The Armies

ARMY LISTS FOR BLOODY BARONS – SUMERIAN WARS CONVERSION

The following army posts provide the detail to create forces of the third millennium using the Bloody Barons conversion. Whilst specific to those rules, the unit types, designations, army force ratios, upgrades, etc make the lists useful for any game system. There are ten armies represented throughout this period and each army has several ally and enemy combinations providing for plenty of variety and force variation. The lists are in no way definitive and players should feel free to use them as a basis of forming more specific lists should that be desired. They provide structure to enable 'sensible' force combinations to be used for your table top battles.

The supporting notes will hopefully give the context of how an army campaigned historically. This will enable players to get a grip of how each city or nation state's forces were involved in the wars peculiar to that army. The notes only touch on the detail that can be attained by further research. I must confess that whilst composing these lists and delving deeper into the conflicts, I was surprised at just how much constant warfare there was both within Sumer and Akkad and beyond its borders....there is alot going on here.

Each army has its own blog post so any comments and discussion can be conveniently located in each army's post and any changes made are done to that single post so that a central information source is generated for that force. Comments are most welcome, as is anything that adds to the usefulness of the posts.

• Dynastic Sumerian 2700 BC to 2334 BC.

• Akkadian Empire 2334 BC to 2154 BC.

 

• Zagros Mountain – Guti, Lullibi & Hurri 2350 BC onwards.

 

• Old Elam 2700 BC onwards. 

• Early Eblan 2700 BC onwards. 

• Hattian Kingdoms 2700 BC onwards.

 

• Neo Sumerian, Third Dynasty of Ur, 2112 BC to 2004 BC.

 

• Amorite Nomads 2700 BC onwards.

 

• Magan, Dilmun – Persian Gulf region 2200 BC onwards.

 

• Harrapan – Indus Valley 2200 BC onwards.

 

 

Using the Army Lists

 

The era portrayed is roughly half way through the Sumerian Dynastic period approximately 2700 BC to the end of the millennium in 2000 BC. Each army list title gives the era covered by the lists. If designated as ‘onwards’ in the header, then the list continues beyond the period with which we will be concerning ourselves.

Each troop type shows the number allowed or proiportion of type (eg half) along with its Quality [Q] and Protection rating [P]. Captains are marked with an (*) in their Protection rating column as they all are given their own category when they save hits – see playsheet. Two ranges are shown – short range/long range. Where only one number is shown then that counts as short range shooting. The CV rating or ‘special’ rating is given for a units Combat Value – see rules for use fo the special rating. The points cost (per base) for each troop type is shown in the list along with the cost of any upgrades or changes that are given showing the new cost.

All armies are made up of 650 or 800 points of troops. They are made up of three commands lead by an Army general and two sub and/or ally generals. Each commander may include a standard if included in his list. All Regular or Levy units may be made up of 6-10 bases unless Skirmishers which are always 4 bases strong. Battle, Straddle or Platform Cart units are made up of two models, each one counting as 4 bases. In addition specific rules applying to each army may provide further restrictions on some unit sizes as well as any other specific rules pertaining to the army represented.

When forming units, Skirmishers and Ass-Cart units ignore Captain bases – they do not use them. All other units must have a Captain base of the appropriate rating of the unit concerned. When the army lists allow for ‘shielded front rankers’ all the front rank bases of a unit must be given shields if this option is taken (this is usually half of the unit), thus counting as ‘shielded’, not including the Captain base, which for all intents and purposes is always considered Shielded. The use of the terms ‘half’, ‘all’ and ‘any’ refers to the options that are taken within a unit. The numerical range gives the number of units of that type can be take eg ‘0-2’ means none, one or two units of that type may be taken whereas ‘0/all’ means that no upgrade of the type is taken or all bases in that unit must take the upgrade.

The allies and enemies charts give a guide as to the likely combinations of what we think to be the historical 'match-ups' and can safely be used +/- 50 years of those times indicated. Whilst some combinations do not appear, it is perfectly reasonable to say that all these armies are relative contemporaries and can be played against one another in historical or ahistorical games if players choose....we simply cannot definitively say one way of the other!

Allied contingents may be taken up to one-third of the points value of an army per ally general shown in the army list, but never totalling more than half of the points, thus an army made up of a general and two allied contingents could conceivably comprise half of the army present. The allowed units in allied contingents are limited to troop types in their respective lists that have a minimum number of one (1) or have a maximum of three (3) or more. Use the Allies and Enemies charts in each army list for force guidelines. You can download the army list file here.