Tabletop rulesets linked with this campaign

A Germanic 'Foederate' mercenary unit of the 5th century CE. 

(Bought from a bring and buy stall many years ago)

Introduction

There are only three or four ancient/ medieval tabletop miniatures rulesets that fit the eight criteria that I've laid out in the Tabletop Wargaming with Miniatures page that I've had sufficient experience with, and so I have now linked the Campaign rules to the three of them that I currently know best - Mortem et Gloriam, L'Art de la Guerre and To the Strongest!. 

I apologise in advance to anyone reading this who believes there are others that fit my criteria as well or better, I completely acknowledge that there will be and would be interested to hear anyone's views on the subject. To a great extent my limiting the rulesets chosen to three comes down to: 

1. Like everyone, I've only got a certain amount of time to devote to the hobby; 
2. I find that my brain can only cope with keeping a few rulesets clear in my head at any one time, and even then it is a struggle; and 
3. The rulesets I've selected either use pretty much the same basing system or are base agnostic, so I can use my figures for them all (a practical but important consideration).

If anyone is inspired enough to want to try a different set of rules it should be an easy enough exercise to link other rulesets to the campaign for anyone who wishes to do so as long as it uses a point buy system.

The rulesets

As stated in the 'Description of the campaign' page the Campus Martius Campaign rules are only designed to set the stage for the battles, the battles themselves are fought using commercially available tabletop rulesets. 

When updating the campaign from the first version of twenty years ago I initially wrote the main rules and appendices to work with the Mortem et Gloriam and the L'Art de la Guerre rulesets and our first run-through was with those sets. I have since delved into playing To the Strongest! so have added all the required specific rules and appendices to enable the campaign to work with that ruleset in Appendix 5.

For any readers who haven't come across these three rulesets I have summarised their main features below in case you wish to consider giving any of them a go. 

General principles

All the sets work in basically the same way - Once the adversaries have been decided on:

1.  Each player "creates" an army from a shopping list of available troop types using an 'army generator' spreadsheet available online which costs out each unit, commander, camp, fortification etc.

2. The players go through a pre-battle sequence designed to work out such things as: who is invading, what part of the world and what sort of terrain will the battle be fought over, as well as the order of unit deployment. The sequence in each set is fairly basic and doesn't provide any reason why the armies should be fighting or any background to the condition of the troops etc. 

3. The terrain is placed on table and the armies are deployed in the order determined by the result of step two above. Decisions or random card draws are also made by the players at this point as to whether they wish to place any troops in hiding in attempts to ambush their opponents, or send any of their army on flank marches in attempts to have them come on behind enemy lines at some point during the game.

4. The game starts - players take it in turn to give command instructions by each of the senior army commanders to units in order to move those units and fight with them in ranged or close combat until there is an ultimate outcome to the battle. A game typically takes around three to four hours in both the LADG and MeG systems, when playing their standard game, a bit quicker for TtS!. When playing remotely an extra half an hour can be added to this.

Army creation

As mentioned above armies can be easily created by using an army generator spreadsheet downloadable from each of the official rulesets' websites. All the armies listed in my campaign are referenced to particular lists included for each game system, and each list provides for a selection of generals, troop types and camps available to that army in one or more periods of history giving a minimum and maximum for each. 

The generals and each troop type are costed at a certain number of army points, so it is an easy-enough exercise to pick and choose the troops you wish to include up to the number of points permitted. The skill comes in choosing the right generals and troops, and in how they are allocated to 'commands' in order to make up an effective fighting force on the table top.

Both MeG and ADLG allow players to select commanders of varying levels of quality and give particular importance to the quality of the army C-in-C, as the better quality he or she is the more influence the player will have on the selection of terrain, who deploys their army first and who gets to move first. Additionally higher quality generals can give more orders so can control more units effectively. TtS! is a somewhat simpler game system with most generals being of the same quality, but still rewards armies with better C-in-Cs and more scouting ability.

The above is a 10,000 point MeG Byzantine army of 1263 CE 

It consists of (from left to right and front to rear):

 Left wing cavalry: A unit of skirmishing horse archers, a unit of Vardariotai elite cavalry and a unit of line cavalry lancers behind.

Centre: In the front are three units of archers, the centre unit consists of elite Gianitzaroi (Byzantine version of the Turkish Janissaries). Behind them is a unit of elite Varangian guards and a unit of Skoutatoi. On the hills are two units of city militia.

Right wing: A unit of elite armoured kavallarioi on the hill (equivalent to Western knights), and two more units of line cavalry and skirmishing horse archers.

Amongst them are four generals and at the rear is a camp. 

L'Art de la Guerre (ADLG)

Main features

1. Players can choose between three different formats: Reduced, Standard and Big Battle, which are typically 100, 200 or 300 army points respectively. 

2. Each format allows the army to operate in a certain number of 'commands', each controlled by a general. The Reduced format allows only two commands, the Standard allows three and the Big Battle four. 

3. All units must be allocated between commands before the battle commences.

4. Play is on an 'I go, you go' basis, in other words first one player takes a turn - moves, shoots and fights with all his units then the other player does the same, though both players get to shoot and fight in each of the players' turns.

5. Individual units are fairly small, in 15mm scale (which is what all my figures are) units are typically on a base 4cm wide by 2cm to 4cm deep. Each base may contain anywhere from one miniature for an elephant or chariot, two for light troops all the way up to twelve for a unit of pikemen. There are usually roughly 20 - 30 units in most Standard format armies, plus commanders and a camp.

6. Armies begin the game deployed a fair distance apart so there is scope for some 'grand-tactical' manoeuvre before the armies come to blows. Each unit has a movement allowance, mounted troops being able to move faster than those on foot, and certain types of units may be grouped together.

7. Combat between units, whether shooting or melee, is decided by each player rolling a die and adding certain modifiers to determine which unit has won and thereby caused one or more hits on the other. Each unit has a certain amount of cohesion (between 2 to 4 levels), and is only destroyed when the 'hits' or casualties they take equal that level; prior to that commanders may attempt to rally the hits away.

8. There are no morale rules to consider except for overall army destruction which occurs when unit losses reach 50% of the army total. Unit morale is elegantly factored in to the cohesion levels mentioned above.

9. Players roll a die each turn to determine how many actions each Commander (as generals are termed) can take modified by their quality, they can move a group of units as easily as one so the start of a battle sees big 'battalions' moving around. After a few turns groups tend to break down into smaller ones in response to enemy actions, making it harder for a commander to keep momentum going. 

Forcing the enemy to respond to you and leading them into taking actions that break their groups up into ever smaller, and therefore harder to command, groups is part of the skill of the game.

Overview of unit types

Units are classified as Infantry, Cavalry, Camelry, Cataphracts, Chariots, Elephants, Knights, War wagons, Artillery or Commanders. Each army also has to have a camp. Within these categories each troop-type generally has several sub-categories that reflect differences in armour, armament, staying power (called cohesion), fighting style and quality.

For example infantry is categorised between Light, Light-medium, Medium and Heavy which each have sub-categories with different abilities and protection factors that reflect how armoured they are such as Levy and Foot Knights. They are further sub-categorised into what their main weapon is e.g. Spearmen, Swordsmen, Javelinmen or Bowmen. Other troop-types have similar sub-categories. 

In addition to the main weaponry classifications above units can have a range of further characteristics such as Impact, Impetuosity, Missile Support or 2-handed cutting weapons for example, each with their own in-game effects. They can be of three different Qualities: Mediocre, Average or Elite.

Commanders can be Ordinary, Competent, Brilliant or Strategists as well as classified as unreliable or allied. Players can also choose to have them permanently included in one particular army unit or independent.

The ruleset includes 300 army lists where the numbers of troop-types allowed analysed by all the above categorisations, plus command abilities, are laid out based on the the rules author's analysis of that nations troops over different time periods.

Example army

Below is an example of a Big Battle 300 point ADLG army produced from the online army generator based on Aetius's Roman army that fought Attila in Gaul in 451 CE:

At the top of the page are various details of the army, top right is listed the initiative rating of the army, in this case a 4, which is the maximum. Winning the initiative is important as it allows the winner to dictate what type of terrain the battle will be fought over and, in a normal battle who will be the attacker (which determines the order of placing troops on table). 

Following that it lists the terrain regions the attacker may choose if this army is defending, details of the camp, in this case it is fortified; any any fortifications, in this case none. 

Below that the four corps are listed with their constituent units; corps III and IV are listed as allies so may turn out to be unreliable.(NB Corps IV is actually listed as a second corps III - an error in the spreadsheet).

Each corps has its own general named and rated from Strategist down to Ordinary, followed by a list of the units in it, number of each type, their name per the army list, their description per the rules along with quality and cost in army points.

There are four corps in this case: 

I is Aetius, a Strategist general and his professional Roman troops.

His command is large at 13 units, 8 infantry and 5 cavalry. 

There are five heavy infantry Legionaries and Auxilia Palatina all with impact and support (a rear rank of archers), plus two Pseudocomitatenses medium infantry mediocre. In addition is one unit of light infantry 'Exculcatores', elite javelinmen.

The cavalry include one unit of Equites - heavy cavalry impact and two units of impetuous medium cavalry, a bit of a liability in many ways as they will need to be held back whenever they get within charge reach of enemy.

Lastly are two units of light horse armed with javelins - Equites Illyricani.

II is Sangiban and his elite Alan light horsemen along with local Foederate infantry.

The Alan units are light horse which means they are fragile with only two cohesion points but also means that they are capable of evading enemy charges. They are armed with bows so do not have to enter into close combat to be effective. 

The Foederate are classed as Medium Swordsmen so are not too effective in combat and in addition they are impetuous so will charge without orders. This can be a good thing but an experienced opponent will always try to tempt them into charging when they shouldn't.

III is Theodehad, 80 year old King of the Tolosan Visigoths rated as Brilliant, with his army of cavalry and infantry.

The best units in the Visigothic command are undoubtedly the two Bucellarii who as elite heavy cavalry are capable of taking on most mounted enemies they are likely to meet. In ADLG Heavy Cavalry automatically get armour which helps keep them alive on a bad die roll.

There are three Gardingi medium cavalry whose job will be to support the Bucellarii.

Lastly there are there are three units of Heavy swordsmen impetuous, good quality heavy infantry but being impetuous will need controlling.         

IV is an allied command of Britto-Romans (troops from Brittany in this case) consisting of local warriors with a couple of Roman garrison units.

The Roman garrison units are good quality troops, one Heavy cavalry with lances (impact) and one Heavy swordsmen impact.

In addition to those are four units of medium swordsmen.

Corps I is on the right, from the right are: two Equites Illyricani in front with the two Foederate cavalry behind; to the right of them are the light infantry Exculcatores and behind them the Equites; next in line are the two legio units followed by the three elite Auxilia Palatina; at the rear are the two mediocre Pseudocomitatenses (garrison units drafted into the field army) with Aetius bringing up the rear.

Corps IV is next in line from the right: the front row consists of the four Britto-Roman warriors and legio Primani Iuniores, to the rear is the Equites Scyri with the general to the rear.

Corps II is next to the left with the three Alans in front and the four infantry Foederate swordsmen behind. Sangiban is at the rear.

Corps III, the Visigoths are on the left: the three infantry warrior units are on the right, the two Bucellarii on the left; behind them are the three Gardingi. Their general, the 80 year old King Theodehad brings up the rear. He had to be strapped to his horse to lead the charge and was never seen alive again, what a way to go!

At the very back is the fortified camp.

This is a large and complicated army, made up of troops of quite differing characteristics; making it one of the more difficult armies to operate effectively on the table. This is to some extent quite realistic as Aetius, as nominal C-in-C, had no time at all to weld it together into a cohesive fighting force; the major contingents met up on the march only days before the battle. It's actually quite something that he managed to achieve any sort of victory over Attila at all.

Mortem et Gloriam (MeG)

Main features

1. Players can choose between three different formats: Pacto, Magna and Maximus, which typically allow armies of 3,500, 7,000 or 10,000 points respectively. 

2. Each format again allows the player to purchase between two to four generals, each of whom normally is assigned control of a number of units. Each turn players draw Command cards for each general which they use to undertake actions. Professional army commanders have the option of "floating", that is not commanding any units directly; this enables them to assist their sub-generals instead by gifting their cards.

3. Differently to ADLG, the units are only allocated between the generals after troop deployment, allowing for more flexibility in deciding how to allocate units to commanders on the day. Players, however, need to consider well in advance of the point of laying the figures on table how they intend the command structure to work or they can get into all sorts of trouble.

4. Play is on an alternating basis in every sub-phase of a turn. In other words first one player takes an action then the other player, then back to the first etc. Sub-phases are: Charge sub-phase (including resolving fights between the units that come into contact), Shoot, Move, Melee combat, End-of-turn. This does keep both players involved in the game at all times.

5. Units consist of a number of bases, when using 15mm scale figures a base is commonly 4 cm wide by 2 to 4 cm deep, and units generally consist of between 1-2 bases in Pacto, 4 - 6 bases in Magna, and 6 - 9 bases in Maximus. There are typically between one to four figures on each base, one for elephants and chariots, for infantry and cavalry between two to four, the number reflects how dense the formation is. 

In addition to the Generals there are typically 10 - 15 units in most armies split between Tactical Unit Groups (TUGs) and Skirmish Unit Groups (SUGs) plus a camp. In MeG the different formats lead to differences in unit sizes not the number of units on table, this is different to ADLG where the three formats result in a different number of units.

6. Armies begin the game deployed a closer distance apart than in ADLG so initial deployment of units can be more critical. Again each unit has a movement allowance, mounted troops being able to move faster than those on foot, these allowances tend to be longer distances than in ADLG so actual combat between enemy units can happen quite quickly, this is intentional.

7. Combat occurs during any of the Charge phase, the Shooting phase or the Fighting phase and is resolved on a file by file basis by rolling special Death Dice of varying colours, each more lethal than the last. The colour, and therefore lethality, of the dice used will depend on various factors such as unit type, quality, armament and tactical position and how that compares to the opponent. Each side can cause casualties on the other simultaneously and as each file of troops takes casualties hits are incurred and bases are removed, TUGs are routed when they lose greater than 50% of their bases and SUGs 33 1/3% so the bigger the unit the more staying power it has. 

8. There are morale rules to consider, as units rout nearby units must make morale checks (using the Death Dice again) and can take casualties resulting therefrom. Quite often, when units have been weakened after a few rounds of combat, this can lead to a cascade of destruction, particularly in Pacto and Magna due to the smaller unit sizes. Overall army destruction occurs when TUG (only) losses reach 50% of the army total.

9. As in ADLG, generals can command a number of actions each turn, in this case they draw a number of cards dependent on their quality. Drilled units are easier to get to perform actions than Formed or Tribal units, so there is a great variation between what generals of some armies can achieve over others. They are also able to move groups of units around as well as individual units and the winner of a game is quite often the one who, by good play, forces his opponent into less 'command efficient' smaller groups first.

Overview of unit types

Troops are classified into the following: Infantry, Cavalry, Camelry, Chariots, Elephants, Artillery (light and heavy) and Battlewagons; some are categorised as TUGs and some as SUGs. Within each of those they can be one of three basic formation types: Close, Loose and Skirmish plus one further category of "Flexible" for troops that could change between the other three mid-battle. All troops are also classified into three further categories of (a) Training: Drilled, Formed or Tribal and (b) Quality: Exceptional, Superior, Average or Poor; and (c) Armour: Fully armoured, Protected or Unprotected plus additional ones for cavalry horses.

After having been categorised in all the above criteria units can be sub-categorised by reference to their melee weaponry, shooting weaponry and skill at using them and a host of further mandatory and optional characteristics such as: various shooting formations, charging bonuses, fanaticism or combat shyness, formation types and expendables (such as Scythed Chariots) all with unique in-game effects.

Most units have to have their bases of all the same type but some may have one or more bases that are different to others.

Armies can have various types of camp, Generals can be either Professional or Instinctive and are also either Legendary, Talented, Competent or Mediocre; they can also be Allied. Professional generals, if available in the list cost more points but have superior abilities to Instinctive generals.

There are over 630 on-line army lists to choose from Click here Whilst there are more than in ADLG they are generally more specific to a particular era so it doesn't necessarily mean that more armies are covered but being on-line does mean they can be more easily amended by the rules authors.

Example army

Below is an example of a 10,000 point MeG Maximus army produced from the online army generator based on Scipio's Roman army in Spain in 210-206 BCE:

At the top of the page on the left it lists the three generals, the army commander Scipio Africanus, classed as a Talented Professional, Gaius Laelius - a sub-general classed as a Competent Professional and a Spanish-Iberian ally-general who is classed as Competent Instinctive. In MeG Professional generals have more ability than Instinctive ones.

On the right-hand side at the top it tells us that, if the Romans are the defending side, the terrain choices are Standard or Coastal, and the Romans have a poor quality fortified camp, which at least means the camp can't be taken by light troops (SUGs) and will put up a fight against assaulting TUGs, though not a long one. Under that it tells us that the Roman player will get 8 PBS or Pre-battle system cards and 3 scouting cards. The Pre-battle system is an elegant way of influencing the terrain selection, the scouting cards determine who deploys units on the table first and how many. A PBS score of 8 is quite good, a scouting score of 3 is not so hot but could be worse.

Under that it lists firstly the TUGs and then the SUGs in the army. The first four TUGs are drilled, close formation infantry of  legionary Hastati and Principes, two of which are Superior quality and two are Average quality. They are armed with 'Impact weapons' in the form of the Pilum which gives them a big bonus in the charge phase and they are also 'Melee experts' which makes them formidable in the melee phase also.

Unit number five is a TUG of Superior quality Triarii spearmen, removed from the third line and brigaded together; a useful high-quality reserve or flank guard against roaming enemy cavalry. The sixth is a small TUG of Roman cavalry, not big enough to be a strong strike force on its own but useful again at guarding a flank or maybe nipping around the flank of an enemy unit to deliver a coup de gras.

Units eight to ten, highlighted in orange are Iberian Spanish allies, two TUGs of infantry warriors, or Scutarii, and one TUG of cavalry. The infantry aren't as good as the Roman legions in many ways, they are classed as Tribal, so are much harder to manoeuvre, they are loose formation so not so good at standing up to enemy heavy foot in the open and they aren't melee experts. They do however have Impact weapons and the loose formation means they can operate better in bad terrain if required. The cavalry are decent enough but aren't battle winners, good again on the other flank to guard or find opportunities.

The last TUG, unit eleven, is a small unit of Superior quality Italian infantry, called the Pedites Extraordinarii, they were the best of any Italian infantry with the army and were used to lead the army when marching. They are Drilled and flexible formation, so can be close or loose as required. Another useful fire brigade along with the Triarii.

The SUGs consist of three small units of skirmishing infantry javelinmen. The Iberian Spanish Caetrati is particularly useful at scaring away enemy skirmishers as it is Protected (i.e. the soldiers have sufficient personal protection to give them an advantage in combat) and has the Shoot and Charge characteristic. The Roman Leves (which I should really have described as Velites) aren't bad either, as unusually for SUGs, they too have been upgraded to Protected.

This results in the following:

The Romans are on the left and Iberian Spanish on the right. The Romans are deployed with the Velites in front, the four TUGs of Hastati and Principes next with the Triarii in the left rear and Pedites Extraordinarii in the rear centre. The Roman cavalry are on the far left.

The Iberian Spanish are deployed with the Caetrati at the front, the two Scutarii warrior TUGs are behind them with the cavalry on the extreme right.

The power of this army, like all Roman armies of this time period, is very much wrapped up in the excellent Roman heavy infantry, the Iberian allies are useful at holding a part of the line but don't have the ability to win the fight on their own.

To the Strongest! (TtS!)

Main features

1. There is only one format but players can choose to play with a wide range of army points values, there is no upper or lower limit, so resulting in varying army sizes.

2. One of the unique features of TtS! is that the battlefield is marked out in large boxes and units move from box to box, consequently movement is very easy. For competition games battlefields are typically twelve boxes wide and eight or nine deep but can be larger or smaller as desired.

Armies begin the game deployed about three to four boxes apart, infantry normally move one box per activation, cavalry can normally move two. One activation per turn can be a Group Move including all the units of a command, and when not close to enemy troops units can undertake March Moves, which allows them to extend their move by one box.

3. Players can purchase between two to four generals, each of whom is assigned control of a number of units. As with ADLG, the units are allocated between the commands prior to a battle which are subsequently deployed alternately. Each turn players draw from a pack of eighty cards, all numbered between one to ten, to activate the units of each command in turn which they use to undertake actions.

4. Again as with ADLG play is on an Igo-Ugo basis, first one side then the other moves all its units after determining which side gets to go first at the start of the battle. Players can move individual units several times if they get the right cards, alternatively a command may not move at all if the wrong card is drawn so success in battle depends on a certain amount of good planning.

5. Unit sizes, and the number of miniatures per unit, are deliberately more flexible in TtS! than other rule sets; as long as a unit fits into a box it is permissible to use it, consequently there can be a great variation in the number of miniatures on the table. If players choose to play with large boxes they can have units as large as those fielded in the largest MeG format.

In addition to the Generals and Camps there are typically 10 - 15 units in most armies split between main battle units (called Formed Units) and light units. The rule set also allows for Heroes, which enable combat card redraws; some generals can also be heroic.

6. Each turn players draw from his/her pack of 80 cards to activate the units of each command in turn to undertake actions. Actions are split between simple and difficult and to start with a simple action is successful on a draw of a two or more. To activate a unit again in a turn requires a higher card than previously drawn for that unit so the chances of failure increase each time; a failure by any one unit shuts down that command for the turn.

7. Combat can occur at any point during a players turn, whenever a unit is activated to charge or shoot, and is resolved by a player simply drawing one or more cards - a formed unit succeeding on a 6+, a light unit or a shooting activation on an 8+. If successful the opposing player has to draw a card for each success to save against being disordered or destroyed. The number required to save is affected by the terrain, a unit's quality and troop type. One major difference with both MeG and ADLG is that units do not get locked into combat as soon as a melee starts, each time a player wants to initiate combat with a unit he /she has to activate it first, this in particular means that units that rely on shooting as their main means of attack can continue to shoot the entire game subject to ammunition availability.

8. As with MeG there are morale rules to consider, as Formed units rout nearby units must make morale checks and become disordered or destroyed as a result. Overall army destruction occurs when unit/general/camp losses reach a total determined by the army size.

Overview of unit types

Troops are classified into two overall types: Formed and Light. Formed units consist of the following: Infantry (of various types e.g. Hoplites, Spearmen, Javelinmen, Legionaries, Bowmen), Cavalry, Cataphracts, Knights, Camelry, Chariots, Artillery, Elephants and War wagons. Light troops include Infantry, Cavalry, Chariots and Camelry as well as Elephant Screens (Infantry protected from cavalry by a widely dispersed line of elephants). All armies must also include one to three Camps.

Units can be armed with a variety of weapons and can be one of three qualities: Raw, Basic and Veteran. 

Generals can be either Attached or Detached and Mounted or on Foot, they can also be Senior, Brilliant or Great. Additionally armies can include Heroes and make a number of Generals heroic, which allow for one-time combat card redraws, at the cost of making the Generals more vulnerable to being killed or wounded.

There are currently slightly fewer army lists to choose from than the other two sets but they are still in active development by the author Simon Miller. 

Example army

Below is an example of a 160 point army produced from the online army generator of a Sassanid era Persian army of 363 CE:

Unfortunately the software produces very poor quality images of the army lists.

The army is split between four commands: 

Command one consists of three combat units, a unit of veteran Royal Asvaran heavily armoured cataphracts which is equipped with lance as standard, a unit of Asvaran armoured cavalry equipped with lance and bow and a unit of light horse archers. It is commanded by the overall army C-in-C King Shapur II, who is an Heroic Great Leader under the TtS! rules making him more capable in command and combat as well as somewhat harder to kill. (In TtS! being Heroic enables a unit to intervene on a failed attack to have a card redraw for another go at the price of being more vulnerable to injury and death). In addition the command includes a camp.

Command two consists of a unit of Asvaran armoured cavalry, a unit of Indian elephants and a unit of Paighan levy infantry deployed in Deep formation. This command's general is also mounted and Heroic. 

Command three consists of one unit of Asvaran cataphracts, one unit of Asvaran armoured cavalry, one unit of light horse archers and a unit of Daylami infantry javelinmen. They are led by yet another mounted Heroic general.

Command four is identical to command two.

Overall the army has one army standard (which acts in the same fashion as a Hero but is not removed when used), two Heroes and four scouting points, (used to influence which army is forced to deploy first), and thirteen victory medals. In Tts! victory medals are given up when units/generals and camps are lost until there are none left, at which point the battle is lost.

The above results in the following army:

The army is deployed from left to right in the order of command three - two - four - one. As can be seen each unit is deployed in its own square on the game mat, with the camp (made up of baggage camels) in the top right. It is possible for some units to share boxes, for example light units can always deploy in a box with another unit.

In the Sassanid army the generals must be permanently attached to a unit for the entire game (unless it is destroyed in which case he/she can be reassigned. One hero a piece has been added to the Asvaran armoured cavalry and Daylami javelinmen in command three, they can just be made out behind the units are represented by single figures and the army standard has been assigned to the Asvaran armoured cavalry in command one, represented by a banner on a single round base.

All that remains is to allocate ammunition and shock markers to each unit that requires them and the army is good to go.

Comparison

My view on the above rulesets is that they all fulfil a fair number of the criteria I look for in a good generic ancient/medieval ruleset but none come close to achieving all of them. This is perhaps unsurprising as compromises generally have to be made to produce anything as complex as a set of wargame rules and each ruleset developer has made those that they feel are necessary to achieve their goals. I would suggest to any gamer or potential gamer that all are worth playing. 

In terms of my eight criteria of what I look for, as set out in my blog page on Tabletop Gaming with Miniatures, my personal views are as follows:

1. Military units

• Organisation - All three rulesets make a good attempt at the modelling of the main formations that made an impact on the world's ancient and medieval battlefields and in my view all three largely succeed in their own way. ADLG and MeG achieve it  by using combinations of troop quality and training, weapon systems and armour. TtS! takes a more direct approach, with specific rules that model the unique capabilities and drawbacks of units such as hoplites, legionaries or cataphracts amongst others.

• Behaviour - For all three rulesets this appears to be one of the areas where most compromises have been made, and despite them all having general rules that limit what units are allowed to do all three follow the modern trend moving away from rules complexity for the sake of playability and fun.

There is no doubt that most modern rulesets allow great latitude in permitting units to do things that the men in those units would have been highly hesitant to do in real life. To take a  couple of examples:

- all three sets permit a player to deploy and move units of heavy cavalry in bad terrain where they would be extremely vulnerable as well as ineffective; and

- they permit players to move a unit of light infantry towards unengaged enemy cavalry in open terrain unsupported by heavier line troops from its own side without hesitation even though, again, they would be highly vulnerable and the men involved would quite possibly have baulked at doing so.

There are numerous other examples of similar permissive behaviour allowed under all three rulesets. The argument in modern rules writing is to allow players to make their own mistakes so as not to reduce their fun which is fair enough, but arguably, does reduce those rulesets' realism. 

The three rulesets, however, aren't entirely permissive. When it comes to movement in close proximity to the enemy all three do have rules that limit unhistorical movement:

• In all three rulesets most units have 'Threat Zones' or 'Zones of Control' which restrict movement by the enemy when in them. These rules, whilst welcome, are however generally quite limited and possibly in respect of MeG in particular do not go far enough, allowing players to move units in ways that don't appear to be entirely realistic (MeG is the only one of the three where we have felt the need to create house rules to rectify some of these issues). 

• In ADLG and MeG certain units are classified as "impetuous" or similar where the men that comprise it are particularly gung-ho. These are generally forced to charge the enemy when sufficiently close, even when it's unsafe to do so unless a General can prevent it. No similar rules exist in TtS!. 

• Terrain and Deployment: All three sets take into account the ability of an army to scout, with a consequent impact on how much it can influence the terrain the battle is to be fought over and respond to the enemy army's deployment. MeG has a detailed and interesting, but simple system, as does ADLG though it's not so inventive, TtS! not so much and in my view its rules could do with being strengthened in this respect. 

In ADLG the two sides are further apart on deployment than the other two systems in terms of movement distances so there is more scope for re-deployment of units prior to closing for battle. On the other hand, amongst the three systems MeG differs in allowing for the army command structure to be decided on after deployment (actually the only ruleset that I have ever come across that allows this). 

  2. In their own way all three sets engender a feel of an ancient/medieval battle. It is a very subjective matter, of course, personally I get the best feel of such battles from MeG due to the individual contested die rolls of each file in combat which conjures up in my mind the many actions that must have taken place during a battle, and the least from ADLG in which a combat between two units is merely one pair of contested die rolls, however Gordon believes it is the other way around. What is certain is that playing the three sets results in three very different experiences despite them all attempting to model the same thing, which shows the value in playing more than one set. 

I do like the ability of units armed with ranged weapons to continue to shoot with them in TtS! even when adjacent to the enemy on the tabletop. It both feels more realistic to me as well as recognises that a turn length is somewhere up to one hour of real time, so there is plenty of time for such units to continue to fire volleys from the rear ranks at least. The designers of ADLG and MeG both have taken the view that when locked in combat all the men comprising those units can only use close combat melee weapons. 

3. As regards fun, for me all three score highly, not surprisingly when compared to rulesets of old given the trends away from excessive detail as mentioned above. MeG builds up the tension when rolling for each individual file in combat to build up cumulative hits on their opponent  to see which side's unit breaks first; ADLG builds up the tension with units slowly getting closer to destruction when taking cohesion hits; TtS! ramps up the tension each time a player has to make a saving card draw as the units again get ever closer to their destruction level.

4. One of the aspects of command-level decision-making is manoeuvring the armies prior to the battle to achieve the best position when finally offering battle, in game terms this manifests as the rulesets' rules on terrain selection and army deployment. These rules are only of concern if playing a competition-type game rather than a scenario game, but if so MeG has the most detailed rules with its excellent "Pre-Battle System" and Tts! the least.

When it comes to modelling command level decisions during a battle they all achieve the goal of modelling the fog of war of a battle limiting the ability of generals to command all the units under their command making the games intentionally frustrating at times for the player when the generals refuse to order something required or desired. 

Both MeG and TtS! allow some generals  (particularly the C-in-C) to command all troops in the army, and all three take into account limits on a general's ability to see and influence what is going on around him/her.

How accurate they are in modelling real life is another matter but that is almost impossible to pin down, the very fact that a player can be stymied by an inconvenient card draw or die roll is sufficient to get you pulling your hair out from time-to-time. 

5. I believe MeG does the best job at modelling differing levels of troop training, in fact it is one of the cornerstones of that ruleset. ADLG appears to sacrifice this aspect somewhat in order to keep the game moving at a fast pace though along with MeG does have restrictions on manoeuvres by certain types of units due to their natures. 

As far as morale is concerned, at the unit level both MeG and TtS! have rules to cover the effects of nearby units breaking, ADLG mostly does not. MeG also has rules for negative effects on units when the camp is lost. 

At the army level all three sets have quite simple but in their own way nuanced rules to determine when an army breaks. None of the rules have any negative effects on units when an army nears its point of collapse though interestingly Tts! had demoralisation rules that were removed in a later update. MeG and TtS! differentiate between certain unit types when considering their effect on army morale when they rout, ADLG does not, all units counting the same but its designer states that by not doing so players are less likely to risk the loss of fragile skirmishers, a good if counter-intuitive point.

6. All three sets show the evolution of military science and equipment through time, mainly through the same method - the allowability of certain troop-types in army lists in certain time periods, for example the rise and fall of the chariot-borne warrior, or the advent of the heavily armoured knight.

7. All three systems build in the effects of chance into their mechanics, both in the ability of units to be ordered to undertake actions and in combat outcomes. Gordon believes MeG's combat system is too harsh in penalising one side when the other has an edge, I'm not so convinced. In my opinion the systems are ranked from least to most luck dependent as follows: MeG, ADLG, TtS!. I would further say that MeG is the closest to my preferences of luck v skill and that TtS! is a bit too luck dependent, but as I have stated this is purely subjective. 

8. When it comes to competition and drama both ADLG & MeG appear to be very successful in this respect, I'm not so convinced about TtS!. Some of the important pre-game aspects are present in all three systems when playing the fair and open battle competition rules but TtS! has the least.

Luck appears to play a major roll in TtS! due to the randomness inherent in its activation and combat mechanisms which seem to be slightly over-the-top at times; in quite a few games I have been left feeling a bit flat at the end of the battle. For example when you have produced a good gameplan that has enabled you to get around and attack enemy units in the flank or rear as a result, if your opponent draws a series of lucky saves against your attacks whilst winning some unfavourable combats head on for example it can be quite soul destroying to watch the enemy win as a result. I am normally one to fight my corner to the bitter end, TtS! is the only ruleset where several times I have got to a point where I have felt like throwing in the towel beforehand, similarly sometimes I have felt that I have won undeservedly. Possibly the game is too realistic! 

Overall I believe that ADLG scores on being a fast-paced and tightly written competition set with obvious roots in the highly successful and widespread DBx system. MeG scores on being the best at recreating the feel of a large battle, having great flavour and achieving a luck v skill balance closest to my preferences; and TtS!, as well as being fast-paced is also, due to its innovative grid structure and simple rules, the easiest to learn and play - which is especially useful when introducing new players to the hobby and also when playing via a video link. 

For those that wish to explore further, here are links to blogs maintained by two active figure gamers who blog about their experiences regularly:
        

MeG: Gamer at the End of Time (gamer-at-the-end-of-time.blogspot.com)

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