Map of an Arthurian Campaign

Wargaming at the intersection of fantasy and history

I’ve been working on struggling with these Late Roman Infantry from Wargames Atlantic for a little while, unsure of how to paint them or what to do with them, since, although the time period is of great interest to me, I don’t have any other armies from this period and I thought I’d be unlikely to run a Roman wargame in 28mm. Mass formations are just better in smaller scale.

But a couple of weeks ago, I got to thinking that a 28mm ‘warband’ level wargame would be highly appropriate for the Arthurian period. Not the Arthur of more recent Hollywood legend, with massive armies of heavy cavalry, but something that hews closer to the reality of the comparatively impoverished and decentralized period of post-Roman Britain, predominantly made up of infantry, variably equipped and often unarmored. The Romano-British fight primarily against invading Saxons, Picts, Irish pirates rather than Morded and Morgan Le Fay. Nor are they are united — not yet, anyway. Think of the scenes of the mostly great movie Excalibur, with the dozens of petty kings warring against each other, dilly-dallying with their own private grudge matches in a belated march to a throne that doesn’t actually exist.

Because of my predilections for fantasy and alternate history, however, I’m not interested in hewing too closely to history. I still want them to have to deal with Fey enchantresses, diabolical sorcerers, spectral knights, ogres, and the occasional Questing Beast. And at all times they are Questing for the True Grail:

Most battles would run from the larger end of skirmish gaming to ‘warband’ type games. I am not decided on a system, nor do I necessarily think it should be exclusive. There are a variety of options that immediately spring to mind: Osprey’s Dux Bellorum, Ravenfeast, Saga. I think Joseph McCullough’s Oathmark, which I am more familiar with, would be extremely useful in several ways, even if it’s on the upper limit of the scale of battles I’d want to run. To wit: built-in handling of fantasy elements, development of elite units over a campaign, river/ship fighting, and, most importantly, its Kingdom-builder system.

Each player would control a faction—nothing as large as, say ‘Romano British’ or ‘Invading Saxons’, but rather something like Uriens of Gorre, Mark of Cornwall, or Gradlon of Ys (yes, the Bretons must be involved). They could be historical, legendary, or entirely made up. Each is trying to improve his position against the others, whether by conquest, trade, or marriage. They will sometimes have to ally with rivals against more dangerous foes. They don’t have to stay in one spot: maybe they want to make an expedition to the Blessed Isles of St. Brendan or make a counter-invasion of Frisia. The campaign should be map-based and involve real constraints of time and logistics. How to handle these is less clear.

Naturally, this also sounds like a natural fit for a ‘Braunstein’, a hybrid of wargaming and what is now called a Role Playing Game. The great heroes of your battlefield could easily become PCs in a theater-of-the-mind adventure game. Using something like Adventurer, Conqueror, King for this part offers a lot of possibilities, including simulating the logistics of long campaigns.

Clearly, I need to spend some more time figuring things out, but this is best done through direct experimentation. I intend to use my store/clubhouse The Victor’s Spoils as the location for our thinking, playtesting, and campaigning. To make it easy on everyone, I’ll be stocking appropriate miniatures from a variety of manufacturers, like Victrix, Wargames Atlantic, Gripping Beast, etc… for you to buy or kitbash your own forces. But even if you are not nearby, I’d love to hear your suggestions on it. Let me know your own thoughts, and if you want to take up the banner of one of a Saxon conqueror, Irish buccaneer, or a sub-Roman warlord, please get in touch.