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.