Dadi&Piombothe italian quarterly for wargamers

the officialmagazinefor Impetusplayerswww.dadiepiombo.com

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Issues 22-46 with English texts now available as PDF from Wargames Vault

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Rules for miniature battles in theAncient, Medieval and Renaissance periods

© 2008 Lorenzo SartoriAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted

in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Design and development Lorenzo SartoriMain playtesters Marco Cardano, Gino De Finis, GiacomoFedele, Marco Gnagnetti, Marco Guarnieri, RobertoIdiometri, Sandro Matteoni, Ezio Milvo, Luca Pellattiero,Fabrizio Soldani, Yuri Vantin, Arrigo Velicogna.Clubs that helped with playtesting AFBIS (Florence), LaPiccola Armata (Turin), Primo Leggero (Milan), SigniferClub (Vicenza).Translation Andrew CarlessProof reading Mike Parsons, Tom PrimroseGraphic design Baueda Wargames

Cover photo Frederic MachuLayout Zev Multimediale sas - zev@zev.itPrinted in Italy by Indygraf sas - www.indygraf.comPublisher Sartori Lorenzo Editore

via don Mazzolari, 27 - 26010 Chieve (Cr)

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Designer’s NotesTHE AIM OF THIS SIMULATION

In any wargame, simulation is a compromise between reality and game play. As with all compromises, youneed to focus upon the objectives, know what you want to obtain and decide what you are willing to leave out.You have to choose your “view of the battlefield”. There’s no point in wasting time on the details of the woundthat a crossbow bolt may cause at 30 metres to a knight with partial plate armour when the aim is to simu-late large battles between masses of often poorly trained men divided into classes but united by similar super-stitions and, in some cases, great individualism. Impetus simulates the behaviour of these units and examinestheir ability to inflict damage and maintain cohesion in the critical moments of the battle.

THE END BEFORE THE MEANSWargame rules are often divided into those that attempt to recreate the “process” and those that strivetowards a “result”. Without reaching certain abstractions seen in some recent sets of rules, Impetus is cer-tainly part of the second category. Thisimplies, for example, that if a turn indicati-vely represents 15-20 minutes of real battleand archers are only allowed to fire once, itdoesn’t necessarily mean that an archercould only fire once every 15 minutes, butrather than the effect of missile fire is sum-med up in one firing phase and even the rateof fire, which was different for an Englisharcher in the 100 Years’ War or for a Genoancrossbowman, is summed up in their probabi-lity of inflicting damage.

UNPREDICTABILITY’A fundamental characteristic of Impetus is the “unpredictability” factor. It is hard to say exactly what willhappen on the battlefield in the next turn thanks to a turn sequence that breaks away from the rigid logic ofalternate moves. You are allowed to measure distances before you move, even if there is nothing to prevent players fromagreeing differently. But you won’t always be able to plan the distance you’ll cover with a charge and youwon’t always reach a melee in the conditions you had hoped for. You can’t trust the quality of your Generalstoo much either as their performance is not constant.All of these variables involve the players more emotionally in the game, and help them to abandon a “toorational” and “chess-like” approach.

THE VISUAL ASPECTImpetus is a three-dimensionalwargame so it’s important thatthe typical atmosphere of abattlefield in Ancient times orduring the Renaissance isrepresented in the visualaspect of the miniatures deplo-yed on the table. The use oflarger bases allows the crea-tion of small dioramas thatcan more easily represent theformations of the period. Unlike other rules, in Impetusunits remain on the table untilthey are routed and thus elimi-nated from play and there is no28mm Gripping Beast

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progressive removal of figures. You may wish to use the markers that you can download from theDadi&Piombo web site. If you want to further improve the visual aspect of your battlefield then replace themarkers with little three-dimensional scenes... you won’t regret it!

SIMPLE GAME MECHANICSDespite the fact that these rules are well structured, the game is still fast moving, as another aim of Impetusis to allow the reconstruction of an entire battle in an evening. The game mechanics are simple and it’s easyto remember the rules after your first few battles, so the need to refer to the manual during play is reduced toa minimum.

AFFORDABLEYou don’t need huge numbers of miniatures to play Impetus. In order to build a typical 15mm 500-point armyyou’ll need around 150-200 miniatures, and this number drops dramatically for 25/28mm armies thanks tothe flexible basing system (see 1.3), making this scale affordable too. The points system allows for smallerbattles with less miniatures, or pitched battles with hundreds of miniatures and several players on each side.

SUPPORTYou will find scenarios, army lists and rules clarifications in the wargames magazine Dadi&Piombo(www.dadiepiombo.com) and also in future supplements. There is also an official forum athttp://impetus.forumsland.com and a mailing list at IMPETVS@yahoogroups.com, where you can meet theinternational community of Impetus players, discuss rules interpretations, and find out about news andappointments regarding the game.

Base, a number of miniatures fixed ontoa rectangular support, corresponding to aUnitImpetus bonus, see 7.4Depth bonus, see 7.3C-in-C, Commander-in-Chief, see 2.7Commanders, see 2.7Command, a number of Units under theorders of a Commander. An army hasfrom 1 to 4 Commands.d6, a six-sided dieDiscipline see 2.4Disorder see 2.6.3Active player is the player with the ini-tiativeLarge Unit, a permanent Unit compri-

sing 2 or 3 Units e.g. Pikemen. Group of Units, two or more Units thatare temporarily next to each other andthat act togetherImpetuous (troops), see 5.3Opportunity, see 2.6.4U, Unit of measurement for movementand distances, see 1.4Unit, basic tactical element, see 2.3Command Structure, see 2.7Cohesion Test, see 6.2Discipline Test, see 2.4.1VBU (Basic Unit Value), see 2.3VD (Demoralisation Value), see 8.1 VDT (Total Demoralisation Value), see8.1

GLOSSARY

As you will have noticed, we have chosen not to translate the codes that identify troop types and have keptthe original Italian version instead.Although “FP” (Heavy Infantry) could have been translated as “HI”, hopefully the fact that we’ve left themlike this means that you will have much greater access to forums that are dedicated to Impetus all over theworld as well as the Army Lists that are published by users from all five continents. In the same way, you’llbe able to publish your Army Lists without any modification at all. The other abbreviations used in the game(VBU, etc) have also been left in Italian for the same reason.

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1.0 INTRODUCTION p. 51.1 THE MANUAL1.2 MATERIAL NEEDED1.2.1 The Battlefield1.3 BASING1.3.1 Base Sizes1.3.2 Number of Miniatures on a

base/Unit1.3.3 Basing Commanders1.4 GAME SCALE1.5 MARKERS1.5.1 Defending a Built-Up Area

2.0 THE TROOPS p. 92.1 ARMY BUILDING2.2 CLASSIFICATION OF TROOP

TYPES2.3 THE UNITS2.4 DISCIPLINE2.4.1 The Discipline Test2.5 LARGE UNITS AND GROUPS

OF UNITS2.5.1 Large Units2.5.2 Groups of Units2.6 UNIT STATUS2.6.1 Fresh and Worn Units2.6.2 Routed Units 2.6.3 Disordered Units2.6.4 Units and Groups on

Opportunity2.7 COMMANDERS AND COM-

MAND STRUCTURE2.7.1 Genius and Charismatic

Commanders2.7.2 Incompetent and Cowardly

Commanders2.7.3 Changing the General’s Level 2.8 BAGGAGE

3.0 TERRAIN AND DEPLOYMENT p. 17

3.1 TERRAIN3.1.1 Terrain types and effects on

movement3.1.2 Fords and Bridges

3.1.3 Terrain types, Line of Sight andeffect on combat

3.2 SIZE AND SHAPE3.3 PREPARING THE TERRAIN3.4 DEPLOYMENT3.5 AMBUSHES3.6 PERMANENT FORTIFICATION

AND PROTECTION3.6.1 Permanent Fortifications3.6.2 Protection

4.0 INITIATIVE AND ACTIVATION p. 21

4.1 ACTIVATION AND THE TURNSEQUENCE

4.1.1 Deciding Initiative andActivation of Units/Groups

4.1.2 Rally4.1.3 Actions of Units on Opportunity4.2 ZONE OF CONTROL AND

OPPORTUNITY

5.0 MOVEMENT p. 245.1 IN GENERAL5.2 GROUP MOVEMENT5.3 MOVEMENT OF IMPETUOUS

TROOPS5.4 WHEELING AND OTHER

MOVEMENTS5.4.1 Wheels5.4.2 Sideways and oblique move-

ment5.4.3 Movement to the rear5.4.4 Wheels, sideways and oblique

movement by Groups5.4.5 About turn5.5 MOVEMENT OF WAR CHA-

RIOTS 5.6 MOVEMENT WITH MOBILE

DEFENCES 5.6.1 Pointed stakes5.6.2 Pavises5.7 MOVEMENT OF ARTILLERY5.8 CHARGES5.8.1 Charge Movement Bonus5.8.2 Opportunity Charge5.9 COUNTER-CHARGES5.9.1 Counter-charging5.10 INTERPENETRATION5.10.1 Voluntary Interpenetration5.10.2 Involuntary Interpenetration5.10.3 Interpenetration by wheeling5.10.4 Line relief between Hastati and

Principes5.11 EVASION AND DISENGAGE-

MENT 5.11.1 Evasion by Light Cavalry and

Skirmishers5.11.2 Evasion and limitations to firing5.11.3 Disengagement 5.12 DISMOUNTING5.13 COOPERATION BETWEEN

HARQUEBUSIERS, MUSKE-TEERS AND PIKEMEN

5.14 OFF-TABLE MOVEMENT

6.0 FIRING p. 326.1 IN GENERAL6.1.1 Firing6.1.2 Firing Table6.1.3 Modifiers to the number of dice6.1.4 Damage inflicted6.2 COHESION TEST6.2.1 Losses due to Accumulation of

Disorder after receiving fire6.2.2 Panicked Elephants after recei-

ving fire6.2.3 Losing a Commander under fire6.3 FIRING LIMITATIONS6.3.1 Firing arc6.3.2 Visibility and Measurement6.3.3 Target engaged in melee6.3.4 Firing Priorities 6.4 INDIRECT FIRE6.5 OPPORTUNITY FIRE6.6 THROWING THE PILUM

7.0 MELEE p. 377.1 IN GENERAL7.2 DIRECTION OF THE CHARGE

AND EFFECTS7.2.1 Frontal Charge 7.2.2 Charge from the Flank or Rear7.3 DEPTH BONUS OF LARGE

UNITS7.4 IMPETUS BONUS7.5 OTHER TACTICAL MODIFIERS7.6 FIGHTING A MELEE7.6.1 Loss due to Accumulation of

Disorder after melee7.6.2 Loss of Melee and Retreat of

the defeated Unit 7.6.3 Retreat of a Unit engaged on

the flank7.6.4 Pursuit7.6.5 Melee in more than one phase7.6.6 Losing a Commander in melee7.7 MELEE WITH MULTIPLE UNITS 7.7.1 Contact between non-parallel

lines7.7.2 Contact between parallel lines7.7.3 Multiple melee7.7.4 Multiple melee in more than one

phase7.8 DISPERSION OF SKIRMIS-

HERS7.8.1 Skirmishers in melee with

Scythed Chariots and Elephants7.9 ARTILLERY IN MELEE7.10 SACKING BAGGAGE

8.0 VICTORY CONDITIONS p. 43

8.1 GENERAL RULE8.2 LOSS OF A COMMANDER8.2.1 A Commander flees8.2.2 Capture or death of a

Commander

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1.1 THE MANUALImpetus is a set of wargame rules that aims to simu-late battles with miniature figures in the Ancient,Medieval and Renaissance periods. The extremelyflexible system allows you to recreate over 3,000years of history, from Ancient Sumeria to the GreatItalian Wars, without forgetting future expansions forother historical periods. You will find Army Lists at the back of this book thatwill help you to prepare some famous armies imme-diately, whilst at the same time providing examplesof how these lists were designed. Other official lists,together with the historical presentation of somearmies, will be published in further supplements and,together with scenarios, in the Dadi&Piombo warga-mes magazine.

1.2 MATERIAL NEEDEDIn order to play Impetus you’ll need some miniatu-res. These rules let you use any scale of miniaturesthat are normally used for wargames: 25/28mm,20mm (also known as 1/72), 15mm, 10mm and5/6mm. You will also need a few 6-sided dice (hereaf-ter called d6), a centimetre ruler, some markers (see1.5) and a playing surface that recreates the battle-field, with hills, rivers, woods, villages and so on.

1.2.1 The BattlefieldThe size of the battlefield will vary according to thetype of troops you use but above all it will depend ontheir scale. We advise these minimum measurements:SCALE 300 POINTS 500 POINTS20 - 25/28mm 180x120cm 240x180cm5 – 10 - 15mm 120x90cm 180x120cm

1.3 BASINGIn order to play, the miniatures must be based on rec-tangles of card, wood, plastic or another rigid mate-rial. These rectangles are called Bases. Often, diffe-rent sets of rules indicate different basing systems andthis creates countless problems for players. Howeverit must also be said that for the period covered byImpetus we have seen a move towards standard basedimensions in recent years.Impetus uses a basing system that is compatiblewith the most commonly played game systems. Inparticular, a Unit in Impetus, that corresponds to asingle large Base, has a frontage that is twice thestandard used in the most commonly found games.The measurements that follow are not strict asregards base depth and thus allow the use of armiesthat have already been based for other systems, and

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1.0 INTRODUCTION1.0 INTRODUCTION

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1.3.1 Base sizes

25/28mm and 20mm (1/72)

For both 25/28mm and 20mm (1/72), all Units have a 12cm frontage. Depth may vary according to troop type:

Seleucid Turks - 28mm Black Tree Design

Feudal Infantry28mm Black Tree Design

French Ordonnance - 20mm ZvezdaSamnites - 20mm

Wagenburg 16cm (or more ifnecessary)

Cavalry 8cmHeavy Infantry 4cm (or 6cm)Light Infantry and Missile Troops 6cmSkirmishers 3 o 4cmChariots, Artillery and Elephants 6cm (or 8cm)

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