OK have done a bit of digging and thinking and I really fancy doing Chalons-Sur-Marne 451AD. I think it will make an interesting game as it features the mobility of the Huns and Romans, several heavy foot masses of warriors and large quantities of cavalry.
I am going to scale the game up or down to the players who want to play.
But let's start with the big plan and see if we can pull it off.
Here's the plan for a biiiig game:
Timing 12-6pm maximum
Table Size 20ft long. 6ft deep centre section to allow for the camps, 4ft deep side sections. Not too deep so that the battle gets off to a strong start.
Roman Team of
8 players
1 c-in-c
2 Roman
2 visigoth
2 franks/alans
1 goths
Hunnic Team of
7 players
1 c-in-c
2 huns
2 Gepids
2 Franks/Thuringians
Each player to provide their own figures. We will need a lot of LH for the Huns and a lot of HF warband types for both sides. No doubt a bit of locally beg and borrowing will be required.
Battle recreated to scale of 1 base per 250 roughly. A single contingent will be close to a 2 general singles army of about 600 pts. So about 4000 points a side at a guess!! If there are too few figures or players then I will scale it down to perhaps half this number. But wouldn't it be great to pack a table with masses of figures. To give a rough idea my first cut of the Foederati Roman army wolud have a totoal of 16 BG of 8 base of HF, Imp Ft Sw and around 20 BG of 4bases of various gothic cavalry!!. The Huns themselves 30BG of 4 LH as a swarm!!
Command and scenario
To make it more interesting ... Each side has a C-in-C who commands just a bodyguard BG and some messangers. The Romans have 4 messangers the Huns 2. The c-in-c is responsible for doing a deployment plan for his army and for giving initial orders to the players. This will put the major contingents into centre left or right flank areas. So the troops need not be set out as they were in the battle - its up to the team. During the game they can move their messengers backwards and forward to change order status of any player; or can use their own character to do so. So a different type of role for the c-in-c that I hope will be fun and challenging.
The order status will be very simple and players will be trusted to play in character. There will be 3 levels with the following general limitations:
Attack: at least 50% of BGs must go forward full towards enemy if physically possible.
Hold: no more than 50% of BGs can advance towards enemy, but may not withdraw from positions voluntarily.
Withdraw: at least 50% of BGs must attempt to disengage and move away from enemy.
I will act as umpire an adjudicate whether a generals plan is reasonable within their overall orders. It won't be too onerous and I will apply a bit of sensible judgement. It is there just to give the character of a big game and give a c-in-c role that is entertaining.
I will put the initial mega-sized army contingents together over the weekend and see if there are enough takers with enough figures. I'll put them up here. Could be a really fun way to start off the challenge weekend!
Thoughts?
Si
The only one I formed was at school when I was in the second year but I believe it is still going now. The next club I formed was a live role playing one at university.
