Iron League Campaign: Troop Strengths

Continuing on from my previous post about a hypothetical Iron League campaign that would have parallel D&D adventurers and large-scale warfare, I've collated the various accounts from those Dragon magazine articles and come up with the following troop type totals. These are the overall totals for each major participant; in the articles there is a lot of talk of forces being split, dwarves sent to reinforce other armies, etc. I've gone ahead and combined all of the troops mentioned for each side, so all the forces of the dwur-king of the Iron Hills are listed under his banner, whether they were sent to reinforce Idee in CY 578...

The forces of the Great Kingdom:

	South Province	Medegia	TOTAL
Heavy cavalry	3,000	1,500	4,500
Medium cavalry	3,000	-	3,000
Light cavalry	5,000	2,300	7,300
Light cavalry (mercenary)	-	500	500
Regular infantry	3,000	1,900	4,900
Regular infantry (mercenaries)	6,000	3,300	9,300
Levies	15,000	3,700	18,700
Humanoids	5,000	6,200	11,200
TOTAL	40,000	19,400	59,400

And the forces of the Iron League:

	Sunndi	Irongate	Iron Hills	Idee	Onnwal	TOTAL
Heavy cavalry	-	200	-	1,000	-	1,200
Medium cavalry	-	-	-	2,000	-	2,000
Light cavalry	1,500	-	-	-	-	1,500
Light cavalry (mercenary)	-	-	-	1,000	-	1,000
Regular infantry	4,000	-	-	3,000	3,000	10,000
Regular infantry (marines)	-	1,000	-	-	-	1,000
Regular infantry (mercenaries)	-	-	-	2,000	-	2,000
Levies	6,000	2,000	-	2,000	4,000	14,000
Hillmen	1,000	2,000	-	3,000	-	6,000
Woodsmen	1,000	-	-	-	-	1,000
Dwarves	1,000	-	14,000	-	-	15,000
Gnomes	1,000	-	6,000	-	-	7,000
Halflings	1,000	-	-	-	-	1,000
Elves	4,000	-	-	-	-	4,000
TOTAL	20,500	5,200	20,000	14,000	7,000	66,700

Next up, turning those raw numbers into actual army lists...

Read More

Iron League Campaign: Overview

One of the things that always fascinated me about the World of Greyhawk was the series of articles produced by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz back in the early 1980's that detailed events in the Flanaess. Mostly there were details about troop strengths and movements, battles that had taken place on both land and sea, and political machinations. (Which, as an aside, actually fit in beautifully with the events that were later laid out in Greyhawk Wars and From the Ashes, despite many fans' deprecation of those works.) There were also other fantastic events sprinkled in there, some of which were picked up with and run with by later authors (the transformation of Lendore Isle in the Spindrift Isles being a prominent example).

But the notion that there were armies constantly on the move, and the states on the beautiful Darlene map weren't static entities but fluid things whose borders were constantly ebbing and flowing, with marriages and wars making real changes to the map, that really stuck with me.

Most specifically, several of the articles detailed the efforts by the Great Kingdom to put down its hostile southern neighbors of the Iron League and re-absorb them into its own polity. We heard how both Herzog Chelor, ruler of South Province, and His Equitable Nemesis of Medegia, Imperial Constable Spidasa, were competing to see which of them could bring the wayward territories of the Iron League-- consisting of the free city of Irongate, Onnwal, Idee, Sunndi, the Lordship of the Isles, and the dwarf-king of the Iron Hills-- under their sway. Both of them, of course, were also under close scrutiny from the Overking in Rauxes because their loyalty had as of late not been all that it could have been. Wonderful stuff. (Bear in mind this takes place around 578 CY, two years after the publication of the Gazetteer.)

As I've said before, I always thought that would make a terrific game; maybe a wargame, or even a board game. There's certainly enough there to keep a regular D&D campaign in swing for years. But especially, I think it would make a terrific setting for a miniatures wargame campaign. Maybe both. The major players would be:

• Herzog Chelor Herzog of South Province (Aerdy)
• Holy Censor Spidasa of Medegia (Aerdy)
• Szek Eward Destron of Onnwal (Iron League)
• Lord High Mayor Cobb Darg of Irongate (Iron League)
• King Holgi of the Iron Hills (Iron League)
• Count Fedorik Eddri of Idee (Iron League)
• Count Hazendel of Sunndi, Olvensteward of the South (Iron League)

And possibly the following as well:

• The Marshal of the Southern and Western Provinces of the Great Kingdom (Aerdy)
• Constable Mayor Drax of the Free City of Rel Astra (Aerdy)
• Lord High Admiral Sencho Foy of the Sea Barons (Aerdy)
• Woodsmen and olvenfolk of the Grandwood Forest (Iron League)
• Prince Latmac Ranold of the Lordship of the Isles (Iron League)  
• The Councils of Five and Seven of the Spindrift Isles (neutral)

What strikes me is how well balanced the major players are. Both the Iron League and Aerdy sides total approximately 60,000 troops each (broken out into different types, obviously-- order of battle coming soon). 

Now, naturally, something like this would be a serious undertaking. A regular D&D adventure campaign, with everything that entails, run concurrently with a miniatures wargame campaign that included both land and sea battles. With everything integrated. Large-scale battles would be decided by tabletop miniatures wargames, using Field of Glory for land battles and my own homebrew system (based on Avalon Hill's "Trireme") for sea battles. 

So this isn't an official announcement or anything, but merely some musings at this point. Perhaps later they'll turn into a real announcement...

Read More