Four hills, two woods, a marsh, and a river runs through it. Using Chainmail’s Terrain Selection method, a battle is fought over similar ground, regardless of the larger terrain in which the engagement takes place.

This is more true in my experiments playing the whole terrain-card deck. But even when limiting the draws to four per player (as the rules suggest), a forest battlefield could be barren of trees. Opposing forces in swampland might fight on a battlefield with a couple hills and no marsh. Conversely, in hill country, a commander might have to maneuver around a swamp. There is no intrinsic difference between battlefield terrain in different biomes.

The following modification simulates more varying terrain. It exchanges terrain cards based on the terrain types occupied by opposing forces on the strategic map.

One or More Terrain Types

Depending on your strategic-level rules, you might fight a battle within a single biome, say forest or hills. Or, outside a campaign, you might be fighting a battle in which the scenario dictates the general terrain. In those cases, you have only one terrain type as input to the following card exchange.

Using the Valormr strategic rules, however, when two or more forces meet on the strategic map, each force occupies one hex. Each occupied hex may have terrain different from the others. We assume the engagement takes place somewhere near hex borders. So, we encounter a mix of biomes.

Replacement Cards

This method requires making additional terrain cards. As an alternative, a pencil mark, erased afterward, on the cards which these replace may suffice.

• 4 woods
• 2 marsh
• 1 river
• 2 hills
• 4 wooded hills
• 4 low hills
• 4 high hills
• 1 impassable terrain

Marsh, Pond, Gully, and Rough Ground ★

With this method, we group marsh, pond, gully, and rough ground into a category, designated by a star (★). In some terrain types, we replace one or more of these four cards, which we may choose randomly or by preference.

Simulating Maneuver for Suitable Terrain

A battle does not necessarily take place in a random spot between two armies. Commanders maneuver forces to fight on advantageous terrain. This is modeled in the strategic rules by the contact dice. The commander with the higher throw draws and places, in his or her first turn, a number of terrain cards equal to the number by which the throw was won. In this way we simulate the commander’s advantage gained by outmaneuvering the opponent.

Hills and Lines of Sight

A rise of seven feet or more over a hundred horizontal feet (7% grade) slows movement.¹ This becomes the definition of a hill in a tactical wargame. All hills slow movement, but not all hills block lines of sight. At a scale of 1″:10 yards, a hill rises at least two feet over one inch on the table. At 1″:20 yards, the hill is four feet or higher. I round to five.

I represent hills of different heights with layers of cardboard, from which the contour is cut (photo above). A low hill is one layer. I add another smaller layer, cut to a similar contour, to make a medium hill. For a high hill, I add a third—larger—layer beneath the first. Thus, a high hill is also broader.

Terrain Card Replacements

We take the terrain types given in Chainmail’s Terrain Selection (10) as clear terrain. That is, when all engaging forces occupy clear hexes, we use the terrain cards in the numbers given.

For each non-clear terrain hex occupied by an engaging force, exchange cards as follows. When three or more forces meet, no more than two of the same terrain type should be considered.

Players may agree, prior to the draw, to substitute any card that makes sense in the battlefield scenario.

Clear: No change.

Forest: Exchange one hill and one ★ for one wood card each.

Hills: Exchange one ★ for one hill card. If a second force also occupies hill country, one ★ exchanged should be the marsh.

Forested Hills: As hills, plus exchange two hills for two wooded hills.

Swamp: Exchange one hill for one marsh; two hills become low hills. When a second force is in swampland, also exchange the gully for one river; all hills are low.

Mountains: Exchange the marsh for impassable terrain—a peak, an escarpment, or the like; two hills are high. With a second force in mountains, exchange one ★ for one hill; two more hills, now four out of five, are high.

Rivers and Coastlines: Apply the predominant terrain type as above. River cards define one or more tributaries or inlets.

Positioning Rivers, Coastlines, Trails, and Roads

When forces occupy hexes containing linear features, these may be transposed to the wargames table prior to terrain card draws. The position of a river, coastline, trail, or road depends on the relative positions of the forces involved.

Careful placement lends to or limits tactical possibilities for one or more sides without depriving all forces of portions of the table. If all forces are on the same side, for example, the river edges the battlefield. If one force is on the opposite bank, or if one or more forces travel on water to enter the battlefield, the river may well run through it.

Notes

¹ Foot Marches, ATP 3-21.18 (Field Manual 21-18), Department of the Army, April 2017, paragraph 1-28.

² Relating the Chainmail giant’s stone-throwing ability to B/X, I get a stone giant, which is 14′ tall. Bigger giants could see over a high hill.

As the red dragon winged across a starry sky toward the citadel, Arkthark marched the goblinoid horde toward the northwest edge of the Ellriendi Forest. The Elding Regiment North Battalion awaited him.

Using the method outlined in Terrain Reconnaissance, the elven commander drew and placed four terrain cards—based on the difference in the contact dice—on the table in her first turn. Along with a few lucky draws afterward,¹ she blocked Arkthark behind obstacles.

The hobgoblin commander had little choice. His orders were to push into the forest before dawn, when the human armies would take up the advance. The orders came from Hadewych the Arbiter, who worked for Anax Archontas. The red dragon brooked no excuse for failure.

In addition to unfavorable terrain, a two with no modifiers on the contact dice made Arkthark only aware of an elven force before him. He had no idea of its size or composition. The engagement would be fought in the 14th hour of the day, around eight o’clock in the evening. All that is determined from one opposed dice roll. See “Map Contact.”

Hills are cardboard cutouts. Two layers indicate a ten-foot height, which slows movement over one inch per layer going up and obstructs lines of sight through the top layer.

The gully is shown by two strips of cardboard either side it. A gully is considered to be around six feet deep, hiding creatures moving along its length. To cross the width of a gully, a unit must halt on the near side and spend half its move rate to descend into the gully and, if it doesn’t move along it, another half to scramble up the other side.

Woods, clipped from kitchen sponges, are traversed by paths, which are considered wooded for purposes of movement, cover, and concealment, as is a one-inch border surrounding them.

Pebbles simulate a patch of rough ground.

River, pond, and marsh are scissored from cloth rags. The small pebbles lining the water are not rough ground. They only look nice and help to weigh down the cloth in case of a strong wind that blows through the apartment to keep a summertime wargamer cool.

Note the river (which I take for a stream) runs into but not out of the marsh. I suspect subterranean tunnels in the area—perhaps a dungeon.

Notes

¹ I’m still experimenting with playing the whole deck of terrain cards. On my square table, two-thirds the scale size of a regular wargames table, the terrain appears crowded. I might reduce the number of terrain cards proportionally for future battles.

The river Grunnthraesir divides the Ellriendi Forest into two halves: the Groennendr (east) and the Elding (west).

The elves must protect the forest, maintaining a perimeter guard at all times.

The Elf King may lead a contingent outside the forest in extreme circumstances—say, to fight in a climactic battle against Chaos.

The Elf Queen’s Court does not move. The Elf Queen and the Court defend the Groennendr’s center hex, where they guard a secret, with their lives.

On the strategic map, the three Elf Regiments are divided into two battalions, 17 elves each, identified by their regiments and the “North” or “South” designator.

Elf Strengths

• Many Heroes and Super-heroes.
• Many Wizards.
• Many enchanted items.

Elf Weaknesses

• Must remain within the forest.
• Few fantasy creatures.
• No mercenaries.

Orders of Battle: Ellriendi Elves

See General Notes on the Tables in “Chaos Armies.”

Anax Archontas is the prime mover of the Chaos Armies. He appointed Hadewych the Arbiter Commander General of the Chaos Armies. With her, Archontas plans the campaign and, to her, delegates all operations. Solon Theros is Lieutenant Commander General.

Chaos Strengths

• Most total points.
• Access to most fantasy creatures.

Chaos Weaknesses

• Few Hero and Super-hero types.
• Few Wizards.
• Few enchanted items.

General Notes on the Tables

Army Points: Budget, allowance, and figure cost are counted in army points, often referred to as points.

Budget, Total, and Remainder: An army’s initial budget is in the upper right of its table, its initial total, lower right. Any remainder is added to the first month’s allowance.

Monthly Allowance: At the beginning of each month, an army gains an allowance equal to 10% of its initial budget. This allowance (not shown), plus any remainder from the previous month, may be spent on “Specials,” which include fantastic creatures and mercenaries.

Available: Maximum number of the figure type (or enchanted item) that the army may have at any time. Losses can be replaced by spending points.

Command Element: Includes the commander and any figures which march with him or her.

Typical Regiment: Starting composition of one regiment within the army. Each army consists of one or more regiments, noted in the table header with the army name.

Regiment or Command Element: Note that adding a number of figures to a typical regiment adds to an army as many times the number as the army has regiments. To add a number independent of the number of regiments, add figures to the command element.

Wizards: Unless its power is predetermined, a Wizard costs 80 points. Dice for its number of spells.

Enchanted Items: Magic swords and armor and enchanted arrows cannot be replaced. When its wearer or wielder does not survive, the victor, assuming the vanquished is pushed from the field, may find enchanted items. An enemy victor finds the dropped item on a 1 or 2 on the dice. A friendly recovers it on a 1 to 4. Otherwise, the item is lost for future generations to discover. Available and current figure counts do not include enchanted items.

Peasants: Chaos Armies pull peasants from the fields to fight as they may.

Undefined Creature Types: I threw in a few creatures that are not in Chainmail. I cross reference the miniatures rules and B/X to divine game stats for them. I mean “divine,” like finding water with a stick.

Orders of Battle: Chaos Armies

When I set out, at the beginning of the summer, to describe strategic-level play in the Valormr Campaign, I hadn’t the idea to write a set of rules. Tony Bath’s prose is completely coherent, and the rules he outlines in Setting Up a Wargames Campaign entirely playable as is. But much of Bath’s text discusses options and different ways the author ran the game, and the rules are more complex in some ways than I want for a simple campaign and don’t do enough in others.

So, I drew many ideas from the venerated text and adapted them to fit my own purposes. This, we might think, was Bath’s intent.

These strategic rules touch the tactical battlefield only at its entry and exit points: deployment and withdraw. I use Chainmail, but another wargames campaigner may use their choice of tactical combat rules. And while the Valormr Campaign is medieval fantasy, the strategic rules may be used in any ancient or medieval setting, fantasy or no.

These rules have not yet been tested in play. I embark, tomorrow, on a campaign that begins with a dragon’s predawn raid on a dwarven citadel and the encroachment of the Chaos Armies into an elven forest. With less than three weeks till summer’s end, this will be more a play-through than a play-test.

Valormr: Rules for Strategic Map Campaigns

For convenience I link the pertinent articles that comprise the rules. Entries marked by an asterisk (*) are not so much rules for the topic as examples from which to draw your own ideas.

• The Valormr Campaign
  
• A Simple Wargames Campaign
  
• Footnote in Histories*
  
• The Valormr Campaign Strategic Movement Map*
  
• Campaign Scenario and Objectives*
  
• Strategic Movement
  
  • Overland Travel
    
  • Waterborne Transport
    
  • Terrain Effects
    
  • Weather
    
• Orders of March
  
• Contact and Deployment
  
  • Support, Reserve, Maneuver
  • Map Contact
    
  • Terrain Reconnaissance
    
  • Engage or Evade
    
  • Avoid, Evade, Delay, and Withdraw
    
  • Deployment
    
• Valormr Orders of Battle*
  • Chaos Armies*
  • Ellriendi Elves*
  • Forces of Law*

In a wargame, one normally begins with a number of army points, with which to buy figures, respecting general proportions defined by the historical or fantastical context. In a campaign, the points are allotted for the duration, augmented by a small periodic point budget. Forces must be husbanded across the campaign’s several battles.

For the Valormr Campaign, I turned the process around. I sorted through my collection for all troop types and any creature types described in Chainmail. To those I added a couple others but kept additions to a minimum, knowing I would have to assign game stats to them.

With a few human armies on both sides, I foresee the need for up to four human regiments on the table for the climactic battle at least. The size of human regiments is based on the number of troop types I could recruit from the collection divided by four. All the humanoid troops are pressed into service.

According to the scenario, Anax Archontas raises the Chaos Armies at his leisure. It’s the dragon’s raid on the dwarven citadel that spurs the Forces of Law to muster troops. I separate out the Ellriendi Elves because, though they fight against the Chaos Armies, their priority is the protection of the forest and the secret they guard within.

Therefore, I want Chaos to have point-value superiority over Law, with the Elves somewhere between. I loaded the whole lot of figures into an electronic spreadsheet and counted them up by point value. I then adjusted up or down by adding regiments to armies.

Chaos enjoys the use of the majority of fantastic creatures in the “General Line-Up” (39). These are opposed by Law with heroes and wizards, of which Chaos has few.

The Chaos Armies are named after their commanders. The Elf King and Queen each maintain a royal force. Elf regiments take their names from their region. The province of origin lends its name to the armies of the Forces of Law.

Reading Map

Detailed orders of battle are forthcoming.

• Chaos Armies
• Ellriendi Elves
• Forces of Law

“All these rules can lead to some interesting and unusual battles and will make a change from the stereotyped affairs of both forces deploying on the baseline” (Bath, 84).

In the strategic rules, we endeavor to limit interference with tactical play. We do impinge on the wargames table, however, in the deployment phase, notably, in the drawing of baselines and, further, in a measured force deployment in the opening turns of battle.

In the citation above, Bath refers to an ingenious matchbox system for strategic as well as tactical maneuver and an engaging scouts mini-game to simulate intelligence gathering. In the Valormr Campaign, we incorporate scouts into the contact dice and forgo the matchbox array for overt moves on the hexagon map. To achieve variation in deployment, we combine orders of march with opposing dice throws. The results range from alert forces deploying on opposite ends of the battlefield to careless leading units marching straight into the opponent’s fields of fire.

Contact and Deployment

“Deployment” is the sixth of six parts of “Contact and Deployment” in the Valormr Campaign.

Baselines on the Wargames Table

Instead of one baseline for each side at opposite edges of the wargames table, we’re going to mark six. We make a calculation to determine each side’s forward baseline, then mark additional baselines at even intervals to the rear baseline.

Calculate Forward Baselines

There are two input values for this calculation. The first is the width or length of your wargames table (T), depending on which way forces face off across the battlefield. Here, I use width. The second is the maximum range of a short bow scaled to inches (R) according to your tactical wargames rules. Subtract the short bow range from the table width and divide by two.

B_f = (T − R) ÷ 2

The result is the distance from either edge of the table toward the middle, where the forward baselines (B_f) are marked. Between the two forward baselines is maximum short bow range.

Calculate Baseline Intervals

Now, take the distance from either edge of the table to the forward baselines (B_f), divide it by seven and round to the nearest half.

B_i = B_f ÷ 7, round to nearest ½

The result is the interval between baselines (B_i). We divide by seven instead of six because we want twice the distance behind the rear baseline.

Marking Baselines

From both edges of the table, measure B_f and mark the forward baselines.
From each forward baseline back toward the edge, mark five more baselines at the interval B_i. The sixth baselines, closest to the table edges, are the rear baselines. Number the baselines on both sides from 1 to 6, forward to rear, and again from 1 to 6, from rear forward.

Minimum Distance Behind Rear Baseline

This calculation works on tables at least 28½″ wide. For widths from 32″ to 35″ inclusive, the calculation leaves less than twice the interval behind the rear baseline. That might not be enough, since it isn’t uncommon that a regiment deploys in this space. If your table falls in this range, make the calculation for the forward baselines as above, but for the interval between baselines, use 1¾″, which leaves more room behind the rear baseline.

Precalculated Intervals by Table Length

The following table shows the baseline interval by table width or length. The calculations are based on a short bow range of 150 yards at a scale of 20 yards to the inch. All values are in inches.

 Deployment Dice

To start the deployment phase, all commanders roll a dice. The results determine which player has deployment initiative, each commander’s baseline, and to what extent—beyond that of the base deployment—the commander may deploy forces prior to the first tactical turn. Two of the modifiers account for high or low dice throws from the contact phase. Modifiers cannot raise the score higher than 6 or lower it to less than 1.

Deployment Initiative

The commander with the higher score has deployment initiative throughout initial and subsequent deployment. In case of a tie, the commander with the higher unmodified score wins the initiative. Still a tie, dice for it.

Deployment Baseline

Each commander deploys behind the numbered baseline that matches the modified deployment dice. The direction of count depends on the deployment dice.

• The commander with the highest score counts baselines from the rear baseline forward.
• Lower-scoring commanders count baselines from the forward baseline to the rear.
• In case of a tie for highest, all commanders count baselines from the forward baseline to the rear. That is, on a tie of 1s, the forces stumble upon one another at their forward baselines; a tie of 6s, they each halt at their rear baselines.

Three or More Forces on the Battlefield: In the case where more than two forces are in map contact and the engagements are not split into separate battles, the numerous forces are deployed according to their arrangement on the strategic map. Following the story from “Avoid, Delay, Evade, and Withdraw,” the photo below shows Hadewych opposite Ingegerd and Aeskrvald, who, on the strategic map, occupy the hexes to her fore and to her left forward flank.

Scoring high on the contact dice (left), Hadewych (top) managed to find more suitable terrain (not shown). To her deployment dice of 2, she adds 1 for the highest contact dice and another for all opponents in clear terrain, deploying on the fourth baseline counting from forward. With a roll of 5 plus 1 for her opponent in clear terrain, Ingegerd (lower left) deploys on her forward baseline. Aeskrvald threw a 4 and has the same plus 1 for terrain, so he deploys on the fifth baseline, counting from forward to rear.

Initial Deployment

Each commander has a base deployment derived from the tactical march formation. To determine his or her initial deployment, the commander adds the base deployment and a number of units equal to the turn deployment—also derived from the march formation (see Summary table below)—multiplied by the difference in the deployment dice.

When more than two forces are on the field, each commander subtracts the lowest deployment dice from his or her own dice to determine the multiplier.

Initial deployment precedes the first turn of the battle. It is conducted in two rounds. The order of the first round is from highest deployment dice to lowest. In the second round, from lowest to highest. In the first round, each commander may deploy any portion, or none at all, of his or her initial deployment. On the second round, commanders must deploy the balance of their initial deployment.

The intent is to allow commanders with higher deployment dice scores to influence the deployment in the first round, while enabling them to observe the full deployment of lower scorers before deploying their remaining forces in the second.

Subsequent Deployment

The initial deployment completed, the first turn of battle takes place. The commanders deploy a number of units equal to their turn deployment in a deployment round before the second turn of battle. The order of deployment in these subsequent deployment rounds is from lowest to highest deployment dice. The deployment round takes places before each turn until all commanders have deployed their full forces.

Advanced: March Table

“Here, at the outset, only the leading elements of both armies will be present on the field; the rest will arrive at measured intervals, dependent on march tables” (Bath, 74).

A march table is a schedule of movement showing a unit’s location at specific times along a planned route.¹ I take Bath’s usage to imply an abbreviated table, showing only units in an order of march. In the simple campaign, our march tables show only regiments. We assume the commander has sufficient foresight to order companies within the march formation in the way best suited for tactical deployment, so the player chooses in the battle’s opening turns which units to deploy next. In an advanced game, the commander might create a march table, showing each company, prior to marching, thereby determining the order in which units are deployed, turn by turn, on the battlefield.

Notes

¹ British Military Terminology (PDF), Military Intelligence Service, Washington: U. S. War Department, 1943. March table: “a combined location and movement schedule for a march,” also, movement table, British (40).