John Fletcher has published a scenario for the Battle of Gavilan (5 May 1817). I’ve got supplementary notes related to wargaming that scenario in various places and this post points to them.
HOTT
Hordes of the Things (HOTT) is the fantasy version of DBA and part of the DBx family of rules. HOTT is quick and fun and ironically I find it a better historical simulation than DBA. So I have a variant – Liberators HOTT – that I use for the South American Wars of Liberation. The one day campaigns included in the book are brilliant, e.g. Britannia 600 AD. In fact I’ve got a bunch of HOTT campaigns.
Gavilan Scenario for Liberators QPR
John Fletcher published a scenario for the Battle of Gavilan on the Liberators 1810-1830 Yahoo Discussion Forum (in the files section). The scenario is nominally for Liberators Quick Play Rules and I have rewritten based on the anticipation of play testing on a smaller table.
Alternative Chacabuco – A Liberators HOTT Battle Report
Andrew Coleby and I played an early version of the Liberators HOTT version of the Alternative Chacabuco Scenario which is based on that in Fletcher (2006). Andrew was the Royalists and I was the Patriots.
Liberators HOTT – Using HOTT for the South American Wars of Liberation
I’m keen on the Wars of South American Liberation aka Liberators at the moment and wondered what I’d have to do to use Hordes of the Things (HOTT) for the period.
Alternative Chacabuco Scenario for Liberators HOTT
The Alternative Chacabuco scenario is from the Liberators Supplement by John Fletcher (Fletcher, 2006). These are my notes for playing the scenario with the Liberators HOTT rules.
What Wargaming Rules to use for the Macedonian and Punic Wars?
The Carthaginians were my first wargames army as an adult – I inherited and expanded my father’s 1/72 scale converted Airfix army. They are long gone but now I have a beautiful set of Carthaginian, Roman and Spanish armies in 15 mm for the Punic Wars. As it happens, I also have some their Macedonian contemporaries … Seleucid.
What I like in a campaign / multi-player game
My first ventures in campaigns were two large, 12-14 player, Ancient/Medieval DBM Campaigns. One was called Europe 1100 AD and the other Europe 1455 AD. The mechanics were fairly simple being based on DBA campaigns but I quickly found problems and the campaigns petered out when people lost interest. I now favour even snappier campaign rules and less people.
Mapless Campaigns
The premise of the Mapless Campaign system is that complicated campaigns involving maps with detailed map movement, and where losing a couple of battles seriously impairs a player’s chance of success, are doomed to peter out. There are no maps in this campaign but players get to collect territories. And collecting territories makes the player more powerful. It is based on the campaign system in the Warmaster Ancient Armies book by Rick Priestley.
Liberators Scenarios
These are the Liberators scenarios and battle reports I have:
The Camp – A DBA or HOTT Mini-Campaign
I was browsing through some old wargaming magazines and found an article by Steve Burt called “The Siege of Antirhinum, an Ancients Mimi-Campaign”. It looked a good basis for a short campaign for two players. I’ve changed a few things from Steve’s original to fit DBA/HOTT and to give more choice to the players.
James’s Wessex Saxons for Britannia 600 AD
For the Big Day of the Britannia 600 AD Campaign James Falkus chose Wessex Saxons. James went for a fairly straight army. Not quite the DBA official list, but fairly authentic.
Steven’s Strathclyde Welsh (Northern Cymry) for Britannia 600 AD
For the Big Day of the Britannia 600 AD Campaign I (Steven Thomas) chose Strathclyde Welsh; Welsh because of my heritage and Strathclyde to remind people that all of Britain was once Welsh.
Rich’s Powys Welsh (Western Cymry) for Britannia 600 AD
For the Big Day of the Britannia 600 AD Campaign Rich Wilcox chose army of his wife’s homeland, Wales. Rich was the first to get the bug for Britannia 600 campaign. He painted up a historical army, but was also the one to find the reference to the Giant of Snowdon, a character that subsequently joined his ranks.
Mike’s Northumbrian Saxons (aka North Angles) for Britannia 600 AD
For the Big Day of the Britannia 600 AD Campaign Mike Lowery chose the army of his homeland, Northumbria. With time short, and having avoided paint brushes for 10 years, Mike decided to paint the minimum number of figures necessary. This meant he was short an element of Spears relative to the official DBA list; instead he took more shooters and a Hero.
John’s Mercian Saxons (aka Lords of the March) for Britannia 600 AD
For the Big Day of the Britannia 600 AD Campaign John Mclennan chose Mercian. Or more accurately Mercians were the only option left when John chose.