RULES FOCUS

On Bloody Ground has a selection of core rules at the heart of each book which makes swapping historical periods very easy. To highlight these rules, we’ve decided to do a series of articles that will focus on and take an in depth look at each in turn.

FOCUS ON: MOVEMENT

One of the areas that we knew we needed to get right during the initial design process was how units are able to move around the battlefield. This might seem like a fairly simple thing to do as it’s been done thousands of times before, but it’s an area that can be overly complex and unnecessarily restrictive.

To offer movement rules that are simple to understand, restrictive where necessary and flexible enough to allow variations for historical formations that might require them, we introduced a system of pivots to accompany our two standard options, which are manoeuvre and march.

The Pivot Rule:

“To pivot, first determine the central point of the units movement tray. A unit may be turned to face in any direction when pivoting, but must not move from this central point”.

Pivoting during a turn.

At first glance, pivots may seem to provide the potential for extreme and unrealistic movement options rather than gradual changes of direction along the lines of staggered wheels. In reality, the combination of pivots and straight movement offers very similar end results and restricted choices for a units movement, whilst speeding up play by avoiding tedious staggered movement, which can itself result in an extremely abstract final position, due to slight variations each time the unit is moved by a player.

The Manoeuvre Rule:

“To perform a manoeuvre, a unit may first pivot then move up to its maximum available manoeuvre rate in a straight line, then may pivot again”.

Manoeuvring during a turn.

Movement throughout the various game turns will quickly become an important part of every players battle plan. By using the flexibility of a manoeuvre, units can be moved into position to allow a march move during their following turn, or even a reposition that will bring an enemy unit into line of sight for a potential charge.

However each player manoeuvres their own units during a battle, the method of ‘pivot/move/pivot’ makes the process quick, simple and accurate, whilst providing a sensible end result for both players.

The March Rule:

“To perform a march, a unit may move up to double its maximum available manoeuvre rate in a straight line, then may pivot”.

Marching during a turn.

When marching, further restriction is added by only allowing a unit to move in the direction it was already facing, with an optional 360° pivot at the end of the move. This vastly restricts the choices available, whilst rewarding forward planning during previous game turns, and at the same time avoids an unrealistic facing at the end of a march move.

The Shift Rule:

“A shift is a 2” move either to the left, to the right, backwards or forwards in a straight line. A shift is not affected by terrain modifiers”.

Shifting during a turn.

A shift can be a very useful movement option for any formed unit, as it doesn’t combine with a pivot, yet allows a unit to make a move in any one of four directions. Shifting is a great way to move out of a difficult position, for example, when a unit is very close to a terrain type that cannot be pivoted through before performing a manoeuvre. Also, depending on the weapon being used, troops making a shooting attack are able to shift after they have made their attack, thus allowing them an option to shoot and move, without suffering any movement penalties to their attacking rolls.

FLEXIBLE OPTIONS:

When we included pivots in our movement rules, we knew that we would need flexibility within this simple mechanism. After all, many units in history had developed very specific moving and fighting styles, and we would need to be able to reflect this within our army lists in a way that both felt right to the players and provided realistic end results for the units in question.

The Expert Horsemen Rule:

“Expert horsemen are able to pivot both before and after making a march move”.

The Wedge Formation Rule:

A formed unit making a march move is able to manoeuvre twice instead of making a standard march move.

Flexibility is key.

As you can see from both the ‘Expert Horsemen’ and ‘Wedge Formation’ movement rules, by adding insight variations to the standard movement choices, we are able to design units that are able to effectively represent their historical counterparts on the table top, without the need to create abstract rules that might otherwise directly conflict with the core movement rules of On Bloody Ground.

TO SUMMARISE:

Whilst we fully accept that there are many different options regarding how troops could move in reality, and by extension how they should be allowed to move on the table top, we feel that our movement rules, just like each of our other core rules, provide gamers a ‘sensible’ and ‘realistic’ outcome during a battle and that they avoid unnecessary rules lawyering and confusing, or even worse, situations that simply don’t make sense!

We hope that this insight into this particular part of the On Bloody Ground rules has been useful, and as always, welcome any questions or feedback from the growing band of players!

Caesars Campaigns - The final push!

After roughly six months of playtesting, painting figures (This was thankfully not my task for this book!) and very much more playtesting, we're finally there with our third rulebook in the series - Caesars Campaigns.

I can honestly say that it's been a lot of fun getting this book together. We've been able to use a couple of major new additions to our rules this time, those being two different types of Chariots (British and Scythed), and African Elephants, all of which needed much discussion and playtesting as we were determined (as with everything we do) to end up with rules that are a sensible reflection of what we as gamers expect from these additions to our armies, and of course, to make them feel something akin to the real thing!

As well as the major new additions to our unit options, we have the new Phalanx and Wedge rules, along with Pikes and Xystons being added to the arms and armour section, and some really fun Characters, that also bring along some totally new options for each army.

Talking of armies, there are seven army lists in Caesars Legions, which is one up on our usual quota per book, but we felt that this was necessary to allow all the options in the correct format of choices. This extra army did drop the colour page count a little, but there are still four pages of full colour to show what makes up an army in On Bloody Ground.

The following pictures are from our most recent battle, which we played to celebrate sending the files off to our printers! For this battle, we decided to use as many of the painted miniatures from the new book (although a couple of scots javelinmen did slip in there, just to make up the numbers!) as we could possibly fit in to 2000 point armies.

Caesar and Mark Anthony form a defensive position on the left. They were able to position the army well, between two areas of impassable terrain that might help to slow down and separate the oncoming Britons. 

Formed Roman cavalry. Not the best troops in the Roam arsenal, but they should be able to give the British cavalry something to think about at least.

Dan chose to place his fanatics behind his larger units of warriors in the hope that the warriors could damage the Roman lines, before the final assault.

British Nobles. A match for any Roman Legion!

British warriors formed up with Fanatics and Cavalry behind.

British slingers. These sat themselves right by the pond on the Roman left flank and spent the whole game pelting the Legionaries there. Thankfully, the Legionaries held their ground even after taking 50% losses over several turns, which kept the Roman Battlefield Bystanders safe.

British Chariots attached to skirmishing cavalry units. The skirmishing cavalry gain the feigned flight keyword when they have an attached chariot, which makes them very difficult to deal with.

Three units of skirmish cavalry with British Chariots. Only cavalry can effectively deal with these units, and the Roman army was sorely lacking in cavalry.

Caesar at the heart of the battle, with his messengers (also known as command points!) ready to dish out orders or steady the line where needed.

Mark Anthony on the Roman right flank, just in case the troops there were put off by the oncoming hordes of Barbarians!

Where did those pesky Scots javlinmen come from? Just in case there was an attempt on the Roman Battlefield Bystanders by the British skirmishing cavalry, these fellows hung around behind a legion, ready to pounce if necessary!

The two Scorpios didn't manage to do much in the way of slaughter during this battle.

The British Chariots with their skirmishing cavalry were a constant threat to the Roman left flank. They couldn't charge the formed Legionaries, but their constant attacks with their javelins was almost enough to force the flank.

The impassable terrain on the Roman right made it tricky for this unit of cavalry to approach the Roman cavalry, without risking a charge.

The British line advances!

That's a lot of angry Britons...

The Roman line steadies itself, ready to receive their orders.

Hold!!

That was clever - amidst the excitement of battle, why don't we forget to take any pictures to show what happened - doh! Well, what happened was that the two Roman units either side of the Scorpios managed to get a couple surprise long charges in against the warriors to their front, and after several consecutive combats, managed to beat their foes down until they finally routed. The third Roman unit that was positioned in between the Scorpios, was given an order to charge (Cassivellaunus tried to intercept this order, but was unsuccessful) the Noblemen. This combat did not go quite so well for the Romans!  

The Roman cavalry managed to deal with the single unit of skirmishing cavalry on the right flank, and were now feeling confident enough to threaten the formed unit of mounted British Warriors.

Oh dear, those Nobles are giving the Romans a bit of a pounding...

Although the British cavalry charged the Romans, their abysmal dice rolling meant that after a couple of combats, it was pretty much all over for them, so a unit of Fanatics has left the main battle line to deal with the threat.

Whilst the Nobles wear don the Legionaries that they're engaged with, the second wave of British Warriors enters the fight.

Charge!

Those British cavalry did not do half so well as was expected.

The resreve unit of Roman Legionaries is making ready to plug the gap.

After much bloodshed, and what looked like an easy Roman victory, the Romans were forced to withdraw in an attempt to hold what remained of their lines. With those fresh units of fanatics now ready to enter the fight, things were not looking great for Caesar.

An isolated unit of Romans seems doomed to die.

The Roman cavalry have spotted the British Battlefield Bystanders in the distance...

And so, the Roman line shrinks to a desperate defensive position, after doing so well in the initial combats.

Charging the Battlefield Bystanders seems like a much better option than getting stuck in to a unit of fanatics, that are wailing for blood!

And the Legionaries do what they do best - hold their ground against all comers. The first unit of Fanatics throws itself against a Roman unit and is butchered.

Hold the line!

Mark Anthony, his men all dead, races back to the Roman defensive line to join what remains of the army. 

With the Romans now entrenched, and turn six upon us, what was left of the Britons saw a unit of Fanatics crushed mercilessly, and their last remaining formed units unable to bring enough force to bear on the tired Legionaries, so at their Generals command, they began to fade away into the safety of the surrounding British woodlands.

Conclusions.

Well, that was certainly a battle of surprises! It seemed that the Romans would overwhelm the Britons and sweep them away before the end of the second turn, but the sheer numbers as well as the quality of the British Nobles and the harassing of the Roman left flank by the skirmishing cavalry and chariots nearly turned the tide. In the end, the British just couldn't break through the Roman line of Defence, although every Roman infantry unit suffered at least 50% casualties by the end of the battle, which shows how close it was! A great game and a satisfying culmination to many months of work and we're looking forward to playing lots more battles with the new army lists. 

Now, where did I put those Elephants...