Have We Been Playing Chainmail Wrong?

Taking another look at some Gygaxian language

EDIT: This post has been updated, see the final para.

EDIT 2: Updated again with another quote from the Chainmail rule book!
EDIT 3: Captain Hook (AKA Tagg1080) has done some more research as well, finding more precedent and contemporary sources.

It started with a comment on Mr Wargaming’s yootoob channel:

The Joy of Wargaming

The Comment and the rules quote:

Oh, dear. Did this start a discussion!
It went late into the small hours on Friday, and then I posted it in the Clerics Wear Ringmail discord, to see if anyone else had heard of this.

People started tossing out all sorts of rule quotes, from Chainmail, Swords & Spells, even the Domesday Book!

Wait. What Are We Doing Wrong?

It seems that, according to the rules, a melee in Chainmail carries on as long as necessary, until one side or the other breaks and flees.

This takes a rather careful reading of the rules to discern, but if you are familiar with D&D you know about Rounds, and if you are familiar with other wargames, you understand the idea of two units being “locked in combat”, and that combat carrying over into the next turn.

EXCEPT that is not what Chainmail says!!

What is a Round? Or a Turn, for that Matter?

A turn in Chainmail is one minute, or so.

“The ratio of figures to men assumed is 1:20, the ground scale is 1”:10 yards, and one turn of play is roughly equivalent to one minute of time in battle.”

Chainmail, p8

An this is the Turn Sequence:

“Melees are resolved.”

This means you need to work through the combat procedure, step by step, until each units’ melee has been completed. And by completed it means breaking or fleeing due to a morale failure.

Do you see this little sentence in part 4?

0-19 difference - melee continues

Many of us, myself included, for sure, read this as “melee continues NEXT TURN”, like it does in many other games. But, you know what you get when you assume, right?

tagg1080 says melee continues until one side breaks.

And, on further inspection, the rules seem to bear this out. For example, the FATIGUE rules use both of the terms TURN and ROUND:

There is also the example of a combat, where one side flees and is caught up by the “continued charge move” and melee is rolled again.

There is a rule that a longer line of troops can “lap round” a shorter one, after the first round of melee.

Bobman Bob went looking in the old ODD and Chainmail forums and found the same discussion:

RHampton went looking at other contemporary rules, such as WRG

I went looking for the old pictures I’d seen of the guys playing Chainmail in the 70s. Like this one, from the 50th Anniversary video:

Jeffro Johnson went looking in Swords & Spells, and found this little gem:

So it appears that it is definitely a thing. A thing that pretty much everyone passed over, and the dudes who had questioned the language in the rulebook 10 years ago never bothered to tell anyone else.

(Searching those forums is terrible for finding good info. It takes FOREVER)

UPDATE: Alchemic Raker on twitter found this little gem in the monster descriptions:

“Wights can limit melee to "one [melee] round" per "one complete turn". More proof that melee in Chainmail is intended to include multiple rounds within a single turn. #brosr“

UPDATE 3: Captain Hook’s Research

Captain Hook put this together and has graciously allowed me to share it here with you:

Pre Chainmail

1. Tony Bath's Ancients Rules

• 2 Rounds of Melee per turn

• Then morale to stay and fight, or retreat

• Nomenclature: Hand-to-Hand Fighting / Melee

2. Siege of Bodenburg

• "Combat Values": the number of melee rounds a unit will fight at a time. Knights-3, Heavy Foot-2, Archer on foot-1

  • "If an Attacker has one or more BASIC ROLLS(combat value) still due him after he has killed his enemy, he must attack another man in the same sector until his entire CV is used up, or no more hostile men remain in the sector"

• Nomenclature: "resolve MELEES"

• Melees continue until retreat:

• "After Combat, if there are still hostile men in the same sector, the Defender in his turn has the option to withdraw or counter attack. He may also bring in reinforcements not to exceed the capacity of that sector. If the defender decides to stay, MORALE must be checked again, and the original Defender now being the Attacker"

  • The MORALE check results in either side routing or both sides melee, creating an effective loop.

3. Geneva Miniatures Rules (Panzerfaust)

• 1 Round of melee per turn

  • "The Melee will last but one round. After combat survivors are counted and multiplied by die roll to determine which side retains the ground."

• Roll for victory, loser retreats

• Nomenclature: Order of play #5 "Melee"

4. Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association Medieval Miniatures Rules (Domesday #5)

• 1 Round of melee per turn

• "The melee will usually last only one round. After the attacker has inflicted casualties and the defender has done likewise, the survivors on each side will be continued. Each player will then roll a die and multiply the number of survivors in their force by the number rolled. The player with the higher total is the winner. However, if there is less than a ten point spread between the two totals the melee will continue next turn, and on all subsequent turns until a sufficient difference in totals is arrived at."

• Morale check at "When casualties from all causes reach a certain percentage of the unit's total strength"

Post Chainmail 1e

1. Cavaliers and Roundheads

• "One round of fighting is conducted each turn"

• Nomenclature: "surviving troops will melee, where applicable"

2. Swords and Spells

• "Melees are fought for one round, and retreats due to poor morale are made immediately."

3. 1975 Strategic Review

"QUESTIONS MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED ABOUT DUNGEONS & DRAGONS RULES"

• "Combat : CHAINMAIL is primarily a system for 1:20 combat, although it provides a basic understanding for man-to-man fighting also. The “Man-To-Man” and “Fantasy Supplement" sections of Chainmail provide systems for table-top actions of small size. The regular CHAINMAIL system is for larger actions where man-like types are mainly involved, i.e. kobolds, goblins, dwarves, ores, elves, men, hobgoblins, etc. Itis suggested that the alternate system in D & D be used to resolve the important melees where principal figures are concerned, as well as those involving the stronger monsters. When fantastic combat is taking place there is normally only one exchange of attacks per round, and unless the rules state otherwise,"

4. Classic Warfare

• "Only one round of melee will be fought each turn"

Chainmail

• "Melees are resolved" is the wording from Siege of Bodenburg. 

  • The one game where melee knights will go at least 3 rounds, maybe 6 or more.

• 3 versions of chainmail don't say 1 round of melee per turn.

  • Despite BOTH PUBLISHED drafts saying it explicitly.

  • Despite MULTIPLE publications before Chainmail 3e, explicitly stating 1 round per turn in the other systems.

• "Instability Due to Excess Casualties" "If the loss is brought about by melee, the unit must check morale after the melee has been completed for that turn."

  • This check AFTER MELEE instead of when the casualties actually happen

(End update of Capt Hook’s document)

0 - 19 - Melee Continues

This is the key part of the discussion. The very crux of the matter.

As we have seen in many videos, and game reports, most people (myself included) are using units of 10-20 figures and they rarely, if ever, get a morale result of 0 - 19. If you don’t get that result, you wouldn’t think about needed to RESOLVE the melee in the single Turn.

I kept going back to that picture in my mind, of the Chainmail game with the huge units, some of 60 or 80 figures. It clicked, eventually, that the bigger units would be getting the smaller morale results of 0 - 19.

So, I tested the hypothesis with a sample game between two units of Heavy Infantry, both at least 80 strong.

Large Unit Testing

I started off with yellow and green cubes to represent the two units. I placed them 18 “inches” apart. As I played the game I took notes and pics of each stage.

NOTE: The cubes are 15mm square. The base size in Chainmail for a single figure is one inch, thus the movement units, missile ranges, etc. So I painted marks on a ruler to indicate the “inch” marks due to the smaller base size.

Turn 1

I decided yellow could

1. advance 9 in, or

2. hold, or

3. charge.

I rolled a d6, it came up a 2, which meant advance 9 in.

I had already decided that green was merely going to advance 7 in.

This brought both units to 2 in from each other.

Each army has one fatigue for movement.

Turn 2

Both units have no choice but to charge. They each move 1 inch and meet in the middle.

Round 1

Green has the white dice, and causes one kill. Yellow has the purple Dice and causes two kills...

I rolled a four for the casualty modifier.

Morale score for heavy infantry is 5. So yellow wins plus 34 and the green unit is pushed back one half move in good order.

Now, yellow must complete their charge move, of which they have 11 inches remaining, they may easily cover the four and a half inches between the yellow and green units

Both units have three fatigue markers one for moving, one for charging, and one for melee.

Turn 2, Round 2

Since the yellow unit is once more in contact with the green unit they must melee once more this turn (Turn 2) I forgot to take a picture of this die roll. However green suffered 0 casualties and yellow suffered 2 casualties.

Green has fewer casualties, rolls of five, to multiply by the difference of two, and gets 10 points. Green has 78 figures left yellow has 81 so they will get three points for having more troops.

Total score is 400 for green and 408 for yellow therefore no one moves and it's a 0 to 19 result, meaning we melee a third time.

Turn 2, Round 3

Also, after the second round has been completed the green forces on either wing may lap around to the sides of the yellow unit for more attacks. The green forces move at one half rate which means they can cover 4.5 in.

For the third melee the green figures on each side will add three more attacks, while the yellow figures on the side will each only add two more attacks, because the yellow figure in the corner can only attack in one direction.

In the third round of melee both yellow and green suffer two casualties. This gives green a score of 304, yellow a score of 316, + 12 for the yellow unit.

Which means they need to fight a fourth round of melee.

Now this being said, for the fourth round the green forces can lap around one more time adding a total of six more dice to their attack roll.

Turn 2, Round 4

SMH

Green takes four casualties, yellow takes five casualties. The difference then is 1 times the die roll of 5 minus one for Fatigue = 4.

Yellow has two more units Morale is 4, which leaves 292 for green, 298 for yellow, a +6.

Meaning a fifth round of melee.

This kind of simple test is a little bit misleading, because there are no missile support troops or units on either side to assist, re flanking.

It also looks like it could go on for a while, so I called it quits on the test. The next playtest will be to make a full-scale army, like the ones in the picture above, and play a battle using these rules.

I put out a call for ideas for the army composition and disposition, and the discord is voting for Cannae. I have scenario rules for playing Cannae with Commands & Colors, so I’ll take a look at that.

The next email will bring a link to the video and any of my own notes or thoughts on how it played out. (There is a good chance it will be a multi-part video!)

UPDATE: It seems Griffith Morgan, who has a bunch of primary sources in his basement and access to some surviving OG players, has an update at The Comeback Inn forum:

"Combat continues" is as opposed to the other results on that table. Page 15 says dice are rolled once by each player, casualties removed, and morale if necessary. Page 9 shows melee as end of the turn.

And last but not least, both Jeff and Gary played it one round of combat per turn.

Here endeth the lesson.

Sooo, a whole bunch of fuss, with a rather educational ending.

Thank you for reading and subscribing, I really appreciate it! I have a few free/PWYW RPG and Wargame downloads on itchio, of you care to check them out.

Keep on gaming!