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Unofficial Rules Variants

Seiges

(Rule Under Development)

By Jason Ehlers

Help! I need some creative minds and some good ideas for a set of optional rules I'm writing! I'm working through some ideas for campaign rules for DBA historical miniatures. The centerpiece will be castles and sieges!

Here are the problems with the current rules for sieges (in my opinion):

  1. In the current rules, it's too easy for the attacker to capture cities! It takes typically 1.5 seasons to capture and undefended city, and 2.5 seasons to capture a defended city! That's totally unrealistic! In fact, most fortifified cities were almost impossible to take by siege as long as they were properly provisioned until the invention of gunpoweder cannon. Solution: Make it more difficult for attackers to capture cities. Method: Unknown, as yet.

  2. In the current rules, the defender is better off, game-wise, fighting OUTSIDE a supposedly "fortified" city! That may make for a faster campaing, but it is certainly not realistic! Solution: Make it advantageous for a defender to fight from a properly fortified city. Method: Unknown, as yet.

  3. In the current rules, there is no way for the defender to improve city fortifications- except by placing his entire field army in jeopardy for an even chance of destroying a SINGLE enemy element! GRRRRR! Solution: Make it possible for the defender to improve the fortifications of a city. Method: Probably by expending resources or permanently reducing maximum field army size by constructing improved fortifications; but details are unknown, as yet.

  4. In the current rules, all armies are assumed to have the same abilities in siegecraft. No way. That's bogus! Solution: Make a simple system to demonstrate differences in siegecraft abilities of different armies. Method: Unknown. But I hear Knights don't like to dig (!!! that's DIRT, my Lord!!!) so maybe moats are a good defense against Knights, for example.

    5. Preliminary Thinking

    There will be a simple resource management. Strategic maps (England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, India, China, Near East, Europe) that I have borrowed from Sierra's great computer game, LORDS OF THE REALM 2; stripped to the bare essentials.

    As in LORDS OF THE REALM 2, there will be five types of castles:

    1. Wooden Palisade (6x6 in.)
    2. Motte and Bailey (12x6 in.)
    3. Norman-Style Keep (12x6 in.)
    4. Stone Castle (12x12 in.)??
    5. Royal Castle (16x16 in.)???

    I have tried to plan castle dimensions so that they fit neatly on the regular 24x24 in. DBA battle board. There will be a few new siege elements: Boiling Oil, Catapults, Battering Rams, and Siege Towers!

    For DBA Campaign games, if the player has built a castle in the "county" when the county is attacked the castle must be taken by the attacker's army! This will replace the old die roll used to resolve sieges.

    I am also working on some optional rules to make the usual DBA elements more like the Lords of the Realm 2 elements:

    1. Knights (same as DBA Knights)
    2. Swords (same as DBA Blades)
    3. Macemen ( would these be closest to DBA Warbands?)
    4. Archers (these are longer-range than DBA Bows, perhaps 300p range? Have little chance of ever killing Knights!)
    5. Crossbow (these are shorter-ranged than DBA Bows, perhaps 150p range? Have a better chance of killing Knights and also the new Siege Weapon types of elements!)
    6. Peasants (this will be tricky, since in LOTR2 they are impetuous as heck. They are also quite weak in battle.)
    7. Pikemen (same as DBA Pikes)

    At any rate, I appreciate all suggestions and proposals, and will try to include them when I write the rules. Thanks in advance, Jason Ehlers.

    Comments and suggestions to JDYahoo@aol.com.

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    Last Updated: Nov. 24, 1998

    Comments and suggestions welcome. Send them to Chris Brantley, IamFanaticus@gmail.com.