Three Ages of Rome and The Battle of Piranthus

There is considerable potential for complication in Ancient wargaming, resulting from the long time period to be covered, and the resulting plethora of troop types and combat styles. It takes a bit of talent to boil all these down into a workable game, but Philip Garton appears to have achieved this in his 160 page, softback rulebook, Three Ages of Rome, published by Helion. 

I first encountered these rules at the Cirencester Waragmes Club. I was impressed by the way they included all the period character I wanted, in a set that was very playable. I finally bought my own copy at the Colours show at Newbury Racecourse. I needed a solo game to get me back up to speed, and then I invited my old pal Paul up from Bristol to get a proper game in.

As you can see, basic terrain and the most basic scenario possible - line 'em up and have at it. Each side had three 'commands' plus an army general. You can see Paul shuffling the playing cards which we used for the random activation of both side's commands, as per the rules. This works nicely.

I'm not going to give a full description of how the rules function, but as a comparison, I was reminded of Valour and Fortitude when playing these rules, particularly in that they give the game a proper story as commands, and then the whole army, slowly fall apart during the game. There should be no doubt about who won and who lost in most games.

Those willing to go back to older posts in the Ancients section of this blog will see that my previous set of rules was Mantic's Kings of War Historical. These are an interesting and original set, but I quickly found Three Ages of Rome seemed a more natural fit for the ancient period. Most notably, they were written specifically for this peiod, rather than being adapted from a fantasy set, as Kings of War are. One interesting difference is that KoW is a true 'bucket of dice' game, whereas 3oaR needs no more than a couple of dice for most of the game.

I have to admit that a further attraction was that the rules were going for £15 at the Colours show, a very reasonable price indeed. Well done to Paul Meekins for their usual well-stocked and well laid-out stall, and the variety of good deals on offer. Normal price is £20 from Helion & Co. Time for a few more photos.

It was good to get the ancients stuff out again. They haven't seen much action in the last couple of years. For those not familiar, it's no use trying to work out what period the armies shown above have come from. They are from my imaginary nations of Latium and Paphlagonia, invented so that I can collect whatever ancients figures I wish and mash them together in composite armies. The 'Battle of Piranthus' is thus entirely fictional.

No mountain of re-basing was required to swap to these rules. Sensibly, the author specifies basing in multiples of 40mm, easily the most common basing style out there. The rules were apparently written for figure sizes between 6mm and 15mm. The author states that those using 28mm figures will need to increase game distances by 50%, and gives larger base measurements for these bigger figures. 

In fact, I found the rules worked fine with my 28mm troops using the normal measurements. I use 8 infantry figures on an 80mm wide base in two rows of 4, or 4 formed cavalry figures in a single row on the same base width. Playing with 50% bigger measurements would, I think, be an issue as the rules would outgrow a 6' x 4' table, particularly as the moves are quite generous. Plus the 'multiples of 40mm' thing breaks down a bit when using the larger base sizes recommended for 28mm.

Each of those 80mm wide bases forms a 'unit', by the way. A unit of 'massed infantry' (e.g. a hoplite or legionary unit) is supposed to represent 900-1200 men. A unit of 'massed cavalry' (meaning most medium and heavy cavalry) represents 400-600 men. Although technically you can use units individually, forming them into larger base-to-base groupings seems natural, as my photos show and as the photos and examples in the rulebook also demonstrate. It makes no difference to how the rules themselves play, although of course it makes a considerable difference to the tactics one might use. Historical formations would seem to work the best.

I should add that the scenarios section is good, providing details for six small, real battles, each featuring about 10,000 to 15,000 troops in the original actions. Of course, the actual size of the real battles may be somewhat in doubt, but the author does his best. As you can see, these scenarios are quite small, most involving less units than the game I set up with Paul, so they are good for introducing you to the rules but won't accomodate medium or large collections. The separate army lists are commendably simple and easy to understand - a clever piece of work, IMHO, but note they are also configured for small, club-night style actions.

There Has To Be A Downside?

Of course there is. Well, a few fairly minor drawbacks. Most notably, the rules writing lacks clarity in a number of sections. For example, the author shows an unnerving desire to call the same thing by different names as a paragraph or section proceeds. The worst example is that the names of the troop types carefully described in the rules differ from the abbreviations given in the army lists. This had to be fixed by a free download on the Helion sales site, providing the appropriate translation. I won't labour this point - the lack of clarity is irritating, but a full and careful reading of the rules makes just about everything clear in the end.

The rules are also rather table-heavy, but the tables are where a lot of the period flavour resides, so this seems to me to be reasonable. 

Something to look out for is that Paul and I did find the play rather indecisive. We managed 7 moves in about 2.5 hours, at which point only a couple of units had routed and none had actually been lost. I played out 3 more moves solo the next day, and losses did start to mount, but the rules for 'command confidence' and 'Army General's Will' had only just started to kick in. 

This was noticed at the Cirencester Club where I first encountered these rules. Changes to the 'reform' rules (i.e. the rally rules) were made pretty quickly, as reforming seemed much too easy. Personally, I also found that flank and rear attacks were not generating enough damage, and I have tweaked the rules for these. We all know how dangerous such attacks were supposed to be, for pike and hoplite formations in particular. I have also imposed the same rule I used in Honours of War, that melees must continue until some sort of decision is reached in the current turn, rather than carrying over into the next turn. I'm hoping this sort of thing will  make my games crack on at a faster pace.

Overall, these rules deserve a wider audience. I found no online support, official or otherwise, which is a shame. Therefore I have just started a Facebook group which you can find here:

Three Ages of Rome - Facebook

And that's about it. 'Til next time!