Imagi-Medieval Campaign Part 1: Introduction and Background

Let me introduce you to the imaginary continent of Mitteleuropa.  Six players representing the aspiring empires of Austria, Batavia, Bohemia, Brandenburg, Franconia and Lombardy are all casting their covetous eyes over the rich territories of Mitteleuropa.

Mitteleuropa
The six players will each control one of the nascent empires: Franconia, Batavia, Brandenburg, Bohemia, Austria, and Lombardy.

Background Sometime in the early 15th century, powerful, yet fledgling, empires are preparing to launch themselves on an ambitious round of conquest in the unsuspecting region of Mitteleuropa. Rivals may ally but there can be only one victor with the goal being to dominate and prove themselves worthy of acclaim.  Each player has between 5 and 10 campaign years to make their mark.  The only fly in the ointment of the aspiring empire builders is the troublesome, dangerous and rapacious Lithuanian Confederation… and the occasional natural (and unnatural) disaster!

Being the master of Mitteleuropa will mean acquiring a number of titles, with the possessor of the most being the one to hold the title Ultimus Imperator.  The titles to win are:

Fidei Defensor - The player who donates the most treasure to the Pope.
Imperius Rex - The player who owns the most territories.
Castellan Dominatus - The player who successfully besieges the most castles.
Alma Habitatus - The player who has increased the value of their final possessions the most. This will be evidence of enhancing the prosperity of your subjects.
L’Homme de Guerre - The player who wins the most field battles.
Renaissance Man - The player who fulfils a range of tasks in different disciplines and wins the acclaim of others. These tasks being:

• Produce a painting or drawing.
• Write a poem at least 15 lines long.
• Display some musical talent.
• Produce a commentary on a scientific or astronomical event or development.
• Show speed in calculation and accuracy with the bow.

L’Homme sans Reproche - At the end of the campaign each player must secretly give to the umpire their choice for the one who has played the best campaign in terms of fair play, heroic conduct and honourable behaviour.

Campaign Elements As you may now realise, this is not a quick, over in a month, campaign.  More of a leisurely stroll than a sprint.  Each player must gain territory, build towns, castles and increase wealth.  All of that increases the treasure available to build armies.  I hope that the campaign is one of battles, sieges, alliances, chivalrous behaviour and non-onerous resource management.  In short, the players have to be good generals, builders and wise rulers.

The campaign rules are ones that I have written.  If you are interested here is the link to them: Founding Empires.  I won't pretend that they fabulously written... but they'll do!

The tabletop battles will use Flower of Chivalry as they provide quick games that capture a little of the  difficulty of commanding medieval armies.

Each area of Mitteleuropa that is captured provides an income shown on the map above.  This can be augmented with some investment - the towns etc. that I mentioned earlier.

There will be random events - some good, some bad.  The army lists are based on early 15th century troop types.  However, both can change with the passage of campaign time as technology and knowledge develops.

Apart from the fun of piecing the campaign together, I've actually spent a fair bit of happy time getting a range of spreadsheets in place to handle the vast majority of the umpire admin and to assist the player in doing their orders and building.  Fingers crossed it all holds together under duress.

Ultimately, it's all about having fun and creating purpose for some games.

Well, that's enough for now.  The next campaign post will set out the sides and their pre-turn 1 tasks.

Testing Siege Rules

In preparation for a campaign, I tested out siege rules that I have written to go with Flower of Chivalry.

Flower of Chivalry, published eons ago by the Canadian Wargames Group, are a simple yet flavoursome set... in my opinion anyway.  My slightly amended version of these are what will be used for field battles.  These, with my siege adaptations will also be used to assaults castles.  It just made sense to use the same base for both types of battles.

The attackers are making their approach.  Off picture are two trebuchets that are pounding the walls.

In keeping with Flower of Chivalry, the loser is the first side to reach zero on the Army Morale countdown.  The defenders can also lose if two of their units are driven off the table edge within a certain time limit.  This represents the poor fellows dispersing to escape the possible mayhem and murder wrought by the attackers.

The missing wall sections represent breaches.  knights are pouring in.  On the left, men at arms are assaulting the walls via a siege tower.  Doesn't look good for the defenders!

The defenders' Army Morale was driven down to zero at the point where their second unit was driven off the table.  The castle is captured and the population put to the blade!

As you can see I used my 2mm figures to enact this siege.  The figures are from Irregular2mm and the castle, towers and walls from Brigade Models.  

After thoughts

I got a lot out of this, both as rule writer and player.

As a player, the attacker could use more ladders (I only gave one unit ladders and they got beaten back!).

As for the rules, I made a couple of clarifications and a couple of additions.  The most important being the starting levels for the two armies' battle lust - this represents the exhaustion and morale of each Battle/Ward in an army.  Plus 7 is exhaustion and big minuses in combat; minus 7 is a collapsing morale with big minuses for morale checks.  The starting point is usually zero with the levels rising and falling depending on orders given.  Manoeuvre and charge orders add to the battle lust;  react and defend orders provide a minus to battle lust.  However, I found that adjusting it so defenders start at plus 4 and the attackers at minus 4 kept the attackers moving without exhausting too quickly and allowed the defenders to react and defend without morale falling too sharply.

Lastly, I have some breaches to model along with a few more walls to paint.

I guess that I will write more about the upcoming campaign in due course.

No Gaming in August, but plenty of butter and reading

August was a bleak desert for hobby activity, on every front.  However, I can't complain.  The beginning was taken up with stays at Lincoln, North Yorkshire and Bronté country, and the Lake District. The latter was more an homage to Beatrix Potter than Wordsworth - that probably reveals much about my level.

The second half was the annual pilgrimage to stay with my in-laws in Bretagne, France.  

Bretagne/Brittany is famous for a number of things including: crêpes, cidre, butter and high rates of alcohol consumption.  I made sure that I enjoyed daily visits to a crêperie to enjoy the first three on the list, and superb evenings eating and drinking well.

The best place in Concarneau to buy fresh baked kouig amann and gateaux bretons.  The latter being like a bakewell tart but with more butter. The former being a laminated pastry thing made almost entirely out of butter and sugar... amazing fresh and warm from the oven. Terrible for the heart!

My summer reading complimented my getaways.  For Yorkshire, I read Jane Eyre and The Professor by Charlotte Bronté. The former I had read before and remains my favourite Bronté novel.

For my stay in France I read House of Lilies.

Basically telling the story of the Capetian kings of France from the rise of Hugh Capet in 987 to the death of the last, Charles IV, in 1328.  A story that bumps and grinds against the history of England with their Norman and Plantagenet kings.

An excellent account that opens up the idea of playing out some of the many and little known battles fought within France and against their neighbours.

What was great for a history book was the inclusion of maps that located every one mentioned in the text.

With what seemed a fair amount of Wars of the Roses chatter, I decided to acquaint myself better with this bit of my history.  So, onto the Hollow Crown by Dan Jones.

I have yet to read anything by Jones and be disappointed.  This was no different.  He has a way of telling, what is a fairly complex, story in an entertaining, engaging and comprehensible narrative.  His family trees and maps were helpful and complemented the text perfectly. Not once did I get lost amongst the numerous Edwards, Richards and Henrys.

This not a detailed account of battles, though the battles feature... of course!  For me it was a clear telling of the story of the times taken from 1420 through to c.1509.  It compellingly told a story of wars created by the collapse of royal authority.

I would highly recommend both.

I must end by confessing that I quite enjoyed not blogging for a month.  I'm not sure what this says about me?