands of Spartans; my own box had a Thracian force. Under the DBA scheme of things, there were troops types such as "blades" and "spears" and "psiloi", and other wonderful categories. Not so for our campaign. Here, there were three types of infantry (veterans, trained and regular) and two types of cavalry. When we opened a box of troops, if we saw there were any based for DBA at 4-per-stand, these were dubbed "vets". If 3- per-stand, these were "trained" and so on. Bill's Spartan force seemed to have nothing but veterans, while my Thracians, in addition to several veteran stands, had a sprinkling of trained troops. In the battle itself, these different troops moved at different speeds, governed by a deck of movement cards held by each player. There were 5 cards in the deck; the players alternately selected one, and the type of troops noted on the card (medium cavalry, veteran infantry, regular infantry, etc.) could move. Movement distances were also noted on the card... these were in the order of 10 to 15 inches. During regular movement in the sequence, no stands were permitted to approach enemy stands closer than 4-inches; only after all cards were played could the forces close in one grand bloody melee. There was one exception to the no-closer-than-4-inches rule: each side, in addition to its 5 movement cards, had 3 "Special Action" cards, which permitted one of two special functions. After playing a movement card, a Special Action card could be immediately played, and the player had the option of: a. Having all his missile troops fire, or, b.Taking one 3-stand contingent of the troop type desianated on the movement card, and, ignoring the 4- inch rule, have it instantly close with an enemy 3- stand contingent. This, by the way, was how my Illyrians lost... I played a Special Card, and ordered my veteran troops to immediately close. My previously played movement card had designated veteran infantry movement, so that only these troops could charge forward. But I had only 2 stands of vets, and so they went in against three stands of the enemy's. In the Rankin/Simon battle, Bill waited until all of the 5 cards of both sides had been played, and then his entire 12- stand Spartan line surged forward, contacting 5 of my stands. The battle procedure, however, prevents an automatic "ganging up" by one side on the other. There are two dice throws which must be made, and each references the Commander's Military Capability (MC). a.The first dice toss determines if your force is in proper battle formation. A toss below the MC ensures that the stands are in proper close order, shoulder to shoulder. A toss above the MC, and the f orce is deemed to be in "loose order", the stands placed in checkerboard fashion. A force facing loose order troops will get a positive modifier in the ensuing melee. b.The second dice toss concerns exactly how many stands the Commander can muster for the melee itself. He refers to the following chart: -------------------------------------- A maximum of 6 stands MC -------------------------------------- A maximum of 8 stands MC -------------------------------------- The entire force of 12 stands -------------------------------------- My Commander's MC factor was 60% at the time; thus if the toss was above 60, only 6 stands would engage. Between 30 and 60, only 8 stands would engage. Below 30, and the entire force could pile in. I think that Bill's Commander's MC was down to 45 (the poor man had been bounced around on the field before, each time losing 10 points off his initial MC rating), and Bill's dice toss indicated that even though all 12 of the Spartans' stands had charged forward, only 8 stands could participate. I should note that for this battle, I had turned my command over to Tony Figlia, while I acted merely as a data taker. We had the 5 stands initially contacted, and Tony then tossed the dice to see if other stands of ours could participate; our Commander's MC was 60, and the dice toss was extremely low, indicating that our entire force could join in the melee. But now we had to answer the question: how do we bring in the other stands? After all, they were scattered all over the field. The solution was to again use the Commander's MC rating. Using blocks of 3-stands, we measured the distance between the block and the melee. Then the chance, C, that all the stands in the block ran over to join the melee was: C = Commander's MC - Distance between blocks and melee Remember we had 5 stands to start with, and could potentially bring in another 7. Unfortunately, after a plethora of dice tossing, we were unable to bring in any additional stands; we were stuck with our original 5. The omens-were not good. Both sides added up the points of their stands in combat. Each stand was worth about 8 points (this varied depending upon the type of troop) . With his 3 stands, Bill totaled around 110 points, while we totaled 40 points. Every 10 points yields one Hit Die, a 10-sided die whereon the required tosses are: 8 or 9: 1 Hit 10: 2 Hits Additional dice may be obtained for the presence of the Commander, for any tactical advantages, etc. Bill's Spartans tossed a huge handful of dice; Tony tossed our puny 5 or 6. Both sides scored a couple if hits. The winner of the melee depends upon two parameters: S The number of stands in the combat H The number of hits you inflicted on the opponent These two factors are summed and the result multiplied by a 10-sided die. He who has the larger product is the winner. Here, the Spartans had an S+H total of around 12; our small force's S+H total was around 6. Alas for the Spartans... Bill tossed a 112" giving him a product of 12 x 2, or 24. Tony's toss was a "6" our product was 6 x 6, or 36. Against all odds, the Thracians were victorious! And even better, since the Spartan Commander had been engaged, he now had to toss under his current MC (now reduced to 35) to remain alive. He didn't... and with their Commander prostrate, the Spartans walked off the field, leaving (a) one dead Commander and (b) one unhappy Bill Rankin. Interesting Battle One of the more interesting battles concerned one in which Bob Hurst was engaged. He invaded a province and we set up the garrison force. Then Bob selected his box of warriors... and took out a bunch of wimpy Libyan light troops (which we termed "regular") . Worst troops in the campaign! His force strength, after adding up all his combat points, was less than that of the garrison he faced, since the garrison had a few trained troops, whereas he had none. Undeterred, General Bob advanced. on the other side of the field, near the baseline and safe on the far side of a river, was the garrison, headed by Tony Figlia. Tony decided not to move his troops at all... he sat and waited for the advancing Libyans to come to him. Five bounds later, the Libyans reached the river, and after all the movement cards had been played, Bob announced a grand charge. Dividing his 12-stand force into groups of 3 stands each, he diced to see if each group successfully crossed the river (70% chance of success) . Of the 4 groups, only one made it; the other Libyans, not having washed in a decade or so, refused to enter the river. Then, as in the battle procedures described above, the antagonists determined, using their Commanders' MC factor, how many stands could actually participate in combat. The Libyan force, since only 3 stands had crossed the river, was limited to just the 3 stands. Tony's garrison, in contrast, due to a low dice throw, managed to get their entire defending ensemble of 10 stands into the combat. No surprise here... after all the points were added up, the Hit Dice thrown, the casualties assessed, and the S+H factors compared, Bob's 3-stand Libyan force was thrown back. General Bob's dander was up... again, at the end of the next bound, he declared his all-out charge. This time, 3 of the 4 groups crossed the river, a total of 9 stands. Both sides diced to determine the exact number of stands in combat, and Tony's garrison mustered 8 stands, while the wimpy Libyans could muster only 6 out of their 9. But this time, General "Omar Qaddafi" Hurst couldn't be stopped; despite being outnumbered, a super die roll to determine the results of combat and his Libyans drove off the garrison. You may read all about it in Bob's unexpurgated biography (sent to you in plain wrapper) SECRETS OF A DESERT WARRIOR. In all, during the weekend, we played about 3 battles on Saturday, and another 10 battles on Sunday, more than enough to fill any wargamer's cup. Each of our armies started out with 100 Efficiency Points (EP). As an army marched across the map and engaged in combat, it took losses as function of the hits it received during each engagement. When the EP total of a force was reduced to zero, the force would evaporate and the player would receive a replacement army at his home province. At campaign's end, with each participant having started at a total of 200 EP (100 EP for each of 2 armies), the final results were: Figlia 200 EP remaining Simon 173 Hurst 145 Rankin 142 It should be noted that the good General Figlia's above total, indicating no losses at all, came about from the fact that whenever he entered a province and diced to see if an opposing garrison was present... it wasn't! All seemed to flee before him, and his forces never even engaged in battle! Back to PW Review June 1995 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 (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com