Sunday 10 June 2012

Magna Graecia Campaign Rules

As with most of my wargaming activities there are always themes, periods and rule sets that I constantly turn back to in my wishful way.  These include such things as DBA, DBM, DBR, Operation Warboard, books by Donald Featherstone and Charles S Grant and even Bruce Quarrie's Napoleonic Rules (published in the Airfix Guide No. 4).

One of my enduring interests has been finding ways to run wargame campaigns and therefore discovering campaign rule sets has always been exciting (there aren't that many out there really).  One of the sets that I did find and use was the (free) Magna Graecia Campaign Rules for an ancient campaign in Sicily.  These are by Rob Smith and appear to date from early 1997.
Resolving how terrain affects campaign decisions of when and where to fight has always been an issue but these rules cleverly simplify this by having defined table-top maps for each of the numbered nodes shown on the main map.  Land movement is only between linked nodes and battles can only be fought at each node (a bit like the original Shogun & Medieval Total War computer game system).  Therefore each battlefield can be assessed beforehand and hopefully used to your advantage.
Node maps look like this, although I suppose you could make your own if you wished or you could inject some random element based on scouting prowess, etc.  Here is a sketch-map showing our battle on the node depicted above (No.12 Akragas/Agrigentum) when we actually did fight the campaign (in this case it was Lydians versus Early Achaemenid Persians using DBM).  .
In this encounter the Lydians were advancing from Node 13 so the coastline on our battle map was along the left hand side (North is at the right hand side of my sketch-map).  Note the L-shaped wood and walled town which match those on the campaign map.  I actually won this one.  And here is another example from later on in the campaign and further along the coast at node 03 (Selinus).
My sketch-map of our battle is shown below, from which you can see that my army bravely ran away (North is on the right hand side of the map again).
And the reason for posting about this (apart from the opportunity to highlight one of my rare victories in that particular campaign)?  Well, a few months ago whilst checking my links I noted that the Magna Graecia one was dead and I have only today found and restored them after a bit of searching round the interweb.

So I thought I'd use the occasion to draw your attention to this interesting and useful set of campaign rules and the fact that it can be found on the web again.  It also ties in with my current thoughts on running a DBA campaign and what our options are for doing that.

Edit - unfortunately this link is now dead also.  However, if anyone still wants to see these rules and maps you can view them here.

7 comments:

Arthur said...

Thank you, intend to use this method in the not too distant future.

Brigadier Dundas said...

Appreciate your posting the Magna Greacia campaign info here. I'd been looking for it for quite some time, but had only the dead link.

DadExtraordinaire said...

Great work Brian getting up the links. However for some reason map 01 does not upload / download - it isn't showing?!

Great blog you have here, a real wargamers blog, and I prefer to play campaigns too....

The Wishful Wargamer said...

Thanks for the kind words - I don't have a lot of time and very few projects ever get past the much heralded planning stages - typical wargamer!

Regarding Magna Graecia - I checked the link and you are right for some reason the Node 01 map isn't working. However, I am pretty sure that I have copies of all of the maps and so there are two options: 1) I will post my copy of the missing map here or 2) I can email you all of the maps (and the campaign rules) which I made into a word document (zip file is about 1Meg). I've sent it out a few times already for people who contacted me through the TMP forum.

cheers WW

I could do both in fact.

Unknown said...

As the fellow who put this stuff together a long time ago, I am thankful that someone out there kept it together! And a thanks to Rob who originally gave me permission to post his work.

Mike

V said...

Hi there

does anybody know I can get in contact with Rob Smith? maybe trought a yahoo group or something.

I am preparing a modified version of this campaign, more like a kriegsspiel. If it works, I would post it on the internet but I won't do it without his permission. Thanks

Valerio

btw greast blog!

Unknown said...

I think I have an email from when I contacted him years ago at Great Hall Games in Austin, TX

Great Hall Games
5501 North Lamar Blvd., Ste. A-135
Austin, TX 78751
www.greathallgames.com
Phone: 512-505-0055
Toll Free: 888-827-2662