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 on recording the 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 for any genre 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 

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. 

If you've never played any before and are thinking of starting out 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 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 buy and play. There are many hundreds of rule books covering all the various genres and types of game mentioned above, from professionally to home produced. 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 makes a good set of rules, it is a topic for many a discussion down the pub and, given the vast number of genres and scales, is far too big a discussion to have in great detail here and frankly beyond my knowledge. 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 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 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 ancient and medieval eras 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, 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. 

You will also need to acquire or make the terrain 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 miniature figure 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 it was necessary to stand face to face 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). 

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 battle with differing troop types and levels of training etc. fought over naturally uneven ground where each side is looking to gain an advantage, rather than that purely abstract game where the armies are identical in composition, deployed in mirror image and the terrain totally flat; and just as with Chess, at the outset of the contest the winner is anyone's guess.

Choosing rulesets

As promised above, I detail below the criteria I use to assess how good a generic ruleset is that aims to model battles over the entire period of pre-gunpowder warfare.  I have made further comparisons with Chess in a number of places as the majority of people have played it and it purports to be a representation of a medieval battle, even if only in passing. You will find that many of the points I make cross over from one criteria to another, they are inextricably linked.

1. Good modelling of historical army formations

From the beginning of recorded history when entering battle men have formed themselves into long lines to protect themselves from both being outflanked and against enemy penetrations. When armies grew large and varied enough they then began to form into discrete units, both to take full advantage of different weapon systems (e.g. skirmishing troops armed with a variety of ranged weapons deployed in front of the spearmen) and to aid the command and manoeuvre of those men onto and over the chosen field of battle.

Any ruleset attempting to model ancient and medieval battles over the broad reach of pre-gunpowder history must, therefore, cover how formations were organised, how they developed over time, how they behaved and how they deployed for battle.

• Formation organisation and development - A good ruleset must model how men were organised in those times, how they were commanded, trained and equipped to fight. You only have to think of the Sparabara of the Persian empire, the Roman Legion or the Mongol Tumen with their different organisations, equipment and vastly different fighting styles as examples to see that the correct representation of all military units on the tabletop, and how their abilities are modelled, is key to the creation of a good ruleset.

• Behaviour - The rules must give clear instructions on what these military formations are allowed to do both on the battlefield generally and, in particular, when in close proximity to enemy units when the threat of injury and death would have been uppermost in men’s minds and when the reality of imminent combat tested the human character (and also the behaviour of the animals taken into battle) to its limits. This permitted behaviour must obviously reflect what they were trained to do and how the men that comprised them reacted in real life.

• Deployment - It took time for an army to deploy onto the field of battle, time that was crucial in ensuring that all of its components were in their correct positions and ready for battle before enemy formations were in a position to catch units before they were ready for battle. It was important therefore for the army commanders to be well-practised in organising that deployment and ensuring the enemy weren't able to interfere in the process.

2. The correct feel

A good ruleset must create the feel of how battles unfolded or at least how someone living many hundreds of year later imagines they unfolded. There are three areas that I have found to be of the most importance in this regard: deployment and terrain, the relative scales and the rule mechanics:

Deployment and terrain: The ability to dictate the site of the battlefield and the opportunity to deploy the army to maximise its battle-winning potential were critical for a commander to successfully influence the outcome of a battle. The decisions made by the opposing army commanders when manoeuvring their armies prior to the day of battle and jockeying for the best tactical position translate into those rules mechanisms that determine how terrain is placed on the tabletop and where and how the armies are deployed. Ruleset designers must have put sufficient thought into these aspects, even though they they relate to matters prior to starting a game as these rules can easily make or break a ruleset.

Relative scales: The battlefield scale has to have been carefully thought through (see the separate section below on this) to ensure that unit and "terrain piece" sizes, movement distances and weapon ranges all work together. The mechanics relating to scale need to both conjure up the feel of  a battle in the ancient/medieval world and lead the players into making the same decisions (and mistakes!) as the real commanders would have. 

Rule mechanics: The biggest issues that rules designers have to grapple with are time; how commanders control the army; and how combat is undertaken. Battles typically lasted many hours, sometimes all day, in that time one unit could be locked in one melee combat after another, another could be firing volley after volley of arrows, whilst yet another could theoretically march from one side of the battlefield to the other several times over.

• Firstly, the designer has to come up with the core mechanics that underpin the structure and flow of the game, normally by dividing the battle into a number of turns. In most modern rulesets a game typically lasts an average of eight to ten turns so each one could represent anything from 30 minutes to an hour. The question then becomes how much can be done in any one turn, a unit could possibly charge or counter-charge into combat half a dozen times. In some rulesets this could be represented in a game action by simply moving one unit next to another and each player rolling one die or could involve a series of die rolls or card draws.

• Secondly all the other game mechanics then need to be built to match that core mechanism e.g. the effects of shooting with distance weapons and the ability of units to move about and rally, so that they are realistic in relation to a turn of melee combat. The correct modelling of the effects of ranged combat on enemy units in particular is as much a crucial area as melee combat to get right as many armies relied on ranged weapons in whole or in part to beat enemy forces, e.g. Hunnic horse archers and English longbowmen.

• Thirdly, the rules designer has to address how much a commander would be able to perceive around him and how quickly react to events, the ability of commanders to issue orders to units and how much they would be able to respond to them. 

It may surprise non-figure gamers that the latest rulesets are left vague in certain areas, they generally do not make any attempt to define fixed ratios of miniatures or bases to the numbers of soldiers in a unit or army, neither do they lay out any ratio of table top distances to real life distances nor do they seek to state how much real time each game turn represents or how combat is actually undertaken. 

Whilst these issues need to be carefully considered by the rules authors they are now left deliberately undefined as, in the past when attempts had been made to do so, it always led to problems for those rulesets in the form of disputes over: how long a time period should a turn represent, how far a unit could move in a certain time period, how many men should a base represent or how many casualties could be caused in x amount of time, to name but a few. 

Rule writers have learnt that the easiest way to avoid arguments is simply not to state any fixed criteria, it has been found that attempts to provide precision in the past have detracted from the goal of producing a set where the game just "feels" right and plays well.

3. The games have to be fun.

Not for me are the contests of physical prowess that the vast majority of people enjoy, when football matches or the Olympics are on off goes the TV. There is no better fun to be had than playing a contest matching your wits against someone else's, the highest form of which is recreating a battle where men's very lives were put on the line.

To some non-gamers the idea of 'enjoying' a game that seeks to simulate killing may appear odd, I can only say that the killing aspect is not the focus or point of the game. It is more to do with the behaviour of men when placed in such situations and the thrill of the contest between the players just as any competitive game provides. 

Over the course of my playing tabletop battles, which dates from the late 1970's, rule sets have evolved considerably. Back then most of the popular sets were far more detailed in their approach, minor differences in soldiers' equipment, training and morale made big differences in performance on the tabletop with copious charts and tables that had to be consulted to determine whether a unit would advance or retreat if ordered, how many casualties were incurred in shooting and melee and the reactions resulting from these losses; all requiring numerous die rolls. You had to work hard to play a game, this came at the expense of enjoyment.

There are trends in many human activities and wargames are no exception. Nowadays, in the current popular rulesets, most of the complexity of older rulesets has been pared away and replaced by simpler mechanisms. As a consequence play intentionally proceeds much more quickly and is far more enjoyable but possibly this has come at the price of some of the realism the writers of the older sets were striving for. The designer of MeG, for example, has stated that in his opinion generals are able to order units in that ruleset to undertake more complex actions than would be possible in a real battle and has purposely allowed players to do so in order to make the games more entertaining. He has even produced a more constrained 'prompted actions table' for players who want to play more realistically.

An example of a 1st century BCE Roman army - a MeG Magna 7,000 point army. The 'Cohort' structure had now risen to dominance over the earlier Manipular system following the reforms of Gaius Marius. 

The Romans largely relied on allies or mercenaries for cavalry and auxiliary troops in this period, the availability of which varied depending on what part of the world the army was operating in. This army is based in the East in 83 BCE so has Asiatic light horse and archers as well as a unit of Roman Velites, one of the last times that Roman Velites were used in battle. 

The above army has eight units of legionaries, one unit of javelin-armed light horse, one unit of archers and one unit of light infantry Velites. There are four professional generals.

This army was used by me in Game 7 against the Armenian army of Tigranes the Great, note the units are all on movement trays which speeds up play.

4. Realistic command-level decision making.

As stated above all wargames need to model the behaviour, ability, training etc. of all the soldiers involved but, particularly in a big battle ruleset, the correct modelling of the army leaders' abilities, decisions and transmission of those decisions to the troops are paramount. 

A good big battle ruleset must focus on modelling the ability of the senior army commanders to manoeuvre their armies both prior to the battle in order to obtain a battle-winning deployment advantage, and during the battle to rally their units, get them to charge the enemy, or in some cases not charge, or to get them where they are needed most; just as it would have been in real life. 

Furthermore, another major factor to consider is of course that you, the player, don't actually exist in the world of your miniature figures. There was no entity with god-like powers of omniscience to guide the generals on the best commands to issue to their troops. This is one of the big differences between a good tabletop miniatures ruleset and more abstract games like Chess. In the latter a player's pieces will always move whenever or wherever needed, after careful deliberation of the position and capabilities of all troops in the field of battle, without argument or confusion; needless to say this was not the case in a single real life battle.

But it goes further, in Chess the players are free to move their pieces in accordance with their own whims, a good big-battle ruleset should restrict the abilities of the army leaders to the historical behaviour and capabilities of commanders of the time. 

5. Training and Morale

Training has always been a key determinant of the battlefield performance of all soldiers so it is important for it to be considered and modelled. The intense training regime of the Imperial Roman soldier is well known as are those of other units in history, unfortunately being so long ago the amount of training received by other troops and armies can only be guessed at. Still, it can't be ignored.

In the ancient/medieval period, just as it is today, the morale of the soldiers was also paramount in determining battle performance. Some units were battle-hardened and being victors of many battles were convinced of their martial superiority, at the other extreme were untrained peasants drafted into an army with very little stake in a battle. The high morale of the former made them almost invincible soldiers, the low morale of the latter obviously the opposite.

There would be times during any battle when men would be exposed to threats they weren't prepared for, such as enemy units turning their unit's flank or the appearance of unexpected enemy reserves late in the day when the men are feeling exhausted plus there was nearly always a point when the men of one side began to feel that the battle was irretrievably lost. At these times only their officers, training and esprit de corps stood between them continuing to fight or cutting and running in an attempt to save themselves. Training and morale are therefore key elements and a good set of rules has to model them well.

In fact, most of the killing only occurred after the point of total army morale collapse; all serious rulesets stop the game at that point as the fun aspect of the game ceases when the jeopardy goes and who would want to play out the mass slaughter that ensued in any case.

6. Military science

The introduction of, and final abandonment of, groups of men going into battle solely armed with either a sharp metal-topped pole (spear, pike polearm etc.) or the bow and arrow (short bow, longbow, crossbow etc.) pretty much define the beginning and end of the ancient/medieval periods respectively. Spearmen and archers are a constant throughout the approx. 4,500 years of pre-gunpowder warfare.

Whilst, apart from the advent of early gunpowder weapons, most of the weaponry in use in 1500 CE wouldn't be unrecognisable to a warrior of 3000 BCE the methods and organisations used to fight battles changed considerably over time. Strategies and tactics evolved and, in particular, the increasing availability of ever larger horses affected warfare greatly. These developments along with incremental but steady and important improvements in the quality of weapons and armour plus many other inventions (e.g. the stirrup) and changes in society make the conduct of warfare in the sixteenth century CE quite different to that of the third millennium BCE. The rulesets need to reflect those evolutions.

The split between the ancient and medieval worlds is taken to be the fall of the western Roman empire in 476 CE, a purely arbitrary date in many ways and to the wargamer largely irrelevant as nothing changed in terms of the way wars were fought or the technology available. To the medieval period wargamer the period ends when the introduction and development of gunpowder-based weaponry into seriously overwhelming weapons begin to change how men were organised and battles were fought; depending on one's view this is generally taken to be the early to middle 1500s CE. 

Given the long sweep of history involved in modelling warfare that covers the entire period it is almost impossible for rules writers to ensure that all troops from all eras perform as they should when matched up to non-historical opponents. Most ensure that the main historical interactions are modelled well and don't worry about the non-historical ones so much, leaving them to work out as they may.

7. Chance

The insertion of a random element into the game is an important distinction between a  tabletop battle game that seeks to be realistic and games like Chess where realism has taken a back seat to competition. To illustrate what I mean, in Chess when a player attacks, i.e. when a player wishes to move a piece to "take" an opponents' piece, it occurs automatically and furthermore is an automatic success, there is no possibility that the order is refused or misinterpreted or that the moving piece's attack will fail and will be taken out of play instead. 

In reality there were numerous factors that meant no general could be 100% certain that an order given would be carried out as intended or at all, nor could the outcome of a combat be taken for granted. For example:

• confusion in the transmission of or understanding of an order and/or the personalities of the commanders giving and receiving them;

• the state of the men's morale or fitness;

• the experience, determination and ability of the dozens of individual unit commanders (Centurions etc);

• the weather and state of the ground the men were fighting over

There are many examples of men who, when faced by certain death, outperformed expectations hugely, and the reverse was also true, many units didn't live up to reputations. The inclusion of a random element, usually in the form of rolling dice or drawing cards but from whatever method, reflects all those unknown variables that meant the army commanders could never be sure of the outcome of any clash of arms.

To put it simply, ancient/medieval generals had no such luxury of the certainty of outcome that Chess provides, so neither should the players.

Luck versus skill

One final point I'd mention is on the extent that luck should play a part. This is a very subjective point and everyone has their own views both as to how much luck there is in the mechanics of a rules system and whether it is too much or too little. Whilst accepting that chance has an important role to play, for the reasons set out above, some ruleset designers build more randomness into some of their mechanics than others and, of course, the greater the scope for randomness the greater the chance for luck to influence a game as opposed to player skill.

The amount that should be built in appears to be very much a matter of personal preference and can have a great influence on which rulesets players like or dislike, and will therefore play, consequently this criteria shouldn't be underrated.  Chess, of course, represents one end of the spectrum i.e.100% skill, a game like Snakes & Ladders the other i.e. 100% luck. In my view a good ruleset pitches the balance somewhere in the middle - sufficient luck to give unexpected twists and turns to the flow of the battle but sufficient skill so that the player who produces the better battle plan has the better chance of winning.

In my experience, when fighting a battle with any ruleset, if you begin to feel that luck is given too big a role and skill too little the best thing to do is enter a wargames competition that requires use of that ruleset, I rapidly find that the best players seem to win despite what obstacles lady luck throws in their way. In many ways its all about managing the randomness.

8. Competition and drama

Lastly, there needs to be a competitive edge to the game and a ever-increasing sense of tension. When men went to battle they were fighting for their very lives, in many cases for their country's existence; losing was not an option. In one sense therefore, if it is to be a true model, a wargame tabletop ruleset should be the most competitive and dramatic of any and all games, the stakes could not be higher.

That's not to say that one has to play the game in an overly-competitive or aggressive manner from the point of view of the player, in fact playing against an overly competitive player in any contest can be quite unpleasant. I play with the view that if I was really in charge of thousands of men relying on me for their lives I would be trying my level best to win the battle as the commanders but even though it's always pleasant to win a successful ruleset should create a game that can be enjoyed by both players, whether they are on the winning or losing side.

As I have mentioned above, one of the distinctions between Chess and a real ancient/medieval battle is the that in Chess armies are identical and deployed in mirror image and fight on a flat empty battlefield, this was not so in a real battle. General's spent many days or months even trying to get every imaginable advantage to aid them on the day of decision. This process needs to be modelled in a ruleset so that the player that thinks up and puts into action a plan that maximises the strengths of his/her army and minimises those of their opponent's has the best chance of victory. The competition, therefore, unlike Chess where players begin a game only after laying out the pieces, starts long before players meet up to play. This pre-game process adds immeasurably but surely to the richness of a game.

 On the accession of Octavius to the Imperial purple as the first Emperor - Augustus in 25 BCE the Roman army was reorganised from the many units left over from his war against Marcus Antonius and regularised into Legions and many smaller units of non-citizens called Auxilia. 

The legionaries were given new mass produced banded armour (called 'Lorica Segmentata' by modern historians though the Romans just called it Lorica) and the many new regular auxiliary infantry Auxilia and Equites cavalry units were generally equipped with chainmail. 

The above picture is a MeG Maximus 10,000 point Early Imperial Roman army of the mid-second century CE. It includes:

Front rank (left to right): a unit of Moorish light horse armed with javelins, a unit of drilled legionaries which has a base of integral light artillery in the form of bolt shooters, two Auxilia units of drilled Auxiliary infantry armed with short spears and swords, a unit of drilled 'Auxilia Sagitarii' or auxiliary archers, another drilled Auxilia unit, another Legionary unit including integral bolt shooters and, on the other end a unit of skirmishers armed with slings.

Rear rank (left to right): a unit of drilled Equites armed with lances (these were the first units formed and equipped in this fashion), three drilled Legionary units equipped with the banded 'Lorica Segmentata' armour - two are of superior quality and one is average quality, and on the far right an Equites unit equipped in the normal Roman fashion with shorts spears and javelins.

The force is commanded by four professional generals, at the rear. Three are sub-generals and behind them a talented C-in-C.

Not shown in the picture is the usual Roman fortified marching camp.

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.

This normally involves researching a particular battle to identify 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 them into account such as 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 and the battle is then fought out with one or more players a side; teams of up to half-a-dozen a side are not uncommon. Many clubs like to play this way 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, whether one-on-one or teams, to pick forces up to a certain number of points from a "shopping list" so that in theory at least 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.

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. 

Talking of competitions, they are generally of one or two days duration, normally organised on a Swiss Chess basis, 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 2,500 BCE fighting against a Tudor English army of 1,500 CE, some 4,000 years time difference. Theoretically however, as long as the troops are costed correctly, 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.

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 big-battle ancient and medieval warfare, are interesting, competitive and playable campaign structures. 

This is possibly because (a) when recreating a historical battle the reasons are already known and the players want to waste no time on meeting up in getting down to the action, or (b) when playing a competitive game the emphasis is on the fair and open battle where each player starts off with an equal chance of winning, and again, they 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 in to 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, the terrain and the military formations deployed on the battlefield as represented by the size of the bases the figures are placed on. 

As far as the miniature figures are concerned 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 and 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 25mm. 

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 (skirmish games readily do). Ratios of anywhere from 1:40 to 1:100 are commonplace and as mentioned in the above paragraphs 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 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 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 a lot of today's rules movement distances and missile ranges are measured by comparison to the width of the bases so that as the bases 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. Once again this feels about right.

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 figures. The incongruity of seeing smaller trees/houses etc., which would only be 5-6mm high at 1:500, 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.

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 close or loose the troop formations are.

To the Strongest! (TtS!) is set up somewhat differently to the other two rulesets, as long as a unit fits into one of the boxes there is total liberty for the players to field any number of figures on a base and represent the units as they see fit. In order to play more conveniently for all three rulesets I place my MeG and ADLG-sized individual bases on movement trays, which can fit between two to nine bases, in order to make it easy to move them about as one unit containing up to 36 miniature figures.

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.