Back to the Future with the Die is Cast ancient rules

This article explains how I started the Die is Cast rules back in 1992 and how I gradually designed the new version for 2012.

My initial experience with ancient wargaming started with the popular Wargames Research Group rules (WRG) in 1971. At the time they were fairly much the universal ancient wargames rules although of course there were other sets that had their own fans. But the spell was broken with the release of 7^th edition WRG in 1986, a lot of people including myself did not like them and we simply carried on playing with WRG 6^th edition. But my own interests were for refighting actual historical battles rather than the equal points games that you get on normal club nights. So in 1992 I developed my own set of rules, Alea Iacta Est (the die is cast) with the emphasis on refighting battles from history. A points system for these rules was a waste of time as real commanders just turned up with whatever troops they could muster, they were not interested in making a battle fair. And I introduced a few wrinkles of my own after the experience of using other rules, including Peter Gilders In the Grand Manner, Napoleonic rules.

So the original Alea Iacta Est had very much simplified morale rules for light troops, a combat result table as in the WRG rules but using decimal results (like the Newbury rules) so that players did not have to keep track of partial figure casualties if they did not want to, different melee systems for infantry and cavalry and generals of different effectiveness (Phil Barker likened it to ‘buying a pint of charisma’).

But times change, players expectations change as well, so it was time to re-vamp the Alea Iacta Est rules and develop a new edition. In fact over the years the rules had been tweaked, trying to improve what was already there but this time it was going to be a radical modification. Possibly what inspired the change this time was the fragmentation of the ancient rules market. Warhammer Historical had closed, new rules for 28mm individually based figures were being published and similarly for those people using element based armies, there were a number of different rules sets to choose from. The first thing was to realise what people wanted from their rules. Army lists were a definite must, most people will be playing an equal points game at their club or at a tournament, so if you want people to play, that option must be there. The next thing was the combat system, the old combat table was too complex for today’s gamers, what they want to do is roll the dice and see the result. To go along with that, keep it simple, we play to have fun not to get qualifications in gaming. And lastly, the name had to go, people just did not understand what Alea Iacta Est meant.

So the development of the Die is Cast rules started. The big thing to consider was the combat system, a choice of opposed rolls (both sides roll the dice and compare the difference) or simple die rolls with the results indicating a hit or not. In fact I went back to a time before dice, H. G. Wells Little Wars where combat was simply a comparison of the numbers of men involved in a combat. The side with the most men killed the same number as the enemy but might capture some more to give the larger side the advantage. Very simple indeed but also very bloody and without much option to allow for superior quality troops. Since dice per fighting figure has been extremely successful for Games Workshop (GW), that seemed a good system to adopt. The GW standard game system introduced in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules requires the now familiar; roll to hit, roll to wound and roll to save system. Lots of rolls reduce the vagaries of chance and lets the players have a lot of fun. But three rolls seemed a bit excessive and with idea of keeping things simple, my idea was to get a result with a single roll of the dice. The solution was to allow pairs of figures to use one die and to cover everything in that one die roll but the traditional six sided die was a very coarse tool. So to give more variation in the roll, D12’s are used instead. Surprisingly when I recently bought Tony Baths Ancient Wargaming, the same sort of system was in use; one die for a multiple of figures (groups of five in the Peltast and Pila rules) and two rolls, to hit and to save. Alright I have done away with the saves but Tony Bath’s rules also have differences for the way that infantry and cavalry fight, exactly as the Die is Cast does. My own rules were returning to the methods that were used in the first ancient rules.

Now according to my original plan the main task would have been over. I had changed the combat system to a simpler one just involving dice, so supposedly it was a small matter to go through the rules and make some adjustments to accommodate the new system. But it was not that easy. Since each group of figures was rolling a die, there was enough random chance in that to eliminate the old combat chart random factor but part of the generals characteristics had been to modify that old random factor. So a new way of generals being able influence the combat ability of the unit that they were with had to be found. Some rules give an ability for the general and their bodyguard to fight themselves but the problem with that method is that it can be used equally to bolster the performance of a weak unit (as indeed does allowing the generals command ability to replace that of the unit that they are with). To encourage generals to lead elite units, my choice is to allow the unit to re-roll some of its failed hits depending on the general’s combat ability. That tends to be of more use to elite troops rather than the rabble, encouraging players to use their commanders to lead their best troops.

So now onto some play-testing of rules and that soon showed that combat had become much more bloody, unbalancing the existing morale system. So the morale table had to be changed to accommodate the new combat results and eventually after a series of games, the gradual damage a unit suffers was eliminated from the rules, vastly increasing the speed of taking a morale tests. But a unit which has suffered severe damage should be reduced in combat potential, so now a unit which has reached fifty percent losses is simply penalised by being unable to advance further and having reduced morale. After further play-testing, routing units and units in march column also had their morale value reduced, to reduce the chance of broken units rallying and marching units resisting an attack. The overall result of these changes was that combat became more brutal and that broken units were unlikely to be rallied, so battles could indeed be short and sharp.

After playing WRG 6^th edition, my rules of choice for 28mm scale games was Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB), which saw years of adaption’s by the players more away from the original fantasy game system to something like historical battles. The combat results of WAB had always depended on the addition of a rank bonus but in WAB2 the importance of that had been greatly reduced, so that units no longer had to be formed into small columns to be effective and allowing lines of battle to be established rather than a scattering of units over the table-top. Nothing like rank bonus applied in the Die is Cast, so that was not a problem but there were several good rules which seemed useful to adopt; a much larger force losing a melee but hanging on in there was one, provision for an effective impetuous charge and the associated difficulty of controlling those troops another.

Now the original Die is Cast rules had always been designed for individually based figures in the style of WAB or WRG 6th. But one of the key tenets for the Die is Cast is that any scale or basing of figures can be used with the rules. So a separate section has been added to the rules allowing the use of element based figures. With the new combat system, that was easy to do simply by defining the number of attacks and the number of hits each base can take. That allows a player to move between playing armies with a different figure scale or basing system and keep the basic game rules the same.

If the standard version numbering system had been kept to, then these rules should have been version 4 but that version was changed so much that the new rules have skipped a number and are named version 5. Unlike the previous rules, army lists are now published and available for free download on the Veni Vidi Vici web site. The rules themselves are also on the site as a free download or available for purchase in a printed format.

Warmaster Ancients gaming days at Worthy Games in Preston

Two gaming sessions are planned at Worthy Games (58 Lancaster Road, Preston, PR1 1DD).

An intro gaming session for those who are unfamiliar with the rules, on the 19th of January and a full days gaming on the 23rd February.

Plan for the Intro Day

First game;           10.00 to 12.45
Lunch;                   12.45 to 13.30
Second game;      13.30 to 15.30

Army size 1,000 points if you are bringing your own. Pick armies from either the rule book or Ancient Armies book. Some players are bringing extra armies for those people who do not have an army of their own.

Terrain will be preset on the table so there is no need to set it up. One player should nominate one table edge to the odds, the other edge will be be evens, roll a die and what is rolled is the edge that player will be playing on.

The tables are 180 wide and 150cm deep.  So you can set up your army up to 30cm from your table edge and just for our games not within 20cm of the table sides.

Players should roll a die each, the highest roller chooses to deploy first or second. The player going first will deploy their entire army first but will also take the first turn. The other player deploys second and takes the second turn.

There are no turn limits. To win either; kill the enemy general or destroy half of the enemy core units.

Preparation of the terrain continues with some trees

First of all a hole was drilled into the circular bases, the trees stuck into position with a dab of epoxy glue then some flocking gel placed round the base to give them a bit of texture. I will then paint the bases and job done.

Chalons – third run at it

OK some painted figures are starting to appear on the table. The board used is one of the GW battle boards, we just ignored the plastic terrain and had the hill!

The hill is the key part of this battle. In the historical battle, the failure of the Ostrogoths to take the hill is supposed to have decided Attila to withdraw to the safety of the Hunnic camp. In previous games, the Ostrogoths had great success attacking the right of the hill (between hill and edge of table). In this game the Ostrogoths tried attacking the left of the hill instead.

Below is the moment of decision with the Ostrogoths launching a full scale attack on the left of the hill.

It was a total fail, with all Ostrogoth units being broken and driven back into the Gepid division marching up to support them. Most of the Gepids broke and ran without even getting into the fight. But the idea is sound. The Hunnic player does have the advantage of deciding the point of the attack and properly done the flanks of the hill will always be vulnerable to an attack played in the right way.

But all the players involved agree that the rules are giving both an interesting game but also one that seems to be giving an historical result.

The Chalons project – painting the armies

OK so I have two armies to paint up, a total of 51 units, a lot to do.

Figures are mounted in strips on tongue depressors and painted in a production line process

 

Now I tried just mounting the figures simply on bases but was not impressed at the result.

So the next stage was to apply some flocking gel (which I used to sell), so

When the paste dries it looks, so

And paints up, so

I think giving a much better result.

Chalons Battle day project

In 2013 the next battle project for the Society of Ancients will be the battle of Chalons AD451, the Hus vs a confederation of allies including the Romans.
So I thought it might be appropriate to throw the new Die is Cast ancient rules into the ring and see how they fare. So lets start with an order of battle.
Using 6mm armies (I have not painted the armies so for this game we just used blank 40x20 bases with the unit ID marked on, no pretty pictures of troops I am afraid). All units are 4 bases except light troops (skirmishers) which have 3 bases to a unit. Light troop bases take 2 wounds, cavalry bases 3 wounds and infantry 4 wounds. For more details on using element based figures in the Die is Cast rules, see page 29 of the rules.
Order of Battle
Rome
1 unit Roman cavalry
HC, guard, elite, javelins, sword, shield
2 units Roman legionaries
MI, steady, veteran, javelins, sword, shield. Sheildwall
1 unit Roman auxila
MI, average, seasoned, javelins, sword, shield, loose
4 units Visigoth cavalry
HC, steady, veteran,  javelins, sword, shield
3 units Visigoth infantry
MI, average, seasoned, javelins, sword, shield, shieldwall
2 units Alan cavalry
LC, raw, seasoned, bow
2 units Frank infantry
MI, steady, seasoned, pila, sword, shield
1 unit Frank cavalry
HC, steady, seasoned, javelins, sword, shield
1 unit Allied cavalry
LC, average seasoned, bow, sword, shield
Roughly, 1600 points
Huns
1 unit noble Hun cavalry
HC, steady, veteran, lance, bow, sword, shield
8 units Hun light cavalry
LC, steady, seasoned, bow, sword, shield
6 units Ostrogothic cavalry
MC, raw, seasoned, javelins, sword, shield
1 unit Ostrogothic infantry
LI, raw, seasoned, bow, shield
2 units German infantry
MI, raw, seasoned, javelins, sword, shield, shieldwall
1 unit Frank infantry
MI, average, seasoned, pila, sword, shield
3 units Gepid cavalry
HC, raw, seasoned, lance, sword, shield
2 units German infantry
MI, raw, seasoned, javelins, sword, shield, shieldwall
Roughly, 2300 points

Initial setup
A fairly bare battlefield with a dominant hill on the right of the Roman line. Table 6x4 foot at Portcullis games, Bolton.

In the picture above the Romans (red marker pen) are nearest us and the Hunnic forces on the far side of the table. Special rules for the game:
Romans were passive so they cannot start moving until an enemy unit comes within their charge reach.
Huns tried to take the hill first so the Hunnic player can only move 1 division of their army until they have contacted a enemy unit on the hill. In this case the Hunnic player decided to use the Gepids to take the hill, in the actual battle the Ostrogoths were given the task (and they failed).
The Hunnic cavalry certainly fought hand to hand and there has been some debate about how to represent them. In this game we are simply going to suspend the normal rule that light troops cannot charge other troops frontally and make the Hun cavalry rather good, with high morale and combat weapons as well as their bows.
Once the Romans have broken an enemy unit, then the entire Roman army can start to move freely.

Move 2. Showing the hill lined with Visigoth infantry in shieldwall and their leader (Thedoric a 3/2 general).

Move 3. Gepid cavalry moving round the hill toward the Visigoth cavalry, who are there to prevent the enemy getting round the infantry flank.
 
Move 5. On the hill one of the Hunnic units of German infantry attempted to charge but instead became Shaken and so the Visigoths decided to take advantage and launch their own attack, downhill. The combat went to the Visigoths (Roman) and the Germans were forced to Retreat.

Move 5. Overall view, with the Hunnic forces in contact with the defenders on the hill, the rest of the Hun army is free to move.

Start of move 6. The Germans have retreated, followed up by the Visigoths but that exposes the Visigoth rear to a charge by the Gepid cavalry. In an attempt to put the Gepids under pressure the Visigoth cavalry now declares charges on the right.

With a miserable pre-charge morale roll of 4, one of the Visigoth cavalry units instead Retreats in the face of the enemy. One of the principles of the Die is Cast is the morale roll, you can do anything you like with your troops so long as they are under your control. Fail a morale roll (as above) and all of a sudden, they are doing what they want to do. Morale rolls are taken; when attempting to charge, receiving a charge, taking casualties from shooting and when losing a round of melee, for example. In other sets of rules a command and control roll is used instead.
The above situation now leaves the Visigothic infantry on the hill to its fate and a lone unit of Visigothic cavalry to fight against two units of charging Gepid cavalry (who with lances have a slight edge in combat anyway).

End of move 6 combat. The Visigoths lose on the hill. The unit on the far right, sandwiched between the German infantry and the Gepid cavalry is literally annihilated and taken off the board (little pile of counters on the end of the hill). In the centre the Visigoths break and flee and on the left the Visigoths are defeated but led by their general are merely forced to retreat. The Hunnic player tried to stop the Frank infantry from pursuing the retreating Visigoths but failed the morale throw and had to make the pursuit move, exposing their flank to the Visigoth cavalry on the far left of the picture.

End of turn 7 combat. The Visigoth cavalry have lost a full base and have taken 2 wounds (yellow die) on another base. They are forced to recoil under the pressure of two enemy units attacking them (they will fight with 4 dice against 6 enemy

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dice).
Thats all we had time for in this gaming session, in total it took about 1 and a half hours to play through and was a lot of fun for both sides. With a full day to game (perhaps 3-4 hours) two players could fight this through to a conclusion I am sure.

26th of September we tried it again, this time with the Ostrogoths attacking the hill. As per the original game the  first action was the Hun player trying to swing round between the hill and the edge of the table. Both cavalry forces (Visigoths and Ostrogoths) threw their javelins, resulting in one unit of Visigoth cavalry Retreating (just as in the first game) and a unit of Ostrogoth cavalry Routing. Continued pressure saw the remaining unit of Visigoth cavalry first Shaken then Routing and the following wave of Ostrogoth cavalry attacking the flank of the Visigoth infantry on the hill and breaking them. So that is the way will play the next run of the game, which should involve some painted figures, Ostrogoths attack the hill, defended by Visigoths. The early part of the scenario works, the next game should see a full run through.

The Die Is Cast in the style of DBA

This is a battle report of the modifications to the Die is Cast rules for use with element based figures (groups of figures based on a single base of standard frontage).
For this we used two small armies of 12 elements a side (the sort of game you might have in DBA for example).
Greeks used 3 units each of 4 bases;
2 units of Spartans classed as; heavy infantry, armed with long spear, steady, veterans, with the phalanx and stubborn special rules.
1 unit of allied Greeks; heavy infantry, armed with long spear, average, seasoned, with the phalanx special rule
Gauls again 3 units of 4 bases but no reason to do it this way, they equally could have been 12 units, each of a single base.
3 units of Gauls; medium infantry in loose formation, javelins, sword, average, seasoned, with the wild charge special rule.

both armies deploy, the Greeks choose a double line formation to get the maximum fighting power from their long spears. The Gauls gaining no advantage from fighting more than one rank deep, deploy in single lines and overlap the Greeks line.

Both sides advance, with the allied Greek hoplites expanding into a single line to prevent the Gauls getting round the Greek flank.
In the centre a unit of Spartans declare a charge, roll; 5, 3, 3 and 2. They elect to discard the 2 (regulars roll 4 dice and chose one die to discard), so the score is 11, they are fine and charge.

The Gauls roll  miserable 7 (warriors simply roll 3 dice and use that score for their morale), become Shaken and have to take the charge at the halt.

On the Gallic left, a unit moves up and throws javelins at the second unit of Spartans. At short range (the only range close order troops can throw javelins) they need four or less to get a kill. They get 3 kills (see above) not quite enough (four hits needed to remove a base) to remove a base.

After taking casualties from shooting, the Spartans take a morale test, roll 4, 2, 2, 1 and discard the one. On a score of 8 the Spartans are happy. In the centre the Gauls inflict a single casualty on the charging Spartans, but that did not worry them either.

In the combat phase 2 bases of Spartans score a hit with every dice rolled (needing 7 or less to score a hit) the Gauls have a longer frontage, so fight back with 3 bases (6 dice) needing 2 or less to roll a hit and score one hit. That means that the Gauls lose and lose by 4 hits to 1.

Rolling a good score of 13, the Gauls modified morale total is 4 as they were Shaken and lost the melee by 4 to 1, so they Retreat.

Now the Gauls on the left are charged by the other Spartan unit. The Spartans roll 8 (discarding one of the ones) and are fine, the Gauls roll 5 (modified down to 4 because of their retreating friends) and Retreat, taking them out of the charge range of the Spartans who merely move forward.

On the right, the Gauls fighting the allied Greeks cause 2 wounds for no loss. The Greeks would have needed 4’s or less to score a hit because they have no supporting rank.However the Greeks morale is fine and they are just recoiled by being beaten by 2:1 and also lose the benefit of the phalanx formation (having been recoiled).

The overall view, in the centre the Gallic unit has been heavily damaged and continues to retreat, on the left the Gauls are falling back but still quite intact, whilst on the right the Gauls are winning against the allied hoplites.

Another round of combat on the right and the Gauls score 5 hits out of 8 dice rolled. The Greeks only score one hit (the one), so are beaten by 5:1.

The Greeks rolled well and held but are now below 50% strength, so can never be considered better than Shaken and are spent as an offensive unit. The centre unit of Spartans charges into the flank of the Gauls. The result is 3:1 to the Spartans/Greeks and the allied hoplites have been saved from destruction.

On the left the other Spartans charge into the now rallied Gauls and score 4 hits (needing 7’s as they are superior troops with the support of an rank) and the Gauls score nothing. Result the Gauls are broken and run.


Game over. But remember this game was played with equal numbers of elements. If this had been done with armies using a points system then there would have been twice as many Gauls and the game could have gone very differently.
For more details of the Die is Cast rules, please follow the link to the Veni Vidi Vici website where a playtest version is freely downloadable.

Three battles with Byzantines

My friend Steve Riley and I travelled to Rushden, Northamptonshire for the Phoenix gamers annual Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) event, Axes.
The tournament was for a 2100 army using the Armies of Antiquity 2 lists. Note that a 2100 point army under the new lists is worth about 1600 under the old WAB lists, so really armies were quite small.

We took a Byzantine army;
Mounted general
2 units heavy cavalry
2 units mixed spearmen (also equipped with darts) and archers
1 unit Varaginian Guard
2 units of skirmishing javelinmen (one elite with a ballistic skill of 4)
All three of the units of formed infantry have the Shieldwall special rule.

There were 17 other players, 6 of them taking Normans. Now Steve and I discussed this on the journey to the event and agreed that the best way to beat Norman knights was to shoot them, not fight them.

Game 1 vs Italian-Normans

The scenario was with a river across the table, with a ford and a bridge. Extra bonuses would be scored by capturing either or both of the crossings at the end of the game. I hate rivers in games of WAB because they stop my normal tactic of hitting the enemy in the flank. But this game was Steves to command.

Looking across the River at our Byzantine army. The Varaganians have taken advantage of their Riding Horses special rule to swiftly move up and start crossing the river at the ford. Meanwhile on the right of the picture, a unit of cavalry are heading for the bridge. We are facing an Italian-Norman army, basically Normans with some Arab allies.

How the battle looked from our side of the table. Norman knights on foot, supported by archers near the bridge with the main part of the Norman army (2 units of Arabs, 2 units of cavalry and some skirmishers near the ford).

I am afraid that the Varaginian guard were shot to death but behind them came the Byzantine spear units who swiftly engaged the Arab spearmen (see top of picture). A unit of Byzantine cavalry had chased off the enemy skirmishers and got behind the Norman knights on foot (bottom of picture) with the Byzantine skirmishers also now across the river, Hurrah!

However it all went wrong for us. Despite charging into the rear of the Norman foot knights, our cavalry was beaten and broke. Likewise the Arab infantry broke the Byzantine spearmen. But the spearmen rallied and in this picture are ready to have another go.

Towards the end of the game. In the end neither side was able to claim control of the crossing and although both sides had lost units, the Byzantine units were worth more points and so it was a slight win to the Normans. But passer-bys said that were the only army successfully to get across the river, so moral point scored.

Game 2 vs another Norman army.
This time on an open battlefield but with heavy rain falling, which limited the ability of missile armed troops to shoot. That was bad news for us as we stood little chance trying to out-fight the Norman knights.

 

Our opponent has massed two units of Norman knights on the right of the photo, with a large unit archers on the left and light troops coming through the woods.

Our army, with cavalry on the right and the infantry on the left. Probably precisely the wrong way round, the infantry would be much better trying to face up to the Norman charge, in shieldwall formation.

Disaster, one unit of Norman knights swept forward, crushed one unit of Byzantine cavalry, killing the general and causing half the Byzantine army to rout.

We did pull the game back slightly, rallying the heavy infantry and then counter-attacking with the Varagians but it was too little too late and the Normans had won the day big style with a maximum 32-0 victory. To make us feel a little bit better about it, quite a few Norman armies scored maximum points in the this round. With the freedom to move and a reduction in the effect of shooting, this game was where the Normans were going to excel.

Game 3 vs Arabs

This was an attacker/defender scenario, with the Byzantines acting the part of the defenders. Apparently our army had recently looted some Arab villages and the Arabs wanted their stuff back. This time I was in command and I stuck our loot behind a hill with the Varaginians on top of the hill. Either side of the hill were the two units of spearmen. The idea was that these three units provided a blocking ‘wall’ – and a wall that could shoot – whilst our cavalry and skirmishers probed any enemy advance for weakness.

Here you can see the initial Arab advance, the Byzantine cavalry are just about to charge the enemy skirmishers. They did not catch them but rather than face the charge the skirmishers broke and ran.

On the right, the Arab firepower was impressive, on the first turn the unit of Byzantine skirmishers (underlined in red) took 8 losses, reducing them to only 2 figures but those 2 figures passed their leadership test, advanced and killed an Arab horse archer before being shot down in the next round of shooting. Meanwhile the other unit of Byzantine cavalry advanced on the enemy, to drive them back and keep them away from the loot.

The Byzantine cavalry died to a man but drove off 2 units of enemy skirmishers and kept those machine gun horse archers busy. Mission successful.

On the left the Arab cavalry charged home and though it was a close fought battle, the Byzantine spearmen (in shieldwall) just gained momentum in the first round of melee. From there it was downhill for the Arab cavalry, they needed to be charging to gain the strength bonuses and they lost every round of melee after that. After 3 further rounds of combat, they broke and the Byzantine spearmen pursued, capturing the Arab unit and army standards!

In the centre, the Arab spearmen charged the Byzantine cavalry. Much to my amazement the Arab spearmen won (although only by one point) and the Byzantine general fluffed his leadership roll and the cavalry ran away – although they got away safely. At this point the Varaginians started to move off the hill to see if they could help with any of the melees.

And toward the end of the game you can see that the Arabs have been kept well away from the hill.

The final move of the game I don’t have a picture for but it was amazing. The Arab cavalry on the left had rallied but knew that they had no chance to beat the Byzantine spearmen without their standards, so wisely pulled back. The Byzantine cavalry (with the general) rallied on the right of the hill where the Arab horse archers shot at them. The Arabs caused 5 hits, all of which became wounds and I failed to make any saves at all (saving – or rather not saving – roll of 3 or more!), 5 dead Byzantine cavalry. The Byzantine cavalry unit was then reduced to a single figure, the leader plus the army general. However they passed their leadership roll and then charged the horse archers who elected to stand and fight. With only 5 attacks between them, the Byzantines inflicted 4 losses on the horse archers who now only 4 figures left themselves were forced to flee immediately.

The loss of the horse archers meant that the Byzantines had won the game with a small points advantage in losses but when captured standards and the game objective of holding on to the loot were considered it was a good 20-12 win.

Overall our army came 14th out of 18 players but we really enjoyed the days gaming. There is bound to be another Axes WAB event in 2013 and I would recommend it if you fancy a fun days ancient gaming.

The Phoenix club website is here for more information about the club.

Play testing the new Die is Cast rules

The background to this is that I have been working on an updated version of my Die Is Cast rules, which have been more or less a hobby project for me since they were first published back in 1992. You may never have heard of them but in those 20 years thousands of copies have been sold and more downloaded as pdfs. But the time has come to make them into a commercial set with points based army lists and different gaming mechanisms.

The major change is the combat system, originally the rules used combat factors that you referred to a chart to work out the number of casualties. Now it is dice rolls, D12's to be precise which give you twice as many possibilities than a D6. So with one die roll, you work out if an enemy figure has been killed. There is still a chart, with modifiers that tells you what you need to roll (roll that number or less to kill) but the numbers are few and simple. You could even remember them (not me, I have a very poor memory). Everything is taken into account, the weapon being used and the type of target.

Simple army lists are also in production and this game was a full dress rehearsal with equally pointed armies.
So 1000 point game fought between Later Macedonians and Republican Romans. Every army gets a standard 2/2 general for free. The numbers refer to the generals command/combat abilities, each of which can range between 1 to 4. 2/2 is a middle of the road commander.

We used 15mm figures simply because they are easier to from car to gaming area. In this case we played at Portcullis in Bolton.
An important part of these rules is that moves are simultaneous. Both players move, shoot and fight at the same time.

The Macedonian army was
6 Agema cavalry (guard heavies with lances) 90 points
2x 6 Greek heavy cavalry (javelins, sword) 116 points
2x 6 Greek light cavalry (javelins, sidearms) 98 points
3x 16 Macedonian veteran pikes (pike, medium armour, shield) 270 points
2x 12 peltasts (long spear, javelins, shield) 140 points
2x 12 Galatian fanatics (javelins, sword, shield, fanatics) 170 points
2x 12 mixed skirmishers (half with bow, half with javelin, shield) 92 points
Total 976 points

Roman army
6 Roman heavy cavalry (heavy, javelin, sword, shield) 76 points
6 Italian heavy cavalry upgraded to veterans (heavy, javelin, sword, shield) 76 points
3x 6 Numidian cavalry (javelins, sidearms, shield, elite shots) 183 points
3x 6 velites (LI, javelins, sidearm, shield) 102 points
6x 12 Hastati/Princepes heavy infantry (pila, sword, shield) 504 points
6 Cretan archers (bow, sidearm, shield, elite shots) 40 points
Total 951 points

All pictures can be clicked on for a larger image. Photographs were taken with a Nikon Ixus 100, which I find great for wargames shots, very tolerant of poor lighting.

The Macedonian army deployed, see light cavalry on the left, pikes and heavy cavalry in the centre and light troops on the right.


The Roman left, Numidians in front, screening the two units of heavy cavalry in March column - that was the only way I could represent it by facing the cavalry to the side


Roman center, two lines of legionaries with velites in front


And the Roman right. Numidian cavalry and Cretan archers


Numidians advance on Roman left


Galatians and Macedonian lights advance on Roman right


An overall view


OK some examples of shooting. For all combat you roll a D12 for each pair of figures shooting/fighting. You need to roll equal or under the number needed to score a hit. In this case 6 Cretan archers fire at long range against advancing Galatians and need 3's to hit. The 3 dice show you what was rolled (10, 8, 5) no hits.


In the centre both sides are advancing behind light troops - there is going to be some shooting here but more on that later.


Macedonian archers (in the rear rank) try a shot against the Numidian cavalry. Their chances are poor and they need 1's to hit and get one.


Cretans against the advancing Galatians, remember need 3's to hit. Get a 2 and a 3 for two hits.


(back to events in the centre) Velites need 2's to hit the light cavalry. Nothing.


The cavalry need 3's to hit, get lucky and hit twice. The velites tested their morale and promptly fled.


The remaining velite unit only has 2 figures in range and with a 12 misses completely.


Here the Numidian cavalry in the centre (circled red) charged the Macedonian cavalry (circled blue) who failed their morale test and fled. Very close to some other Roman Numidian cavalry (red line) who will be shooting at them later in the turn.


The Galatians are getting closer to the Cretans with 2 of the Cretans firing at medium range, they now need 5's to hit but the base at long range still needs a 3. They get 2 hits and the Galatians have taken (including from previous turns) a total of four hits. Because the figures are on multiple figure bases, they were based for DBM, we use dice to mark the hits. The Macedonian player will now take a base of 3 figures off and leave a white die with a one to show the extra hit remaining.


The Numidians fire at the fleeing Greek light cavalry, needing 5's with two bases at short range and 7's with the base that is at long range. All three hit and hopefully that makes it harder for the Greeks to rally.


A bit more shooting from the Greek archers in the rear rank. Still need 1's to hit but they get two hits and the Numidians fail their morale and flee. Now to explain morale for light troops, it is fast and brutal. Throw 1 D6 for every 6 figures that your unit started with, you must roll under the numbers of figures left in the unit to be OK, otherwise you flee. So the Numidians roll 6 (white die) and with only 4 figures left, they break. There are a few modifiers to change the die roll but nothing to help the Numidians here, so they are gone.


Now the Macedonians charge with their guard cavalry in the centre (circled blue) and with the Galatians on the Roman right (blue line). However the guard cavalry had already taken 2 hits from earlier shooting and was so down to 4 figures and is just about to be hit by shooting from the Numidians and the velites as the charge in.


The guard cavalry take 3 more hits from shooting and must take a morale test. Now we allow regular units to throw 4 D6 for a morale test and choose 1 die to discard (normal units use 3 dice for their morale tests which are more complex than those for light troops). Well the Macedonians rolled 3 1's and a 2. So even with the best will in the world that was a bad die roll and the choice did not help much. And with 80% losses the Macedonian cavalry broke and fled.


On the Roman left, Roman cavalry trade javelins with the Greek peltasts. The Romans cause 2 casulaties, whilst the peltasts needing 4's with the front rank firing (white dice) and 3's with the rear rank (red dice) get 5 hits and inflict 80% losses on the Roman cavalry in round of shooting. Roman cavalry break and run.


Now on to our first melee (the Macedonian guard cavalry did not fight, they were broken by shooting before fighting). The Roman legionaries throw their pila before fighting the combat, this is still counted as part of the melee. They need 6's to hit with the front rank (red dice) and 5's with the rear rank (blue and purple dice). They roll 6 hits and then fight with their swords.


With swords, both sides inflict 2 wounds apiece. But the pila hits also count toward combat and  that makes it 4 to 1 in the Romans favour. With half of the unit gone and massively beaten in melee, even the Galatians broke.


The Roman legionaries took a morale test, to try not to pursue the fleeing Galatians (6, 2x5, 4) but even dropping the 6, the temptation was too much and they chased after the Galatians.


After the pursuit move


On the Roman left the Italian cavalry charged the peltasts, with the Numidians joining in on the flank. They won the combat and broke through the peltasts wiping them out. This was obviously wrong and will result in a change to the rules. If you have cavalry capable of breaking through infantry from multiple directions, in future players will only be allowed the choice of one lot of cavalry.


Numidian cavalry hit the flank of the pike block (next to the peltasts), beat them and broke through them, forcing the surviving pikes to retreat. Now the Macedonian right was a great big hole.


And another over-view of the battle.


If you have any questions, please ask.

What's next? Well one more game, once we are happy that the game can be played with no more rule changes then it will go out to a blind-test group who have never seen the rules before. Comments from them can be used to make the game suitable for people to buy it off the shelf.

And whilst other people are testing the rules - instead of me - I will be writing up army lists which will be up on the internet for free download. There will also be historical scenarios for those who would like to play games based on actual historical battles (which was the intention of the rules when I first wrote them).