Intro - read this first

 The Carthaginian "Sacred Band" of the 6th to 3rd centuries BCE.

One of the first pre-painted units I purchased in the 1980s, painter unknown.

Figures are by Donnington Miniatures.

Hi Welcome to Alec’s 'Wars of Rome' blog

This Blog

I was inspired to write this blog to log some of the most exciting tabletop miniature figure wargame battles I've ever played which were all part of a campaign based on the wars of Rome and the Byzantine Empire. 

Depending on player choices the campaign can run from the time the last King of Rome was deposed in the 6th century BCE to the point where the Roman successor state - the Byzantine Empire, was last able to put an effective army into the field in the 13th century CE. The first run-through of the full campaign which saw me go toe-to-toe against my long-term opponent Gordon is now finished. It ran for nineteen months from December 2022 to June 2024, you can see reports of the games played in reverse order in the main body of the blog as we played them.

I decided to write up the game results in an online blog to make it easy for either of us to access the rules and current position from any location, whilst doing so however it occurred to me that others may be interested in what we were up to. So, in addition to the rules, the game reports and running commentary, I expanded it a bit to include a few pages describing what the hobby is all about, the fun to be had playing miniature figure tabletop wargames and the military history of that period. 

I have named both the campaign rules and my blog 'Campus Martius' after the Roman mustering ground just outside the city walls - the Field of Mars, as those grounds must have seen the start of many Roman campaigns.

The pages are organised as follows:

1. An introduction to tabletop wargaming with miniatures, an explanation of why the ancient and medieval historical genre interests me and what I look for in a tabletop miniatures ruleset.  Click here

2. A chronology of the key military events of the Roman and Byzantine world. Click here   

3. In addition to the pictures of Roman and Byzantine armies that I have sprinkled through other pages I have included a page describing some of the enemies that Roman and Byzantine armies fought, together with pictures of their armies that I have in my figures collection. Click here

4.  A description of the campaign rules and a brief running commentary on the key events in our first run through. Click here

5. Summaries and comparison of the miniature figure big-battle rulesets that I have linked the campaign to work with. Click here. (Since finishing our first run-through in June 2024 I have linked a third ruleset to the campaign system in Appendix 5). 

6. The campaign rules, Click here,  five appendices, and ruleset house rules that we have adopted.   

So, whether you’re merely browsing and are wondering what miniature tabletop gaming is all about, or whether you have a detailed knowledge of the hobby and want to see what other wargamers are getting up to, please feel free to read and hopefully enjoy. You never know, it may be just the hobby you were looking to get involved in and never knew it!