Low and Behold, we broke 50K

Yep, launch a new scenario supplement and leave town and what happens, the blog runs over 50K hits. Thank you all for making that possible. I am thinking of doing some sort of give away once I break the 300 post mark. That should come around real soon. Or once I break 100 followers which is also rapidly approaching. Speaking of...

Welcome to Puggle_monster aka SP aka Pete S. I can't tell if you have a blog or not from your link. If you do, let me know and I will post a link.

A first review - Whoo Hoo!

Ray at Don't Throw a One has posted a review of my new book In the Name of Roma.

Thanks Ray!

In the Name of Roma! is Released!

“IN THE NAME OF ROMA”

Company and Platoon level scenarios for the Eastern Front, 1941

In July of 1941, the 80° Roma Regiment of the Pasubio Division boarded a train bound for Romania. Along with the rest of the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia (Corpo di Spedizione Italiano), they would advance through the Ukraine alongside their German allies. In the coming months, the 80° would be engaged in brutal fighting across 1400 miles of the Eastern Front – covering most of that on foot.

IN THE NAME OF ROMA is a wargame supplement that contains 30 company and platoon level scenarios covering the actions of the 80a Roma Regiment from August to December of 1941. You’ll follow the 80th from the open steppe to the Donetz industrial basin, including the amphibious attacks across the Dnieper, and the fateful decision of Column Chiarimonti to attempt to seize Nikitovka.

IN THE NAME OF ROMA includes:

• 30 scenarios divided in six distinct campaigns
• Historical background information and period area maps
• Italian and Soviet briefing for each scenario
• Formation information and stats for Early War Italians and Soviets
• Forward by Richard Clarke

Though primarily written for the Too Fat Lardies rules systems (I Ain’t Been Shot Mum; Troops, Weapons, and Tactics; and the newly released Chain of Command), the scenarios in IN THE NAME OF ROMA work equally well with Arc of Fire, Bolt Action, Flames of War or your favorite rules system.

IN THE NAME OF ROMA is available from my Payhip store.

Follow this link to get a free sample scenario from the book. Note that In the Name of Roma is now available from Amazon as well.

It is also available on Wargame Vault.

Roman Dux under Construction

Well I have decided to to the German Limes route with this. The Upper German-Raetian Limes to be exact. This was a 353 mile (568km) stretch of fortifications with some 900 watchtowers and over 60 forts. Each watchtower was behind the palisade wall by some 20 to 50 meters. Each watchtower was separated by 300 to 800 meters provided they had a clear line of sight to one another. Just as with Hadrian's wall there were small fortlets (kleinkastel) staged along that held detachments from 40 to 80 men in strength. My area that I wish to copy is that of the Cohort fort of Saalburg. This is a great site in that they have some of the most complete reconstructions of a roman fort in Germany. Also it is dead easy to find data for it on the internet. (Remember, I am lazy.)

What did I stumble upon today but the most marvelous site: Vici.org. It has fantastic maps of the whole area that I am looking to include in my campaign. Here is the first map I made from this site.

Map from Vici.org. Terrible white lettering over the map is all mine.

Here we see the Cohort Fort of Saalburg with the watchtowers associated with it and the milecastle/kleinkastle that also had the same unit - Lochmühle. Saalburg was the home of Cohors II Raetorum Civium Romanorum Equitata. This was an Auxiliary unit that was at least in part mounted. This fits in with my preference for a mixed unit. To the northeast, Lochmühle had elements of the same unit present. While the milefort to the southwest was a unit of Auxiliaries from Legio XXII.

The Cohors II Raetorum Civium Romanorum Equitata was a Cohors Quingenaria Equitata unit. Formed by six centuries of infantry (80 men each) and four turma of cavalry (30 men each). This matches with the size of the fort.

The fort of Saalburg is well documented and there are any number of diagrams showing what it would have been like.

Taken from http://www.saalburgmuseum.de/geschichte/kastellgeschichte.html

Just 200 meters from the back gate of the Saalburg fort is the lime itself. The German Wikipedia sites are actually really helpful here. There is a diagram of what the gate through the lime would have looked like near this fort.

taken from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:ORL_A_03_tab_10_pic_03_Limes%C3%BCbergang_Saalburg.jpg

The child fort at Lochmühle is another story. This is far less documented as what it would look like. The general size is known. It was a 18 meter by 22 meter rectangle. It was set back about 30 meters from the lime. The artists reconstruction is dubious in that some sources claim that this fort had only one gate and this shows two gates.

Image taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/8/8b/Kleinkastell_Maisel_-_Kleinkastell_Lochm%C3%BChle_-_Ringwall_H%C3%BCnerber_069.JPG.

Basically if you take the drawing at face value, there are room for 4 tent parties and an officer in the truncated barracks as well as a storeroom, a workshop and an outdoor oven. So that works out to about 32 men plus a head NCO, just under half a century.

That just leaves the watchtowers. These would be temporary duty for about 8 men who would take turns manning the towers. These would be wood or stone structures of 3 stories in height with the entrance on the second floor. In addition to this, there would be the patrols. Plenty of things to be going on for a campaign.

I am putting an artificial dividing line for the towers to be at tower 3/63 for the purpose of the campaign. That would be as far to the southwest as the troops at Saalburg would have to patrol.

Now, if push really comes to shove and the forces at Saalburg need backup, they have to call out to Legio XXII Primigenia Pia Fidelis at Mogontiacum or Legio VIII Augusta at Argentoratum or even Legio III Italica at Castra Regina. This could come into play if I ever venture into 6mm miniatures for Romans.

I think my next step will be to make some terrain.

Welcome and other ramblings.

Since the last post, we have had Inchigh74 join the ranks here at Wargamers Odd's & Ends. he runs the blog 1914-45. It is a sight that oddly enough covers wargames taking place between 1914 and 1945. Stop on by and take a look.

I still can't get my mind off of the Early Imperial Romans. The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to look at gaming around the Limes fortifications on the German frontier. If you have any interest in this, one site that caught my eye that I am reading away on is the JAMES CURLE's A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE: The Fort of Newstead in the Parish of Melrose that can be found on http://www.curlesnewstead.org.uk/index.htm. There is also a PDF of this floating around as well but the site has been very nice reading.

I am getting tempted to attempt to build a Roman fort in 6mm with some Baccus Roman figures for larger scale actions and then a watchtower in 15mm for use with skirmish figures. Just not sure what I want to do. There is the Hotz's Roman Seas sets for terrain as well. There are some nice looking buildings there. Basically everything to build one of the Roman Legionary forts plus a nice Roman town outside the fort's walls. If nothing else, it would provide a template to work with to attempt to make my own. According to the web site they should not be hard to put together. Then again, I am likely to glue my fingers together as well.

Given that my scratch building efforts are not that great, what is out there? Well, JR Miniatures has a Mile fort. Several places have Roman tents. Just not sure what else is out there.