The Aurelian Campaigns
I thought about starting some campaigns set in my LARP's world. The first campaign would feature the Aurelian legions (inspired by Rome) against the hordes of the Dark Magi.
Seems like it would be easy to do using MicroBattle and my counters. But there is where I hit a snag. In my LARP's world, there is no cavalry. The cost and risk make horses impractical for a LARP. In game terms, we explained this lack by declaring that horses went extinct. It's a trick I picked up from Empire LARP.
This leaves me with a conundrum. My counters are very generic and only feature 2 types of infantry, 2 of cavalry, and 1 artillery (which is really for horse & musket games). It seems to me that dropping cavalry leaves the armies as sadly uniform and monotonous.
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| An army of my homemade counters |
The solution is obvious - add more infantry types. I took a look at HoTT and it includes blades, spears, warband, shooters along with specialty types like clerics, magicians, and other fantastical creatures. Seems perfect for this world. But now I need to create more counters!
Meanwhile in Phandalin
After their defeat at Axeholm, Ser Killian has embarked on his next quest. I haven't finished it yet so I have no write-up. Unfortunately, I've been distracted and haven't returned to the game yet.
Borrowing ideas from Hordes of the Things, I suppose you could have troop categories such as:
ReplyDeleteBlades - primarily “regular” troops, quite well armoured & primarily fight at close quarters. Alternatively call them Swordsmen?
Spears - armed with long spears or possibly even pikes. At a minimum these are “drilled” troops, often regulars.
Levies - armed with a variety of weapons they are (probably) capable of standing still and fighting the enemy. Very limited ability to manoeuvre.
Tribal elite - such as Huscarls or the chieftain’s bodyguard. Skilled at weaponry. Mostly quite well armoured.
Tribal warriors - “irregular” or tribal troops. Fairly competent, but only capable of limited manoeuvres (advance, charge, fall-back etc).
Fanatics - something like Viking “berserkers”? Mostly suitable to “charge” and then will either be victorious - or die…
Shooters/Bowmen - lots of archers/crossbowmen firing as a solid body.
Skirmishers - harass the enemy with a varied to ranged weapons, but run away if challenged.
Behemoths/Giants - big lumbering bu99ers who will smash into the enemy and create havoc.
Other considerations - regular, trained troops are more capable of carrying out complex manoeuvres. Heavily/well armoured troops move slower than unarmoured ones (maybe start at same speed, but likely to soon become tired?). Some troops types have to “keep face” when things are going bad, whereas others may simply slink away or even flee. You could always just go with depicting your counters as Close order, Loose order and Open order troops.
So you advance your spearmen against a body of “Close order” troops and it isn’t until you get within (whatever) range that you identify that the opposing troops are Swordsmen - or spear armed Levies.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Geoff
I like the idea of just showing order, and then finding out the specific type upon approach. Adds some unpredictability!
DeleteFrom a considerable distance all you can tell is - they look close together (or not). Obviously, if you see they are peppering your force with a shower of arrows then you can be reasonable sure they are some sort of bowmen.
ReplyDelete“Regular” troops - such as Roman legionaries - will probably be wearing a uniform colour, whereas irregular/tribal troops will probably have an irregular look (who’d have thought it?). I’d suggest you can probably also identify their shields.
Otherwise, if all you can identify is that your opponents are a “solid block of troops” you will need to get closer before you can establish whether they are a block of medieval “urban militia” spearmen or if it’s simply the local Lord’s peasant levy armed with whatever was available.
In many (historical) cases the General will normally have a vague clue about the composition of the opposing forces. So, a Roman army is likely to feature a reasonable proportion of legionaries whereas an Early Saxon army would be mostly irregular “warband” troops, with a few skirmishers and a bodyguard of “tough-guys” for the big chief.
TBH when you play this solo it’s relatively straightforward to “wing it”. If in doubt, think of some options and roll a dice. 😉⚔️⚔️