Dreaming of Hyboria

 

Hyboria is one of those wargaming rabbit holes that can distract you for months or even years. It used to be only possible if you lots of wargaming ancient and medieval armies, time and gaming friends. There were no Ospreys books or Codex to lay everything out for you. Names of regiments their uniforms, generals, royal houses, you invent as long as they are in the spirit of Hyboria. Dusty armies sitting in your wargames cupboard suddenly are re-evaluated. Eygptians become the Stygian Guard of Thos Amon, Medieval French the might of Aquilonia, and Saracens the host of Turan. That barbarian figure with bulging muscles and dodgy man bob hair cut, Conan the wandering Cimmerian hero.

What is Hyboria?

Ah, I knew you'd ask me that. It is the land invented by fantasy novelist Robert E Howard but set in our Earth's pre history. Sorry there are no no dwarves and elves for you D&D fans. Mankind is in ascendancy but there are undead, and a sprinkling of unholy demons and random monsters (...giant snake anyone?). Here sorcerers are mighty, princesses seductive but treacherous, rulers cruel and despotic. The primary sources are the Conan novels, comics and Red Sonya graphic novel. Although much of the useful stuff like maps, cities and culture is available in roleplaying guides by TSR or Mongoose and online fanzines. Hyborian Age 2D10 Campaign Site is probably the best.

Turan war host: ready to march (Italeri :Saracens 1/72)

Who's this Tony Bath then?

Enter Tony Bath one of the grand daddies of British wargaming. He wrote a series of articles for Puzzles and Games and White Dwarf (issue 4! ) of how he used Hyboria to as backdrop for a series of ancient battles which grew into a campaign. He used German flats (zinnfiguren) rather than rounded figures. His shock troops were notorious Vendhyan elephants which delivered a thundering charge.(...hence the elephant motif!) Epic Hyborian battles were played with Don Featherstone and Tony Bath wrote his conclusions in the book Setting Up an Ancients Campaign.

Hyborian Armies

Serveral nations are easily identified: Aquilonia is medieval France although the comics confused things by portraying them as Romans. Turan are Saracens, Ophir is Ouremer, Hyrkania is Mongolia, Corinth is Ancient Greece, Vannaheim are Vikings, Stygia Ancient Egypt, Shem: Arabia or Assyria, The Black Kingdoms are ancient Numidians, Zingara is Reconquista Spain and Zamora is Persia.   The eastern nations: Vendyha is Mogul India and Khitai is medieval China. Some of the nations are harder to identify Argos could be Merchant Venice or it could be a seafaring Greeks like Syracuse. Pictland though named after ancient Scotland is inhabited by American Woodland Indians. Bossonia is the Welsh marches. Hopefully this gives us an excuse to pit diverse ancient and medieval armies against each other. If the armies are not geographical neighbours then most of the royal houses used mercenaries. 

Wargame rules

Whichever ancient and medieval rules take your fancy. My personal favourites are Warhammer Ancient Battles, Warmaster, De Belles Antiqutatis and Hordes of The Things. These systems incorporate magic and monsters if need be, although the fantasy elements in Hyboria shouldn't dominate the game as they do might do in Warhammer Fantasy or D&D.

Warband or skirmish level games are possible with Song of Blades and Heroes, Frostgrave and Dragon Rampant. Its mostly humans, there are limited fantasy warbands but these are exotic: wyvern, giant snake, snakemen or lizardmen, undead (ghouls, skeletons, vampires) frost giants, and ape-men to include in your encounter charts.

Maps

Maps are pretty important to Hyboria. If you were setting up a campaign the are Tony Bath's original maps are online. Or maybe go for the Hyborian Risk Map from Borad Game Geek. Or the Age of Hyboria PBM if you need economic or recruiting territories. To detail with cities and roads and geography see adress hyboria.xoth.net/maps.

[To be continued]