Armies of Oerth, Part I: Bigby

Over the last year, I have been bitten again by the bug of wargaming. I confess to being an on-again/off-again “Armchair General” for many years. Sitting with my morning cup of coffee, evaluating military actions of the past…it smells like victory! Sure, it is Monday morning quarterbacking from the safe distance of the 21st century, but there is something satisfyingly tangibly three-dimensional about battles with miniatures. Moving through real space and time; recreating scenarios from Hannibal, Caesar, etc… it can be a lot of fun. Now, combine this with a love for fantasy role-playing games and the urge becomes almost irresistible.

I recently found a new wargame system to play called Field of Glory from Osprey Publishing. It drew me in with its nicely compact rulebook and supplements and offers a wide variety of armies and time periods to playout scenarios. About this same time, I was going through some early Dragon Magazines and digging up information on Gary Gygax’s World of Greyhawk. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across some information regarding the armies of Oerth.

One of the earliest gems I found was in Dragon #37. It has a great Sorcerer's Scroll article by Gygax on Greyhawk's evolution, and (at the time) its intended future. At the end of the article, he gave us an added bonus: Orders of Battle for certain renowned figures from the Greyhawk world - Bigby, Mordenkainen, Robilar, Tenser & "Erac's Cousin". Earlier in the same article, Gary spoke of having a set of rules to set forth the orders of battle of the various governing states of the Flanaess. Players would be able to fight the major battles which could affect the course of history in the World of Greyhawk. Knowing of his roots in wargaming and interest in military history, I would hypothesize the orders of battle given are entirely playable (with probably a few adjustments) for whichever wargaming system one was to use.

As I am currently experimenting with Field of Glory, I intend to represent these armies accordingly. Each base of models can normally represent 250 men-at-arms, but the rules quickly suggest to ignore this (I suppose a player should unless one has an incredibly large battle-table and lots of toy soldiers to fill it with!). The player is advised to treat an army as a coherant whole, representing whatever full-sized army its prototype usually fielded. It aims for reaching the correct shape and feel of the army for a more realistic representation of how it fought. Since this system was not designed with fantasy games in mind, it eliminates the use of magic. Still I think it will be a good system to experiment with. So, looking over the army lists, I have decided each model base should represent approximately 25 men-at-arms each. The reason for the smaller ratio is to allow more bases/models on the board to properly play with.

I would love to build and test all of these armies. But until I can collect sufficient models and have the available time, I am limited to using proxy bases marked for the appropriate troop types. Besides, there are several more related articles from other Dragon Magazines giving additional battle forces for some of the greater state armies. So, to help inspire any other "Armchair Generals" out there with some time on their hands, I will keep it simple and focus on these initial five lists. The first one to look at is:

Bigby's Army List

This army is actually centered in a very good area related to the City of Greyhawk and its surrounding Lands of Oerik, specifically somewhere between the Shield Lands & Bandit Kingdoms. Battlewise, this can bring them into oppostion with the Horned Society, Iuz, or even the Kingdom of Furyondy depending on which way this neutral-alligned force may wish to involve itself.

Commander-in-Chief: Bigby (MU of 18th level) = 1 base

One piece of triviaI found was "His personal symbol is an open palm behind a large, stylized bumblebee". I do not know if this is from his original beginnings when run by Gary Gygax, or if it was simply added to the character's history at some point later by others. Due to the thematic nature of many spells bearing his name, the 'open palm' is certainly a safe symbol to go with for now.

Heavy Cavalry: 50 (Elite) = 2 bases
(3 models/base; knights on horses, heavy armour & barding, hand weapons)

Medium Cavalry: 100 (Regulars) = 4 bases
(3 models/base; riders on horses, leather armour & moderate shields, hand weapons)

Light Cavalry: 100 (Regulars) = 4 bases
(2 models/base; riders on horses, no armour, small shields, hand weapons)

Light Horse Archers: 100 (Levied) = 4 bases
(2 models/base; riders on horses, no armour, small shields, bows)

Armored Infantry: 50 (Elite) = 2 base
(4 models/base; foot troops, helm, chest armour & substantial shields, hand weapons)

Heavy Infantry: 180 (Regulars) = 8 bases
(4 models/base; foot troops, heavy armour & substantial shields, hand weapons)

Light Crossbowmen: 100 (Regulars) = 4 bases
(2 models/base; foot troops, no armour, small shields, crossbows)

Heavy Crossbowmen: 50 (Regulars) = 2 bases
(4 models/base; foot troops, heavy armour & substantial shields, crossbows)

Pikemen: 100 (Elite) = 4 bases
(3 models/base; foot troops, leather armour & moderate shields, pikes)

So, this totals 35 bases with 103 models on them.

It is mentioned this force has been occasionally allied with:

Elven Infantry: 200 = 8 bases
(3 models/base; foot troops, leather armour & moderate shields, swords/hand weapons)

Kron Hills Dwarven Infantry: 150 = 6 bases
(3 models/base; foot troops, leather armour & moderate shields, axes/hand weapons)

With another 14 bases and 42 models among them, these two additions lend themselves as a nice expansion with more modeling opportunities.

Next time: Mordenkainen

Ciao!
Grendelwulf