De Bello Gallico

As indicated in previous posts, I'm currently working on a solo campaign for Caesar;s war in Gaul that will generate battles that can be played on my limited playing area.

For rules, it will probably be DBA3 Big Battle as the armies are likely to exceed normal DBA 12 elements. I have therefore spent some time working out how to convert the game to a DBA campaign, principally working out army sizes.

The game is Decision Games Caesar's War. The conquest of Gaul 58-52 BC a sort of mini game; reviews of the game are mixed some critical, predominately of the victory conditions which can skew play. As I'm playing it solo and using it to produce figure games I'm not constrained by the limits of the game, but will use it as closely as possible. It is card driven with separate Roman and Celtic / Barbarian decks - these govern movement and reinforcement, capped by the available counters. Movement is point to point.

Here is the map (copyright Decision Games):

The counters represent "Legions", "Warbands", "Garrisons", "Auxila" and "Ships" which represent Legions of 4-6000 + allied LI and baggage, groupings of 20-100,000 tribesmen, Auxila = groups of cavalry (Roman side). Ships only come into play when ports are captured or Britons intervene in Gaul as per cards. The Legions are mostly SP2, with a single SP3 (X Leg) and a couple of SP1 (new recruits), Cavalry are all SP1 as are garrisons. Warbands are from SP2 to SP5, most around SP4 or SP3. Initial set-up is as follows.

I have been playing around with converting SP into DBA elements which produced some huge numbers on the Gallic side. So I went back to the game. I decided the Legions would be 4,5 or 6 elements with a single element of LI (possibly 2), the auxiliary cavalry would be 3-4 elements, ships a single element.

I had been translating the Gaul's SP based on the Romans, but realised they represent much larger numbers so am currently working on 2SP = 12 elements, 3SP = 18, 4SP = 24 elements and 5SP = 36. This feels about right as Caesar starts with 25-26 elements with a maximum of about 71 if all available are produced by cards with the whole Celtic muster at 136. This fits available figures, although I have had to buy a few more Celts and dig out what |I have unpainted.

Scenery wise, main need is fortifications - still unsure about representing Oppidums and sieges may just be resolved abstractedly. Caesar does seem to have used engineering to off-set Gallic numbers, so Baueda have supplied some camp and fort sets and I need to find the Hovels bits I bought cheap. I have bought some Gallic huts and more trees but still need to get or make some fields and possibly more hills.

Figure wise, I have obtained some Museum Miniatures and Essex ships (designed to fit on a DBM base) and lots more Roman command figures. Each legion is approximately 1 element per 1000 legionaries so my available Romans will be split and a command stand added. This works out at around 1:250 figure to men for the Romans and 1,666 to 2,777 for the Celts - I could reduce the 2Sp to 8 elements which would fit the ratio better. 

So with minimal painting some touching-up and a bit of scenery work, this could get going relatively soon. I also have some other ideas for more ancients and WW2 that in theory will allow some actual gaming in return for the painting and modelling.

Renovating Romans and completing Celts....

With the enthusiasm for 15mm ancients unabated, I have cracked on with preparations for a campaign or two...

Firstly, my Romans received long overdue repairs. I was gratified to see the damage was not as extensive as I'd feared with only about 8-10 stands in need of TLC. Most had one pilum shaft broken off, one had three and a pilum head missing! The missing eagle was lying on the base. I did need to find another standard for one of the command stands.

New pilum shafts were provided by plastic broom bristles cut down; I'd contemplated drilling out and fitting wire, but some trials convinced me I would probably cause more damage....

I picked the plastic because it was light enough to stand vertical with some super glue gel and allow some bicarbonate of soda to be sprinkled over to set it. They are also a bit more flexible. After the join had set and excess carved off (carefully), they received a coat of gloss varnish - quick drying, then black acrylic, brown and flesh where required and a final coat of varnish. They are a bit thicker, bit I can live with it. The standards and eagle got similar treatment, although only one needed painting. There were also a couple of pilum heads missing, these too were produced from plastic bristle, this time with the tip squeezed and sharpened to a point.

I'd also been thinking of the number of Gauls and Germans needed, especially cavalry. A quick look at what was unpainted and accessible showed some infantry but no cavalry. There are more unpainted Celts somewhere, but finding them would take some time. I also realised that painting them would take some time....

So I found myself on eBay looking for Gallic cavalry......and I ended up buying some painted figures....

I rarely buy painted figures, but found some that were not too far from my black undercoat style. Thinking ahead, I also bought some Romans and a pair of jumbos for when I get around to the Civil War...

A host of new Gauls

I may have gone a little overboard....

Cavalry

As you can see, style not dissimilar to my own. A few needed spears replacing or ends of spear shafts adding as the \Romans from plastic bristles. Three stands were based two figures per stand, a stand was split and a figure added to the remaining to give two three figure stands, all mounted on a steel base. Touch-ups were confined to the odd colour here and there with a bit of flesh highlights on some. Bases were filled where necessary on the rejoined stands, then a few rocks and static grass added.

Infantry

The infantry were more of a problem, with a few being on double 8 figure stands, several on two figure stands and a minority on four figure stands. There were also some breakages; the odd spear but a few whole figures (the cavalry too may have had a figure broken off) - mostly Freikorps 15 it has to be said with the notorious brittle metal - some looked to have had previous (poor) repairs. One 8 figure stand was missing a figure, just a hole where he'd been!

The stands were wider than 40mm DBA, but I decided I wasn't going to rebase, even the double bases- these are not for competitions- so it was more a question of consistency. The two figure bases were matched and attached to a steel base with the gap  being filled with a plaster, PVA and pain mix. Spears were reattached or replaced where necessary. One big base had figures with missing arms, broken ankles and a missing figure. I found some old 15mm figures and selected a couple of donor arms and found another naked figure and painted him. Glued as before with super glue gel and soda, bristle spears added from base to figure to strengthen, arms painted all as good as new.

I spent some time matching the colours where groundwork had been done, added rocks and grass flock, touched up the odd paint colour and shield design and a bit of flesh highlights here and there and the Gallic host had just about doubled!

I also found some very badly painted and based light cavalry (Pictish I think) and some Spanish MC.

These needed new spears with points and the groundwork redone, painted with rocks and grass flock. The existing paint was touched up followed by a black wash then selected highlights of the existing colours. One Spaniard had lost the plume, so got a liquid greenstuff animal crest instead. They have not turned out too badly from the horrendous bright green based wrecks they were....

Before

There were also a couple of Museum Miniatures elephants - now replaced by 3D CAD - which matched the existing Numidian elephant. New howda crew were needed so some suitable LI were painted up and installed.

Some Greek lancers were also bought similar to the LC /Spanish but with much better bases, these needed little apart from lances sorting and touch-ups. All in all more figures than  I could have managed to paint in the same time. Since then, more Romans, Germans, Spanish and Thracians have been acquired, most of which just need the odd touch-up. Some Romans need standards, others rebasing and highlighting / washes to bring up to standard.

Before I can start, I'm going to need to look at terrain. I have some more trees to base but need things like Roman fortifications, Gallic Oppidum and similar. I think I have an old Bellona hill fort and Roman camp somewhere.....

New Year......new distractions!

As we usher in 2026, like many bloggers, I'm looking back at what was achieved and where we go from here.

2025 seems to have been the year of lethargy / inability to focus and generally not get that much done.  

One achievement and milestone is with the Soldier King project. 2025 saw me complete the armies of Waldow, Sinistria and Dupanen and add a cavalry brigade to Bravance, Argozia and Hrvatska to bring them up to parity with Arcadia, having managed to recalculate the army size and income. A tranche of reinforcements for Estavia await paint, the "rebels" / militia figures are part converted, which just leaves the Electoral forces to be boosted - to whatever will fill the boxes.

Sadly, I don't have anywhere to play with them at present! I also have numerous card/paper building to assemble and more importantly store...

Storage and clutter are a big problem and finding things is becoming a nightmare. As the offspring show no intention of flying the nest, until retirement, I cannot see much changing....

This has led to a revaluation of current projects and possibly more distractions. But first, a quick look at what else was going on. This year end saw me  escape illness although not lethargy, being exhausted from work. Little progress on flat Italian Wars, although I did read another couple of books on Pavia, and the main focus this year has been on 20mm Desert war with lots of modelling. The Jordanians for the 1967 Arab-Israeli war got some work as well.

At the end of the year, I dug out my old 15mm ancients, created for DBA and have spent my time off digging out figures and after a major excavation in the garage, my DBA terrain box. The realisation hit me, that at present I am limited to a 2' x 3' playing area, so we are looking at smaller scales, smaller armies or skirmish games if I want to actually play.

This set off a lot of cleaning up of 15mm Hellenistics with the vague idea of a Syrian War campaign. However, digging out painted figures has modified things slightly; I'm now contemplating something involving the Marian Roman armies and this has led to a modification. I can still scratch the Helenistic itch by working on Ptolemaics that took part in the Alexandrian War as part of the Civil War involving Caesar. This gives plenty of scope with the rivals Cleopatra VII v Ptolemy XIII with Arsinoe thrown into the mix of Achillas, the eunuch Gannymedes, remnant Gabinine legionaries, rioters etc.

Rediscovery of the Celts has got me looking at Caesar's Gallic war (coupled with a re-read of his accounts) - this was something I was planning all those years ago. While musing, I remembered I had a copy of the Decision Games Mini Game:

https://shop.decisiongames.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=1701

Ideal for conversion to DBA and as it is card-driven, good for solo.

My thoughts have also turned to the possibility of smaller scales for say Western Desert WW2. I'm undecided on this as I have never really "got on" with say 1:300th after some unfortunate experiences in formative years, although I can see the benefit. That said, I have lots of 15mm stuff and Martin Rapier https://tgamesweplay.blogspot.com/ seems to manage games on a small area....although not quite as cramped as 3x2 foot!

Maybe I need to become a microscale gamer..... 

Ancients part deux

A second attempt at posting. Just as I was finishing an unwary key hit seems to have deleted the entire post with photos! This post may not be as comprehensive as the previous attempt....

As a few people have expressed an interest in seeing the remaining armies, here follows the other DBA forces, including the elusive Celts.

The armies were created with the idea of covering the known Roman world from around 100-30BC so covering from Marius to the Principate. They were also designed to cover all available options or armies in a given list so have more elements than a standard DBA army.

Romans - from the Freikorps 15 range designed by Dave Allsop - no longer available as they have been redesigned. Roughly 3x DBA armies - veterans of many battles and a couple of campaigns they are showing some wear and tear due to the brittle metal - lots of pilum need repair or replacement and the Pompeians have lost their eagle. The range included some excellent personality figures of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus.

The Barbarians - early Germans

The Spanish

Numidians - including King Juba who started life as a Mongol from Tabletop Miniatures and the elephant which was lurking in the Celt box...

In the same box were the Seleucid and Pontic scythed chariots.

The Celtic host - covering options and variants for Gallic, Galatian and Ancient British armies

Cavalry - some may be Germans

4WB - Gaestati, Solduri or Galatians - with or without clothes

3WB warriors - Gallic or British

Chariots, British LC and skirmishers

The Germans have yet to see a game IIRC and the Celts masquerading as Ancient British beat a Mongol army by maximising terrain. I'm now wondering if a Marian "Known World" campaign is an easier option....