"Are Ancient Sieges Fun on the Tabletop?" Topic

Sieges formed a crucial part of war in the Greek and Roman world, but are they worth gaming on the tabletop?

* yes, they can be grand fun
* no, too boring

Dunno.
I had some fun seiges back in the day with GWs Mighty Fortress.
That was fantasy though.

Never played one yet; but it'd be neat to add pestilence to the scenario.

Never played one. I've seen them setup at Cold Wars (Classical Hack I think) and they looked fantastic.

Yeah – plenty o' fun

The final assault of a siege, or the approach of a relief force can be fun games.
The actual day to day besieging on the other hand not so much.

Shame as they always look amazing on the table. Requires a very well thought through scenario.

Have yet to play one myself, but I've always wanted to try one. :)

Not so much.

Played in/watched a couple at Nashcon over the years.

They were run with accelerated time (1 week) per turn and various factions inside and out that added to the game inside the game.

Limited supplies for both sides, siege engines and tunneling, challenges to single combat. One never knew just when things would happen for sure.

Games were always a hoot.

There is a new boardgame out called Stronghold that is popular and might make a good tabletop game.

Never tried one.

However, I would think that too much would depend on the besieger actually knowing what he is doing, given a competent set of siege rules.
Whenever I mention doing an actual "siege" game, I am usually referring to a castle assault.
I have had the plastic Warhammer Fantasy castle for years, but never got around to actually assaulting it. However, one of my gaming buddies took my siege tower homw with him to finish, so I might actually HAVE to do something with it.

I've never read through the Warhammer Siege book to see what it describes… is it just 'castle assault' as the OFM mentions or does it really set up siege scenarios.

From what I've read it seems like sieges were pretty common… but that maybe they'd be better served by something other than a miniatures wargame… with turns in weeks/months.

They can be fun when you play out the action after a breach.

DM

I always "assume" the when one talks of war gaming a siege they actually mean the final assault of the fortress, city walls, castle, keep, et. all. Recreating an actual siege would be better served as a computer game or a board game with perhaps the assault being played in miniature once that critical point had been reached.

I have run and played many castle assaults using the old 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy rules and of late historical games using the WAB supplement Siege and Conquest. In fact I may be playing a Late Medieval game next week.

So if Bill's question is in regards to a castle assault my answer is yes, they can be a good deal of fun. The main problem is to make sure the players taking the role of the defenders have more to do than just wait for the ladders and siege towers to reach walls.

It could be possible to do a campaign game that would involve the various stages of a siege with sallies, attempts at undermining the walls, spies, etc. but it would require a dedicated group that found that of interest.

Assaults, raids, sallied, relief attempts etc can all be great fun and are part of any siege.

The Perfect Captain offers a Siege module in the Spanish Fury series. It is primarily a board game.

Gaming out the long term aspects of a siege can get tedious. How many days of food, does a plague break out, etc.

Better use the siege as a back drop and game out a series of interesting siege related scenarios.

There is plenty to do aside from the day to day drudgery of sitting there starving them out.

The Warhammer Siege book gives scenarios for stuff like:

-a patrol spotting the incoming army (consequence whether they get advance warnings)
-sending out a fast mover to try and escape the lines to call for help (consequence on when and how much help comes in future scenarios)
-a sally attack on the siege lines
-an attempt for a gate or such

and so on. Each one ties up for a campaign story. But it shows ways that you can have fun with a siege.

Assaults are more interesting on the tabletop than sieges proper, but I'd play both depending.

WFB 3rd's Siege rules were pretty fun.

Yes! … they can be fun – and educational :)

'Sieges', of course, covers everything from starving the enemy out (fine in a matrix game or board game) to assaults (more the province of the table top figure game).

Best part of a decade ago I toured my Presentation Game 'Welcome to Jerusalem' (the Crusader assault of 1099) to quite a few shows (most of the UK venues, also Holland, Belgium and Historicon) … People were keen to play and seemed to have a good time.

The rules were my adaptation of Slim Mumford's old rules. Some of the ideas seemed to influence the Lord of the Rings rules (though I'm sure that was just designers tackling the same problems in the same way and I'm sure Tolkien himself was influenced by the Crusader Gestae …)…

In 2008 I updated the game to play with Field of Glory ( link )

FoG's 'Cohesion Tests' give a better system for for assault games than some other 'element based' systems such as the DB series. Even so, whilst I like the FoG approach, sieges do suit more skirmishy/old fashioned 'single figure' type basing (WAB, Tony Bath, Slim Mumford etc.) …

I suspect that's why the WRG/FoG tradition has mostly left siege warfare alone … not that there isn't a lot of game and a lot of history there – but that it's tricky to get an element up a ladder!

Phil Steele
soawargamesteam.blogspot.com

A siege sure looks great on the table. Given the topic, I couldn't resist posting this gallery. Sorry for this act of pure vanity. Hope you'll take a look at my siege at warin15mm.com/Medieval-.html

War: that is very cool.

John, thank you. I had a great time getting it together. Richard

The closest I've ever come was that old AH board game, "Siege of Jerusalem", which was pretty fun. I've often thought that game might make a good adaption to miniatures. I also imagine some of those bizarre Assyrian machines would be fun to play with.

I think the key to a fun game is to keep it relatively short with a lot of action and a lot of doubt as to the outcome. So, rather than playing out the whole siege, you're playing out just one assault against the wall, or a short series of assaults, giving both sides a reasonable chance of success.

Played one years ago using the siege rules in WRG6. We used lego for building the fortifications. It didn't look that great, but it worked well enough, and it was fun.

I'm not sure if I'd like to do it all the time, and unlike War in 15mm (that set up looks great, BTW) I wouldn't like to invest the time in building / painting pucker 'terrain' pieces and siege equipment. I think that pucker terrain, etc. (or rather the lack of) is the chief reason why they are less commonly played.

I've played a few back in the 80s and 90s. Lots of turns were just bookkeeping, until something happened (sorties or assaults, or the like).
So they can be both.

have played the Warhammer Siege rules used for WAB – a great system and giving a nice range of siege scenarios. All ancient gamers should try a siege if even just the once….

The Society of Ancients have put the Mumford siege rules up as a free download on their website. They do not intend a physical reprint and have put them up as a public service. So go besiege away!!
They are at soa.org.uk