While at the SOA Games Day 2007 I picked up a new set of ancients wargames rules - Justified Ancients, written by Pete Blockley. This is a review of the rules, and of my first experiences of using them.
The copy of the rules I picked up comprised 10 A4 pages of text with a few colour pictures. The presentation is intentionally amateurish with a very chatty style of writing and many jokes embedded in the rules. For example, the introduction to the rules begins as follows:
Justified & Ancients came into being after a mighty vision appeared unto me, dressed in a stinking black T-shirt and wearing thick NHS glasses. The Vision did say unto me “Lo! For a calamity hath come to Wargaming, for all the Ancient rules are Crap... Thou hath been chosen to right this wrong. Go forth and create a set of rules that rocks bells”.
At times it may appear that the rules were thrown together with little thought, but this is not so. The rules have been developed with care, and the reader should not be discouraged by the presentation. The rules are written for experienced wargamers who can interpret the sparse rules sensibly, and are not intended for competitive play. For example, there are references to units "wheeling more than 45 degrees", and it is assumed the reader knows what this means, and how to measure it.
So, what of the rules themselves? They are targeted as an alternative to DBA, but are really usable with any scale or basing of troops. As Pete says in the rules: “Anyone who disagrees with the scales, just Change Them. I won’t sue you.” Figures are organized into elements (DBM bases work fine), which are assumed to be of similar size. Generals are represented by individual figures (or smaller elements, if you prefer) and are handled abstractly.
Elements are classified as Foot, Horse, Chariots or Elephants. They must further be designated as light, medium or heavy, and also as close order, loose order or skirmish. There are also a set of special traits which may be applied to troops, such as untrained, missile, phalanx, etc. Thus, for example, Greek Hoplites might be described as Close Order Heavy Foot, Phalanx, and Cretan archers might be classed as Skirmish Light Foot, Trained, Missile. I say “might be” as Pete does not offer army lists and only a few examples of what he means by the different classifications. There are a couple of example army lists on the web site, but that's it. This approach may be seen as an advantage to an experienced gamer who has a firm idea of how he thinks Alexander’s Companions fought, but will leave some players guessing as to how to rate their troops - should Greek Peltasts be Light or Medium? Skirmish or Lose Order? Trained or Untrained? You decide.
There is no points system. As Pete says: “Just use what you ‘ve got in your army box or do historical line-ups”. Deployment and terrain placement rules are similarly flexible (read absent).
Justified Ancients uses alternating player turns. Player A issues orders, then dices to see if his units obey them, then moves his troops. Charges must be done before other moves. After movement, any troops with missile weapons which are not in contact with enemy may shoot at them. Then, any troops in contact fight. Player B then repeats the process. There are no end of game conditions - just play until you have had enough, or a player concedes (or write your own victory conditions).
In order for any unit to move, the controlling player must make an order check dice roll. Each manoeuvre has a difficulty number, and if the dice roll is lower than this number, the unit does not move. The dice roll can be modified by the troop type, the general’s command rating and the distance between the general and the unit in question. For example, I want to order a unit of Gaul tribesmen (Untrained, giving a -1modifier) which are 9” from my general (a further -1). I have an average general (+0). To move a unit normally is difficulty 1, but with the two ‘-1’ modifiers, I will need a ‘3’ or better to move the Gauls. But if I want them to wheel more than 45 degrees (difficulty 3), I need to roll a ‘5’ or better to succeed. This mechanism is simple and works well.
If I can convince my troops to charge their enemies (difficulty 2), combat ensues.
The combat system is simple but subtle. Both sides roll a die and halve the result, rounding up, and add all the modifiers applicable to their situation from a list of 20 or so in the rules. A few examples:
Foot and Horse: 1
Chariot: 2
Charging: 1
Attacking rear: 3
Light vs. Heavy: -1
Skirmishers in difficult terrain: 1
Non-phalanx unit attacking phalanx unit to front: -1
In general, a final difference of 0 indicates no effect, a difference of 1 pushes the losing unit back, 2 or 3 makes the losing unit flee and 4 or more destroys the losing unit immediately. A unit which flees is also depleted. Any unit depleted a second time is destroyed. Close Order units which are pushed back or flee are also disorganized, which also hurts them in combat but can be cured by a successful reform order. Units which flee may be pursued by the victorious enemy.
Missile units can shoot at enemy units within 3”; throw a 5 or 6 to hit, which causes a Close Order target to become disorganized, or forces other units back. There are some modifiers to this dice roll for cover, heavily-armoured target, etc. Missile units can also shoot at a unit charging them; if they force the attacker back, no combat occurs. Units can also be classed as javelin, which allows them to fire at a unit charging them, but not otherwise. Skirmishers who are charged can (and usually will) evade; they are allowed to interpenetrate friendly units while doing this, which is the only voluntary interpenetration allowed.
And that’s about it for rules. Oh, one more; units which charge or evade become fatigued and cannot charge or evade until they have spent a turn out of combat.
The rules are not too well laid out, but as they are so short it isn’t too hard to read them from cover to cover and play a game anyway. They are quite terse in places; I really had to read them very closely at times, and had to think “what is Pete’s intention here?” rather than just relying on what was written. I contacted Pete a number of times by email to ask him to confirm my understanding of some of the rules, and I was generally correct in my interpretations. He has always replied promptly, and was happy to discuss troop classifications and the rationale behind some of the rules. Full marks for customer support!
So - are the rules any good? I have now played about 10 games and I must say I am rather impressed. They have given quick and interesting games with believable results, and I have come to appreciate a number of subtleties in the rules which were not apparent at first reading. The simplicity and flexibility of the rules has encouraged me to write some house rules and to produce scenario-specific rules for historical battles. The rules are very easy to explain to another gamer, and from my experience tactics which “seem reasonable” to an Ancients gamer tend to work well in the game. There is a noticeable "Romans versus Barbarians" bias in the rules, and I have had to tweak them a bit to get the interactions I wanted for other periods and combatants, but this is easy to do.
Justified Ancients are not the most complete set of rules, but they are chap to buy, easy to learn, and enjoyable to play. If you find your current fast-play ancients rules are not all you could hope for, why not give Justified Ancients a look?
Justified Ancients has its own web page at http://www.freewebs.com/tommiatkins/justifiedancients.htm. This will also give you as taste of Pete’s sense of humour. The rules have recently been reissued (without significant changes, I believe) and are available from Amazon Miniatures at http://www.amazonminiatures.com.