It was bright windless day. The Roman Commander, Legatus J. Joseph Nechio, had commenced maneuvers against the Parthians. However, since the battle apparently was taking place at the border of the Empire that divided Rome and Parthia, the Romans had deployed on their side with two pieces of terrain. A woods, was on the left flank, slowing down the approach to the right flank by horse, in the center, rough ground would force the Parthians to split their forces. The Romans would take advantage of this by deploying in the center and left flank.

On the Parthian Surenas' side of the field there were two gentle rises as his battleline was in the Parthian desert, not in Europe. He deployed on his left flank which was the open end of the field.

Now, you heard of this before, right? That battle will be a race to flank each other and become a pinwheel. Both are playing by the rules, "Armati" rules that is. "Armati," of course, is a miniatures tournament system written by Arty Conliffe, and published by Quantum Printing. Because it is a tourney system, the player is the thing, not the play so to speak. Total control of the player's army is almost assured. The two attempts to add "friction" are involved in command control. It is nearly impossible to split up a battleline until the opposing forces make contact, and certain units will charge to contact no matter what the player wishes.

The game is move/countermove, with the players determining who moves first and last by the army's different rating, better tactical armies get higher ratings. So this allows the winners to force the loser to move first and counterpunch after analyzing the move, or move first to take advantage of an opponents blunder or vulnerability.

Advanced Armati has army lists that cover warfare from Biblical times up to the 30 years war. Included in each list is the army's control factors, troop types and costs, and the allowable terrain on which it may fight.

High Points

The reason I'm taking up space with this description, is to introduce to you readers who don't know about "Armati," the high points of the system. Since the system is set for tournament play, terrain, which is always a potential problem to cause argument, has been almost removed from the game. Battles take place on the steppes or desert, terrain is almost non existent. The Iron Duke would indeed say that "Armati" is played "on the playing fields of Eton."

This is fine for tourney. But if we wish to move further on towards historical reality with Armati, (which I know is very subjective, but my real interest) then one must move towards solving the terrain problem. Let us analyze why Generals chose a battlefield.

Battlefields were chosen to enhance the General's army's performance, keep it in supply and hinder the enemies', (Darius position at Arabella is a good example).

The big problem is that this does not usually happen in reality. If one is invading a country, it does not get to drag its favorite terrain along with it. (I'm sure the Teutons wished they could have dragged thick woods along when they fought Marius.)

The General has to contend with the fact that the defenders are going be picking the best defensive terrain they can find. Part of his battleplan will be to overcome the enemy's advantage with the position, either by maneuvering him out of it, or attacking its weak link.

Since "Armati" starts where maneuver leaves off, the option that is left is attacking the enemies' weak link as the general sees it. This where part of the challenge of the forming a battleplan is realized. Of course the enemy may or may not be aware of this weak point, and he will be forced to protect it. Or the weak point may be a trap, and the enemy has planned a powerful counterstroke to take advantage of it.

What I am saying is there is more to battle then just pinwheeling around a center point. But until we set down solid parameters, pinwheeling is what we are going to be doing with "Armati." So I would suggest the following:

Doubling or even tripling the terrain allotment. Instead of buying just one Steep Hill, you get one and a lesser feature for the same cost. Gentle rises are the least disruptive feature on the game board, and really should be free, every battlefield usually has rolling terrain. So now we have to determine where that field is going to be.

Going back to the Parthian example at the start of the article, historically Rome and Parthia clashed in three geographical different areas: Armenia and Cappadocia, Asia Minor, and the Babylonian desert. The first is mountainous with deep valleys, the second, hilly, the third reasonably flat, but has rolling ground.

Needless to say the Parthians' ideal choice would the desert. However what if they are on the way to siege Antioch? Antioch is not the desert. Though the ground around the city is flat and rolling there are steep hills that would break up a field as well.

So we will determine terrain type by finding who is the attacker and who is the defender. That is simple. High die wins. The winner now declares if he is attacking or defending. Defender gets choice of terrain. Attacker gets 1 additional Army Break Point. This is because the attacker is highly motivated, invaders usually are.

Let's go back to the Parthian example. That Parthian Surenas has decided to invade. So our Legatus uses the Roman terrain choices, representing Asia Minor or Armenia. This means the Surenas must also use the Roman terrain choices. The choices are doubled or tripled. For each piece that is bought, a gentle rise is added for free. At least five points must be spent on terrain. Which means if a player get 30 points of bonus picks, 25 are spent on the army, 5 on terrain.

Pick Geographic Areas

The field is getting clogged up a bit more now isn't it? Even more fun can be had if players start picking the geographic areas to fight in. I. E. Mithadrates decides to invade Greece. Sulla meets the Pontic Army there. Both use the Greek terrain choices, doubling or tripling them. Had Sulla met him in Thrace, that list's terrain choices would be used and so on. If Trajan invades Dacia, then both players are going to use the Dacian list's choices. If Hermann is taking on Q. Varius in the German Wald both the Roman and German players are taking terrain picks from the German list, and if France is fighting Spain in Renaissance Italy, both are picking terrain from the Italian list.

By doing this, additional battlefield planning is added to the game, and the terrain now becomes more of a factor in choosing a battlefield deployment. A little more chrome has been added, but with enhanced results.

Next Column: "Adding Rivers and Streams in Armati"