Guy Halsall Wargames Illustrated Post Roman Britain

[Atheling]

Or Late Antiquity, if you will. 

Actually no, the term is Sub Roman for the "Arthurian" era. Post Roman/Late Antiquity is reserved for the time period after the (so called0 Fall of the Western Empire.

[Old Hob]

Hi Atheling. Sorry if we got our wires crossed. I thought you were making a joke about contested terminology. I clearly got the wrong end of the stick and I really hope I didn't come across as rude. Maybe a bit of context from my side?

I normally keep my work and my wargaming distinctly separate, but I've been a professional archaeologist for getting on 30 years. We use post-Roman as a technical term - literally the period immediately postdating the last materially Romano-British phase. It's the term that's used in the regional research frameworks for broadly 400-600 AD (well, in the west of England anyway). We no longer use the term sub-Roman (a pejorative), although it certainly does appear in older works. For clarity, I'm talking processual archaeology here. What historians get up to is their own business. So, for example, we excavated a large, 5th-6th century British cemetery in Somerset a few years ago. In the publication this will be referred to as a post-Roman cemetery.

The Late Antiquity comment was also me trying to be funny (sorry, it clearly wasn't). Prof Ken Dark doesn't like the term post-Roman as this would imply a break rather than continuity (which he argues for), and also implies different forces at play in Britain than in Continental Europe (which he rejects). He would argue that we should refer to 400-600 AD in the west of Britain as Late Antiquity instead. As you can imagine, this is a contested position.

Outside of work (and out of earshot of colleagues) I have no problem at all with terms such as sub-Roman, Dark Ages and Arthurian because we all broadly understand them and life is too short. That's what I meant about it being a hill I have no intention of dying on. Folks use the terms they use, and often for carefully considered reasons. Again, apologies if I came across in any way rude.

(edited)

[Atheling]

Hi Atheling. Sorry if we got our wires crossed. I thought you were making a joke about contested terminology. I clearly got the wrong end of the stick and I really hope I didn't come across as rude. Maybe a bit of context from my side?

I normally keep my work and my wargaming distinctly separate, but I've been a professional archaeologist for getting on 30 years. We use post-Roman as a technical term - literally the period immediately postdating the last materially Romano-British phase. It's the term that's used in the regional research frameworks for broadly 400-600 AD (well, in the west of England anyway). We no longer use the term sub-Roman (a pejorative), although it certainly does appear in older works. For clarity, I'm talking processual archaeology here. What historians get up to is their own business. So, for example, we excavated a large, 5th-6th century British cemetery in Somerset a few years ago. In the publication this will be referred to as a post-Roman cemetery.

The Late Antiquity comment was also me trying to be funny (sorry, it clearly wasn't). Prof Ken Dark doesn't like the term post-Roman as this would imply a break rather than continuity (which he argues for), and also implies different forces at play in Britain than in Continental Europe (which he rejects). He would argue that we should refer to 400-600 AD in the west of Britain as Late Antiquity instead. As you can imagine, this is a contested position.

Outside of work (and out of earshot of colleagues) I have no problem at all with terms such as sub-Roman, Dark Ages and Arthurian because we all broadly understand them and life is too short. That's what I meant about it being a hill I have no intention of dying on. Folks use the terms they use, and often for carefully considered reasons. Again, apologies if I came across in any way rude.

(edited)

Interesting, I think it was actually Guy Halsall (I could be wrong?) that introduced the term to the age of Arthur WAB playtest group.

TBH, I've been a bit poorly of late and the fault probably lies with me so please don't worry. If anyone should apologise it should be me.

apologies.

[Old Hob]

He may have. To be fair, academics have more leeway to be selective about the terms they choose to use.

I'm sorry to hear you've been ill and I hope you're feeling better. I'm glad we're all good. I was just mortified that I may have unintentionally upset you.

[March Hare]

Just ordered Laycock. Any recommendations on rulesets?

[Old Hob]

Hi March Hare. Apologies for derailing your thread earlier.

As I've been mostly a fantasy player up until this point, my opinion probably isn't worth spit (I simply haven't played enough games). However, there's a useful round-up of systems and even a free two-page ruleset on James Morris' blog: https://mogsymakes.net/getting-started-in-early-medieval-wargaming/

[March Hare]

No worries.

I wouldn't mind fantasy recommendations either.

I was toying with the idea of painting up some fantasy figures too. The germ of the idea was to use the old Ares magazine Albion game map as a starting point for a fantasy campaign game. Possibly use the same setting for some Five Leagues type games.

[Old Hob]

I wouldn't mind fantasy recommendations either.

Our go-to for fantasy has been Dragon Rampant. It's a really fun game. We're having a look at Fantastic Battles for larger engagements (hopefully we'll get a game in next month). We tried Hobgoblin, but it was too high fantasy for what we were after (very magic driven). Oathmark has a great campaign system, but the actual game itself we found a little bland. The one I'm really looking forward to is Midgard, which should handle both historical and low fantasy equally well. Hope that helps.

[Hobgoblin]

I wouldn't mind fantasy recommendations either.

Saga is a brilliant game in the Dragon/Lion Rampant "unit-based skirmish" range. It's very much a "print the legend" take on history, so it's essentially a fantasy game already. We've found that it works perfectly well for fantasy games using the Age of Vikings book; I'm sure the Age of Arthur book would work well. I haven't been tempted by the "Age of Fantasy" book simply because the flavourful Viking book gives plenty of options for things (outsize heroes, champions, etc.) that could be giants or trolls or whatever.

[OB]

Interesting, I think it was actually Guy Halsall (I could be wrong?) that introduced the term to the age of Arthur WAB playtest group.

TBH, I've been a bit poorly of late and the fault probably lies with me so please don't worry. If anyone should apologise it should be me.

apologies.

Morris wrote a book called the Age of Arthur.  It was a best seller. David Dumville wrote a refutation and Guy Halsall followed suit.  Morris died of natural causes.  I'd say Morris's book named the period.

[Old Hob]

Morris wrote a book called the Age of Arthur.  It was a best seller. David Dumville wrote a refutation and Guy Halsall followed suit.  Morris died of natural causes.  I'd say Morris's book named the period.

Morris certainly made the term popular, but Leslie Alcock uses it in an earlier work (Arthur's Britain, 1971) and I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere. I suspect that you can find the use of sub-Roman in a host of academic and popular works from the 1960s through to the 1980s and it's little wonder it has found its way into wargames.

[OB]

Leslie Alcock did indeed but Morris used the exact phrase we have come to know.

Alcock is well worth reading as is Ken Dark.

[Byrthnoth]

If I had to guess, I think we can credit/blame WRG Ancients army lists for 'Sub-Roman' entering the wargamer's lexicon (along with a whole bunch of other terms that probably give historians and archaeologists a shudder).

[FifteensAway]

Ah, wargaming lists.  Where was it I read that a vast majority of the dba lists, or at least a lot of them, are based on no more than two sentences in the written record?  How the heck do you 'design an army' based on two sentences!?  Probably applies to most lists - and the older in history they are, the more likely the lists are more inventions than anything rational.  Then again, what's rational about gaming war?   .

That bit of reading has always amused me.

[macsen wledig]

Wargaming lists are useful up to a point...normally when you get better read than the person who proposed the army list int he first place