The siege has always been an important part of the art of war and yet I have never seen a set of rules that really captures the 'feel' of this type of fighting. At this point, no doubt, there are several rules writers contemplating scathing letters to the editor. Still, the evidence is clear. How many of us have participated in a good siege game, or even seen one? Not many, I suspect. There are two possible reasons for this gap in the hobby: Either the subject is inherently uninteresting as a game, or we just haven't stumbled onto the right way to capture the essence of the siege in a set of rules. I personally think it can be done.

Sadly, I'm not bright enough to do it on my own, but I have given some thought to the subject. I'm sharing my random musings with you fellow readers in the hope that wiser heads will be moved to write their own ideas and send them in. Who knows, maybe this will be the first instance of the readership of a magazine collaborating on writing a set of rules. Without further ado, here are my thoughts (in no particular order) on how to game a siege in, say, Europe circa 1200 A.D.

THESE ARE THE POSSIBLE OPERATIONS A BESIEGER CAN ENGAGE IN:

Set up camp
Security
Mine
Forage
Construct
Bombard
Assault

Men and material can be assigned to any or all of them in any day. Men can only be assigned to one task per day. If called away from their original assignment to repel a sortie, any work done on that assignment that day by them is lost.

SET UP CAMP

It takes one man/day per person in the besieging force to set up camp. This is mandatory, and must be done before any other task. Up to one camp can be established for each 'accessible face' of the fortress. For example, a castle built on a headland is only accessible from one side, so all of the besiegers are in one camp. A castle built 'in the open' is accessible on 4 sides, so you would have 4 camps. For all you geometry buffs out there, don't bother writing to point out the many possible shapes a castle can take.

For simplicity, let's go with a rectangle for this purpose. Beyond the basic camp, the besieger may choose to add security features. A low earth wall and a ditch between the camp and the castle takes 100/man days (MD) per camp. The same feature completely surrounding individual camps costs 2 MD per person in the camp. Either type can have one gap up to 3" wide every 12". The camp takes up an area of 3 square inches per man or horse. By the way, I'm talking 25mm figures here, the miniature of choice for real men. You 15mm gamers will have to adjust scales. Note that the camps will probably not be represented on the actual table that holds the castle. In the event that defenders sortie and attack one or more of the camps, a separate gaming area will have to be provided.

SECURITY

Men assigned to security duty are divided into 2 groups. If a sortie occurs, the group on duty is determined by dice roll. They can be placed anywhere in the camp area at the start of turn 1, when gaming a sortie.

MINING

For every 10 MD assigned, roll 1d10. When the total reaches 100, the wall is breached. If a 0 is rolled on a D10, then roll a D6 against the mining random event table below. The first 10 MD assigned to mining in a calendar day count full value. The second 10 MD count only half value (diminishing returns due to overcrowding). The 3rd 10 MD are halved again. No more than 30 MD can be assigned to a single mine. The besieger can attempt as many mines as he has resources for.

Mining random events table:

1 - Your efforts are detected. Defender can start unrestricted countermining.
2 - Hit rock. This mine can't go forward, and must be abandoned.
3 - Mine flooded by underground spring. Mine must be abandoned, and lose 1d6 miners.
4 - Mine collapses. Lose 12 miners, and mine must be abandoned.
5 - Hard mining! All MD halved. This is cumulative with other MD reductions.
6 - Easy Mining! All MD doubled.

FORAGE

The world beyond the immediate vicinity of the siege can be divided into 4 foraging areas, one for each cardinal point of the compass. Each area will have a rating for materials and one for food. For example, if the land north of the siege is wasteland, it might rate very low for materials and food. If it is peppered with farms and small patches of woods it might rate high in both categories. If it is heavily wooded, it might rate high for materials and low for food.

Any number of MD can be assigned to forage in any or all of the 4 zones, but any MD greater than 40 deployed in a zone on a given day operate at half value. When the rating for a commodity has been exhausted, no more of that commodity can be obtained from from that zone. Note that foragers do not consume rations. To reduce book keeping they are feeding themselves on the countryside apart from the rating of the zone.

CONSTRUCT

All construction costs MD and materials. All construction takes place in the camps. See the tables below for construction costs in MD and material. Whenever a sortie is run into a camp where construction is taking place, the MD invested that turn are lost, and the men engaged in that task are available to fight as 'reinforcements'. Rules need to be established to allow reinforcements drawn from the men working on projects and men from other camps to join in repelling the sortie, but not right away. Some sort of random arrival, I think. If that encamped zone is temporarily overrun by the sortie the material invested in any construction projects in that zone is also lost.

BOMBARD

The castle wall can be breached and defenders can be killed by stone throwing engines. Engines can be either small or large. Small engines must operate on the tabletop that the castle is set up on. Large engines must operate from the camps. Bolt throwers are always small. They can be used against other small engines, or against men, but not to damage the walls. When bombarding with bolt throwers, ignore structural damage indicated on the table.

For each day of bombardment, roll 1d6 for each engine. Add 1 to the roll if using a large engine.

1 - No effect
2 - No effect
3 - Kill 1d3 enemy, no effect on structure
4 - Kill 1d6 enemy, no effect on structure
5 - Kill 1d6 enemy, 2d6 effect on structure
6 - Kill 1d6 enemy, 2d6 effect on structure
7 - Kill 1d6 enemy, 3d6 effect on structure

Note: If a 1 is rolled on the anti personnel dice, the target also loses an engine if one is present in the area under attack. Area is defined as the curtain wall between 2 towers.

ASSAULT

An assault can take place over the wall, if the attacker has a tower and/or ladders, or through a breach (which includes a broken gate). The actual shooting and fighting are carried out using your favorite set of '1 figure=1 man' rules. Personally, I like 'Warhammer', but any set will do. Simple is good.

There are 3 phases to the assault; Suppression, Approach, and Melee.

In the suppression phase the attacker uses missile fire to suppress the defenders and cover approaching attackers. A number of rounds of missile exchange are fought until one side or the other accepts that they are suppressed. Either side can forfeit without fighting any rounds if they choose.

The approach is the part where the attackers cross the ground covered by the defenders missiles. If the defenders have been suppressed, no problem. If they have not, then the attackers must take stick as they approach the walls.

The melee phase includes dropping rocks, boiling oil, and other nasty things on attackers at the foot of the wall, as well as hand to hand combat. Note that this dropping business can be carried out even by previously suppressed defenders. Again, use your own rules to determine the outcome, but make sure they place attackers at a severe disadvantage when trying to climb up a ladder while dealing with someone at the top trying to kill them. Fighting through a breach or across a siege tower bridge should be less difficult, but still a disadvantage to the attacker. CONSTRUCTION TABLE Item MD Materials Ladder 1 1 Ram 10 5 Tower 500 50 Covered ram 250 25 Mantlet 30 3 Bolt shooter* 250 25 Catapult* 250 25 Big catapult* 500 50 Mine* 500 50

Note: All MD costs are doubled and items marked * can't even be attempted if not directed by 'Learned Men', ie medieval engineers. Such a man might be a priest or he might be a veteran soldier with a knack for this sort of thing. In any case, such people were not common, and that should be reflected in some sort of points system. For my own thoughts on the relative value of different types, see the points table below. A Learned Man can only direct one project at a time: All the ladders being made in 1 camp counts as 1 project. 1 catapult counts as 1 project, etc.

POINTS

Non combatant laborer - 1 pt
Common soldier - 2 pt
Elite soldier - 3 pt
Learned Man - 50 pt
Archers and mounted men cost double.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

I hope some of these will draw ideas in from others.

What really matters for a defender in a siege? Food and water, and the impact any shortage would have on numbers and fighting ability. The morale of the defenders, and it's impact on their fighting ability. What might raise or lower defender morale? How many man hours must a defender devote to:

Repairing a breach
Countermining
Sortie

How about ammo supplies? How about the degree of vigilance maintained by the defender, and the negative impact on morale because of it. On the other hand, if they are not vigilant, how might that affect the attacker's chances in a surprise assault? Hmmmm.

For the attacker, the availability of food and water would also matter. You don't really know how much the defender has. What if you pick the countryside bare before your opponent runs out. If you are gaming circa 1200, at least a part of your army will walk away when their 40 day service obligation is expired. Can you take the castle in 40 days? Is there a relieving army coming that will limit the time you have to spend? Are friends of the defenders harassing your foraging parties and hampering your ability to gather food and material? Hmmm.

For both sides, this really is a resource allocation game punctuated by acts of violence. How you deploy your resources, and how you screw with your opponent's resources, determines victory.