Glutter of Ravens: Warfare in the Age of Arthur

Glutter of Ravens was first published in 1998 and became known as an essential guide to wargaming the Arthurian period. This 2024 "Author's Edition" is a reproduction of the original text but features a new layout, additional notes, and the author’s new preface. Part One contains a set of miniature wargaming rules designed to recreate and play battles in post-Roman Britain. These rules allow players to take the part of historical leaders, who field an army representing the warriors of their kingdom and fight using the tactics of the period. The rules are fairly simple to learn, and there are no hard and fast restrictions governing the size of miniatures used. Part Two will be of interest to anybody who cares for the historical King Arthur and the military history of his time. This part of the book describes the warriors of the period, the way in which battles were fought, and the equipment used by the fighting man of Arthurian Britain.

I've also made available a printable Army Sheet and QRS in case you just buy the printed version of this book.

Important note about the Author’s Edition: With the closure of the original publisher, Outpost Wargame Services, Glutter of Ravens fell out of print so I decided to revive it. I’ve done this as a labour of love to keep my vintage book about early medieval wargaming in circulation and also finally make it available as a PDF. It’s a “dead system” because I gave the rules a major overhaul when Osprey Games came knocking some years ago; Dux Bellorum (Osprey Publishing, 2012) is a revised and much-changed reimagining of my original Glutter of Ravens concepts and I feel that it’s a more viable game to play this side of the year 2000. That said, I do think it’s worth giving these rules a run out for old times’ sake and I had great fun dusting off this original version and getting a few games in. As with many rules from that time, assumptions are made about the players’ knowledge of wargaming in general and their ability to “fill in the blanks” – as a consequence, I do not recommend Glutter of Ravens as a beginner’s set of wargame rules but as an archaic and arcane set of rules for more experienced wargamers to revisit. A major caveat for Part Two of the book – The Resources – is that the content was written a quarter of a century ago and has not been updated. Re-reading it, there’s little that I’d say is definitely now “wrong”, but so much more has since been discovered about the period and some of my own views have changed considerably. My more recent books present my evolving thoughts on the history of the period.