This article is essentially a two-fold one. Firstly, I want to show why I think that castles, city walls etc are not well developed within the WFRP milieu, and secondly I want to offer a little bit of 'colour' to both illustrate my idea and provide something vaguely useful as background material for games. Hopefully, you can take the rest and apply it yourselves to the description quite easily. Since cities and towns are central to WFRP adventuring, I think it is essential that we gave them all the colour and vibrancy that we can. As things stand the archetypal Medieval castle and city wall are mundanely trundled out for just about every settlement. Not only is this boring, but it fails to recognise the nature of fortifications in the gunpowder era that is Warhammer 2512IC.

Why Fortifications?

There are a number of solid works within the fantasy literature querying why magic-based societies continue with low technology castles of very limited practical use. Since WFRP is a very low-magic work, these criticisms are probably less relevant to us. There are not likely to be many enemies on flying steeds that can swoop over walls or druids that can shatter walls at the click of their fingers. However, WFRP has its own version of magic - and that is gunpowder. Gunpowder weapons make city walls and other fortifications effectively redundant. They certainly require defences to undergo serious re-design and strengthening - something palpably not true of Warhammer defences as presented in official (and unofficial) works. What I want to discuss is what these fortifications should look like to visitors. I am not interested in discussions of prosecuting an actual siege, since that it outside the remit of most adventures. I will mention siege processes when they seem relevant, but my primary focus is on describing what a PC would likely see as they approach a city or a fortification (such as a castle).

Fortifications in the 'Modern' Age of 2500

The key to defence is to keep the enemy away from the walls, so that they cannot bring their cannon to bear upon the walls or the people within the city. The primary method of doing this is with a field army. Ideally, your army should beat the other army and win the war! Of course, this is not always possible and generalship should actually be more about avoiding battle and maintaining the integrity of the field army than seeking to destroy them in a grand battle. The loss of your own field army would lose the siege and so they key is to keep the enemy worried about attack at all times and waste its resources guarding against such an event. Therefore, your own army can arguably be best placed well outside the defences, threatening the besieger's rear or supply lines. Sometimes the besiegers themselves might also be besieged! None of this actually effects the infrastructure or what the PCs might see on approaching a town, and so is less relevant to my argument. However, the second alternative is to entrench the entire field army. As armies become less feudal (such as that of The Empire) armies become more a mixture of seasoned professionals and experts, and conscripts. Conscripts need to be treated very carefully, and the simplest way is to use them as defenders of an entrenched position.

In essence cities and fortifications would seek to defend in depth. This keeps the enemy at distance from the walls, can be achieved cheaply and utilises the mass of conscript soldiers and forced labour at your disposal. Put bluntly, all cities and fortresses would be surrounded by earthworks. These are quite easy to build with sufficient labour and would be very complex and very big, subject to resources. A series of trenches, strongpoints and redoubts should be scattered throughout the environs of the city (or fortress), each controlling ground and every one covered by the fire of supporting positions. Cannon and large mounted muskets are then embedded in the emplacements. Indeed, many of these might be in such poor shape that they cannot fire or fakes from wood - what matters (at least initially) is their looks. Make your towns a veritable maze of earthworks - or at the very least have the surrounding countryside retain the scars where such things were dug in battle past.

The next complaint is that Warhammer fortifications are medieval ones. Cannon would blast them away in minutes; literally. Therefore, designs need to be updated. Walls should be reinforced at the base with skirts to reflect cannon balls and other shot. Towers should be rounded for the same reasons. Buttresses should also be used. None of this belies the fact that the walls will not replace a field army and a motivated defence. Really, most cities would dismantle their walls, or allow them to fall down, due to the excessive maintenance costs and the value of the stone in them. Indeed, they would probably have to patrol their own walls to stop people stealing the stone!

Improvements are once again possible with that most wonderful of substances - earth. The walls themselves should be built up by earth in front of the stone, in part held up by wooden framework and in part by additional earth. Walls would have additional wooden support work to help mount the large numbers of heavy muskets and cannon necessary for a defence. In certain places, particularly around entry points, there will be an additional outer wall, built squat and thick. Ideally, if we are to keep walls they should all be built like this - the replacement of pre-gunpowder tall and thin 'medieval' walls by shorter, thicker firing platforms.

To reflect battle long past, places can be named (or incorporate the names) schans and schansen, the German for earthwork(s).

Conclusions

WFRP is not about wars and battles, except inasmuch as the many internal rifts might occasionally flare up into outright war. However, these are simply the tapestries over which our PCs adventure. WFRP, however, does involve predominantly urban settings over the dungeon environment. To this end, this article simply tries to offer a more 'realistic' interpretation of what parts of those settlements should look like. Our own history provides a clear template for this and I urge GMs to examine this. For those in the UK, the English (British) Civil War(s) offer many examples of makeshift fortifications and urgent remedial work to long disused medieval fortifications. Similarly, in Europe there is the Thirty Years War with similar examples. Those in the Netherlands have the evocative wars Orangist against the Imperialist occupying forces. Even those in the US can plunder the War of Independence and the Civil War for earthworks, trenches and fake guns. The key here is, of course, not to use history as an end in itself but as a rich source to plunder for background colour to our world. It would be wonderful if RPGs could consistently create original thought, but that is simply not plausible. So, dust off the history books and look around your local environment for examples of fortifications - and do not simply regurgitate the medieval stereotype.

Fortifications: the Case of Middenheim

This is one example of my comments on Warhammer fortifications. Why on earth does a city sitting atop a sheer precipice conceivably need walls?! I developed this into a bit of colour for the city, particularly aimed at use with Power Behind the Throne. The irony is that the cover picture is far more evocative than the final city map.

A Report to Marshall Schutzmann

Recently a pamphlet has been circulating the City denouncing the current taxation proposals, pointing to a number of alternative methods of raising funds and to areas of wasteful expenditure. Whilst the actual paper itself is lurid and aimed at providing maximum impact, it seems to be written by an informed source. Firstly, there are papers within the Collegium Theologica archives criticising the building of the city walls, and, secondly, the particular plans referred to are correct.

There have been a number of debates over the centuries concerning the walls. Primarily, these seem to have fallen into three categories:

(a)  Since the city is built upon a precipice, it is impossible for traditional siege techniques to be employed against the walls or a conventional assault to be attempted in any manner.

(b) The walls are outdated and could not withstand modern weapons in any event, although how guns could ever be angled to hit them is unclear. However, the lack of skirts, buttresses and smoothing makes the walls redundant today.

(c)  As the chosen city of Ulric, there is no need for a mundane defence. Ulric has provided the city with a natural and impregnable defence. For humans (and dwarfs) to attempt to improve upon these is sacrilege.

(d) Better use could be made of the rock, so expensively brought up to the top - including public buildings, defensive strongpoints and a reinforced

Central to the discussions was the expense of building and maintaining the walls and the size of force necessary to realistically defend them. Money saved by not building walls or (in later arguments) not maintaining them, could be used to

(i)                Provide the treasury with a store of wealth to buy additional soldiers if required. One recent writer in particular believes the key to holding the city is a strong field army to prevent an army approaching the city at all.

(ii)              Reinforce the passages under the city, a far more likely cause of assault and a major weakness in the city's defences. There was only one reference to this. My investigations into the issue have met with a very strong rebuttal. This in itself is suspicious and I plan to equip a secret expedition to investigate under the city from which I will have returned by the time you receive this, my preliminary report.

(iii)            Build extra granaries and increase the city's store of food. Starvation is believed by all the various writers throughout my researches to be a much more likely offensive tool than assault on the walls.

(iv)            Provide artillery bastions and firing platforms utilising the height of the Fauschlag to bombard any attacker's positions.

The second part of the pamphlet is correct, since apparently Marshall General Schwermutt has indeed been granted authorisation to install siege mortars within the city walls. You are more likely to be aware of the background to the decision, but my information suggests that this is, in part, a political accommodation to garner the General's support for the taxation proposals. It would seem that Marshall von Genscher opposed the implementation as "wasteful" and even presented argument similar to those presented within the pamphlet that you asked me to investigate.

I have obtained a copy of a drawing of the proposed mortar. It is of relatively small bore and sits on a sturdy bed banded with iron strips. It has trunnions and is fixed between two posts. Beneath the mouth it is proposed to decorate with religious scenes to the glory of Ulric. There is a wooden arc allowing the piece to be elevated by some 10 from the vertical. Simplicity in both maintenance and ease of use are the primary motivations to the design.
As requested, I am progressing my investigations into who has accessed these papers and have removed the Collegium's librarian to our facilities. The Collegium has made a formal complaint. The relevant paper work will be mislaid by the Worshipful Guild of Legalists, but this will only delay matters. Since they regard themselves as operating under Religious Law, you should expect a visit by the Cult of Ulric.
Note from Marshall Schutzmann to Marshall von Genscher Further to our discussion, I have obtained outline designs from my engineer concerning the guns to be mounted at the public places agreed with yourself and our Templar colleagues. I believe that we are agreed that it is imperative that these are regarded as Watch positions rather than military ones for political issues. I have buried the approvals within the Komission, but that does not preclude some bureaucrat uncovering them at some stage. The Graf remains adamant that secrecy is paramount so as not to cloud his image as a liberal ruler, but it is clear in these times of increasing unrest that measures are taken to obtain the capacity to control public disorder.
From the Archives Your Imperial Highness, The primary source of danger to your position is the Electors, and to them in turn their own lesser nobility. This is quite simply as these groups have their own personal armed retinues, loyal only to them personally and with no higher duty. The Empire consists simply of a collection of hired thugs employed by your underlings, but with an implicit threat to their nature. As we discussed, the most obvious option is to maintain an Imperial Army, centrally controlled and loyal to yourself and your position. However, having discussed the issue with the Chancellor this is simply unfeasible economically at this time. Our current income consists of …the paper has apparently been censored here for some reason. The reality of an Imperial Army loyal to the Emperor in his own right is also politically unenforceable, since the electors would immediately recognise the danger to their own position. It would clearly represent a mechanism for the creation of the Emperor has a hereditary position through force of arms by such an army. Whilst Your Highness would have no such inclination, the army would equally be a balance to the power of the Electors and thus resented by them. Should any wish to do so, they would be forced to act prior to such an army becoming viable. In essence, therefore, the creation of an Imperial Army might force a civil war or (at least) the Electors to forcibly prevent this. Our agents have posited the following scenarios concerning plausible reactions of the Electors, and it is not pleasing reading to your Highness. Only the Grand Duke … this entire section, apparently over a page long, has been removed. My findings do, however, suggest a plausible course of action. Despite the unrest to be found within The Empire, it is clear that such disquiet is solely aimed at the individual rulers of particular regions, seen as responsible for the cause of the troubles. Your own Divine Personage is uniformly praised and loved. Put bluntly, the people love you and regard you as their benefactor and protector. This, then, shall be your army. We will create militias throughout the land, who will swear fealty to Sigmar and The Empire (and thus to you). These groups will form a balance to the private armies of the Electors, since they will limit the physical threat, both locally and nationally. The costs have also been estimated and are appended (…again these have been lost…) but in summary consist of supporting small local arsenals wherein can be stored weapons. By national edict, your subjects can be required to provide their own weapon, armour (by choice) and to undertake training in it.