So, how to run an Hyboria-styled campaign?

My recent entries on Tony Bath's Hyboria have started me thinking about running something similar. Mind you, this does not mean there will be an Hyboria-style campaign. Especially with my current workload at the university, it's not something for the immediate future, but it's always nice to think about future projects.

Back in 2000 I participated in a campaign called Hyperborea, run by long-time wargaming friend Alan Huyton. The whole thing was run in the philosophy of matrix-gaming, with players submitting orders on anything each campaign turn. I was living in the USA at the time, so I never participated in any of the miniatures battles that resulted, but maybe other participants did, I'm not sure.
Our internet records in 2000 were not as good as they were today, so I don't have lots of archives left, but I still have the map Alan made, along with some maps I made myself (I played Laconica). I still remember that near the end of the campaign, I struck at Bartaventumnium, the capital of Latini, run by co-author of this blog Bart Vetters. That event might have well ended the campaign, I don;t remember exactly. It has been 20 years ;-)

The campaign map

My own rendering of LAconica

A fun map, outlining the voyages of Thales, but it was really a spying mission.

In 2006, Alan tried to set up a similar campaign, again called Hyperborea (with a handful of posts on this blog). But this time we never got far. The campaign sizzled out after 1 or 2 turns ... I played Kemet in this one.

So suppose I would run such a campaign. What map would I use?

There are of course many possibilities .. there are plenty of imaginary continents from (fantasy) games or literature one can use. One of the maps that I always found attractive is the old map from Wizard's Quest:

It has a nice subdivision in regions, but perhaps the whole affair would become more a RISK-like game rather than a proper wargaming campaign. The lack of cities, roads and other points of interest make it less suitable.

A better idea might be to use the map of the imaginary fantasy world Dor, designed for the roleplaying game Schimmmen & Schaduwen, which I co-authored back in the early nineties.

The continent has many different countires, each with their own geography and culture. See also these blogposts (written in Dutch) on my Schimmen & Schaduwen blog:  Kaarten Van Dor en De Grote Atlas van Dor. Perhaps I should consider using this setting?

Hyboria (11)

Another article about Hyboria, penned by Tony Bath, but this time from White Dwarf #4, December1977/January1978. In publication date, it precedes the series of articles in Battle For Wargamers by one month or so. It is well known that Tony Bath kept extensive chronicles of his campaign, so these articles were probably summaries or compilations of what he had written already.

Mighty Empires (2)

I played 2 campaign seasons with the Mighty Empires setup I described a few posts ago, using the original 1990 rules.

So what did I learn?

• There's a lot of dice rolling. A lot! 
• There's more dice rolling!
• And even more!

To summarize, a lot of dice rolling on all sorts of tables: to determine the content of a tile when scouted; to determine whether you can move over mountains and how much troops that will cost you; to determine the strength of independent settlements; to see what happens when an army banner doesn't have enough subsistence; and so on...

So is Mighty Empires  a good game? Hmmm, no, not so good. But then, it was never meant as a standalone game. You should really see it as a campaign world generator, with a lot of unexpected events happening, and for that, it does the job.

Here are pictures after campaign season 1. You see each of three empires has spent most of the time exploring.

Here's the situation after campaign season 2.  There has been quite some fighting near the borders, and as a winter event, a Dragon Rage happened, razing some tiles in the middle of the board.

Hyboria (10)

The last article in the Hyboria series as pubished in Battle For Wargamers in 1978. The articles about Hyboria continued in Military Modelling magazine, but sadly, I do not have those issues. I tried a web search for scanned content, but no luck so far. If someone can help me out, I would greatly appreciate it!

What's still to come? The article written by Tony Bath about Hyboria, published in White Dwarf #4.

See also the page I made about Hyboria.

Hyboria (9)

Part 9 of the history of Hyboria. See also the Hyboria page for other resources regarding Hyboria.

Hyboria (8)

Without further comments. here's part 8. See also the general Hyboria page.

Hyboria (7)

Now with the venerable Charles Grant on the cover ...
I also started a Hyboria page to collect all sorts of information Hyboria.

Mighty Empires

Reading up on Tony Bath's Hyboria campaign (I should start a separate page and collect all sorts of resources there), I started wondering what game might come close to recreate such a campaign.

Then I remembered Mighty Empires.

Back in the late 80s,early 90s I was a hardcore Games Workshop fanboy. To be honest, I wasn't even aware other miniature wargames did exist outside of Games Workshop, that realization only came later. So naturally I also bought Mighty Empires when it was first published. I do not recall we ever played it completely or used it as a campaign engine for our regular Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition battles, but I do recall I owned some of the metal miniatures as well, and most likely some of the White Dwarf stuff (I was a subscriber).

Then somewhere during the early 2000s I had a major clean-out of my games collection, and Mighty Empires was sold. Last year, an old gaming buddy donated some of his old gaming stuff to me, and suddenly, I had a box of Mighty Empires again. Everything was still there, except the rulebook (but that can be found online).

So, I couldn't resist and generated 2 maps according to the rules in the rulebook, the result of which you see below.

I also browsed through the rulebook again, and there are some good ideas in there. I am almost sure the designers were heavily influenced by Bath's Hyboria, some of the similarities are too strong. But there's probably a reason we never finished a game 30 years ago. The game is not so much game, but indeed, a campaign engine. Lots of rolling on random tables etc. Fun as a way to generate an imaginary world, but perhaps not so fun to use on a game.

Hyboria (6)

The 6th part in the series ...

Hyboria (5)

Part 5 of the series written by Tony Bath about his legendary Byboria campaign. This article appeared in the May 1978 issue of Battle For Wargamers.

Hyboria (4)

A new episode on the famous Hyboria campaign.

Hyboria (3)

The next article in the series, from March 1978.