Midgard Heroic Battles : Britannia Campaign Preparation

I am getting an idea forming in my mind for a campaign that I want to run using Midgard Heroic Battles as the combat reckoner. It will be a completely fictitious story from the early days of the Roman invasion of Britannia, wherein a Roman advance guard contingent (a legionary cohort and a supporting cohors equitata quingenaria) deep in enemy territory becomes isolated several dozen miles behind enemy lines due to a counter-attack by the Britons temporarily pushing the main Roman advance back. This will be the story of the stranded unit slowly returning to the Roman lines, picking up stragglers along the way to bolster their numbers.

This story will hopefully play out the major encounters that the Romans have with the native Britons. I will try to run it as a campaign with a map to facilitate movement and troop locations. I am not sure how many turns it should be over or what the victory conditions etc. will be, but that is also gradually being formulated in my mind.

 

Ptolemy's map of Britannia

With regards the miniatures, I was thinking that each figure would represent approximately 8-10 warriors; a base of 10 figures will represent a Roman Century (80 troops) or around 100 Celtic warriors, a skirmisher base of 4 figures will represent 40 archers/slingers, and a cavalry base (4 figures) will represent 30 or 40 riders (see below). As time goes on and I add chariots and artillery bases, I will need to work out what they represent.

The Britons will be the easiest to represent as they are all members of the local tribe(s) and will be collected onto bases of similarly armed and armoured troops (warriors, archers, slingers, cavalry, chariots, druids, dogs etc.). They will be led by a variety of chieftains and sub-chiefs/heroes that can change for each battle, but I may see if I can get a narrative going with some named Celtic chieftains to give the games a more "realistic" feel.

The Romans, on the other hand, will be more difficult to resolve as they have a more regimented set up regarding numbers...

The Roman contingent will consist of one full-strength legionary cohort plus a full-strength auxiliary cohors equitata quingenaria...

• 1 full strength legionary cohort (6 centuries)
  
• 480 legionaries, 6 centurions, and 24 junior officers (optio, tesserarius, signifer, buccinator)
• 6 scorpio - each century was equipped with a scorpio, a small torsion-powered ballista
• 1 onager - each cohort also had one onager, a stone-throwing torsion-powered catapult

•  1 full strength cohors equitata quingenaria (6 centuries of auxilia + 4 turmae of cavalry)
• 480 auxiliaries, 6 centurions and 18 junior officers (optio, signifer, buccinator)
• 120 cavalry, 4 decurions and 12 junior officers (duplicarius, sesquiplicarius, vexillarius)
  

• Logistical support provided by 60-120 slaves, and 60-120 mules (I may not add these unless as maybe as baggage train base(s) to be used as objectives if called for in a scenario?)
• Artillerists should be drawn from the cohort's legionaries, but I will be adding them as extras onto the base(s) for the artillery should I get around to using artillery

The Roman Order of Battle...

• The legionary cohort commanded by:
• A praefectus castrorum or camp prefect, the third most senior officer in a legion
• A primus pilus (eligible for promotion to camp prefect)
  
• An Aquilifer
  
• In order of increasing seniority, the six centurions were titled hastatus posterior, hastatus prior, princeps posterior, princeps prior, pilus posterior, and pilus prior. The pilus prior would command the cohort overall
• The mixed infantry and cavalry auxiliary cohors equitata quingenaria commanded by:
• A praefectus castrorum or camp prefect
• Four decurions
  

So, the total force of Romans will be:

 

Several leader types to use as Heroes; starting with at least a Prefect, primus pilus and centurion

It will be assumed that if casualties are taken in the upper ranks the following promotion processes would take place, but it will be deemed an invisible process unless a named hero gets killed:

Prefect < primus pilus < centurions in order < optio < tesserarius < decanus

6x warrior bases (legionaries)

1x artillery base

1x baggage train base (possibly more if a scenario calls for it

6x auxiliary spear/sword or archer bases - yet to decide on final numbers for these

3/4x cavalry bases (this doesn't tally with the four turmae required and will affect my OCD badly)

 

And for the Britons, I will just build out as many bases as I require for each scenario to make up the correct points values.

 

So, that sums up the forces involved but I still need to work on the following...

• order movement trays of the correct size for the miniatures
• how the miniatures are presented as units on the bases
• points values for each unit type
• work out two starter forces at 300pts
  
• a map - hand drawn as if by the Roman commander which shows the locations of Roman reinforcements at fortified camps along the way, with maybe other units that could be met on the march to make scenarios fairer if one side takes more casualties than the other so as not to unbalance the games too much
• how the Britons can gain support (more reinforcements for a win, fewer for a loss, or just random?)
• how to calculate after battle casualties
• Roll to get numbers back - roll per miniature/base?
• if a unit is completely wiped out, then they are gone or any remnants can be said to make up the numbers of another damaged unit
• there are five scenarios in the rule book which can be used for the full campaign
• rolled randomly each turn or set out in order?
• ending on a sixth game that is full on battle utilising every unit left on each side

 

For the next blog entry? Hopefully I can get most of the above work-list sorted and report on the basics for the campaign along with some photos of the two completed armies (although many of the Celtic figures will still be unpainted).