The Start of the Arab Conquest

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My project for the new year is a 15mm Arab Conquest army based for To The Strongest.

I’m using the excellent Red Copper Miniatures 3D sculpts printed for me by Baueda, who I have found to be excellent quality, fairly priced, and with a single fee for postage and packing that works out to be very cost-effective provided you order in bulk).

First up are the Wariors that form the bulk of the army.

Here I wanted to be able to use the figures for both a 15mm grid (what I usually play on) and a 10mm grid (the size used for the one 15mm TTS competition), so settled on using the 7.5mm bases for For King & Parliament available from the BigRedBat shop and designed to slot together to allow different combinations of pike and shot battalia to be put together (FK&P6)

I painted the Red Copper figures in individual colour schemes, and then painted the Essex command figures (leader, standard, musician on each base) in the same single colour for each 15cm grid double unit, basing the command figures all together in the second of four rows of models on each base.

This gave the impression of random figures, but with a predominance of one colour on each base, making them easily identifiable. The right hand base of each double-unit had the trumpeter, the left hand base had a drummer.

Here are the individual units:

The flags are all from Wargames Designs, who have an extensive range of “Saracen” flags. Each design comes printed on good quality paper that you then cut out, fold into flag shapes, and then use PVA glue to fix in place. The flgas come with instructions for those who are still baffled!

I’ve used the flags to allow identification of different commands. Four of the double-base-units come with the left base having a green flag and the right base having black flag; two of the double-base-units come with both bases with a flashy red and white banner. This allows me, at double-base level, to field six units in two commands: perhaps two standard units and a veteran “flashy flag” unit per command; or, at base level, to field a black flag command, a green flag command and a flashy-flag command, each with four individual bases.

Overall, I’m very happy with these. The sculpts are gorgeous, they seem pretty hard-wearing, and I think the paint jobs and bases that I’ve managed are definitely a little above basic wargames standard.

Now on to the cavalry!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans versus Anglo-Normans

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A second run out for my Romans in the same weekend, this time against Peter playing Anglo-Normans.

The Romans won the scouting, achieving a rather nice right flank overlap in the deployment that followed.

My strategy was simple: hammer down the right hand side of the field, then curl round to take the AN’s in their left flank.

I had the plan, I had the men: what could possibly go wrong?

Things began well, with my advance in the centre moving forward strongly.

In response, Peter’s plan was to hold his left flank with a deep unit of Fyrd forming orbis on a convenient hill, whilst the rest of his men defeated the veteran legionaries in front of them. If he could then use his heavy Norman cavalry to outflank my line on the left, then so much the better.

Let’s look at my out-flanking manoeuvre first.

Although the initial advance into an outflanking position had gone well, I just couldn’t quite get into actual combat before Peter had time to stabilise his line.

The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that the unit of Auxilia with the blue shields refused to charge the orbis on the hill three times in a row, despite having an officer present, meaning that the whole infantry command there was effectively moribund, meaning that I had to send in the cavalry before the enemy infantry line was properly softened up.

Despite this, the situation on the right ended up generally positive…but a far cry from the sweeping victory I needed to win the game before anything could go wrong on the left.

Meanwhile, on the left, Peter had advanced forward strongly, intending to beat me there with his knights and foot knights before I had a chance to win on the right.

Although I managed to use the terrain to anchor my veteran legionaries in place, a small but significant gap in my line allowed a unit Norman Knights, accompanied by some Lights, to sneak through and threaten my flanks.

This was a bit of a problem but, meanwhile, there was some very good news from the flank: a unit of eastern auxiliary light horse archers managed to shoot down a unit of veteran Norman knights - and it’s not often that that happens!

The Equites Sagittarii would go on to almost taking out another unit of Norman Knights with their bows, only failing because they ran out of ammo, having used every arrow in the camp as well!

More good news in that a good run of the cards allowed me to stabilise the situation on that flank. I was still outnumbered, but had formed a rough defensive circle as I waited for the game to be won on the right!

Unfortunately my luck then visciously rebounded, with a couple of Aces at critical moments effectively losing me the battle, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious. Firstly, the Legionaries in the centre of the picture above failed to make an easy turn to take two Norman units in the flank. Secondly, a unit of veteran Legionaries failed to activate when in the midst of fighting more Norman knights. To put that in perspective, the two Aces appear like that only 1% of the time!

Then I made a bad tactical error…or at least a tactical error as far as the To The Strongest rules are concerned.

Worried about the disordered Legionaries in the right-hand picture, above, I retreated them back into a square containing another unit of Legionaries, but facing the other way: the idea being that the Romans would fight bravely back-to-back. What I hadn’t realised was that the way that the Zone of Control rules work meant that if Peter was able to get a unit onto the flank of the back-to-backers, the back-to-backers would then be effectively pinned in place unable to rotate to face their aggressors.

I had never encountered this situation before, and it was a bit of a hard lesson to learn, as my Legionaries had to just sit there and be hit in the flank, unable to fight back, until one of the units died!

It’s a quirk in the rules, to be sure, but not one that breaks To The Strongest (I could argue it’s “realism” either way if I needed to!) but is something to be aware of and watch out for. As I said: a hard lesson to learn!

Meanwhile, back on the right flank, my winning situation had been reversed by the fact that my failures on the left had freed up a couple of units of Norman Knights to use their internal lines to rescue the situation: as you can see in the picture below, I went from an “about to take the two Anglo-Norman camps” situation to a “hit in the flank and rear” situation!

All was not lost, however, as high casualties on both sides meant that the game could still be mine. All I really needed was for my infantry on the right to finish off the Fyrd that were in orbis. The Fyrd had already been disordered, and I had two strong units ready to attack them. Surely the Fyrd would now die or, if that attack failed, there were some disordered Knights to kill instead.

All was looking good as I prepared to start my turn…

The bad news continued as we resolved the back-to-back situation, leading to a debate about whther I was actually just unlucky or, given that I had had some luck in the game, just unlucky at the wrong times in a game: is an Ace just an Ace, or is it an ACE!

And unfortunately I didn’t get another chance, as on Peter’s subsequent turn he managed to break one more of my units sending my troops reeling into retreat.

A roller coaster of game that both sides could easily have won. I was glad that I’d learnt about the back-to-back quirk in the rules: something to watch out for in future games.

So my losing streak continues: five games of To The Strongest in a row now. Hopefully this means that I’ll have got all the losses out of my system before the Wales tournament in a week’s time!

First Painting Challenge Update for 2025

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And the Challenge is back…and already firing on all cylinders!

In order of appearance in the Challenge inbox we have:

Mr Douglas kicks off his year with a couple of very nice 28mm WW2 building intended for use as objectives in 02 Hundred Hours:

Pipped at the post for a first delivery, but making up for it in mass alone is Mr Helliwell, with his first (and as per usual large) entry for the year. A mix of 15mm Napoleonics, terrain and 28mm Medievals, and all very nice!

Next up is Stumpy, with a couple of very lovely looking Matilda II: just about the only decent British early war tank!

So a great batch of entries in to start off this year’s proceedings. Let’s keep sending them in!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans vs Medieval Irish

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Time for a bit of training before the first tournament of the year: a friendly game involving my Early imperial Romans taking on Peter’s Medieval Irish.

The Romans leave their box for the first time in twelve months

Outscouting me, Peter had tried his usual trick of weighting his troops on the side of the table (my left) opposite to where my command of veteran legionaries had deployed: the idea being that he would win the battle on my left without the vets having had the chance to properly take part in the game.

To counter this cunning tactic, I refused my left flank cavalry command and began moving the veteran legionaries over to the left as fast as they could march. This left my right flank open and, sure enough, Peter had light cavalry on the way there to exploit the gap.

The situation was compounded by a lucky shot from Irish light bowmen that took out my Equites Sagittarrii light horse, leaving that flank even more vulnerable!

I wasn’t too worried on my left, as even my standard legionaries are a pretty tough bunch, with the Roman cavalry all being veterans as well.

This was good, as battle there was joined very quickly, with both sides rapidly being drawn into a grinding melee.

Meanwhile, on my right, I had been forced to deploy to contain the Irish lights and the troops Peter had moved up to support them.

This, of course, meant that he had achieved exactly what he had set out to do, although not as successfully as he migth have hoped as, on the far right (picture bottom left in the gallery above) it had taken him abiut 20 points of lights to occupy 20 points of legionaries/auxiliaries.

Meanwhile, back on the left, the grinding melee had not gone my way. We both thought that this was to do with Peter having had the cards when he needed them (i.e. luck) as on paper the two sides were evenly matched with five decent fighting units apiece. Whatever the reason, I had decidedly lost the fight there and was on the point of being wiped out!

The game ended when, on the right/centre of the field, the Irish lights finally slipped through my cordon of legionaries and auxiliaries and managed to take one of my camps. A rather ignominious 4-11 defeat for the Romans!

Some valuable lessons re-learned after the Christmas break: and not just “don’t play Peter if you want to win”!

I understand that Irish armies are this year’s “thing”, and one can see why given how they performed in this game. We Romans are, however, a resilient lot, so it’s just a matter of time before even the Irish will be conjugating their Latin just like the Gauls, Germans, Spaniards etc!

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans versus Hittites

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Time for the re-match: swapping sides so this time I would take the Anglo-Normans and Neil would play the Hittites.

As the game began, I made a bold move down the left flank: sending William the B, Bishop Odo and half my Milites thundering forward to curl round and take the Hittites in the rear.

The Hittites were obviously quick to react, threatening to flank my outflankers. No problem, I thought, it’s my turn and I’ll just move forward out of reach.

This was a bit annoying, to say the least, but the Norman knights are good troops, and I managed to extract them from the mess and even hurt the pesky Syrian light chariots who had tried to rear-end them in the process.

More chariot versus knights fighting followed, with disaster striking the Anglo-Normans as although we killed some more Hittite chariots, William the B was struck down in his prime.

This had serious consequences, as although Bishop Odo had broken through and was riding down the final unit of Hittite chariots on the left, being out-of-command meant that what would usually have been the best ‘pursuit’ card to draw ended up being a failure to move forward, and exposed the Bishop’s rear to more Hittite attacks.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the two infantry lines had come to together and a grinding melee developed.

The Hittites had more chariots, however, and they now burst round my right flank to threaten my camps, guarded only by light infantry - easy meat for the rampaging chariots.

Back to the centre, and the Norman and Anglo-Saxon infantry were gaining the advantage…and Bishop Odo was still alive and kicking!

The situation at the camp was critical (early losses meant that I couldn’t afford to lose it) so I threw everything I could into holding it against the Hittite chariot attack.

It was a close run thing, but eventually the situation was stabilised.

Meanwhile, the situation in the centre had taken an unusual turn, with the Hittite foot, at first looking as if they were going to be overwhelmed, managing to extricate themselves from the danger, leading to a situation that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before:

If you look closely, you will see that the Hittites have the advantage: they have managed to rush back chariots to gain the flank of one of my infantry units, and damage one of the Fyrd units almost to the point of destruction.

Both sides had been haemorrhaging victory medals at a rapid rate of knots, so as the melee resumed, it was a case of sudden death: whoever lost two units would lose the game.

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, it was the Hittites who drew the required blood first, with the Anglo-Normans carrying William the B’s body off with them as they retreated from the field!

So a narrow defeat for the Anglo-Normans, but a great game overall. Much excitement as the fortunes of war swung backwards and forwards, with many desperate moments for both sides!

Yet Another Russian Orthodox Church

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It’s been a long time since I indulged my obsession with 15mm Russian Orthodox churches, but I was having a nose around the Terrains4Games website when I spotted one I didn’t have. It was included in a rather nice Eastern European set, but also available as an individual piece.

It’s quite an unusual model, in that it is taller than it is wider, and will certainly make a very striking model for the tabletop.

The church comes in four different parts: the main body, the roof, the cupola and then the crucifix for the top.

The only odd thing is that I now can’t find this church on the Terrains4Games website, nor can I find it by searching online. I’m almost certain it comes from Terrains4Games (I still have the box it came in) so I’m going to have to assume that they have changed their model, especially as there’s a completely different looking church now advertised on their website under the same code. Very curious, but I’ve ordered that one as well!

So let’s now add the above “mystery” church to the gallery:

So that’s fourteen 15mm Orthodox churches now in the collection…but searching for the origin of the mystery model, I have noticed several more now available…!

TTS AAR: Hittites versus Anglo-Normans

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Time for another bout of To The Strongest with friend Neil. I would field the Hittites, Neil would play the Anglo-Normans.

The game began with my ally Syrian light chariots storming up one side of the battlefield to outflank the anglo-Norman line.

They got themselves into a perfect position, but then the cards decided to punish me for some former infraction meaning that the Syrians unexpectedly halted until the moment of advantage had passed!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, a massive melee had broken out between the Anglo-Norman cavalry and Fyrd and the Hittite infantry and chariots.

In the last photo, below, you can also see the Syrian light cavalry attemtpign to take the Anglo-Norman camp.

The mass melee caused carnage on both sides, leading to a battlefield almost denuded of troops.

But unfortunately it was the Anglo-Normans who recovered first, sending Norman Milites crashing through a unit of Hittite chariots led by a general. With that my last victory medlas were gone, along with the game!

A great game that could have gone either way at many points during the battle.

Somewhat annoying that my light chariots hadn’t managed to get properly stuck in on the flank, and that I lost the central melee clash in a way that left my troops vulnerable in the clearing up exercise that followed, but a good lesson in how powerful Norman Milites are!

Now to fight it again with the sides swapped over…

Hittite City Gates from Red Copper/Baueda

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I needed a camp for my Hittites so thought I would follow what I’ve been doing so far and use the Red Copper STL of a Hittite City Gate that looked pretty good to me.

The only problm is that I wanted the camp to fit on a 10cm x 10cm base and the size of the full tower-gate-tower of the original was just over 15cm in width. No problem: those nice people at Baueda scaled and printed the components for me so that they fit beautifully onto one of my camp bases.

The individual pieces linked together well, with only a very slight bit of shaving to get a tight fit. Note that I left the rear end open to facilitate using the camp to store tokens etc during a game.

I painted the main towers and walls with a sponge (one of the sponges that protects figures in a blister pack will do the trick), then re-painted the stonework at the base of the walls in grey, washed with a Contrast grey, then highlighted with a lighter colour.

I did try drybrushing the walls in a light colour, but just couldn’t get the effect I wanted, so had to re-paint the test area again. On reflection, the un-drybrushed walls are a good contrast to the heavily drybrushed base.

I then painted the roofs and beams in a warm brown, and the window frames in what I would call a biblical blue.

All in all, I’m very happy with this kit: highly recommended.

Ottoman Command from Khurasan

Friend Rob was kind enough to paint some Ottoman command figures for me.

These are the Khurasan specials from their Ottoman range that I will use as officers and heroes.

Exquisite paint jobs!

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans versus Siamese (Thai)

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After our recent Naphill game of FK&P, Rob and I had time for a quick To The Strongest. Rob had once again brought his new Siamese/Thai army (Khurasan figures) and I decided to use the Anglo-Normans against them (Museum Miniatures and Forged in Battle).

The Anglo-Normans won the scouting and, after deployment, I immediately saw an opportunity to outflank the Siamese line on the right hand side, sending two units of Milites forward and deep to acheive that very end.

This forced Rob to hang back his left wing…meaning that a strong advance with the rest of the right hand side of my line threatened his troops there, but with so many Thai units available, he was able to form a decent ‘corner’ that it would prove hard for me to exploit.

Threatened on his left, Rob attacked strongly in the centre, but the cards had other ideas, and a unit of veteran Spearmen evaporated under a countercharge from some Milites backed up by Fyrd.

This particular unit of Milites were led by Bishop Odo and a piece of the True Cross. They would go on to rampage up the centre of the table knocking Thai units off the table at a rapid rate of knots. At one stage, it looked as if they would win the battle on their own!

Back to my right flank, and Rob had very cleverly managed to use a piece of Impassable terrain to stop my cunning outflanking move from fully coming to fruition:

Where were the Thai elephants, you may ask? Why weren’t they causing havoc amongst the Norman horsemen?

Well, my deployment had deliberately avoided the nasty Nellies, and refusing my left flank made it even more difficult for Rob to get them into the action.

My advantage from outflanking on the right had definitely now disappeared. In fact, my isolated cavalry units there were coming under some pressure, being hit from front and sides themselves!

William the B had a narrow escape in the combat that followed, but was saved by one of his liege-men who threw himself in the way of an enemy spear.

And meanwhile Bishop Odo was still thundering, unstoppable, down the centre of the field…

This was all taking too long, as Rob had recovered from the difficulties he faced from the initial deployment and had managed to get quite a lot of cavalry around my left flank. The Thai elephants had also now managed to lumber into the fray.

Fortunately William the B, still alive after his close call, was available to dash back and shore up the left flank, leaving Bishop Odo and his rampaging knights the time to take one of the now-undefended enemy camps and Rob’s last three victory medals.

It had been a great game of TTS. My initial advantage on the right flank was countered by Rob’s cunning use of terrain; Rob’s recovery assault on my left flank had been mostly neutralised by me shifting troops rapidly from right to left; and it was left to Bishop Odo, True Cross in hand, to win the day!

TFL Painting Challenge: Last Entries and the 2024 Round-Up

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A few of you wisely used your extra spare time over the holiday season to do some painting.

First up, as always, we have Mr Helliwell, with a big hill and a variety of medievals, some of which are shown here:

Next we have Mr Burt, who has repurposed a very old Superquick card church from the 1970s found in a battered state at the bottom of a storage box as a bombed or ruined model.

And finally we have Sapper, another regular, with three different entries all at different scales.

Finally we have Mr Scott, who makes his first and last contribution for the year with some 15mm Confederate infantry:

And here’s another last minute entry: Nick Cooper with his final submission of 2024:

Results

So those are the last entries for this year, let’s have a look at how we all did overall:

To start with the bad news, three people who participated last year dropped out this year, with one of the three being the sadly departed Mr Hodge, who’s presence will be sorely missed.

We did, however, have two new starters: Messrs Darkin and Davenport (well, he’s a returnee after a four year absence), both of whom managed very respectable scores of 696 and 776 respectively, giving them a solid target for next year.

The roll of honour (those who scored more than last year) comprised Messrs Bury, Cooper, Douglas, Emmett, Helliwell, Kay and Sapper, and Carole…most of whom not only surpassed but actually smashed their score from last year. Huge plaudits to Mr Helliwell and Sapper, who achieved scores of 5,085 and 4,705 respectively.

The hall of shame (those who scored less than last year) included Yours Truly. Mr Luther (let off due to illness), and Messrs Plowman, Scott, Slade and Stumpy. Let’s make sure 2025 reverses the situation!

Three participants - Nick Cooper, Andrew Helliwell and Sapper - recorded a personal best, which means that as we go into the 2025 Challenge, the historical scoreboard looks as below:

We’ll be going again in 2025, so let’s start those entries coming in as soon as possible.

Happy New Year everyone!

2024: A Year in Review

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Well that’s another twelve months gone by, which means it must be time for my annual review of all things wargames.

Gaming

A spectacular year this year with 72 games played, more than any year since records began back in 1985. Every game was fully written up, which kept me very busy when I wasn’t gaming or painting.

The Timurids in Action at To The Smallest

Most of the games were competition games, as this year I made a real effort to play in as many To The Strongest tournaments as I could, which meant that 60 of the 72 tabeltop encounters were in the Ancients/Medieval category.

Playing through the Siege of Norchester scenario pack for For King & Parliament with friend Rob meant that the 17th century period came in next with nine games, with the 19th Century, WW2 and Sci-Fi games making up the rest.

Tournaments

I played in 10 events/tournaments this year, using my Ace-loving Venetians for all but one of them.

A real mixed bag of results, but I was very happy with the two first places:

Many thanks to all the organisers and my various opponents: all the games I had were played in the very best of spirits, with none of the unpleasantness I’ve sometimes seen at other events. I do remember laughing a lot when playing, always a good sign!

Luck is a funny old thing.

I know it’s easy to blame the cards (TTS is a playing card-driven system) but I think even the most uncharitable of my opponents would agree that the Aces do flow for me in competition, and it’s when they don’t I seem to do well i.e. it’s not that I get the good cards then, I just don’t get the bad ones!

That said, I think my two most memorable games involved a lot of luck going my way. Number one was snatching victory from the jaws of defeat against Matt and his Anglo-Normans at The Crusades at the Bunker in Weston-Super-Mere; and number two was the two Tens I drew to defeat Steve’s Yorkists atthe last moment at Peter’s To The Longest event.

But, as I said above, my thanks to all my opponents throughout the year. Just looking through the AARs has made me realise again how much I enjoyed all the competitions I enetered this year, and I would highly recommend the To The Strongest competition circuit to those who fancy a bit of “competitive gaming without numpties”.

Painting

Not a bad year for painting: no great shakes in terms of points in the Painting Challenge, but some significant projects finished.

The first part of the year was mostly taken up with finishing up all the units I needed for my main TTS tournament army, the Venetians. This included a favourite figure of mine: the chef heading up the city militia unit of Spearmen that I sometimes have to field:

Never complain about the food!

The middle part of the year was spent on a whole variety of projects: some Scots for the English Civil War period, some more Ottomans for the 17th Century, and an assortment of sci-fi figures from various manufacturers:

Finally, the latter part of the year was mostly spent on producing a new army: 15mm Hittites from the excellent STL sculpts by Red Copper Miniatures, which I had printed by Baueda in Italy.

These are very nice figures indeed: highly recommended to anyone wanting new chariot-era army.

Wargames Shows

One sacrifice I did have to make because of all the tournament gaming was to reduce the number of shows that I went to.

After last year’s cornucopia of events, all I managed this year was Roll Call, Britcon, Warfare, Colours and Salute, with the first three being because I was competition gaming there which obviously cut down on looking around.

Disappointingly, I also managed just one TFL Lard Day: Operation Market Larden X in Evesham, where I played a great game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum and also managed to try out Sid’s When The Last Sword Is Drawn (Banzai Bonkers) samurai skirmish game, this last highly recommended. It seems extraordinary that this event has been happening for ten years now, and I have been to every one.

Looking back at the pictures from the shows that I have been to, I still saw some very inspirational games: a good reason to try and up the number I go to in 2025.

Summary

So all in all, 2024 proved to be a packed and very good wargaming year.

As always, a big thank you to all my gaming chums and opponents whose good natures and dedication to the hobby have made the last twelve months so much fun.

And to all those who have read Vis Lardica throughout the year: thanks for your visits, likes and comments throughout 2024, and I look forward to seeing you all throughout 2025 as well. Incidentally, we passed the 500,000 page view mark in March, and that’s with not being on Blogger either. If you do own a blog of your own and like this site, please add VL to your list of recommended/favourite links: it seems a shame for all this content not to have a wider audience!

Here’s to doing it all again next year!

Cheers

R

FK&P AAR: Naphill Downs

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Regular visitors will know that I am playing through the Siege of Norchester campaign for For King & Parliament with good friend Rob. We’ve been playing about a game a month for almost a year now, so had only two battles to go. To date, my Parliamentarians are losing badly, so I needed a big win from the Naphill Downs scenario to give me any chance of winning overall.

Norchester has fallen, with one part of the Royalist force that had been defending the city heading south to join up with the King elsewhere. The Roundheads seek to block the Royalist retreat, stopping them from doing so.

view from behind the parliamentarian lines

Although the Parliamentarian force had at its core some decent infantry, I was bit worried by my flanks: the hasty nature of the encounter meaning that they were protected only by volunteer militia (Mobs) rather than regular troops. I didn’t expect them to fare well against Rob’s hard-bitten Royalists!

I therefore elected to hold a strong-ish defensive position behind one of the hedgerows that bordered the Downs, and wait for Rob to come to me. Tactically, my thinking being that if I could hold the wings from behind the hedge, my main central force could get an advantage in the eventual melee by shooting the Royalists as they advanced into contact.

The Royalist centre continued their advance, coming right up to the hedgerow behind which the Parliamentarians were shletering.

My troops had opened for as soon as the Royalists came in range and thus enjoyed two full turns of shooting before the enemy returned fire. Unfortunately, it seemed that my Parliamentarians had allowed their powder to get wet: four battalia and an artillery piece firing and double-firing for two turns: not a single disorder caused!

There was so much shooting that it crossed my mind that I needed to buy those smoke markers with the little lights inside them to properly represent what was going on!

Meanwhile, not much was happening on the wings: Rob was holding back until he knew how successful his centre had been, tying up my troops as I couldn’t afford to let his men oveer the hedge on my flanks.

Back to the centre and, still seemingly unable to cause any casualties, my line had collapsed, leaving a gigantic hole right in the middle of my position. The writing was on the wall, even with two units of cavalry in reserve!

After a short pause to reorganise, the Royalist infantry flooded over the hedge: again putting my centre under extreme pressure.

The Royalists moved into contact again and, despite the personal intervention of the Parliamentarian commanding general, the line bowed once again and then gave way!

My last few victory medals lost, it was another crushing defeat for the Roundheads, firmly putting the campaign as a whole beyond my grasp.

There’s one more encounter to play, but it will be the Parliamentarians playing for pride and a consolation victory!

IABSM AAR: Where the hell have you boys been? #19: Pouppeville

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Great little battle report from Andy Cowell originally posted on the I Ain’t Been Shot Mum Facebook Group.

The AAR uses scenario #19 from the Where the hell have you been boys? pack: Clearing Exit One if you’re the Americans or, if you’re the Germans, Blocking the Exit.

Click on the picture below to see all:

TTS AAR: Two the Strongest Game Three: Teutonics & Lithuanians vs Burgundians & French HYW

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Our third game in this year’s Two the Strongest doubles tournament was against Tim and Matt playing HYW French and Burgundians respectively.

This was going to be a tricky one to navigate, as I faced off against Tim’s French with their veteran Later Knights, who were saving on a 4+ in melee combat: the only good thing being that there weren’t a lot of them!

On my side of the field, both armies advanced rapidly towards each other: there was to be no shilly-shallying around in this battle!

As things got into ‘interesting’ range, Tim unfortunastely drew an Ace on his first activation, which neatly gave the initiative to me.just as the initial clash was about to occur.

This meant that my Knights would draw first in the resultant combat and, with a good slice of luck on my part, two of Tim’s elite horsement were first disordered then knocked from the table!

This early success meant that I could afford to send some of my troops to help Peter against the Burgundians on the other side of the table, where he was doing his usual “I’m only a poor little speed bump…oh, golly, have I just beaten the opposition before Rob gets here?” magic against Matt.

I didn’t have it all my own way (one never does against Tim), and had a tricky time actually finishing off the Fremch.

One unit, the one at the back in the photo below, withstood several turns of frontal and flank attacks and IIRC was still fighting on as the rest of the French army gave way.

Another, the one in the middle in the picture below, advanced forward and pinned my rallying Kinghts against the table’s edge next to my camp. Luckily I had rallied before they arrived.

Despite these late flourishes, however, my troops managed to win the day which, along with Peter’s success against the Burgundians, meant that we took the game 38-7.

With three big wins under our collective belt, that also meant that we won the tournament overall, retaining our title from last year.

It had been an excellent day’s gaming against some great fun players - my thanks to Nat and the London Wargamers for organising - now all we had to do was ship all Peter’s display boards back to the car, all the while congratulating the Arsenal fans on their also richly-deserved win!

TFL Painting Challenge: Mid-December Update

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As we reach the climax of this year’s Challenge, the entries are coming in thick and fast.

First up is the ever-present Mr Helliwell, with a mixture of Napoelonics, medievals and terrain. Here some of the Napoleonics:

Mr Luther, after a quiet start to the year, has also been busy. A few 6mm tanks and some 15mm infantry for the Second Seminole War.

Mervyn has been buckling his swash, using one of those lovely Blue Moon character sets; and prepping some figures for the American War of Independence too.

Sapper has been busy painting Royalists, epic scale Royalists to be exact, and quite a few of the little blighters:

And last, but by no means least, Carole has been painting more Victrix Romans:

Plenty of time to get your last entries for December and therefore the year in. Keep them coming!

IABSM AAR: Imaginations - Clash at Kleindorf

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James Mantos has been building forces for an “imaginations” campaign using I Ain’t Been Shot Mum to play out battles in the 1950’s.

His superb blog Rabbits in my Basement has all the details, and you can see a “parade ground” of his figures by clicking here.

James has also just fought his first battle in his imaginations campaign, a report on which can be seen on the blog or by clicking on the picture, below:

TTS AAR: Two the Strongest Game Two: Teutonic Knights & Lithuanians vs Macedonians and Thracians

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Our second game at this year’s Two the Strongest doubles tournament was against Alex and Alex’s Macedonians and Thracians. As the right hand side of the table had a huge riverine terrain obstacle on it, I let Peter put his Lithuanians there with the aim that they held off the Thracians until I could beat the Macedonians.

We outscouted again (these Lithuanians do have some uses!) and I had a superb run of cards in my first turn allowing the Teutonics to get around the flank of the Macedonians in front of me.

Macedonian Alex, however, defended superbly against my flank attack, meaning that I couldn’t immediately roll up his line but, as Peter has proved many times in the past, once you get troops behind the enemy line, it’s incredibly difficult to rescue the situation, and Alex soon found himself at risk of losing his entire right flank.

Peter, meanwhile, was holding his own against the advancing Thracians, so I had no need to worry about that side of things and could concentrate on what I was doing.

And what was I doing? Well, by now I had disposed of the Macedonian right wing and could start focussing on the two phalanx in the centre.

The veteran Macedonian cavalry had died hard, however, so a little bit of reorganising was necessary, and there was that pesky unit of Companions out on the far wing, but normal service was soon resumed as I hammered Knights into the flanks of the unfortunate pikemen.

In the last picture, bottom right, you can see Peter’s spare Teutonics heading in from the right of the Macedonian line: he had by now disposed of the Thracians (speed bump, my backside, as they say: the Lithuanian light horse with bow and lance were proving as deadly as my veteran Knights in this tournament) and could send troops across to my side of the field to help finish the Maccy’s off. You can also see in the top left of the picture how I’ve neutralised the “pesky Companions” with a unit of Knights.

The Macedonians weren’t giving up, however: a retreat backwards took their flanks out of immediate danger as all our horse were still wary of charging a phalanx frontally, whether or not the pikemen were disordered.

But by now, despite these heroic attempts, it was only a matter of time before the Macedonians also lost their last coin and game was ours with a 38-8 victory.

Peter’s Report

Deployment and Plan

This was team mate Rob‘s and my second battle which turned out to be very different to the first and needed us to rip up Plan A within the first two turns!

We faced a Lysamachid successor army of pike, deep spears and companion cavalry and an allied Thracian army of wild rhomphai wielding javelin thugs with a light cavalry flank guard.

Plus there was a wide river (the river Larsen) on one far side that Rob wanted to avoid.

So we agreed that Rob would face the Lysamachids. He would use his heavy veteran knights command to take out the enemy Companions command then turn and flank charge the phalanx.

His other Knights command would draw the pike forwards into a position where his first veteran Knights and my command that I donated to Rob could get flank attacks. He would finish off his outnumbered enemies by turn three as per our playbook, and then whack into the flank of the Thracians that I was facing, just before my smaller army was overrun. That was the plan!

I would be the somewhat nervous speed bump facing a solid wall of hairy barbarians who, as javelin men with big choppers (2HCW) , could dash straight through any rough terrain without slowing down or difficult activations.

It Starts…

As agreed in our playbook, I sent my veteran Knights with three supporting light cavalry to Rob’s side of the battlefield to counter the Lysamachid deep spears.

I then deployed a screen of light cav to go forward and harass and slow down the hairies. On my far right I had one command of light cavalry on the far side of the river Larsen - designed to draw enemy to that side of the river - but frustratingly it only attracted one matching command of enemy light cavalry.

Rob’s Teutonics shot down his left flank and turned to threaten a deadly flank attack to the Companions. My donated command distracted the deep spears and opened up a gap for my lights to exploit. But my Teutonics couldn’t risk charging the deep spears frontally. So instead spotted a vulnerable unit of hairies and charged it, whilst my ligth cavalry swarm distracted nearby enemy units to discourage them from worrying my Knights.

Rob was facing gritty Companions on his far left, and his other knights were pinned by the phalanx. My donated command was distracting the enemy deep spear and had opened up a gap ready to be exploited. My knights had disordered a unit of hairIEs but then backed out to avoid the double risk of 2HCW hairy flank attacks.

On my far right, having failed to draw more enemies to waste their time on the far side of the river Larsen, I crossed most of them back over to the main battlefield which drew Alex’s mounted general and bodyguard after them. The single unit I left behind was cunningly protected from being charged by a curve in the river and before long I shot to death Alex’s remaining unit giving me complete freedom on that side of the river. I galloped alongside the river, over the ford and inflicted another flank charge with lance. Three chances to hit! But they were only lights , drew an Ace, Two and a Three and inflicted no damage! Hey ho!

On my side I had pulled most of my far right flank command back over the river drawing Alex's CinC with it and into a vulnerable position with two of my units ready to flank charge with lances and with his evade blocked . On the far side of the Larsen I was about to kill his inferior LC and then gallop up that side of the river, over the ford and into the flank of more hairIEs.

Meanwhile on the main battlefield the Thracian hairy hordes were steadily advancing towards me and threatening to pin me to my table edge. This is normally OK as it’s what speed bumps do, whilst waiting (literally!) for Rob’s cavalry to come over the hill and rescue the day.

…To Go Wrong

However when I looked over to see when Rob would be smashing into the Thracian flanks, I saw that he was stuck facing annoyingly resilient Companions and had Knights stuck in the ZOC of the pike block! No rescue was coming from there ! So it was time for plan B. For me to somehow beat the Thracians and me to then go over and help finish off the Lysamachids!

What Makes Two the Strongest Different To Other Tournament

At this critical stage something happened that I think reflects the whole ethos of TtS Tournaments. In my experience no one wants to win because they know the rules better. They want to win through better tactics and manoeuver and perhaps the odd lucky draw!

So my opponent Alex had galloped his light cavalry general and bodyguard across the river chasing after my “distraction command” but in doing so had exposed his flank - with his evade route blocked by a big unit of hairies.

So I charged into his flank with the first of two lance armed light cavalry. Three cards to hit!

He chose to evade his first unit which could just fit in front of the hairies. But his second unit with his general had no room left and so was due to be wiped out. However, Alex said he did not know that was how the rules worked and if he had done he would not have evaded. So straight away, we all agreed that was unfair to Alex and we went back in time (half a dozen cards drawn) and started again.

Plan B!

Anyway, by this stage my Teutonic knights had finished off the hairies that they had previously disordered. My swirling light archery had killed another unit and a lucky cannon shot from my camp all contributed enough hits, together with a dead general to rout the Thracians! This also left my final unactivated command on my left, to turn and flank charge the deep units facing Rob.

This was happening just as Rob finally killed the stubborn companions and within just one more turn the combined attacks brought us the final VMs needed to rout the Lysamachids as well!

Not at all as planned but a double victory never the less!

Alex’s hairies had killed four of my lights by throwing just four of their pesky pointy sticks (missiles can be deadly in TtS) but thanks to my lights’ ability to dance away from their big units we had avoided any melees and survived long enough to inflict enough hits before being pinned to our base line. A near run thing but with enough safety to not suffer from the “squirting” that @johnhilary has suffered from when using the very similarly brittle Pecheneg horde.