Tabletop wargaming with miniatures

Tabletop miniature figure gaming - the basics

As everyone knows, the hobby of tabletop figure wargaming is about using miniature figures in a game to simulate armed conflict between two or more groups with the object of having fun just as many board games, such as Monopoly and Cluedo, use miniature objects to enhance the fun by having something tactile to look at and move about. 

There is something undefinable that appeals to the mind when manipulating objects which helps it make better sense of things, it's probably something to do with exercising one's spatial awareness - I'll leave that to psychologists to explain. Similarly with miniature figure wargaming, the different miniatures used to represent each military unit enable players to quickly survey the battlefield and get a mental picture of how the battle is developing and also, because they are modelled on the soldiers of a genre, heightens the feeling of fighting a battle in the particular era or genre being gamed. The miniatures can be of any size, or scale, and can be of any period from the dim distant past to an imagined world many centuries in the future. 

The popularity of the hobby of fighting battles with miniature figures, even in the current world of computer gaming, is as great as ever. The ability to sell and advertise online has led to an explosion in companies making a good living from the hobby, for example there is one UK company making millions of pounds of profit every year from selling miniatures and associated paraphernalia based an entirely fictional future galaxy. Others are leveraging off genres created in other forms of media to create games that appeal to players e.g. Star Wars and Game of Thrones to name but two.

The miniatures themselves can each be individually based and represent one person, vehicle, ship, aircraft, or even spaceship, alternatively they can be grouped on larger bases in order to represent a team that stayed together on the battlefield, such as a machine gun squad. In addition to representing one person or machine miniatures can be used to provide a visual representation of any number of the above, for example in some ancient or medieval wargame rulesets a singly-based group of say eight to twelve miniature figures could represent an entire Roman cohort of some 500-800 men or in a World War II operational level setting a base with a single Spitfire could represent a whole squadron.

The choices are diverse, there are hundreds of different genres and styles of tabletop wargame to choose from and thousands of rulesets. Additionally:

• Some people like to play a wide variety of different genres or rule sets within a genre, others like to concentrate on only one or two; 
• Some like to enter the world of national and international competitions others do not, preferring to play their games in local clubs or with friends. 
• Some like to play in teams, some prefer one-on-one.
• Some like to play small-scale skirmishes, others large scale battles.
• Some are competitive and others are co-operative (for example role playing adventure games - a massive genre all on its own. Though usually not considered wargaming as the focus is generally on having adventures, those adventures do however typically involve overcoming opponents in a series of skirmishes, and miniature figures are used more often than not to play them out). 

As you can see, there are many different types of miniature figure games played for all sorts of reasons and many ways to go about playing them, even rulesets covering the same genre can be vastly different in their mechanics and feel; there's plenty of scope for experimentation and something to appeal to everyone!

The one thing all the above have in common is that they are social games; enabling people of like mind to spend a few enjoyable hours together from time to time. This face-to-face contact is what differentiates tabletop miniature figure gaming from computer gaming and is a major reason why people choose to get involved. 

The above is a 10,000 point MeG Maximus 'Camillan' Roman army of the 4th century BCE. Ancient rulesets commonly use this term to refer to the period of Roman history following the reforms to the Roman army of circa 400 BCE attributed to Consul Furius Camillus.

Furius Camillus organised the Roman army into Legions, each made up of several different troop types deployed in discrete lines. Each legion consisted of a front line of 'Leves' - light infantry javelinmen, and behind them were three lines of heavy infantry: firstly the javelin armed 'Hastati', followed by two further lines of long-spear armed 'Principes' and 'Triarii'. Each line of heavy infantry was usually thought to be between four to six ranks deep.

The Romans weren't afraid to copy enemies or innovate, against Pyrrhus' army they experimented with anti-elephant techniques such as wagons equipped with spiked or burning beams and setting fire to tarred pigs in order to make them squeal and frighten the elephants, as in the picture above!

The above army consists of a core of six legionary units, each of 3,600 men,  deployed with the heavy infantry as mentioned above. In front of them are the Leves, grouped together into three units, in between is a unit of Flaming pigs and a unit of Anti-elephant wagons.

On the left of the photo to the fore are two units of Equites - Roman heavy cavalry and behind them a unit of loose formation Italian allied infantry. Behind them all are four 'instinctive' generals - the C-in-C (the acting Consul) on the hill flanked by two sub-generals. On the left again is the other Consul, who has been placed in charge of the cavalry and the Italians.

What's needed to fight tabletop miniature figure battles?

As stated in the Introduction page the posts in this blog concentrates mostly on recording the land battles fought between Gordon and me in a campaign based on the wars of Rome and Byzantium. If you read through any of those battle reports you will get a good idea of what's required to fight a big battle tabletop miniatures game in the ancient/medieval era using two of the rulesets the campaign has now been set up to work with.

If you haven't ever played any wargames using tabletop miniatures but fancy the idea of giving it a go I set out below the steps you should consider in order to decide how you should proceed:

1. Decide on a genre for the game 

The first thing you need to do is decide on what sort of period or world appeals to you - a genre. 

For example, whilst my interests over the decades have ranged from wargaming the full range from biblical era historical to futuristic science fiction battles, as well as battles in various fantasy settings, they currently are in fighting large historical battles in the classical and medieval eras of history along the lines of  Hastings or Agincourt, battles that could change the fate of nations.

If you've never played a miniature figure battle before and are thinking of giving it a go I advise that you should look around and see what is popular in your area; there's no point setting your heart on playing a particular genre and acquiring rule books or figures if no one else near you is playing that same one, unless you are prepared to travel. In actual fact, for anyone who hasn't already been involved in the wargaming world, I would recommend that you get involved in a club first and fight some battles using rules and figures provided by other club members. That way you can get a feeling for what you may want to get involved with that's popular in your area before laying out any money. 

2. Decide on a ruleset.

Having decided on a genre the next step is to decide on a set of rules to use to play your games. You don't necessarily have to buy a set of rules, many groups produce their own and if there are groups local to you that do so and you are happy playing with those then you will probably find you are most welcome to join in. If there aren't there are many hundreds of rule books available for purchase covering all the various genres and types of game mentioned above, each will not only include the rules of play but generally will also detail what type and scale of miniatures are required and how they are to be based. In addition to the playing aids required most will also include lists of the types and numbers of troops each army may have, or references to where these lists may be found online. 

The decision on what ruleset to use is actually one that should be thought through quite carefully as it will lead you on to buying, painting and then basing the miniatures you wish to use. At that point it does begin to get expensive, particularly so if you then change your mind after having spent your hard-earned cash on rules, terrain and miniatures you don't end up using.

Everyone has their own ideas on what genres excite and interest them and on what makes a good set of rules, the only way to find out what will interest you is to dive in and try some out. I don't propose to expand further on the vast numbers out there, however, to give anyone considering entering the world of big-battle ancient or medieval era historical wargaming an idea of some of the factors that I consider important I list my thoughts on what makes a good ruleset for that genre further down below. 

3. Find a quiet space to play 

This can be either at someone's home or at a club.

Depending on the ruleset and size of game desired a flat playing area typically of between 3 feet by 2 feet up to 12 feet by 6 feet will be needed. Usually it is covered with something to represent the underlying terrain, which can be just a large piece of felt, polystyrene squares or hexagons, or  a playing mat. Many clubs have stocks of such things that have been built up over the years available for members to use.

 4. Acquire the miniature figures and terrain

Having made the above decisions the next stage is to decide on a scale (basically the size of the miniatures) and acquire the miniatures and terrain pieces, either unpainted to paint up yourself, or already painted. 

Every genre and ruleset within that genre will have scales that have been agreed on and/or become popular so, given that in many groups each player brings along their own army ready to do battle, it is always best to acquire figures in those scales for your chosen genre. For example, in the UK in the genre of the big land battle historical ancient and medieval world there are several scales commonly played - 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 25/28mm. I discuss scale as it pertains to the big battle ancient and medieval genres further below.

Other genres use different scales, generally you will find that the fewer the number of models on a table top the larger the scale such as skirmish games with only a handful of miniatures a side, but the opposite can also be true for example in the world of naval wargaming a common scale is 1:3000, so a World War II battleship is less than 3" or 8cm long. 

In addition to the miniature figures you will also need to acquire or make any necessary terrain usually in the form of "terrain pieces" in a suitably matching scale to create the desired environment for the up-coming confrontation, whether it be, for example, hills and swamps for historical battles or planets for Sci-fi games. The number required, their sizes and their effect on the game is usually detailed in the rule book, many clubs have built up a collection of suitable pieces for use by members.  

5. Opponents.

Whilst still being a popular hobby the world of the tabletop miniatures gamer is not large when compared to other pastimes. Luckily though, in this modern world opponents are not hard to come across, social media being what it is. If you are prepared to travel 5-20 miles there is probably a club you can attend on a fairly regular basis. There's also all sorts of competitions held nationally and internationally.

If you can't find any people locally playing what interests you things do get a bit more difficult, but there are regional and national competitions in most popular modern rulesets and online forums where you can participate. If you're like me and find there's not much going on in your area that appeals to you, or you don't have the time or means to travel, you can always try the remote playing option via Skype or similar; it works for Gordon and me as you will see demonstrated in this blog. 

The above is a 10,000 point MeG Maximus Mid-Republican Roman army of the late 3rd century BCE.

The legions were still organised in three lines of highly drilled heavy infantry, each line consisting of ten maniples (literally 'handfuls') of paired centuries, a 'prior' and a 'posterior', drilled to relieve each other when necessary in combat. This extension to the Camillan system was the foundation of the Roman superiority in military technique that saw them conquer their empire.

The second line of heavy infantry - the 'Principes' - are now armed with the Pilum throwing spear in addition to the first line of 'Hastati'. The third line - the 'Triarii' - retain the 'Hasta' long spear of earlier years, though are not always deployed with each legion, sometimes being brigaded together, or even not present at a battle. The legionary cavalry was also brigaded together and placed on the flanks.

Legions also still included skirmishing javelinmen - 'Leves', or later the more highly trained and equipped 'Velites', deployed in front. Due to the rapid expansion of the Roman Republic most Roman armies at this time consisted of  50% Roman legions and 50% legions recruited from allied (read "subjugated") Italian regions, trained and equipped in identical fashion, though generally they included more cavalry than Roman legions.

 The army in the above picture consists of:

Main infantry battle line: Two units in the centre consisting of drilled superior quality Hastati and Principes of two veteran Roman legions. Flanking them on either side are a further two units, being the average quality Hastati and Principes of two allied legions, one consists of Etruscans (with the yellow shields) and the other of Latins, drilled and fighting in Roman style and equipment. To their left is a flexible TUG of drilled average quality Samnite infantry fighting in their own native style shown deployed in close formation.

Flanks: On either flank is a unit consisting of average quality legionary drilled heavy cavalry brigaded together, the one on the right consists of Roman Equites, the one on the left consists of Etruscan and Latin allies.

Front line: Consists of four skirmisher units of light infantry Leves, armed with javelins. 

Rear rank: Consists of one unit of drilled superior quality Triarii armed with long spears in the valley and to their left, at the top of the hill, a unit of superior quality Pedites Extraordinarii. The Triarii unit is made up of the third lines of the four legions in the main battle line which have been brigaded together. The Pedites Extraordinarii are drilled flexible infantry and are made up of the best Italian allied troops fighting in their own style, they are deployed in close formation.

At the back are four professional generals, a competent C-in-C (on the knoll) and three Sub-generals, two of whom are competent and one mediocre; the C-in-C is 'floating' which is a MeG term meaning that he doesn't command any units directly but assists his sub-generals as and when required. 

Finally, at the far back is the famous Roman fortified marching camp, in this case guarded by troops of average quality - a tough nut to crack for any opposing army.

My take on wargaming with ancient and medieval miniature figures 

As mentioned above my main gaming interest currently is in the ancient and medieval periods of history, and more specifically in the history of  the European, North African and Middle-Eastern regions of the world. This pastime brings together several threads that have kept me passionately interested in the hobby for many decades. Those threads include an interest in the history of the ancient and medieval world; an interest in understanding both why and how warfare was undertaken in the times when in a land battle it was generally necessary to stand toe to toe with one's opponents; the pleasure obtained in painting ones miniatures and the fun to be had in competing against a human opponent sitting across the table (even, as in my case these days, quite often via a video link). 

Wars in the pre-gunpowder eras were generally a mixture of open warfare on land, consisting of countless skirmishes, a small number of big battles, occasional sieges of enemy fortified areas/cities and naval combat, again consisting of a mixture of small scale actions such as commerce raiding and the rare large engagement. There are wargame rulesets and miniatures that cover all these fields of warfare (though sieges aren't common in miniatures based games as they mostly tended to be very slow affairs based on starving the enemy into submission rather than storming the walls of a city) and I have played several in all these different genres over the years but latterly I have been drawn to those that attempt to model the large land battles of ancient and medieval history.

There are two types of big battle rulesets: one type are those that model a particular era or war in detail, these concentrate on capturing the flavour of that contest of arms; the other type are the generic rulesets that attempt to model the entire sweep of ancient and medieval warfare. Whilst I have played the former type many times over the years I find I'm invariably drawn to the latter as a matter of course, partly so that I don't have to learn and become proficient in too many rulesets and partly because it is easier to find opponents.

When it comes to fighting a tabletop battle it isn't just a case of placing figures on the table and having at it. The generals of the time, just as with the military commanders of today, spent many hours coming up with plans of how best to wage war in order to defeat their opponents long before the day of the battle dawned. The better rulesets enable the players to go through similar thought processes, from planning your army composition when choosing what figures to buy and paint to what to select on the day and how they would be best deployed.

Think of it in terms of "applied Chess", a game that requires just as much thought but one that is tailored to represent a particular war or era with differing troop types and levels of training etc. where , in actual fact, battles were invariably fought over naturally occurring uneven ground or varied terrain where each side is looking to gain an advantage sufficient to break the will of the opposition to keep fighting, rather than that purely abstract game where the armies are identical in composition, deployed in mirror image on totally flat terrain and generally fought to the death. Also, just as with Chess, at the outset of the contest the winner is anyone's guess.

Choosing rulesets

As promised above, I list below the criteria I use to assess generic rulesets that aim to model large land battles over the entire combined ancient and medieval periods.  

1. Good modelling of historical army formations

2. The correct feel

3. The games have to be fun.

4. Realistic command-level decision making.

5. Training and Morale

6. Military science

7. Chance

8. Competition and drama

As the detailed explanations of the above criteria are quite long I have moved them to a separate page. Click here

Ancient/Medieval Big-battle wargaming 

Styles of game

There are two styles of big battle wargame that appear to predominate in clubs and groups in the ancient/medieval miniature figure wargaming world:

1. Recreations of historical battles, land or naval.

This normally involves researching a particular battle to identify why it took place, the forces that took part and the terrain it was fought over. Any conditions peculiar to that battle are considered and special rules are created to take into account factors that effected the battle e.g. supply shortages or morale effects arising from the strategic situation and tactical matters such as the weather, superior leadership, tactical advantages, particular troops or generals behaving outside the norm for whatever reason etc.

The necessary miniatures and terrain features are obtained, usually from those players that have them already, and the battle is then fought out with one or more players a side; teams of up to half-a-dozen a side and an umpire/facilitator as well are not uncommon. Many clubs like to fight out battles this way, at least some of the time, as everyone can get involved whether they have miniatures to contribute, or have a detailed knowledge of the rules, or not.

2. Playing competitive games

This method normally requires the players, after having chosen the sides and possibly a year, to pick forces up to a certain number of points from priced up unit "shopping lists" detailing the types and quality of troops available in that year for that army. The better the unit the more expensive it is so that in theory at least, no matter what units are selected, the sides have an equal chance of winning. The game is then generally played in accordance with the tournament rules of each ruleset that all aim to give each competitor an equal chance of winning by way of generating "fair and open" battles and provide a simplified strategic background in which the battle takes place. Whilst ancient/medieval naval battle rulesets do exist and are played the vast majority of games played are land battles, particularly tournaments where I can't recall ever seeing one devoted to naval combat.

In a tournament the motivation for fighting the battle comes from each players' personal desire to win the game, just as in Chess, rather than any historical reason. This is particularly evident when a battle is fought between two armies that never encountered each other historically.

The mechanics of these tournament rules are essentially similar in most rulesets and involve simple systems to  determine which side has the advantage in "initiative", or similar concepts generally tied in to which side has the superior army commander &/or scouting abilities, which all come at a point cost. This advantage then usually goes on to give the initiative holder choice of being the attacker or defender leading to further advantages in terrain selection, deciding who gets to deploy first and which side moves first. 

Most clubs have simple in-house competitions where, on choosing a ruleset, each club member plays others in the club with a chosen army over a period of weeks and months to determine an ultimate winner. Talking of competitions, official tournaments are generally of one or two days duration, normally organised on a Swiss Chess basis to determine who plays against who each round, and are either themed or open: 

• Themed means some limits are placed on the armies that can be selected, normally the limits are either geographical, periods of time, or sometimes both. On occasion other limitations are dictated by the organiser, for varieties sake if nothing else, such as foot armies only, or that they must includes elephants, or the armies and enemies of ... (insert historical empire of choice), for example.
• Open means any army from any time period. 

Having a theme means most armies will generally at least have been in existence in a period of time, or part of the world, when they could have fought against each other thereby providing at least some historicity to proceedings.

An open competition means you potentially maximise the number of players who may turn up as most people have, or can acquire, at least one army to play with but could result in, for example,  a Sumerian army of 2500 BCE fighting against a Tudor English army of 1500 CE, some 4,000 years time difference. Theoretically however, as long as the troop types are costed correctly on the shopping list, each side should still have an equal chance of winning.

Obviously anyone can play whichever system they prefer, subject to the availability of opponents, or any other method that occurs to them. To some wargamers the idea of non-historical opponents fighting each other is anathema, to others it may be an interesting contest to see how such armies fare against each other and to yet others the thrill of competition beats all. All I would say is that the hobby is big enough to cater for all interests and view points; personally I play all styles as I like variety.

The above is a 10,000 point MeG Maximus Early Imperial Roman army of the 1st century CE

It consists of  a rear line of five legionary TUGs, a middle line of four TUGs of auxiliary infantry, one of which are archers and a front line consisting of a SUG of archers. On either flank are the cavalry.

At the rear are three generals.

The units in the early Imperial army were regularised and equipment was standardised as much as possible in this period, in particular auxiliary units were enrolled, equipped and paid by the state ending the practice of hiring what were in effect mercenaries. it was in this period that the Roman legionaries adopted the arch-typical banded armour well known to the general public, though archaeology has shown that it was never universal. 

Campaigns

Whilst there are many tabletop rulesets available that lay out how to fight individual battles, what has been generally under-represented, at least in the section of the hobby devoted to ancient and medieval big-battle land warfare, are interesting, competitive and playable campaign structures. 

This is possibly because (a) when looking to recreate an historical battle the reasons are already known so there is no need to spend time on any background campaign matters which will only get in the way of players meeting up and getting down to the action, and (b) when playing a competitive game the emphasis is normally on creating a fair and open battle where each player starts off with an equal chance of winning, and again, the players want to get to the action as fast as possible. 

Consequently if one wants to move up a notch from the one-off battle and create a campaign setting for a meaningful series of competitive battles it becomes a lot more difficult to find anything commercially produced. The campaigns that I have participated in, usually being quickly thought up amateurish affairs, have rapidly ended up with one side or the other achieving a decisive advantage one way or another which has rapidly made the playing out of the battles pointless.

The campaign that this blog is largely devoted to is an attempt to fill that gap for the Roman and Byzantine world whilst maintaining that all important competitive element to ensure the battles are always worth being fought out. As there are (thankfully!) several very good rulesets that sufficiently meet the criteria I have listed in the section above that can be used to fight the battles themselves the Campus Martius campaign restricts itself to setting the objectives, the opponents and any special conditions that may apply for the battles. Everything else is done in accordance with the rulesets' own rules as you will see by reading on.

One thing that this campaign does not do is have campaign maps for players to manoeuvre their armies over. This is for two reasons:

1. This creates a lot of extra complexity - strategic concepts such as scouting, food supplies, foraging, unit speeds and mustering times to name just a few, plus rules to convert the strategic situation to setting up the battlefield. This requires a whole plethora of rules and lots of bookkeeping which detracts from just getting on with the enjoyable part - fighting the battles.
2. It is unnecessary. Both the rulesets that I originally built these rules to work with - Mortem et Gloriam (MeG) and L'Art de la Guerre (ADLG) - have 'Pre-battle rules' that cover these strategic issues, admittedly at a very high abstract level, but are good enough for my liking (particularly MeG). Once we've got round the table I much prefer to spend my time fighting the battle than spending any significant amount of time moving counters around on a map. (To the Strongest! (TtS!) doesn't have a particularly detailed Pre-battle system but I have included some additional rules in Appendix 5 to bring it into line with the others for the sake of the campaign). 

Scale

No discussion of any miniature battle gaming can avoid discussion of scale, both of the figures or the terrain and the military formations deployed on the battlefield as represented by the size of the bases the figures are placed on. 

Some games, as mentioned above, use miniatures that represent one man, ship or machine and can apply a standard scale throughout for the miniatures and the terrain pieces. Others use miniatures merely to give an indication of what the men, ships or machines in a unit look like, these games quite often use differing scales on the tabletop as explained below. 

As far as the miniature figures are concerned for my ancient/medieval armies I have restricted myself entirely to the 15mm scale as the small scale means figures are relatively cheap to buy and transport about safely, but not too hard to see and paint. This is a personal choice but except for the very smallest of scales (2mm) the same issues arise in recreating large battles whatever scale is chosen. 15mm scale means that a 6 foot tall person is represented by a 15mm high miniature; this is a ratio of 1 to 120 for those of you that prefer that way of measuring.

As I have mentioned above one of my goals when playing a ancient/medieval miniatures game is to engender the correct feel of an ancient/medieval battle. The scale chosen for the miniatures used, even as small as 15mm, isn't  going to translate into one that is useable for the battlefield as a whole. For example using the 15mm scale if applied to the battlefield would result in a table size far too big to be practical, let's say an army deployed for battle is one mile (or 5,280 feet) across, then at a ratio of 1:120 this would equate to 44 feet (or 13 metres!).

The only practical solution for miniature figure rules that seek to recreate large ancient and medieval battles is to forget the figure scale and come up with a battlefield scale that is compatible with the size of the bases that the figures are placed on and accept that, in addition to pleasing the eye, the figures are there just to give a visual indication of the troops in that unit. So the secret is out, it is the bases that become all important not the figures! It is perfectly possible to play a tabletop wargame using any ruleset without any figures at all, all you need are the bases. In actual fact it isn't really a secret at all, there are many thousands of such wargames that have been produced, I own several hundred myself.

The only link between the figure scale and the battlefield scale is one of practicality, the size of the bases have to be physically large enough to fit the miniatures on. Both ADLG and MeG, for example suggest using 40mm wide bases for 15mm figures and 60mm for 25/28mm. The choice of scale is ultimately up to the players.

As mentioned at the start of this page a single base containing a small group of miniatures can represent any number of real-life soldiers, in big battle rulesets they all operate this way, none make any attempt to have a "one model to one soldier" ratio distinguishing them from skirmish games which readily do. Ratios of anywhere from 1:40 to 1:200 are commonplace and as mentioned in the above it is the base that is important in any case. If one assumes that each base of close formation infantry represents say 480 men deployed eighty wide in six ranks then on a 40mm wide base two men will occupy one millimetre of frontage which is say no less than 1.5 metres when in close formation - touching shield to shield. 

So, based on the above, a 40mm wide base will represent sixty metres of frontage, which enables twenty six bases lined up to cover a frontage of 1,560 metres or roughly one imperial mile. In other words an army of twenty six bases at 500 men per base (totalling 13,000 men) when lined up will create a frontage of just over one metre on the table. This not only feels about right but is easily doable on an average size table even allowing for gaps in deployment around unfavourable terrain etc.

You may have noticed that so far I haven't mentioned base depth, only width. Whilst all rule sets will lay out the base depths to be used they aren't considered that important. The depth of the bases are really only determined by the size of the miniatures placed on them as in reality, in the battlefield scales used, the formations will have been much narrower than needed for the miniatures to fit on the bases.

Having produced this rough ratio of battlefield scale (1mm to 1.5 metres or 1:1500) it enables other important matters to be settled, like the size and number of terrain pieces, the distance a unit can move in a set time period and the effective range on the table top of missile fire, bows, slings, darts etc. 

In several of today's rules movement distances and missile ranges are given in terms of the frontage or width of the bases so that as the base sizes (and the miniature figures on them) are scaled up an down the ratios remain the same. For example if a unit of English longbowmen could lay down effective fire at up to say 240-300 metres (a matter open to great debate but lets just accept that for the moment) then this equates to four to five unit base widths at the sixty metres calculated above for each base on the table top; the ADLG rules allow a maximum range of four base widths for longbows, the MeG rules allow five. Using the 15mm scale, in ADLG this equates to 16cms, at 25mm scale 24cms.

The numbers, types and sizes of terrain pieces allowed, i.e. their footprint on the table, in a club scenario game is entirely up to the players, in tournaments they are generally laid out in the ruleset. The amount of effort put into making them look good is up to the players, but given the effort put into painting the figures most players will try to make them look reasonably realistic. Not all players do, some are more interested in the competition than the aesthetics, particularly in tournament play you will see terrain being represented solely by areas of felt cut to the right sizes.

Having two scales operating simultaneously on the same tabletop does cause one issue, which is that it becomes very difficult to model some of the terrain. Theoretically it should all be in line with the battlefield scale, which in the case of using 40mm-wide bases that fit 15mm miniatures as I do is 1:1500 as discussed above, but if you do so modelling terrain like forest and villages in that scale would mean that the trees and houses would be much smaller than the over-sized figures. The incongruity of seeing smaller trees/houses etc., which would only be 5-6mm high at 1:1500, jars when seen next to the taller figures. 

The only thing that can be done is to use overscale terrain features too, features that look reasonable when compared to the figures. They, like the figures are purely eye candy so as long as they are placed on the right-sized terrain footprints it keeps the battlefield scale correct. I find this works for most "vertical" terrain other than villages, using large houses that are in proportion to the figures looks faintly ridiculous to me when seen on the table so I tend to use much smaller ones. Hills and rivers, though, are generally kept to the 1:1500 scale. The end result is that when viewing a tabletop battlefield you will find that terrain isn't quite in keeping with one or other scale and some features are not in proportion to others. All you can do is produce something that looks reasonable to the human eye, which in my experience is quite forgiving, have you ever for example worried about the differing sizes of the playing pieces in Monopoly, top hats as large as cars?

Having broken the link between the size and number of figures on a base to the scale of the battlefield and military formations, rule designers are then free to design rulesets that use the bases to represent the military formations and to use the number of figures on a base to provide other information pertinent to the ruleset being used e.g. how closely deployed the men in the formations are. 

Of the three rulesets I'm currently using, and that this campaign is set up to work with, two are successor rulesets to the very widespread WRG and DBx series of rulesets of Phil Barker. These mostly use the number of figures on an individual base to delineate between close, loose and open formation troops with a few exceptions like elephants, war wagons and chariots, each of which categories have differing movement and combat abilities. The third, 'To the Strongest!', is set up somewhat differently to the other two rulesets, as long as a unit fits into one of the boxes that the TtS! game mat is divided into there is total liberty for the players to field any number of figures on a base and represent the units as they see fit. 

I have kept all my miniature figures on the small DBx bases mentioned above which I use as building blocks that I can then place together to create units as each ruleset requires. Additionally, in order to play more conveniently and quickly, for all three rulesets I place the individual bases on movement trays which can fit between two to twelve bases making it easy to move them about as one unit.

Making the terrain

Until recently I must admit that the effort I have put into making my terrain has been minimal, the best terrain pieces that I owned being the ones that I had purchased; however, in the last few weeks that has changed. I have taken advantage of a period of being housebound due to ill health in January & February 2026 to research how I can improve the look of my rather sad looking pieces of felt and then to do so. 

I have now created several dozen pieces for all three of the rulesets I use but rather than go into detail on how I have done so I would point you to a series of four one hour videos on YouTube to which I give total credit for the techniques that I have used, the link to the first of which is as follows: ⚔ Mortem et Gloriam ❌ Magna Stiff Felt Terrain❌ Part 1 Project Oct 29th 2025 by an American chap calling himself Mr Everything.

Below is a photo of my first ADLG game using some of them:

Painting the miniatures

I'm not intending to cover this aspect of the hobby in much detail, there are many other blogs/websites that do a much better job than I could ever hope to do. Suffice to say, unless you intend to buy ready painted armies the miniatures you buy will generally be unpainted metal or plastic. It isn't actually a bad thing, as painting and basing them is a quite enjoyable pastime in itself. 

Despite not considering myself to be one of the better figure painters I have developed a methodology that works for me, using acrylic paints. The stages I go through are as follows:

• Clean the figures up ready for painting;
• Use a spray paint to undercoat them;
• Paint all the base colours, starting with the larger areas down to the smaller areas;
• Paint lowlights mostly using washes;
• Paint highlights most of the time using dry brushing techniques;
• Cut out bases (I use 2mm card) and glue on the figures;
• Varnish the figures - I use satin varnish;
• Build up the bases with modelling putty - I use Milliput;
• Paint the base, including the edges;
• Flock/decorate the bases to suit the desired environment.

It is very satisfying to decide on an army you wish to play with, research the types and numbers of soldiers that it is composed of and then buy and create that army ready to place on the table top. To that end you don't have to be an expert painter to get a miniature looking good enough to place on the table, I'm certainly not; you just have to be satisfied with the result. These days, as mentioned above there are many online places to watch instructional videos etc. to learn how to paint and base your miniatures.

For anyone looking to get involved in the same area of the hobby as me - ancients and medieval - a good place to look to see what is out there is Tim Porter's 'Madaxeman' site as he has produced a detailed list of the main manufacturers for those eras and what they produce (scales, compatibility with others etc.) including links to their websites and a lot of helpful advice. 

Madaxeman's Wargames Blog (madaxemandotcom.blogspot.com)

Alternatively if you want to just have a quick look into some of what's available online Essex miniatures is a good place to start. That company's historical miniatures have long been a staple around which other manufacturers' figures are judged.

Essex Miniatures

If you don't have time to paint your own miniatures there are other options, there are painters out there who will take commissions and do it for you, or you can buy odd units or even whole armies pre-painted from bring and buy stands at shows or from online sites such as eBay; at a price of course.  

Just to be clear, the majority of the miniature figures shown in the photos in this blog were not painted by me. A lot were painted by my mother, who until recently enjoyed painting "all the little men" as she put it, her painting skills were not up to the level of professional painters but they were as good as mine until her eyesight began to fail and certainly good enough to place on table. 

Others were painted by a myriad of unknown players who sold off figures from time to time on eBay or at bring and buy stands at wargame conventions.

A 10,000 point MeG Maximus Imperial Roman army based in Syria of the late 3rd century CE prior to the reforms of Emperor Constantine I.

 The above army consists of (from left to right):

Front rank: One unit of Equites Sagittarii skirmishing horse archers, one unit of Equites heavy cavalry, one unit of Auxilia Sagittarii foot archers, one unit of spear and sword armed Auxilia, one unit of Legionary Lanciarii skirmishing javelinmen, two more units of Auxilia, one unit of Equites Illyricani capable of melee combat or skirmishing and lastly one unit of skirmishing Equites Mauri armed with javelins.

Rear rank: One unit of veteran superior Legionaries, one unit of average quality legionaries and one unit of Clibanarii - a close formation unit of cavalry, heavily armoured from head to toe (including the horses) modelled on their Parthian and Persian opponents.

Behind them are three professional generals and a fortified camp.

In the third century the Roman Empire was in crisis, wracked by invasion and civil war, and was very much on the defensive. It was during this period that the Legions were rearming - swapping the Pilum for the javelin and later supplemented by the Martiobarbulii or war dart; the Lorica Segmentata was also falling out of use. 

The Legions began deploying ranks of supporting archers that operated from the rear, a practice that was to spread to most of the army over time, including the Auxilia.

Cavalry units were expanded and included new types such as the heavily armoured Clibanarii and the light horse archer.