I recently came across a very simple set of solo Ancient rules, recommended both by fellow blogger Shaun Travers and also a poster on TMP. They are 'Dominion of the Spear' by Ork Publishing (Steve Parker) and available on Wargames Vault for around 5 USD.
In many ways they scratch the same sort of itch as 3x3 Ancients, armies of 4-6 units on a virtual 3x3 grid, but they are aimed at the solo gamer as a simple way of doing battle matchups between a vast, DBA length, set of Army lists. In many ways they are the distilled essence of DBA, it is all about the matchups, and unlike a lot of Ancients rules don't require too much thinking and faffing around with lots of complicated mechanisms or millimetric geometry. When you are solo playing, there is quite enough to think about when playing.
Anyway, there is nothing like learning by doing. I could just have picked some random encounters, but I vastly prefer a historical context, and having painted all those Persians and Parthians I picked out a couple of battles from Strategos to make sure I got the sides matched up correctly. First up was Marathon.
Each side has 12 points of units, a basic unit costs 2 and if it has extra capabilities (Elite, armoured etc) each costs an extra point. So here were have the Athenians with four armoured spearmen aka Hoplites (2 basic points +1ea for armoured). Against them are Persian archers (2ea), Elite Archers (Immortals, 3 points), Persian cavalry (2) and an armoured spearman (3, Mercenary Hoplites).
Each army lines up three units in the front line (left, centre, right) and puts the rest in reserve, defenders deploy first, then the attackers. The first to reduce the enemy to 1 or 0 units and still has more units than the enemy, wins.
In the first run through, the Persians were the attackers (it is determined by a die roll). Each sector combat is resolved individually, starting on the left sector (ie the attackers right). There is no terrain as these are quite abstract battles just focusing on the high level action. I set each side up in their historical deployment, the Greeks are easy as they are all hoplites, but the Persians put all their archers up front. The Immortals are in the centre with a good reason, which I will come to later.
Combat is resolved left to right, and in the first round, the Persian archers rout one hoplite while the Athenians miss completely. In each sector missile fire is resolved first, then melee. There are various pluses and minus for troop types (all very DBA/Strategos). The basic score to hit is 5+ on a D6, being armoured reduces that to 6, but being elite gives a +1. Melee troops get a a +1 bonus vs archers in melee. So essentially the Persians need 6 to hit (Immortals 5), the Athenians 4, but the Persians fire first.
This outcome is rather unlucky for the Athenians. Any hit routs the enemy unit, and the loser must immediately commit a unit from reserve, in this case the final Athenian hoplite.
Everybody missed in the next round.
But in the last round it all went horribly wrong for Athens. The first two archers hit, the Athenians routed one archer and the Mercenary Hoplites moved into the gap, but reduced to one unit, the Athenians lost.
Then I tried it with Athens attacking. In the first round the Athenians manged to rout the Immortals while suffering no losses! The mercenary hoplites filled the gap.
The Persians lost their right flank archers and the cavalry rode up. Having cavalry on the flanks is a good idea as if they are unopposed, they get an attack on the centre with a flank bonus.
In the ensuing bloodbath, everybody died except the right flank Greek hoplites and the centre Persian mercenaries! Normally being reduced to one unit results in defeat, but both armies were equal in strength so one more round.... Having unopposed infantry in the centre zone gives a similar bonus to unopposed cavalry on the flank, however the Athenian right flank got to attack first....
And rolled a 6 (hoplites vs hoplites need 6 to hit, excluding other bonuses or penalties), so the Persians were routed and an Athenian victory.
One final go.
The Athenians are attacking again, and as usual the Immortals are in the centre. They get +1 firing and if they manage to also get the centre infantry outflanking bonus they will be on +2. There isn't much point putting the archers in reserve as the first fire is a useful counter to the melee only hoplites.
The Persian archery duly takes down two of the Athenian hoplites, leaving the Immortals in that coveted unopposed centre position....
And although the Greeks manage to take out the Persian left flank archers, forcing them to commit the cavalry, the Immortals wipe out the Athenian left flank with a flank attack and reduced to one unit, the Athenians retire.
OK, time for something different. Having painted all those Parthians, I really wanted to do Carrhae. I'd intended to play the CnC Carrhae scenario, but I could never actually be bothered to get all the toys out!
So instead we have 'mini Carrhae'. Crassus has three armoured infantry (Legionaries) at 3points each, and a unit of 'ferocious' (Gallic) cavalry, also three points.
The Parthians have a tidal wave of horsemen, even though the army list also specifies some spearmen. As far as I can tell at Carrhae, the Parthians were all mounted. So we have four units of horse archers (2 points each) and one unit of elite armoured cavalry (4 points) ie the Cataphracts, their combat debut! Some of the horse archers have already been used as proxy Persians.
The Persians are attacking so Crassus puts his Legions in the line, supported by the Gallic cavalry. I should maybe have put the cavalry in the line as they get a bonus against missile cavalry, but I really didn't want to lose them early on. The missile cavalry effectively negate the legionaries armour, so hit on 5+
The matchups here are really quite interesting with various bonus for the different types (missile cavalry vs melee infantry, melee cavalry vs missile cavalry etc). The first round is indecisive, the Horse Archers miss completely and the Legionaries manage to rout one of the horsemen. The reserve archers move up to fill the gap.
The second round is a bloodbath however! More horse archers succumb, but so do two Legionary units. The Parthians commit their Cataphracts, while the Gallic Cavalry ride to the Romans rescue. Crassus waves his sword at the barbarians.
The Cataphracts bounce, those Legionaries must be led by Maximus himself, but the Gauls go down in a hail of arrows. Reduced to one unit, while the Parthians still have two, the Romans lose.
Time for another go. The Romans attack this time, and they commit the Gallic Cavalry early. If they can weather the arrow storm, they will tear the horse archers apart in melee.
The Gauls rout one of the Horse Archers for no loss, otherwise the fighting is indecisive. Parthian reserves move into the gap. Perhaps I should have put the Cataphracts in against the Gauls, but I'm hoping for a successful arrow strike as the Gauls are unarmoured.
Two more horse archers go down, and no losses to the Romans! The Cataphracts are forced to deploy.
The Gauls are finally exhausted and the reserve Legionaries move up.
Despite some losses, they see off the rest of the Parthian cavalry in a crushing victory. Well done Crassus!
That was really good fun. This rules are very simple, but produce the sorts of effects I am after for a quick game. Probably not much use for f2f play, but ideal in a campaign setting. I'm strongly tempted to try the Pelleponesian Wars again but using this system instead of the 3x3 Portable Wargame. It also strikes me that this would be very easy to convert for galley warfare, with 'ramming' types more like cavalry, and 'boarding types' more like infantry. So, I think the next thing is to rework the army types for the Pelleponesian Wars, make some ship markers, and draft some rough naval rules and fleet compositions for the campaign. So, lots of food for thought, that was well worth 5 dollars!
