Biblical Dry Run - Forming The Battlefield

The section of Neil Thomas's biblical rules dedicated to difficult terrain states: "Ancient battles generally involved no more than three types of terrain; specifically hills, rivers and woods."

Thomas later says of terrain: "I would suggest that the battlefield contain no more than three pieces, which can be made up of hills or rivers."

However, in the battle he writes up to illustrate the biblical rules, a refight of the famous clash between Egyptians and Hittites at Kadesh, he includes two rivers, a wood, a city and a fortified camp.

The situation is further complicated by my using a table 6ft x 2ft 6in (183cm x 76cm), which is far bigger than needed for the size of forces involved, but has the advantage of virtually ruling out side-of-table effects interfering with the battle.

My opponent and I have decided that for this battle we will use a modified form of my original Random Terrain Generator, described in my blog in March 2016.

That was designed for battles in mid-18th century Europe, while the following is for the ancient Middle East.

1. Mentally divide the table into 12 sectors, ie two rows of six, each 12in x 15in (30.5cm x 38cm).

2. Roll a die for each sector, a 5 or 6 indicating a terrain piece.

3. If a terrain piece is indicated, roll again: 1-hill, 2-wadi or water feature (usually a stream/river or oasis), 3-trees, 4-rough ground or building(s), 5-Player A's choice, 6-Player's B choice.
If the exact nature and size of the feature cannot be agreed by the players, more dicing will be necessary. This is also a good way to decide the route followed across the table by a river or wadi, which is a riverbed that is dry, except in the rainy season.
Note that on average a battlefield generated under this system will have four terrain features, but a wadi, for example, might well run through several sectors, while still counting as a single feature.

Naturally, with a an army dominated by chariots, I will be hoping for a largely open battlefield, while my opponent will doubtless want as many terrain features as possible, since all his troops are either auxiliaries or open-order infantry.

We started with the top lefthand corner of the battlefield, where a 5 was rolled, followed by another 5, meaning Player A's choice. We had agreed that Player A was me, and so I chose to leave the sector empty.

In sector two a 6 was rolled, followed, coincidentally, by another 6, giving Reg the choice, and he went for a river.

Subsequent dice throws showed the river bubbling above ground in sector two, before exiting the battlefield via sector one.*

Sectors three and four had no terrain features, but in sector five a 5 followed by a 4 showed rough ground or building(s). We fairly quickly agreed on a patch of rough ground.

Sector six turned out to be featureless, as did all of the bottom row, except for sector 11, where a 5 was rolled, followed by a 1, ie a hill.

The battlefield - looking fairly open

However, the Early Hebrews have a special rule called guerrilla warfare.

Thomas explains: "The Israelites specialised in luring the enemy into unfavourable terrain, where they could be ambushed."

Part one of this rule - I will come to part two later - allows the Hebrew commander to place two pieces of rocky terrain anywhere on the battlefield.

Reg has placed one piece of rocky terrain as an extension of the rocks at the source of the stream/river, and the second between there and the rough ground

Clearly the rules in Ancient & Medieval Wargaming are not intended for 'serious' tournaments - there has to be fairplay between the players, and a quite a bit of sporting give-and-take.

*Here's how we decided that. The first die landed 4, meaning the river flowed left (looking from the near long-edge) to sector one, then a 1 meant it flowed up to leave the battlefield. We then went back to the starting point and rolled again: a 1 would have meant up the table, a 2 would have meant it flowed right into sector 3, a 3 would have meant it flowed down into sector 8, and a 4 would have meant a tributary joined the river from the left. When the die landed 5 or 6, we rolled again, but if that happened three times in a row, it meant the river stopped at that point, which is why we ended with a battlefield containing the source of a river.