Category: Wargaming

David Mather and I at the Pinner Wargames Club have agreed to provide the armies for the DBMM refight of Zama at the upcoming Society of Ancients Battle Day in April, so now is the time to start thinking about how many figures we are going to need for that.

I am providing the Roman army, and the main sources for the battle are Polybius, Livy and Plutarch (mainly the first two). Livy seems to mainly cover it in books 28 and 29. In book 28 Publius Cornelius Scipio is sent to Sicily with 7,000 volunteers. Here he has two legions (V and VI) which seem to be the disgraced remnants of the survivors of Cannae, back in 216 BC, over a decade earlier. In book 29:24 he is described as bringing each legion up to a strength of 6,200 infantry and 300 cavalry, and also bringing their socii contingents up to strength as well (presumably the same strength but with more cavalry as usual). He then in section 25 comes up with 3 different values for the size of the army, none of which match this (there are either 10,000, 16,000 or 32,000 infantry – 4 x 6,200 is 24,800).

Now if we look at Polybius’ account of the structure of the legion, he says that it should contain 4,200 infantry (or 5,000 at times of emergency) (III:20). Add to this the same number of socii, and then double it for two legions and you would get 16,800, or 20,000). On the other hand, these aren’t normal legions, so they probably weren’t formed using the text-book system.

He then tells us that there are 600 triarii, 1,200 principes, 1,200 hastati and the rest are velites (by subtraction another 1,200). He also says that the ratios remain the same if the size increases, except that there are still always only 600 triarii.

The two most important classes are the hastati and the principes, both by now identically armed but the principes being men in the prime of life (the hastati being younger). Each legion should contain 10 maniples of principes and 10 of hastati, each with 2 centurions (and therefore by implication 2 centuries although he doesn’t use that word). Polybius also says in his description of the layout of the camp that there are only half the number of triarii (the oldest men) as there are principes or hastati (he at least is consistent).

Thus each maniple should be 120 men, making them much smaller than the maniples in Caesar’s time. If we take Livy’s numbers of 6,200 per legion, and assume that there are still only 600 triarii, that leaves 5,600 for the other ranks, which is inconveniently indivisible by 3. Lets therefore err downwards and assume 1,800 each of principes, hastati and velites, giving us 6,000 men per legion. That would then give us maniples of 180 men, now actually slightly larger than in Caesar’s time.

How does this all fit into DBMM?

Well the standard figure scale is 200 – 250 men per element. We’re going to double this (because we can’t afford that many figures). So lets assume 400 men per element. This would give us 1.5 elements of triarii, 4.5 of principes, 4.5 of hastati and 4.5 of velites per legion. I don’t like this because I want to have shield patterns per legion, so lets play fast and loose with the element scale (since the original numbers are pretty dodgy). This could then give us 2 elements of Sp(S) triarii, 4 elements of Bd(O) hastati, 4 elements of Bd(O) principes and 4 elements of Ps(S) velites per legion, which is a pleasing ratio of elements. It also doesn’t do too much damage to the original sources being somewhere in the middle of the mess.

Next – ground scale and how that fits in.

An exciting and ultimately close battle using Phil Sabin’s Lost Battles rules last night against Darth Mather. We were refighting 2nd Coronea – he was Agesilaus, I was the humdrum allied hoi polloi. I felt I was doing very well initially as I pushed forward my right flank and broke right through his weak left flank and was getting the better of the melee in the centre, while his right flank commanded by Agesilaus was just sitting there like a bunny in the headlights, but two poor morale rolls saw me loosing all my remaining hoplites on my right flank and in the centre as they were already spent. I used my last command points to withdraw my hoplites on the left unengaged and end the battle. When we added up the points though, the 26 point bonus for starting the battle with only 51 points to the Spartan 64 points, and that most of my hoplites had fled because of poor morale rather than being shattered in close combat meant that Mather had actually only won by 70 points to 67, which was pretty close.

All in all a very enjoyable battle. In the last turns I felt like I was being rolled over, but since that was pretty much what happened in real life I felt that the scoring system worked wonders in showing that really I did no better or worse than could be expected with the forces at my disposal. A refreshing change from the equal points fantasy historical match-ups that I am more used to.

No pictures unfortunately, which is probably a good thing.

I’ve just realised that there are no pictures of my Ottomans up here, only over on the Pinner Wargames website. So here they are, the result of some focused evening painting while on holiday in Wales. Apologies as usual for the quality of the photos.  I must find my tripod so I can take some photos where the depth of field is more than about 3 mil. I seem to remember seeing it somewhere in the garage about 6 months ago when I was looking for something else, although I can’t remember if I ignored it or hoiked it out on the grounds that it didn’t belong in the garage.

First up are the sipahis – the feudal landowner cavalry, normally armoured and armed with bows and a mix of lances and hand weapons. I’m experimenting with a fairly fast painting style at the moment with a base colour, some quick high-lighting and then a wash, in this case Devlan Mud from GW.

The other figures that I almost finished are the akinjis. I say almost finished because I am 4 riders short, which is irritating. I am hoping that when I split the packs with Lord Mather we just miscounted and I can scrounge the missing 4 figures off him. Akinjis are the rabble peasant light cavalry, unarmoured and bow armed and fighting for loot rather than duty.

I also managed to paint some voynuks, but there are no pictures as yet because I have run out of grass for their bases. Plus I can’t actually fit them into the army. Ho hum, I am sure they will come in handy in other eastern European mediaeval armies.

Still to come are the generals and the kapikullu – I have some figures but I need to replace the lances and I am looking for some more inspiring general figures.

The janissaries are done as well, they just need to be photographed.

Last is the azabs – I don’t even have the figures for them yet.

A reasonably nice picture of my new Marian Romans. These are the Wargames Factory figures which have received a lot of bad press and I admit that I was initially quite disappointed when they arrived. The plastic was very shiny and the detailing of the chain mail was poor. Once sprayed with black primer however the detail became much more pronounced and the chain mail dry-brushed very well. They fit together well and make for a very good figure for the mass of an army. They are not going to win awards, but look fine with a basic wargaming paint job and are very cheap into the bargain.

Sizewise they are a perfect mix with my Gripping Beast republican Romans, which are at the smaller end of the modern scale. Not so great with modern Foundry figures, but the size of them is getting stupid (as is the cost).

A couple of minor irritations. Wargames Factory haven’t yet learnt GW’s trick of including lots of extra arm and weapon options on the sprue. As a result you can’t have all of them with swords or all of them with pila; there needs to be a mixture.

Part of this is also that they have missed a trick or kit flexibility. If they had added in heads with multi-feathered crests, these would have been perfect for earlier Roman principes. Add in a few arms with spears as well and you could have made Triarii as well. Then you could have combined these head and arm sprues with a different body sprue and you have Hastati as well – voila, most of the figures for a Polybian or Camillan Roman army with only a couple of extra items on the sprue, and you have increased potential sales by another 50%.

I quite like the Warhammer Ancient Battles rules for doing small scale skirmish battles, although I think they don’t give a good feel of a larger scale battle very well at all. This is a problem with some of the army lists, like the later Byzantines, where you want a unit of really nice looking kataphractoi but can’t really justify having an imperial guard regiment in an army of 80 men, which would really have just been the garrison of a frontier fort.

There are a couple of things that I would like to change though, to give it a better feel.

The first is purely nomenclatural. The names of generals are always too important. My 80 man byzantine force (its not an army) will be let by a Turmarch or similar, not by the emperor. Its easy to change this though.

The second is a spin-on from WFB. If the unit width to qualify for ranks were upped to 5 it would give the battle-lines a thinner, more realistic feel, rather than the deep company columns you often seem to get at the moment.

The third is the big one. It dates from the very first days of Warhammer, back in the ’80s. At that point there was a fundamental misapprehension. Being on a horse does not give you extra protection if you and the horse are a single entity. It makes you more vulnerable. Because of this mistake, everything thereafter has to compensate in WAB to make up. Ideally the situation should be:

Missile fire should have a +1 to hit cavalry, as they are a larger target. In hand to hand the larger target is outweighed by the extra height the cavalry-man has.

Saving throws should be:

None as a base for everyone.

+1 for a shield.

+2 for a large shield for infantry (-1 move).

+1 for light armour for infantry.

+1 for heavy armour for cavalry.

+1 for light armour and cloth trapper for cavalry.

+2 for heavy armour for infantry (-1 move).

+2 for heavy armour and barding for cavalry (-1 move).

+4 for cataphract armour and barding for cavalry or mediaeval full plate and plate barding (no extra bonus for shields, -2 move).

So the saving throws would be:

None – anyone

6+ – infantry with shields or light armour, cavalry with heavy armour, cavalry with shields, cavalry with light armour and light barding.

5+ – infantry with large shields, infantry with light armour and shields, infantry with heavy armour, cavalry with heavy armour and barding, cavalry with light armour and light barding and shields.

4+ – infantry with light armour and large shields, infantry with heavy armour and shields, cavalry with heavy armour and barding and shields.

3+ – infantry with heavy armour and large shields, cataphract cavalry with full armour and full barding.

No-one would have 2+ or 1+ saving throws.