Midgard Heroic Battles : Britannia Campaign Prep 2

Following on from the previous blog entry on my Midgard preparation, I thought I would try to get as much completed from the list as quickly as possible. I have managed to achieve quite a bit in the last few days, so I will list these points below...

Gaming items:

I ordered some Midgard compatible bases from Warbases a week or two back and I have now received them...

I ordered enough to make up (hopefully) the two 300 point armies that incorporate Warriors (formed), Warriors (unformed), Skirmishers and cavalry. There will probably be a few bases left over, so if the games go beyond 300 points I will have some expansion room before needing to order any more.

In case you were wondering why the bases have little holes in each of the figures slots, that is because I will be using mini magnets to hold the figures, that are based on UK pennies and 38mm steel washers, in place. I ordered up a couple of packs of 3x2mm magnets, at £3.75 per pack including postage, from a supplier on Amazon for that purpose...

As can be seen from the top image, I ordered four types of base:

• 5x2 slots - Warriors (formed infantry) - Roman legionaries, ranked archers etc.
• 10x slots - Warriors (unordered infantry) - Celtic warriors
• 4x large slots - cavalry
• 4x small slots - skirmishers - Celtic archers, slingers etc.

Whilst prepping these items, I also cleaned up the Roman artillery crews, two units of Celtic cavalry and based them all in readiness for undercoating. I still need to work on the chariots and a few more Celtic infantry pieces though.

Campaign ideas:

On the actual game front, I have worked out points values for all units that will be involved in the game (stats for the individual units will be presented in a later post):

Romans:

• Roman commanders
• Prefect (level 3) - 43pts
• Primus Pilus (level 2) - 35pts
  
• Centurion (level 2) - 21pts
• Legionaries (Heavy Infantry) - 34pts
• Auxiliary archers (Formed Archers) - 29pts
• Auxiliary spearmen (Heavy Infantry with Missiles) - 24pts
• Cavalry (Light Riders) - 20pts
• Scorpions (Monstrosity: Artillery) - 20pts
• Onager (Monstrosity: Artillery) - 30pts
  

Britons:

• British Heroes
• Chieftain (level 3) - 47pts
• Champion (level 2) - 32pts
• Champion (level 1) - 18pts
• Druid (level 2) - 27pts
• Armoured (3) Warriors (Heavy Infantry) - 22pts
• Unarmoured (2) Warriors (Heavy Infantry) - 17pts
• Sky Clad (Skirmishers: Light Infantry) - 16pts
• Archers (Skirmishers: Shooters) - 15pts
• Slingers (Skirmishers: Shooters) - 10pts
• Female Warriors (Heavy Infantry with Missiles) - 16pts
• Cavalry (Light Riders) - 16pts
• Chariots (Light Riders) - 24pts
• Hounds (Light Riders) - 22pts

I was aiming, with the large differentials in costs per unit for the two sides, to try to get the Romans really outnumbered figures-wise on the table to give the impression of being at the enemy's mercy. I have created two 300 point armies to face each other in the first scenario. Details of these will be in a later post that I will publish prior to playing the first game.

As this is a campaign game, I have had to make a few extra rulings on how it will be run... 

Losses and Reinforcements:

After each battle I will calculate actual losses to each surviving unit that took Stamina damage

• Remove figures from each base as a percentage of Stamina lost - for example, on a 4 Stamina unit...
• 1 Stamina loss = 25% loss of figures (if a fraction, round down results for all losses)
• 2 Stamina loss = 50% loss of figures
• 3 Stamina loss = 75% loss of figures
• 4 Stamina loss - unit should have been removed from table already
  
• For partially damaged units, I will roll a d6 for each figure lost...
• On a 6 the troops were only wounded, dazed, or had managed some other way to escape slaughter, so they are returned to either their original unit or to another unit that is understrength
• On a 1-5 they are lost
• If a unit is completely wiped out during a game, then it is completely gone - no saving roll. It can be said, for story-telling purposes (i.e. one way in which the commanders get their news of the enemy's movements), that one or two individuals survived to make it back to the main force but these remnants can be said to make up the numbers of another damaged unit, so don't have any impact on unit strengths
• If two or more understrength units can be combined to make a whole one, then they will be, otherwise they will be left out of the next game until multiples of understrength units can combine to create whole ones; for example, if two ten-man units of the same type took casualties so that five are left in one unit and seven in the other, then a whole ten-man unit will be made and the remaining two will be left until after the next battle and then combined with another unit of the same type if possible. They can be assumed to have moved on to the next battle site for a variety of reasons

Before each battle, reinforcements will be calculated (still a work in progress)

• The Romans gain an extra unit or two depending upon which Roman camp type they are nearest to
• Marching camp = 2/3x random bases until all are used up
• Auxiliary Spearmen
• Auxiliary Archers
• Cavalry
  
• Watch Tower = 1x base of legionaries
• In the final battle they get an onager and/or a scorpio base in addition
• The Britons gain an extra 60 points to spend on new units (any points left over are lost) - there are three villages from where to gain reinforcements
• If the Britons win, depending on their level of victory, they will gain a bonus number of reinforcement points equal to the level of victory (0-3) x10

The reinforcement totals may seem a little off in favour of the Britons. This is for two reasons; firstly, they are on home turf and are expected to be able to recruit more troops, and secondly, they are expected to take more casualties as the Roman troops are better quality unit for unit. If this proves to be a little unfair I will adjust the amount of times that recruitment can take place; maybe after battles 1, 2, 4 and prior to 6 if the numbers are too uneven.

I have also been working on a map for the campaign; it will be hand drawn as if by the Roman commander, and will show the locations of Roman outposts and fortified camps, with British villages, woodlands and hills all marked - I have also added in the sites of the battles. I may try to scan and import a proper map, when drawn, into a drawing package so I can add details as I go along. This version is my initial sketch (apologies for the poor photo quality)...

 

Initial sketch map of environs

There are five scenarios in the rule book which will be used for the full campaign, along with a sixth, final decisive battle that pits all remaining troops on each side against one another. Points will be awarded throughout the campaign for each battle's outcome (0-3 for the victor), and will be added together to give a running tally of how the campaign is progressing, with the final battle giving double-points to the victor. I still need to determine which scenario is to happen at which location on the map.

Still left to do:

• how are the miniatures to be presented as units on the bases
• prepping the bases for play
• create a proper campaign map
• decide the order in which the five scenarios from the rulebook are played
• work on a sixth game that is a full on battle utilising every unit left on each side
• painting any figures that have not been painted yet (but this is not going to stop me from playing)

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).

Ghosts of Saltmarsh - Firewatch Island (Day 8)

Day 8 - As we were so badly beaten up by the harpies, we decided that we would rest up for the rest of the day and over night as we had some things to do. We investigated the corpse of the man that the harpies were hovering over, but all we could tell was that he had washed up on the beach after drowning at sea and hauled further up the shore and into the woods by the harpies - his injuries (including a missing left ear) were all post-mortem. He was dressed in what looked like maybe a guard's uniform but he had no arms or armour, or anything of value on him in fact. We buried him and I said prayers over his body to speed him into the Otherworld. We slept well, and were not disturbed by any sounds in the night.

The following morning we rose reasonably early and continued our journey. We found that the forest road we were traversing was actually very close to the sea, and the town of Uskarn was barely ten minutes away. If we had known, we might have carried on yesterday and healed up over night in an inn.

As we approached the town we became aware of how busy the docks were for what seemed like a small village. Boats of all types (warships, merchant ships, fishing vessels) continued to come and go and the docks were as crowded as any I had ever seen. Navda, our party rogue, made his way to the authorities to let them know about the dead man and that we had killed and scared off a large flock of harpies, then caught up with us in the tavern later.

Most of us headed into the largest tavern in town - the Frog and Fog. It looked like it used to be a warehouse judging by its huge size, and patrons were from all walks of life; dock-hands, merchants, guards etc. We ordered up mugs of a wonderful frothing ale (Planke's Plank) and some venison sausages and took in our surroundings. We asked around whether anyone knew about a certain dwarf named Marley Tobe but all we got was blank stares.

After a few more rounds of ale and no clues to finding our quarry, we headed out in search of a cloth merchant in case Marley Tobe had sold anything to one of them. We hit upon one such trader and she mentioned, after a few coins exchanged hands, that she had bought a few bolts of fine silk from him, and that he seemed like he was in a bit of a hurry to be away. He headed over to Firewatch Island as soon as he could and was not seen again.

We thanked the merchant for the information and went back to the docks in search of a boat to take us over to the island. We chanced upon a small keel boat with a half-orc captain, Raskil, and crew who offered to take us over for a number of coins - he seemed a little confused by his numbers and was constantly settling upon differing amounts in gold and silver, but we finally got a fair price from him. On the way over we were able to garner some more information from the captain, for a few extra coins, that he had ferried a dwarf matching Marley's description to the island around four days ago. He said that Marley didn't come back and that Raskil would not wait overnight anywhere near the island as it was haunted by strange sounds.

The crossing was smooth, and the island with its three peaks, fortress and towers didn't look particularly busy. The jetty, when we got there was deserted, so we disembarked and requested that Raskil come back the following morning to pick us up. He rowed off as quickly as his craft could carry him and his crew.

A quick search of the remarkably well-kept jetty and area revealed several sets of footprints going to and from the water's edge. Other than them being humanoid, with some being in shoes and others not, we could make no sense of them.

Firewatch Island - from a screenshot in Fantasy Grounds

We decided to go and investigate the fortress-like building, but just before we reached it we were attacked by a large bird-like creature, with deer-like horns on its head, that had presumably swooped down on us from one of the nearby peaks. We stood our ground and fought back but, once again, our attacks were rarely successful. Gladreth, our wizard, Navda the rogue, and Dharion the ranger seemed to have more success than the fighters in our party. Again my spells were ineffectual but my sling was more sure - I really must make amends with Pelor to put things right - maybe a large donation of the treasure I have accumulated will assuage his anger with me?

After a fierce struggle, we eventually managed to subdue our foe and carry on with our journey to the fortress.

The large building seemed all but deserted as we passed through the archway entrance. The grounds were quite well-tended, but there were one or two wild looking shrubs and bushes off to one side. A quick look around the side of the building revealed a make-shift distillery in a tower, and more grounds.

Druss, the dragonborn barbarian, heaved open the main (only?) double-doors to the fortress, which were held closed by a makeshift barricade on the inside, and we made our way in. The main entrance hall had arrow slits on either side to create a killing zone, but those on our right had been blocked up and those to our left were thick with cobwebs. There was a lot of blood on the floor, sure signs of a deadly struggle, but nothing else of note. A quick peek through the arrow slits into the room beyond revealed more webs and not a lot else.

As there was only one other way to go, we approached another set of large double-doors opposite the entrance. Again, our strongest members pushed the doors open to reveal a large room with some broken furniture and more blood stains; signs of a very recent scuffle.

Our progress within the fortress so far - screenshot from Fantasy Grounds

Ghosts of Saltmarsh - Encounter in the woods (Day 7)

This was our second actual gaming session - the first being the introductory weekend. After completing the final two character imports at the start of this session we were ready to roll. At this point, the DM gave us a brief recap of what had gone before and let us loose in Saltmarsh on the day following our adventure on The Sea Ghost. We have now all reached 3rd level so should actually have some clout as a party, but the usual dice-rolling lack of luck followed us online...

Day 6 - We drank the evening away in celebration of our capture of The Sea Ghost and then slept off our excesses at our usual inn. The following morning we awoke feeling refreshed, if a little hung-over and, after a hearty breakfast (which we had to negotiate for as the inn-keep tried to overcharge us due to our newfound wealth), we strutted around town in the splendour of our newly found fame.

We were able to drink out on our renown for most of the morning until we were approached by a certain well-dressed half-elf named Davis Rall; he needed someone to go look for his missing friend and business partner, a dwarf named Marley Tobe. Marley had set out for the nearby town of Uskarn in order to trade a cart load of high quality silks. The town is a two day trip away but it has been more than four days since he had left, and he should have been back by now. Davis suspected something was wrong and offered us a 50% share of the remaining goods if safely returned with the cart and horses. We thought something was slightly amiss (good perception rolls) with this request as he seemed more concerned about the return of the goods rather than his friend. That said, we decided to take on the job anyway as we were feeling like we were unbeatable.

We left Davis, promising him the return of his friend and trade goods, or at least news of what might have happened to him if all had ended ill for Marley, and headed to the nearest ostler to hire a two-horse cart of our own and four horses to ride. We also grabbed supplies for seven days just in case we ran into any delays along the way.

As we still had several hours of daylight left, we decided to head out of town towards Uskarn on the road heading south-west out of Saltmarsh.

The road was a well-travelled one, but weirdly we did not encounter anyone along the way. We saw several empty campsite areas at the side of the road whilst we travelled which made us wonder why they were unused, but eventually, just before dusk, we pulled over at one of the safer looking sites and set up our camp. We set watches, but it was quiet all night except for around midnight when those on watch heard some loud owl-like screeches; too big for owls, but too screechy for owl-bears.

Day 7 -  We awoke early, caught up with the overnight watch stories and carried on along our way pondering what the night watch had heard. After a few hours we traversed a bend in the forest road and off to one side saw what looked like a woman sobbing over the body of a man. We advanced quickly to see what might have happened but the "woman" turned on us, unfurled her feathery wings and screeched at us (or maybe to the rest of her flock who we could then see hovering up in the canopy of the forest). 

This is a screenshot from Fantasy Grounds showing the aftermath of the combat with the harpies

The combat with the harpies was bitterly fought but we made it much harder than what it should have been. Drakkon, our half-orc fighter still couldn't hit for toffee (his poor dice-luck continued online where in the first three rounds he could only roll a 3 followed by two 1s!!), my spells just failed to work (I must pray for forgiveness from Pelor as I must surely be being punished for my excesses of the last few days), and our wizard, Gladreth, also had problems summoning her power from the aether.

Anyway, our dragonborn barbarian warrior, Druss, managed to save the day as he was able to cleave his way through enemy after enemy and eventually we prevailed.

The fight took rather a lot out of us and we needed to take a rest much sooner than we anticipated to heal up and restore our vitality.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh - Fantasy Grounds

I was invited by the DM of the Saltmarsh adventures from a few weekends ago to join the party as the campaign moves online using Fantasy Grounds as the engine to run the adventure. A couple of weeks ago we got our characters imported into the application and this week we managed to get our first gaming session in (more on that in a later post). I think there will still be the occasional face-to-face game (maybe once a quarter?), but the bulk of the campaign should now run most Thursdays for whoever can make it.

I haven't actually gamed online like this before so it has been a new experience for me. Fantasy Grounds is run like a normal face-to-face game using Discord for sound and other player interaction outside of the game. The Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure has been purchased and imported into Fantasy Grounds by the DM, and we, as players, have imported our 5e characters into that module. This allows for the characters to fully interact with the system whilst we chat about what we are doing over Discord.

The system includes all the appropriate maps for the adventure with a fog of war setting so we only get to see what our characters see. When combat ensues, our characters are all placed on the map with the adversaries we can see and a battle board takes us through the combat in initiative order. The system can cope with anything in 5e and many of the legacy versions and supplements of D&D.

Three weeks ago, most of the players were able to import our characters. It took us the whole session (about 2.5 to 3 hours) to get our characters imported due to our unfamiliarity with the software (we were starting from scratch, so I think we did rather well), but all bar two characters were ready to go. The DM was then able to add our one-off magic items, so we were good for this Thursday's session.

The first part of this Thursday's session was spent importing the remainder of the characters in readiness for the next part of the campaign. This went a lot quicker than the previous session's import.

We were now ready to begin play, so the next post will include a brief write-up of that session.