Here is a look at why we thought Falling Sky deserved an Ariovistus expansion, what comes in the package, and how we chose what to include. (Quotations from Caesar’s Gallic War are translations by Carolyn Hammond, Oxford University Press.)

When Andrew and I endeavored to set a COIN Series volume in ancient Gaul, we immediately decided on the latter years of Caesar’s campaigns there. My own starting point was a suggestion from David Dockter that I try my hand at a design on “Roman-style counterinsurgency”, that is to say, counter-revolt. Andrew suggested the portion of Caesar’s Commentaries that more concerned revolt than conquest. The latter period of mobilizing confederations of tribes—Ambiorix of the Belgic Eborones (in 53BC) and Vercingetorix of the Celtic Arverni (in 52BC)—in separate attempts to throw the Romans out of Gaul seemed an excellent fit to a game Series about insurgency.

 “It would be a great advantage to [Caesar] simply to land on the island and observe the kind of people who lived there, and the localities, harbours, and approaches.” – Caesar, regarding his first expedition to Britannia, 55BC [4.20]

Moreover, the exploratory rather than emergency nature of Caesar’s forays into Britannia in 55BC and again in 54BC—as well as his vulnerably dispersed wintering of several legions in Belgica the following winter (as a solution to a bad harvest) that Ambiorix exploited—indicated an interlude in the Gallic War that seemed to punctuate an early phase of conquest, before a later phase of consolidation by the occupier and fighting to enforce Roman rule.  Falling Sky’s longest scenario, “Pax Gallica?”, begins just as Caesar is wrapping up his second Britannic expedition, and so starts with the run-up to the second, serious crisis in Gaul that is the game’s topic.

We have no regret. The stories of Ambiorix’s uprising and Vercingetorix’s “Great Revolt” as well as its denouement well suit the COIN Series, we hope you will agree. But we do not want “counterinsurgency” to straight-jacket the range of application of the system that the Series establishes. And it has not, as the focus of the upcoming Volume VIII, Pendragon, on raiding and counter-raiding, settlement and acculturation, and the transition from Imperial to Dark-Ages warfare and politics attests.

“The Suebi are by far the greatest and most aggressive of all the German peoples.” – Caesar [4.1]

So a look via Falling Sky at that earlier phase of the Gallic War seems apt. Caesar’s earlier years in Gaul—the War’s first half—offers an equally rich story and cast of characters as its second half covered in the game. Unlike the smaller Germanic incursions and peripheral involvement in the fighting among Romans and Gauls in the base game’s period of 54BC on, Caesar’s first year in Gaul (58BC) saw a Germanic threat worthy of portrayal by a player Faction. The great, restless Germanic Suebi tribe under Ariovistus posed a realistic possibility of Germanic dominion within eastern Gaul.

We noted, for example, that designer Daniel Berger’s enjoyable Caesar’s Gallic War (Worthington Games) chooses in covering the entire War to cast its two players not as Roman versus Gaul, but Roman versus German—Caesar versus Ariovistus—with the various Gallic tribes as subject to recruitment by either player and alliance with either side, and only with the advent of Vercingetorix taking on a more forcefully anti-Roman character.

The situation in Gaul from the first year that Caesar’s legions stepped beyond Provincia on was different—as far as pertaining to “COIN”—from the later years of Ambiorix and Vercingetorix, but not entirely so. In his communiques to Rome, Caesar soon and then repeatedly asserted his control over the whole of Gaul, both by implicit right and by military, political, or diplomatic reality:

 “All the Belgae … were hatching a plot against the Roman people and exchanging hostages. … They were afraid that our army would march against them now that all the rest of Gaul had been subdued.” – Caesar, early 57BC [2.1]

“Publius Crassus, whom Caesar had sent with a legion against the Veneti [and other coastal tribes] sent him news that all those states had been brought under the power and dominion of the Roman people. Once this action was over the whole of Gaul was pacified. … The peoples living on the other side of the Rhine sent envoys to Caesar: they promised to give him hostages and to obey his commands.” – Caesar, late 57BC [2.34‑35]

“But although all Gaul was now subdued, the Morini and Menapii still remained ready for war.” – Caesar, late 56BC [3.28]

Propaganda, yes, but a story that Caesar must have expected his audiences back in Rome to swallow, or he would not have written it. With various tribes’ gestures of acquiescence in if not outright submission to his authority coming in from all corners of Gaul, his claim of a state of Roman rule was not a ludicrous one. Tribes that might resist the Romans were for practical purposes in (often isolated) revolt, and Caesar’s objective would be to contain and suppress in turn each that stirred.

So Andrew and I had from Caesar’s history a perspective that invited application of the same core “COIN” model to the early Gallic War as we had used to portray the period of “revolt” that followed just a few years later. Our expansion game was born.

From there we wanted to see how we might deliver the full saga of the Gallic War, within a single extended scenario that begins with Caesar’s entry into the Gallic fray, through the campaigns against Ariovistus and against the Nervii, the effects of their outcome after a 55-54BC interlude on the situation upon Ambiorix’s uprising that winter, and finally onward to the rise of Vercingetorix and the final verdict on dominion over Gaul.  With the resulting scenario, “The Gallic War”, Falling Sky aficionados would be able to compete to reshape of the base game’s 54BC scenario for an even more varied story.

Here then was an opportunity for us to bring Falling Sky players that story, with low-cost addition to existing components and systems in the base game. To present Caesar and the Gallic players with a threat on the scale of that posed historically by Ariovistus and his Suebi-led Germanic tribes, we needed to add more Germanic Forces to the game: 15 additional Germanic Warbands to form a suitably impressive horde, 6 Settlements to add migration and colonization as a new and integral feature of play, and—naturally!—a new Leader piece for the great Sueban himself, Ariovistus. To that, we have to add Eligibility and Resource cylinders for the new player Faction—a total of 24 embossed wooden pieces.

“Dumnorix’s brother, Diviciacus, was at that time chief magistrate of the Aedui and a very popular ruler.” – Caesar, introducing his readers to Diviciacus, early 58BC [1.3]

To that, Andrew wanted to add a Leader for the Aedui: Diviciacus. Caesar’s dear Aeduan friend was particularly influential during this earlier period, if the quantity of Caesar’s mentions of him is any guide. So we added a blue Diviciacus piece that provides the joint Aedui-Roman Command ability of the Diviciacus Event Capability, with a few twists.

Designers’ prototype expansion bits (not final art).
The 25 new wooden pieces will be embossed (not stickered).

So should we allow for five players or again just four? The question comes naturally, especially for anyone who knows Wary Ferrell’s award-winning Sword of Rome , and its expansion that added a fifth player role taking on the previously non-player Carthaginians.

Ariovistus adds a Germanic player but relegates the Arverni to a “mini-bot”, similar to the Germans in the base game. We went that way mainly because we did not see a sufficiently consequential single confederation of tribes during this period that might justify a fifth faction. The Arverni and a variety of other Celtic tribes posed disjointed resistance or support to the various major factions during 58-54BC—much like that by the fractious and only occasionally outward-looking Germanic tribes of the later 50s and familiar to Falling Sky players. So a game-run Arverni Faction made sense.

Additional, practical reasons for staying with a 4-player game were that permutations of 5-player initiative – 120 instead of 24 – are too many for a normal deck to accommodate. And we could not in any case therewith have leveraged existing Falling Sky cards (built for four) to keep the expansion’s purchase price low. Finally, we would be introducing a major, unproven change to the COIN Sequence of Play.

The Arverni Faction in the expansion game, then, represents not only that tribe, but others of Celtica, including the Helvetii, whose migration toward the Aedui gave Caesar his pretext for war in the first place. The game system for most part runs this “Arverni and Other Celts” Faction (I call it the “Celtibot”), occasionally pricked into action by the players, often the Germans who are looking for threats to distract Caesar and Diviciacus.

Sample Ariovistus playtest cards (not final text or art), showing Arverni/Celts carnyx “trigger” symbol.

Unlike the Germans in the base game, with their single activation phase each Winter, the Arverni/Celts activate frequently during the campaign—should they be at war. Carnyx symbols added to the new cards trigger a check, and if any Factions are infringing on Arverni/Celtic interests, the Celts will mobilize and fight back.

As Mark Herman and I noted elsewhere in InsideGMT, one can always find ways to improve upon what has been printed. An expansion to Falling Sky would provide Andrew and me an opportunity to do that sooner than otherwise. And so GMT approved including not just an expansion but also a couple improvements to the base game in the package.

The first is re-engineered Non-player sheets and rules. With big, bloody battles and the need to keep key leaders from death or capture, Falling Sky play calls for a certain type of circumspect caution not needed in the modern guerrilla warfare settings of the COIN Series’ first few volumes. This need required us to craft the Non-players’ strategies as more conservative: they will tend to build up for some time before risking big stabs at the enemy that might invite disaster.

But we found with experience that we can refine the current Non-player’s strategy style to one that is more aggressive but typically not reckless. So we have a (so-far only) home-tested “2.0” version of the Roman, Arverni, Aedui, and Belgae flowcharts that provide an even more threatening environment for the solo contender for Gaul. And so we have thrown them onto the pile offered here.

A second set of items included in the expansion package and usable in the base game is physically improved Available Forces mats. Why new mats? The base game’s mats are printed on the usual GMT card stock. We have heard of no reported problems with wear and tear yet: the existing mats seem perfectly serviceable. Nevertheless, the heavy use that we expect for them makes it worthwhile and prudent to offer a more durable alternative. We had in any case to include new Germanic mat, to accommodate the additional Germanic Forces provide in the expansion: Germanic Settlements, more Germanic Warbands, Ariovistus himself.

Prototype Ariovistus Germanic Tribes player mat (not final art).

Finally, we also added a handful of tweaks to Event cards for the original Falling Sky deck. Why? Because we could! These updated cards involve some minor balancing of Event effects—either strengthening or weakening them—based on what we have learned from play of the published game since this past Spring, or clarification of Event text, for a total of seven Events.

Andrew and I are quite excited now to get this playtest design into the hands of playtesters. Mike Bertucelli will again be developing the design. And of course we will have a new “Germanibot” Non-player for the new full-scale Germanic Tribes Faction, so as to allow solitaire play as Caesar all the way from Bibracte to Alesia.

Lock shields and advance!

Author: Volko Ruhnke