From: Jervis Johnson

Dear Terry,

I've forwarded your message to Matt Keefe who is looking after the WAB web site run by the Warhammer Players Society. It's not an official site per se (we don't have one!), but most people think it is anyway.

Also, I received the copy of your ancient rules on Friday (hoorah!) and had a chance to read them over the weekend. They look great and I'm looking forward to giving them a try soon. Very well done!

[Ed. Thanks, Jervis, I hope you will enjoy the rules and look forward to hearing of your experiences with them].

Karl Heinz Ranitzsch writes:

Hello Terry.

Got my SAGA Saturday. Mail seems to be fairly quick - just 4 days. Didn't have much time for reading it, though. Just a quick look at it. Didn't expect to see my comments on MW - not that I mind. What does the title 'In the Witengemot' mean ? And I hope every reader will understand that the text in brackets is your commentary. [Before the dreaded Norman Conquest, the Witan council met to decide issues pertaining to Saxon England. The Witengemot is the council chamber…I usually reserve this for important letters or viewpoints in each issue. SAGA readers are used to my 'italicized comments!]

Various letters remark that it's good to have a choice of rules for gaming to suit gamer's taste. However, rules writers should keep their sets hardware compatible, that is, the base sizes should be the same for all sets of rules. This allows players to experiment with different rule sets without too much trouble. The point is not so much to have only multifigure elements on a given base size, as DBM or Armati. But if you have single figures, they should be sized to allow combining them to form elements of the standard size. WHAB is rather too vague on this point.

Also, rules should be written to allow playing with different figure sizes without too much mental arithmetic. In most clubs, people tend to collect armies of the same scale. So, a set of 25mm rules might have trouble finding players in a 15mm area.

Another remark about something in SAGA #69. Jamie McLaughlin Fish is, of course, perfectly entitled to voice his opinion (on p.23) that the large number of DBM list is too much of a good thing. However, what I think cannot be left to stand without comment is his statement that 'I cannot help but think that many are at best poorly researched and some seem ... imaginative'. A look at the acknowledgements shows that the lists were compiled with the help of many people. Among them are experts such as Duncan Head or Chris Peers, who have published quite a number of books on the armies in question.

Of course, there is room for detail improvement, especially in the more exotic armies, as can be seen by comparing the recently published 2nd edition of Army List Book 2 with the old version and in some cases the available evidence is pretty slim. But if Jamie has problems with some lists, he should do research on them and send an improved version to SAGA. But, please, no vague mudslinging!

By the way, Terry, how about a table of contents, on, say the empty last page? [I did that last issue, but thought it a waste of space.] And I would have liked to see a few words explaining the titlepage (Swiss Halberdiers, aren't they?) [Burgundians!]

From: Milton Soong (Editor of Savage and Soldier)

I have read through the newest online version of the rules that you mailed out recently, here are some comments:

MW reads like it's going to be my favorite set of medieval rules, can't wait to try them! Will probably do a solitaire walk through next week sometime. If that goes successfully, then will run that in the next local mini-convention at the end of July. (Do you know of other MW or AW players in the SF Bay Area I can hook up with?) [Unfortunately, when it comes to keeping track of purchasers of the the rules, I've been very lax. Unless I have an email address so I can put them in my address book for emailed updates, I really have no clue. Since over 200 SAGA readers as well as several thousand subscribers will read this to MAGWEB, hopefully some of them will get in touch with you. I'll include your email address. Msoong@netscape.com

Now some specifics:

2. RANKS: In many places in the revised rules the work "rank" is used.

These wordings seems like a carry over from the Old Terry Gore edition of the rules, where figs are mounted WRG style, while in the new Foundry edition, the "preferred" style seems to be for the new 40mm square bases, where close infantry will be mounted in 2 rows of figures.

So if I have my figs mounted Foundry style, and I see that "first two rank may fire...", does that mean the first two rank of FIGURES, or first two rank of STANDS? In the second case it actually means the first 4 rows of figures. It seems like the interpretation can go either way. [Read 'ranks' as 'Stands'. Therefore, figures two stands deep may fire Hopefully, this will manage to be edited out over time, though most players continue to use the WRG basing (me included).]

3. TAKING CASUALTIES: There are different number of figures on a stand between F basing and WRG basing (e.g. 2 cav per stand in F, 3 cav per stand for WRG). I assume that a stand is removed from a unit if the unit takes enough casualties to kill it off. So does that mean a WRG stand is actually harder to kill? Or do I actually pretend that a WRG loose order cav stand can sustain only 2 casualties? [No. A loose order stand has a strength of 3. No matter how many figures are on it. It takes three casualties to remove it.] It makes a difference since each STAND LOSS effects the morale of the unit.... (which lead to my next point)

4. STAND LOSS: Right now there's a -1 penalty per stand lost, regardless of the original unit size. That means the morale effect is the same if a 2-stand unit loses a stand, or if an 8-stand unit loses a stand. Even though in actuality the smaller unit has lost 50% of its strength whereas the larger unit only lost 12.5% of its strength. This seems to disproportionally biased in favor of smaller unit. I would prefer something like (-1 for every 25% of stands lost or something...) [For simplicity sake, we have a test for each stand lost. Look at it as a minor or major complication...unit leader killed, banner lost, orders screwed up, water is low, etc. It also keeps unit size down. the usual sizes are 4-6 stands. Some may take issue with units or groups being of only 240-480 men, but try commanding a group this size using your voice and simple signals. I am thoroughly convinced by my officer friends in the military that it is extremely difficult to command larger groups with such limited command control.]

Minor gripes:

5. In missile fire and melee, modifiers are applied to the "to hit" value (so a -1 is good), whereas in morale check the modifiers are applied to the die roll (so a -1 is a bad thing). It wouldn't be hard to standardize it so a -1 is always good (or bad). Some minor help for a brain that's not what it used to be... [We agonized over this for a year, but always came back to the 'reverse minus' as it was just so much easier to figure out what you needed for a hit, and then to roll a handful (or two) of d10 to see what you got.]

Other Comments:

6. Can't wait to see the Napoleonic Warfare rules, knowing that the same core rules can be applied to other period, I am wondering if MW core rules might apply to 19th century colonial period as well (As the editor of Savage and Soldier, you can guess where my interest lies) would like to tinker with a set of Colonial Warfare supplement if that's ok with you (or maybe I need to talk to Foundry?) [We will be doing a set of later 19th century rules, but they are down the pike aways. Feel free to explore this avenue, Milton. Who knows, if things work out, we may be able to collaborate, as I am with Bruce Taylor on the Napoleonic rules.]

7. Is there plan to do a "Renaissance Warfare" supplement? Early Italian war is another favorite period of mine. [Yes, they will be worked on after Napoleonics and SYW.] Keep up the good work, will probably purchase AW soon.

From: Glen Jones

Hail Terry, Duke of Normans,

Thanks for your letter, I was quite relieved to get it, I was starting to think some New York postal guy had maybe ripped off my forty bucks, also my ever helpful brother came round last week when I was out, and loaded windows ' 98 onto my PC without telling me, this closed my net link, which I've only just managed to re-connect today (after lots and lots of swearing), and your letter was waiting in my E-mail, so thanks again.

Sorry to hear about your defeat [Read that DEFEATS!] at Cold Wars, (well I'm not really, I'm from the north of England; and as you probably know William and his boy's did for our part of the country what the Mongols did for eastern Europe), were you using the MW rules or DBM. [We used our Medieval Warfare rules. Don't care for DBM, which's why I wrote MW, so as to have a gaming system I enjoyed playing. Selfish of me, I know, but apparently I was not alone in my desire for something more tactical and hands-on.]

Do Nikephorian's come out well under MW? I've had a Nikephorian army for years; it was the first army I ever completely painted myself, probably because it was very expensive points wise so there wasn't too many figure's to paint. Anyway it fared very well under 6th edition, not so good under DBM but it's a bit of a death machine using Armati. [Nikephorian's are an excellent army under MW. I should know, they did a number on me.]

I was really pleased to here that the rule's are in the post as three of the guy's are coming round for game tomorrow (24th) we had planned a double sized Armati, Macedonian's vrs Spartan's, but if Odin (and the post man) are kind, we could be having our very first game of Ancient Warfare, I'll let you know how we get on.

May Odin smile kindly on you, the rules are great. We've played two games so far and after a bit of struggling with the concept of units by the DBM fanatics, have really enjoyed them. Having said that we have got a couple of problems we need some help with if you could obliged. Firstly, the range for sling appears to be a good deal longer than that for bow, I suggested you were probably using effective ranges as opposed to theoretical ranges, the Macedonian dogs poo-pooed this however and demanded I mailed you for an explanation. [Ed. Definitely Effective Range, not what could possibly be reached.]

Next problem is, I am collecting an Alamanic army but because you don't cover them in your lists I am using your Early Frankish list. However you have the Franks armed with various weapons, but from what I've read the Franks were almost universally armed with some form of heavy throwing weapon either the Francisca or the Angon. [The various weapons category does allow you to throw missiles once before being Out of Missiles. This simulates the use of the francesca and angon.] The third problem is not with the rules but with the SAGA web site, I've spent the last couple of evenings trying to find it, but as yet no joy. Is it still up and running? [Yes, but we are under construction still and it is sometimes down for a periods of time. Keep trying, though. I will have to march north and ravage Morcar's Saxon lands if he does not give us satisfaction.]

And finally I would be very interested to know if you have any plans to do a set of rules for Renaissance warfare. [Actually, yes we are. We are contracted to do sets on Napoleonic Warfare, Later 19th Century Warfare and Seven year's Warfare in addition to Ancient Warfare and Renaissance Warfare.]

From: Russ Lockwood

I agree with Perry Gray's article in Saga #69 about the benefits of using the Internet to foster ancients through medieval wargaming, not to mention wargaming in general and the application of military history to the tabletop. I suggest he check out MagWeb. I started MagWeb (www.magweb.com) back in 1996 with various goals in mind

To bring together the various military history and wargaming publications into ONE site

To promote the magazines and newsletters to military history buffs beyond the wargaming hobby

To bring people with broad interest in military history into the hobby

To make the wealth of information--both history and product oriented--available inexpensively.

One site means less time wandering around chasing information and bad links, and more time downloading and reading what you want to see. And once you find what you want, it's all in electronic format, so you can cut and paste to a word processor, save a photo, uniform drawing, or map to hard drive (and even alter scenario maps via a graphics program), etc--it's very flexible!

Additionally, this "strength in numbers" idea also allows a central contact point to funnel interested people to various topics and sources--and this concentration of effort provides a focal point for "outside" contacts. For example, MagWeb's public relations agency grabbed the attention of USA Today newspaper, and the editor there awarded MagWeb a "Hot Site" award and put us in the newspaper. That, in turn, has allowed us to get into other papers and magazines, and even on cable TV (like ZDTV). We've watched our "visitors" (unique IP addresses) and "page views" (.htm pages viewed) grow, and I believe introduced many, many people to publications and products. And for a year membership, MagWeb still costs $5 per month--that's less than an hour of minimum wage.

Besides the wealth of historical info, rules ideas, and other hobby opinions from almost 12,000 articles and over 10,000 images from 62 publications covering ancients to modern and more (not to worry, search engine, subject index, and simple navigation included!), there is a members-only discussions section where folks can trade info and opinions across all time periods, not to mention a classified ads section to sell off unwanted lead etc.

In short, MagWeb was created by a team of wargamers who know exactly what history buffs and wargamers want. It's gotten high marks for speed, content, and navigational design. It's updated about twice a week or so, sometimes more, sometimes less, posting about 20 issues (current and back issues) per month, plus other "bonus articles" such as news items, sample book chapters, "war lore," and more.

Yes, it is an ambitious pace. Yes, I would like to post even more. (Can you imagine having access to all the back issues of Saga? We're working on it...) Yes, there are other plans in the background that we're doing to make it even better. It all takes time, technical expertise, more time, resources, and marketing. The strength of our hobby is our variety of interests and expertise. MagWeb is one way to bring that together.

From: Jeff Ball

Hope all is well personally and professionally.  Just a quick note on a few topics.  I SAGA.  By the time it is done, if you include the map, it should run at least have my Liegnitz article about half done so that will be available for the next issue of 4 pages maybe a bit more.  BTW, I like the new SAGA website.  I hope to be a regular contributor as time goes on.

I have been looking at some of the interactions from both the games I have played recently and the ones I expect at the Liegnitz game and I realize that the SC horse archers are going to have an exceptionally difficult time inflicting damage against the heavier armored knights with the additional +1 for shielded.  AC and FPC with shields are now invulnerable against SC with bows (or even CB and LB) except at close range.  I believe that I will try an optional rule at my game next Friday and propose its use (barring unforeseen problems) with the Liegnitz game along the following lines:  SC in 2 ranks may elect to fire as a single deep stand with 4 figures per stand rather than as 2 stands at 2 figures per stand.  The crux of this argument is that if you have x number of missiles going into a target then the result should not be dependent on the number of stands required to place x missiles on target. 

I do not advocate applying this to SI with missiles right now because their lack of both training and ability to concentrate and move into advantageous firing position in short order is lacking, whereas SC are much more likely to be able to pull this off.  This option will allow a chance to inflict damage which I think could reasonably have been expected to occur.  It may be advisable to limit the ability of all missile-armed cavalry to do this in all cases.  I will think about this some more and may give you a write up separate to Liegnitz for SAGA.  At the very least, well organized, trained, veteran troops like the Mongols would have the kind of concentrated 'targeting' or aiming implied here.  What do you think?

[Ed. I think it's great to try out new ideas with the rules. Some will work, others will be unusable, but the only way to determine that is to try it. I always look forward to hearing from anyone about new additions, clarifications, etc. If sound, I'll post them on our SAGA rules support site for anyone to try as options.]

I am thinking about using one of my 54mm figures (the Mongol commander with a basket of heads at his feet) as a prize for the Liegnitz game rather than a secondary or tertiary trophy for the tournament.  I will still have the Byzantine Emperor figure for the tourney winner trophy and may have another available for best sportsmanship, depending on timing.

One other point for clarity.  I assume that while you only need enough stakes to cover the frontage of a unit, you need a pavise for every stand.... [Ed. Absolutely!] All is well here in NVa.  Say hi to Bruce when you see him.  Talk to you soon.

From Norbert Brunhuber

First, let me give you some background. I've played Classical Hack a few times at Fall-In and Cold Wars and liked its recreation of ancient battles a lot. I have also read the DBM rulebook and immediately discarded them out of hand as being too abstract.

At Havoc I was fortunate to have the opportunity to play two new rulesets. Might of Arms and Ancient Warfare. I played the Might of Arms game first and it was a battle between Epriots and Carthaginians in Sicily. I was the Carthaginians and had a very weak center so it was going to be a challenging battle. I really like the way the rules work. The charts were intuitive and I got up to speed quickly. The troop types behaved as I expected and leaders gave a little boost to the unit they were in, but not overwhelming advantage. The wings and lines of the battle behaved well and routing was realistic. In short I liked these rules which played similar to Classical Hack.

The Ancient Warfare game was a battle between Macedonians and Bactrian Greeks, with me playing the latter. It was an unfair fight for me, but I accepted that. I was perplexed that the units on the table were setup in discreet, separate units rather than a line with wings. I spent most of the turn trying to get them together to form a line. Ancient warfare focuses too much on individual units rather than the overall superstructure they are meant to create. I also was a bit overwhelmed by the number of commands you could give each unit. It seemed too complex and unnecessary to have that many types of commands; like trying to fit a mass combat with skirmish rules. I really disliked the leader points rule. It made giving out commands a chore and made the course of the battle too dependent on the overall leader. There was no consideration made for units to be guided automatically by their local commanders, with the overall commander only providing a little extra bonus when he was directly in command.

I am sorry to say that I was underwhelmed with these rules, particularly in light of the Might of Arms battle I had just played. [Ed. Norbert, To each his own, I guess. Frankly, I designed these rules for TACTICAL battles, not the huge 1:100 or larger ratios in vogue today. Hence, units are important tactical parts of the system. I am a bit dismayed that you found six different orders a bit much to contend with. It's really quite simple. The orders are meant to keep your opponent 'honest', i.e., no reactive moves if you have to go first in a turn. As such, they are quite intuitive. The command limits mean that you will usually have some units which will not be able to receive orders each turn, again a limit on the 'telepathic generalship' of many games. Generals were problematic in that if they got bogged down in close combat, they were unable to issue any orders. Anyway, I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the rules, but like anything else, some people love them, others are less happy. that's why there are so many good systems currently available! I asked Norbert if he cared to respond to this and he graciously did as follows:]

Tactical battles - that is an interesting idea, but one which does not lend itself to ancients in my opinion. The only battles we really have information about were large ones generally, and the level of detail that we get in the descriptions does not go down to the tactical level. We can infer what individual cohorts might have done when set up on the tabletop, but that is all.

I would love to see a skirmish ancients game that would describe for example, two cavalry alae on patrol meeting one another, but we have no information on these kinds of engagements and thus it will never be seen as a representative historical recreation in miniatures. [Ed. Norbert's point here is representative of the conventional wisdom in the hobby today. Warfare is warfare. Livy, Sallust and Polybius' descriptive narrative provide enough detail to grasp the reality of ancient battle.]

Perhaps your rules would be better suited if they looked at only a section of the battle. That is, what is on the tabletop was only the left wing of the engagement and to the right, off-board; the rest of the battle is raging. That makes the disjointed nature of the units and the detailed commands more plausible. [Actually, the rules ARE intended to do exactly that, but wargamers like the 'big battles'. My own assumptions are based upon smaller battles and/or limited actions in the context of a larger battle.]

The number of orders in Ancient Warfare wasn't the problem so much as I felt that I was micromanaging how the unit was behaving. [Ah, but this is an enjoyable part of the game to me. If you get the chance, read my into to the MW rules on our web site.] To keep straight all the possible implications of each command in responding to the enemy's possibilities was too much and beyond the scope of a commander in chief on the scene.

These decisions would be handled by the local commanders. Only movement of units can be modeled in these recreations and so beyond charges, no special attacking/defending/meeting the charge/charging/etc. commands are necessary or important. [But in a tactical situation, orders are of paramount importance.]

You make a good point that generals would get bogged down when in hand-to-hand combat, but that is much better resolved with decreasing his command radius than Ancient Warfare's system. [But it is not as realistic. Norbert's opinions are well put, but I guess we simply disagree on certain issues. It's always good to get a little 'give and take' going, though!]

From Dennis Leventhal:

Terry,

I haven't found the time yet to do that article on chariots and archery, but I though I should at least expose the basic idea to you now (while you are considering various aspects of archery firepower).

Briefly, considering that light chariots were not really "shock" troops, what real value do they have on the battlefield? Why did ancient armies spend so much money on this equipage and training an "elite" force on something that would apparently be of value only when chasing a defeated & routing foe? The answer lies in 'firepower' - in combination with rapid field deployment.

The writers of From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies (1991) dug into this question, even to the point of reproducing chariot riding (i.e., moving platform shooting) conditions and doing 'field testing' with qualified archers. They concluded that chariot archery firepower was much more effective than is generally believed by present-day military analysts. Their tests showed that not only was accuracy likely to have been quite high, but also arrow volume was high - a product of both 'elite' training and the large quiver-carrying capacity of the chariot vehicle itself.

This would explain the reason for the "chariot circle" tactical formation used by ancient armies with elite chariot units, e.g., Egypt, Israel, etc. It allowed a barrage-like, continuous flow of missiles towards enemy units.

My proposal would therefore be to add an "advanced" or "optional" rule for Chariot Circles, as follows: Elite (trained) light chariot units may move into a circle formation which allows it to shoot arrow barrages up to three turns in a row without the need to rearm. If charged, the chariot unit must retreat immediately, and regroup in a "disordered" condition.

From: John Douglas

Hi Terry, Thank you for your last clarification on flank charges. I recently finished rereading the rules and had a few more questions. I must admit that I'm a bit of a rules lawyer (though I'm working hard on being less of one) and am in need of further clarification.

1. Page 5 says units can be 2-8 stands in size, while page 25 says 1-8. Which is correct? [1-8 is correct. This allows you to 'buy' single artillery pieces, chariots and elephants in AW and artillery and elephants in MW.]

2. MW had an additional 10 point cost per unit, while AW seems to omit this. Is this an intentional difference? [I've since eliminated he 10 point per unit cost. this was a holdover from WRG which really was not needed.]

3. The close combat table in MW shows a +1 modifier per extra figure per stand, while AW's shows +1 for just having more figures. Is this correct? [It's different for each rules set, reflecting the different figure to man ratios.]

4. A strict interpretation of the following two rules would apply them to attacking SI or moving SI, is this your intention? page9\line 11. " Skirmish infantry hit in the flank or rear are destroyed." [If they manage to get hit (caught) by any other troops, including other skirmishers, they are done.] page9\line 18-19. " SI automatically retire as a charge response ..." [But they might not move far enough to get away!]

5. I assume from the structure of the army lists in AW that an army is allowed only one CnC and an unlimited number of generals, correct? [That's right.]

Finally, I'd like to thank you for such a fine set of ancients rules. My passions for ancients have been truly rekindled.