Art of the Siege
Rules
by Bob Duncan
by Bob Duncan
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For use with McRule's Renaissance to Reformation Rules or for any other general melee wargame rules for the period. These rules are used to cover the opening phase of any Medieval/Renaissance siege. Their purpose is to offer the attackers the chance to reduce the enemy's fortifications before a general assault is declared. Failing that, you might be forced to go to the extreme of starving him out - that is if your besieging army holds together long enough! In some scenarios the troops inside the fortress also have the option of breaking out. Success is determined by preparation, timing and a pinch of good fortune. Turn Sequence All turns represent one week's activities. Each item below is explained in the rules that follow. This turn sequence also acts as a table of contents for this section.
1. Weather Check At the beginning of each weekly turn roll 1D6 to determine the weather for that week. Weather is considered to be either "wet or dry". Dry weather permits all activities to be carried out without penalty. Wet weather, on the other hand, precludes any engineering projects from making any further progress until dry weather returns. Wet weather also reduces all rnissile fire and bombardment to one half value. The game year is broken down into 12 week seasons (one year = 48 weeks). All smart besiegers begin their campaigns on the first week of summer.
2 Attrition Rolls Check for troop losses caused by things other than combat. Accidents, hunger, disease, and individual desertion all took their toll. 3. Determine and Place Engineering Projects One player per side should be desigated the siege engineer. He should assign the figures under his command to various projects as shown below. He should also keep track of what he is doing on a chart (provided as an addendum to these rules). 10 Figures (an engineering team) can execute the following projects in one week:
Notes: All siege engines may be built in place requiring no move. Siege engines that do move on wheels (siege towers, portable catapults, etc.) may be repositioned as above. 4. Weekly Raid Determination - Percentile Dice During this phase each commander will have one of his subcommanders roll on the following tables. This subcommander is considered the raider with a small detachment in his command for that turn and must sustain any casualties/honors from his command. No unit can take part that suffered any morale loss last turn. If all the units on one side suffered from a moral penalty last turn that that side must skip this phase for this turn. Any unit (not side) that successfully executed a raid gets a +2 on morale for this turn.
5. Weekly Skirmish between Sides This turn represents the constant potshots taken by both sides during a siege. One unit from each side (rotate this duty from unit to unit) is considered to man the defences each turn. Both sides must fight at least one combat round with their missile weapons. They may have all the rounds they want to fight until one side or the other has had enough and goes to ground, ending this phase. Use the normal rules for this phase, but you don't have to put the figures out unless you want. Just count up the missile troops and figure that they have taken the best shot available and go to it. 6. Check Siege Morale by Unit It is important to check each unit's morale every week as the siege progresses. Events happen that sometines raise, but often lower morale. Your units will respond accordingly to how they feel about staying with the siege. For ease of record keeping, the size of each unit should be the same as every other unit on a side. See addendum on recommendations on game set up. Siege Morale (SM) works a bit differently from regular morale types. Units begin the game with a SM value of 18. To check, roll 3D6 and total the pips. Modify this total by the following modifiers. If the dice roll is equal to or less than the modified value, the unit passes and continues as usual. If the dice roll is lower that the value than the the unit fails and the failure chart is used - the result applied to the unit.
7. Determine the Effects of any Engineering Projects and Bombardment This is the phase where the fruits of the engineering work will perhaps pay off. The purpose of engineering in those days was merely the destruction of the enemy's fortifications and his siege engines. The success or failure of these projects are determined during this phase. Step One: Construction Place all completed construction projects at this post, such as engines built or relocated, ramparts, rampires, pavises, guns emplaced. Make note on chart of new locations of mine shafts, galleries. Defender tests for location in countermining operations. (see chart) Step Two: Mining/Countermining Attacks The besieger must keep a record of his mining operations on a map of the game table. He must note the entrances to his mines that may not be any closer to the castle than 24 inches. He must also note the turn on which the mine is begun, and he must chart the mine's progess at any time. His mine must reach one of the enemy's wall sections or towers to have any effect. It may be longer than needed but not an inch shorter. Once the shaft is under the walls, one turn must be spent by the mines enlaging a chamber under that wall section. The turn after this, the chamber is complete and the miners may attempt to collapse the wall section it is under. There is a basic 50% chance of success. If the judge allows gunpowder to be used to "excite the flames" the chance of sucess is raised 5%. A roll less than the number required collapses the wall. Any figures standing on that wall section upon it's collapse are eliminated from play upon a roll of 1D6: kill on a 4, 5, or 6 result. The resulting rubble from the collapse no longer gives any defensive value to the defenders but it does count as rough terrain to cross and units movmg across it do so at 1/2 speed. The successful detection of mines and countemining operations take place when the enemy's mines are within l2" of the outside of the walls. You have to have an impartial judge or arbiter for this part! If a wall section is being mined, a detection team that is actively checking that section will detect it on a % roll of 50 or under. If a mine is sucessfully detected, the detection team may try to successfully countermine it with a % roll of 25 or less each turn in which there is active digging. For each engineering figure added to the effort, add an extra 5% chance up to a maximum of a 50% chance. If the mine is collapsed 50% of the miners are eliminated from play. If the mine has been previously chambered and is burning on this turn, countermining will have no effect. If a gunpowder mine detonated during countermining of this wall section, 50% of the counterminers are eliminated from play. Step Three: Bombardment Bombardment covers both the gunpowder weapons of the period and also the stone and bolt throwers which preceeded them. They may be fired at either enemy fortifications or other enemy engines. A successful bombardment on an enemy siege engine destroys that engine on that turn. A castle wall is another matter. The first turn of a successful bombardment on a wall section does not destroy it - it only damages it and that section should be marked accordingly. On any subsequent turn that a damaged wall section is again successfully bombarded, it will collapse. (see mining for collapse effects). The procedure for destroying wall sections does not use a "blow it away brick-by-brick approach." It uses a probability of how long a wall section must be bombarded before it falls. For the fortunate artilleryman a wall section or siege engine may collapse quickly or it may take an eternity to destroy. This approach eliminates a lot of record keeping.
All fire at a particular wall section/enging, which must be designated before any fire takes place. No weapon may be farther away than 36" from its target for bombardment fire. All the weapons firing at a particular wall section add their percentages added together. If the roll is less than the indicated number the bombardment was successful. If the roll is over the indicated roll, the attack was ineffective and the wall remains as it was. A wall section that is being bombarded may not be mined simultaneously - the firing may collapse the mine! 8. Place and Resolve Any Attacks to Relieve and/or Break Out of the Castle The general melee rules are used to resolve these battles but when and if they are declared, they occur and are totally completed during this phase. In addition, any reinforcements called for in the scenario to the besiegers arrive during this phase. 9. Declare and Resolve Any General Assault on the Castle During this last phase of each turn, the besieger has the opportunity to declare a general assault on the castle. Needless to say, this should generally be done only after the castle is reduced in strength and viability and he has had an opportunity to build and place his siege engines. The game will usually end with a resolution of this assault. The general melee rules are used for the general fighting during this assault however, there are several areas for which specific additional rules are need.
Parts That Got Left Out Very obviously, this rule set does not include some of the more arcane medieval weapons such as crows, augers, efc.. Here we assume the "reasonable adult convention" and leave the use of these rarities to your own devices and interpretations. Scenario Design
The overriding consideration as to how many troops, as a whole, will be used in the game is dependant on the size and capacity of your fortress. A good rule of thumb is to never garrison a castle with more figures than will fill one rank base to base, along the ramparts. This includes any engineer troops or mounted force (as if dismounted) within the city. From this number, you can then extrapolate your besieging force. Determining the number of siege engines to use and against what tyope of castle will generally be handled by the models the players possess. If your castle is of the Medieval variety with high, relatively thin, walls and towers you will want to use catapult and perhaps a very few small bombards for battles in the late Medieval period. On the other hand, if you possess a fortress of lower and thicker walls from the renaissance period, you can add in a heavier mix of heavy guns. Another rule of thumb in the use of gunpowder weapons in siege work is that effective early bombards appear about 1350 or so while truly mobile field guns were introduced by the French at the beginriing of the Italian Wars in 1495. The first use of a gunpowder mine occurred in 1507 when the great siege of note of the age, Pedro Navarro reduced a French-held fortress near Naples. Sieges may be conducted against a relatively small keep which may not involve more than 100 figures total up to large sieges with many times that number. If you want a very quick game, just throw in a large number of siege engines. For a more balanced game, include no more than 1 heavy or two light engines (bombards, guns) for every three wall sections. Some castles may have moats around them but it is important to remember that moats were extremely difficult for a "landlord" to maintain. They required constant dredging which they rarely ever got. With the exception of a newly built moated castle or one that were sited on an island in a flowing river, moats were never much more than a band of marshy ground around the perimeter. A good example is the siege scene of the moat early in the movie Excaliber which was shot at an historic castle "museum." You will notice that even in this well-cared-for environment King Arthur is only in it up to his thighs, and nary an alligator to be found! If there happens to be a moat in your future, just slow the assaulting troops a bit as they cross. Sample Scenario - The Reduction of Siena, 1471
Castle Required - thick walls of 30" to 50" perimeter in 15mm or 90" to 110" in 25mm Garrison 120 Garrison figures grouped into four units of 30 figures each:
Besieging Force 360 Figures Grouped into 6 units of 60 figures each.
Notes- all heavy bombards/slings must have 1 engineer figure and four regular infantry as crew. Light weapons must have one engineer and 2 infantry as crew. Additional engineer troops may be recruited on a pemanent basis as from other non-noble/non-mercenary infantry. 
We are pleased as punch ty Bob Duncan's submission of articles and cartoons. His Okefenokee HMGS chapter 'Pogo' take-off is priceless. (Of course, many of our members may not have the slightest idea what Pogo was! But then they are supposed to be historians - they can do a little work. Early next year we'll be publishing his Gunboat Diplomacy rules with several pages of expansion rules by Patrick Wilson. Back to Tornado Alert #23 Table of Contents © Copyright 1996 by Tornado Alert! This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. |
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Many different types of sieges with various goals for each side can be imagined. The type planned will determine the troop strengths needed for each force. For instance, a general siege used to simply reduce a castle will generally require a 3:1 advantage for the besieger's army.
The city of Sienna, one of Northern Italy's small city states, is under siege by the forces of the Sforza family and their allies.