The Dying of the Light: Late Roman Wargaming with Lion Rampant

I'll be running a game at the HMGS Fall In convention next month in Lancaster, PA.  This will be The Dying of the Light, a Fall of Rome scenario set in my fictional Roman province of Ruritania sometime in the 4th century.  It will pit four factions of barbarian invaders against four factions of Late Romans and allies.  There will encouragements for players, particularly among the Romans, to attack other players on their own side.  I'll be using a slight modified version of the Lion Rampant rules.  Although Lion Rampant is a skirmish game, I'm using it as a sort of pseudo-strategic vehicle.  The game will be decided by victory points, represented by coins, with the barbarians acquiring coins for sacking various locations on the board and the Romans for having these locations intact by the end of the game.

This is going to be on a double sized table, about 6" x 8". My game room isn't large enough for this sized table so I did the test set-up in two stages.

This is one side of the table, representing the main area of the province of Ruritania.  One corner contains the provincial capital of Colonia Stresona.  There are also a few villages, villas, a state-owned granary (taxes were often paid in kind in the late Empire), a church, and a settlement belonging to the Roman-allied (at least initially) Sarmatian tribe, the Ruritanii, for whom the province is named.

The other side of the table will be the frontier area, dominated by the might Ister Flumens.

Here's some shots of the various forces involved:

 Queen Amalsuntha of the Gepids

Aurelius Victor, an Imperial pretender

 Victor is supported by a sizable army

 The Comitatenses of the Dux Ruritanicum

 The Sarmatian Ruritanii

Huns and their Slavic allies 

Less than enthusiastic Limitanei

Some "action" shots:

Warning signals from the border outpost

Defending the river

Breaching the river defenses

Goths engaged with Roman troops

The city prepares for the barbarian onslaught