TTS AAR: Roll Call #4: Venice Abroad vs Komnenon Byzantines

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My fourth and last game at this year’s Roll Call was against Nigel’s Byzantines: a powerful army who had carved up my Romans at the rceent World Championships!

My stratagem was Flank March so I decided to leave my right flank very light and send my best unit of veteran Later Knights (with army standard) off that way to see if I could temp Nigel’s cavalry forward to then be neatly taken in the flank or rear by my Knights.

This worked very nicely (although I messed up how it should have been played, so thanks to Tim, as referee, for ruling so adroitly and to Nigel for waving off my error) with one unit of enemy cavalry being smashed right off the table immediately after the Knights’ arrival.

On the other flank, both sides had advanced rapidly towards each other and an enormous, sprawling melee broke out. Fortunately for the Venetians, Nigel’s Varangian Guard and Skoutatoi were not having a particularly good day (they were the lads who had eviscerated my Romans!) and were contained by my troops, helped by the terrain. The Venetians also manged to knock quite a few Byzantine light units off the table: perhaps not tactically significant but still a trickle of Byzantine coins lost.

Meanwhile, back to the other flank, and my Knights had polished off all the Byzantine cavalry they could find to kill. They were having a good day: also killing the enemy general and taking the Byzantine Holy Icon standard.

I was now significantly ahead on coins, but under huge pressure back on the left. It was, in fact, fair to say that my troops there were about to collapse!

My camps were also under attack, but the militia Spearmen (led by the chef-and-chicken) were doing their best to defend them.

I needed to finish the game quickly, especially as we were also just about out of time, and suddenly saw an opportunity to do so.

I had a unit of Spearmen plus attached General on a hill about two thirds of the way up the board. They had been killing Byzantine lights and were now in a position to turn and attack the rear of the Skoutatoi who were meleeing with more of my Knights.

This I was about to do when I noticed that actually there was a clear path to the enemy camp in front of them. Okay, it was a few squares away, but I had a general with me, and taking the camp would give me the coins I needed to win.

For once the cards were with me, and the Spearmen marched straight into the camp to take Nigel’s last three coins and victory!

This was another game where the result (14-3 to me) didn’t actually reflect the situation. Although I had won the right, taking nine of Nigel’s coins from eliminating three cavalry units, their general and a standard, and only lost a smattering of units myself, I had about four units disordered and ready to break in Nigel’s next turn. I think I would still have won (time allowing) but it would have been a much closer result.

The overall scores were totted up and, much to my surprise, I found that I had come second! I was expecting somewhere 4th or 5th, so it must have been a weird combination of results elsewhere to let me snatch the runner up position: that’s the joy of the Swiss Chess system!

Thanks to Tim for organising the tournament, and to all my opponents for giving me such great games. Congrats to Peter for winning: those of you who have read the AAR of our game will know that I almost had him (score notwithstanding!), which would, presumably, mean that I would hve won overall. Something to work towards next time!

TTS AAR: Roll Call #3: Venice Abroad vs Tibetans

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My third game at this year’s Roll Call was against Peter and his Tibetans. Peter has sliced and diced me before with this lot, so I was determined to do better this time round.

I had a fair idea of what tactics he was going to employ: one command of light cavalry would dart forward from the outset and attempt to get around one of my flanks. If that worked, then the cataphracts would follow. Failing that, he would use the superior mobility of his all-cavalry army to weight one side of the table, forcing me to fight his whole army with only part of mine.

That was all well and good - I knew what he would try to do - but the real question was whether I could do anything about it!

Things started well when, much to my surprise, I won the scouting. This meant that I could try to counter his intended plans through my deployment.

Note that I have lights on the left to counter his lights, my knights are all in front of his army, and most of my infantry is in the right place as well. Okay, I would have to shift my left flank infantry over to the right as soon as possible, but this was a better position from which to start the battle than I could have anticipated!

The action began on the right, where the heavy cavalry forces on either side advanced cautiously towards each other. I knew I needed to get “first charge” advantage here, so it was a question of tempting Peter into advancing forward and then not quite reaching my troops so I could then charge forward myself.

I didn’t quite manage to do this, but Peter’s first charge on the far right proved unfortunate for him as a unit of Cataphracts disordered themselves charging a unit of my Later Knights whilst my militia Spearmen on hill survived everything the Tibetans could throw at them.

You’ll also see, in the picture above, how Peter has managed to concentrate his forces on my right flank despite me knowing that that was what he was going to do and making every effort to stop him doing so! If you count them up, you’ll see I have two units of Knights, one militia Spear and a Light Cavalry versus four units of Cataphracts, some veteran, and five units of horse archers.

And this is also actually where I lost the battle. On my next turn the Later Knights on the far right charged their disordered opponents and not only failed to sweep them from the board (potentially also taking out some of the light cavalry following through morale checks) but were actually dashed from the tabletop themselves! Extraordinary: but there’s not much you can do against luck like that!

This effectively let Peter through on that flank…but more of that in a moment.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, I had not only countered his annoying light cavalry but was actually driving the Tibetans backwards: the cunning use of Cry Havoc! caltrops giving me an initial advantage that I was quick to exploit.

Unfortunately I just couldn’t pin the mobile mounted Tibetans down for long enough to actually kill them, so although we were about even on medals won, I just couldn’t finish off the units I was fighting.

We had now been playing for almost the whole of the allocated 90 minutes, the scores were about even, and we went into Peter’s last turn.

Firstly, he took full advantage of his success on the right and cleared my troops from that side of the table, including the equally-cunning use of his stratagem Someone has Blundered! to take control of my last remaining unit of Knights there and make them retreat backwards off the table. That was four medals gone immediately, and you can see that the militia Spearmen, already disordered and hit in the flank, are next!

You can, by the way, also see just on the other side of the hill, a unit of my Knights hitting some of his horse. This was originally a flank charge by my Knights into his cavalry that should, by rights, have at least disordered the Tibetans but, no, they survived and by this time had turned to face me. That would have been four coins my way as their general would have gone as well.

At this point we were on for a draw: probably a winning draw in Peter’s favour but still a draw.

Unfortunately all this excitement had caused me to leave the tiniest gap in my defences which, with the last cards of the game, Peter managed to exploit and get into one of my camps.

This took the last of my victory medals and cost me a full loss rather than a losing draw. If only I’d found the time to move those light crossbowmen to the right at some earleir stage!

So I came close, but still ended up being trounced 14-3, with eleven coins lost in the final moments of the game.

I took some consolation, however, in the fact that the result didn’t really reflect the game, and in the thought that I’d pretty much countered Peter’s standard strategies through my deployment and tactics and had been on an even keel with him right up to when my Knights failed to take advantage of a great position on my right. I’ll ‘ave him next time!

Arab Light Infantry and Command

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I’m still working my way through all the peripheral troops required to field my Arab Conquest army.

First up are the light infantry archers, who I have painted as Berber types using Contrast Apothecary White highlighted with white acrylic, all over a Grey Seer undercoat. Sashes and turbans painted with Contrast Stormfiend Blue.

The models are 3D Breed Moorish archers printed by Geek Villain. I like their slightly squat, cartoonish look, reminiscent of some of the FoW ranges.

Painted the same way, but with the addition of a light blue wash on their trousers and cloaks, here are a couple of units of light infantry javelinmen.

These models are Red Copper sculpts printed for me by Baueda Italy i.e. before they were sold. They are beautiful sculpts with brilliant animation and detail. The best of their Arab Conquest range in my opinion.

An army needs its commanders, so here are two mounted commanders with some more ‘mounted infantry marker’ camel riders in the background.

The coammanders follow the paint scheme I’ve used for the rest of the Jund cavalry and Arab infantry i.e. a mix of bright colours specifically designed to contrast with the Berbers and Bedouin.

The figures are also Red Copper sculpts. Note the chaps holding the hawks on their wrists: really nice figures that Claudio at Baueda specially printed for me as a pack of five rather than as one of the models in a mixed pack of commanders.

The camel riders in the background are Forged in Battle.

Speaking of which, an Arab army sometimes needs some Daylami infantry: fierce tribesmen with javelins and big, multi-coloured shields. Neither 3D Breed, Red Copper nor anyone else I could find do them as a resin 3D print, so I had to go with a metal version from Forged in Battle.

After painting over 200 3D printed figures in a row, it was a bit of a shock to the system going from resin 3D sculpts to metal casts and not in a good way. Don’t get me wrong: the FoB figures are lovely, it’s just that the quality of characterisation and animation that are now being achieved with 3D prints is just incredible, and these just felt, well, bland in comparison.

I had checked what Daylami shields looked like, and they promised to be a real pain to do…so I cheated.

The front ranks have my attempts at Daylami shield patterns: hand painted in what I’d call a cell-like pattern. The back ranks use Celtic transfers from Little Big Man Studios over a variety of backgrounds. As the FoB Daylami shields are flat, and the LBS transfers have a hole in them for a shield hub, the shields have a bare patch in the centre sort of in the shape of a cross. This actually works quite well, as it makes the shields look unusual and different, something that is definitely the case with the Daylami. I know my shield patterns aren’t tip top, but they look okat at wargaming distance!

So just the foot commanders, heroes and camps to do now, and that will be my basic Arab Conquest army done. Then to start moving into the later “caliphate” versions: with Berber spearmen instead of Arab warriors as their main infantry contingent.

TTS AAR: Roll Call #2: Venice Abroad vs Vikings

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My second game at this year’s Roll Call tournament was against Andy and his Vikings: an infantry army full of large, hairy types armed with big choppers!

Somewhat unsurprisingly, I won the scouting and, having seen where the Vikings had positioned themselves decided to try and turn his left flank with my Knights whilst the rest of my army kept as far away from the enemy as possible, largely deploying on the edge of my side of the table.

This was all very well, but Andy then played the This Way Effendi stratagem on me, which meant that the infantry command that were supposed to be occupying my camp had been led astray by a guide who was in the pay of the enemy and would start the game one box to the rear which, as they were on the edge of the table, meant off-table…which meant that my lovely three fortified camps would start the game empty of any Venetians!

Obviously this wouldn’t be a problem, as all I needed to bring them on in the first turn was to draw a 4+ (camps are difficult terrain):

A good start to the game but, no matter, on with the plan as I sent my knights forwards as fast and as far as possible.

The cards were with me, and the Viking left flank was soon under huge pressure as a mass of heavily armoured horsemen his them in the front and flank and rapidly started to roll them up.

The rest of the Vikings, however. had rushed forward as fast as they could, intending to win the game by just running over the rest of my troops.

Although by now I had managed to get the force that was supposed to be guarding the camp back on the table, this didn’t stop one unit of Scandies punching through my line like a seax through butter and taking one of my camps. Ouch!

It was now a race to see who could exploit their situation fastest: could I polish off Andy’s left flank, taking his army standard and hopefully the game, before he could turn the hairies in my camp and take the other two sections to get the coins he needed to win.

My knights were. for once, on good form, and were able to totally clear the Vikings in front of them from the table.

Unfortunately, this still left me a two coins short of ultimate victory. The tension was now so great that one of my units suffered a casualty and had to be replaced from my reserves!

Things were also critical on my left flank. Although the Vikings in my camp had failed to make the turn that would have let them take the other two sections (presumably looting the fabulous luxuries that acompany my troops on their campaigns), my Alabardiers were being attacked by three Viking warbands, and surely couldn’t hold out for long.

Fortunately, I had chosen them to receive the Tonight we dine in hell! stratagem, so they were able to shrug off their first disorder, add a hero, and hold their own for that turn. They are top left in the picture below.

The Vikings then surrounded the Alabardiers, and things looked even more critical: I could see myself losing them, the other two camps, and the two Spearman units shown in the picture above in the Vikings’ next turn…and the victorious knights were still a square or two short of being able to return to the action and take the Vikings in the rear.

That would give the Vikings victory despite the fact that they themselves only now had two coins left and I had loads. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

Salvation, however, came from an unlikely source.

I had been covering my far left flank with a couple of units of Atmati di schioppe or handgunner light infantry, and one of these now crashed into the rear of the veteran Huscarls flanking the Alabardiers.

Incredibly, the handgunners managed to inflict two disorders on the veteran Huscarls, but that was still not enough to break them and win the game. I’d have to get a 7+ to go in again, and then hope that my two 8+ attacks would succeed against the ‘saving on a 6+’ Huscarls: not very good odds (just over 6% I think).

But wait…that’s a general with the Huscarls, and we haven’t checked to see if he is hit yet.

Andy pulled his chits…it was a hit and the general died: taken in the rear by a Venetian hand gunner!

Those two coins were Andy’s last, and the game was mine by 14 coins to 7…but it had been a close run thing and the tables would have been turned on Andy’s next turn if that general had survived.

What a great game!

TTS AAR: Roll Call #1: Venice Abroad vs Burgundian Ordnance

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Off to Cranfield for the Medieval Mayhem competition at Roll Call. I would field a Venice Abroad force: a mixture of Knights and Spearmen with a good sprinkling of light troops as well.

My first game was against Dillon’s Brugundian Ordnance force: an army very similar to mine, the main difference being that Dillon’s infantry were spear and longbow combined whereas I had separate spear and light infantry missile troops.

The Burgundians pulled the Flank March stratagem, so would start the game with one unit off table. I was initially minded to hold back and see where this arrived, but then decided that boldness was the way forward with the huge open space on the right flank just too tempting: the plan being to overwhelm his cavalry there with my Knights leaving the rest of his force vulnerable to a roll-up from that flank.

Unfortunately the two patches of rough ground and the wood that you can see in the picture above created a bit of a bottleneck that would come back to haunt me later in the game.

This concentration of horse on my right did mean that my left flank was very light: two units of light handgunners, in fact, that seemed to be facing an awful lot of Burgundians panzers, especially as that is where Dillon’s flanking troops eventually turned up.

Back to the right, where my Knights and Light Horse were slowly battering their way through the opposition: the bottleneck initially preventing me from applying my superior number efficiently. Yes, I eventually “won” that flank, but it took far too long to do so!

Meanwhile, on the left, Dillon was trying to clear my inferior force away so that he could do to me there what I was intending to do to him on the right. Unfortunately, a combination of the cards and my Alabardiers refusing to go backwards made things very difficult for him, meaning that his Knights there spent a lot of time dominating an extremely useless empty space!

All this shilly-shallying around, however, meant that we were out of time. This was extremely frustrating as if we’d played one more turn I think I would have had victory: I only needed a couple more of Dillon’s victory medals to win outright, and I had three places where I had fresh troops able to attack disordered Burgundians.

I begged Tim, the refereee, to let us play one more turn…offered bribes of the finest entertainments that Venice has to offer…but all to no avail: the game ended in a draw with the resultant points slightly in my favour as I had killed a slightly greater proportion of Dillon’s troops than he had mine.

A great game, but I rued getting jammed between the rough ground and the woods on the right: open terrain would have meant that I could have applied superior numbers earlier. But it was not to be: all that was left was the faint cry of “please, just let me play one more card”!

TFL Painting Challenge: Mid-April Update

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This year’s Challenge is really getting into its stride now, with loads of entries coming in over the last couple of weeks.

First up, we have Stumpy’s latest additions to his collection, Hera’s force for Mortal Gods, some of which are shown below. See the rest in his full gallery, accessible via the NavBar, above.

Nick Cooper also sent in a big entry this month, although it’s more of a late March entry than one for April. Here’s some of what he sent in:

I’m loving the Ents!

We have a first entry of the year this month from Mr Luther: an absolutely heroic job producing over 1,000 6mm trees. As he says: I picked up some crappy little Xmas trees on clearance at a craft chain after Christmas 2 years ago. 92 packs with 11 mini trees each (yes 11 in a pack)  for a total of 1012 trees. So I cut the bases off, drilled a bazillion holes in mdf bases, painted the trees a more natural pine green, glued them to the painted bases, then sprayed them white, then flocked them with Woodland Scenics snow,  then gave them a clear coat. Enough snow covered pines for a impressive forest.

It’s funny what we choose to spend out time doing, but they do look good!

Next up we have Carole, with her eight wizards painted to represent the eight Warhammer
Fantasy Empire's Colleges of Magic:

Mr Helliwell sent in his batch of new figures, only some of which are shown below. Where does he get the time?

Mr Plowman has spent his time renovating some of the very first wargames figures he ever painted: 15mm Hoplites. Here they are, along with some lights to cover their flanks!

Sapper has also been busy: three battalions of French Napoleonics ready to march back from Moscow, plus some Viking casualty markers (not shown, but in his gallery):

And last, but by no means least, Steve Burt has some escaping POWs for 02 Hundred Hours:

That is a lot of excellent work on show this update. Keep em coming!

TTS AAR: Hittites versus Neo-Assyrians

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Great to get a game of To The Strongest in with friend Bevan. We went biblical, with Bevan using the Neo-Assyrians versus my Hittites.

Neither side wasted any time, both thundering towards the other…apart from one Assyrian infantry command on the flank that really didn’t want to be involved.

Note the Assyrian infantry peaking into the frame from the left hand side

Whilst the Syrian light chariots kept some of the finally-advancing Assyrian infantry on the left occupied, the left hand command of Hittite heavy chariots smashed into the rest of the left-hand Assyrian infantry and the Assyrian heavy chariots in the centre of the enemy line.

Amazingly (good cards!) the Hittite chariots smashed through both one unit of enemy infantry and one set of Assyrian chariots, punching a huge hole in the centre of the Assyrian line.

Breakthrough at the schwerepunkt!

The other unit of Assyrian Heavy Chariots would also soon be sent flying off table, along with the Assyrian commander-in-chief.

Meanwhile, on the other flank, the other Hittite heavy chariot command had slammed into the Assyrian heavy cavalry, and a fierce melee broke out.

New tech versus old tech on the right

Keeping that flank locked safe was vital to the Hittite cause, as their infantry and more chariots in the centre had fallen victim to a deluge of Assyrian bowfire, and were wavering as the Assyrians closed for combat!

Hittites suffering a nasty attack of the missile fire!

Fortunately the chariots rallied and the Hittite Royal Guard were able to intervene to protect the wavering infantry. Note the Gasgan tribesmen on the left also seeking to get into the action.

Royal Guard to the rescue

Meanwhile, back to the left flank, where the Syrians were still keeping the Assyrian javelinmen occupied.

Back t he right again, where even the Royal Guard had been forced backwards onto a hill. If the Assyrians got their act together and advanced their heavy infantry, the Hittie centre could collapse…especially as the rest of the Hittite chariots were losing the melee on the far right.

Things getting a bit critical on the right!

All the above, however, was just a distraction from the main event: the victorious Hittite chariots left/centre continuing their punch forward to take the Assyrian camp, already packed with the survivors/fleeing infantry/broken chariots of the initial clashes.

Although the first lot of chariots were resoundingly unsuccessful in their attempt to get into the camp, the Hittite chariot commander, briefly delayed by the need to wipe out the other Assyrian heavy chariots, soon arrived to seal the win for the Hittites: taking both their camp and their last few coins.

It had been a very exciting game.

The Hittites had had fantastic early success against the Assyrian heavy chariots, punching right through them, but the Assyrians had responded quickly, taking advantage of their extra strength on the right to put so much pressure on the Hittite line that it almsot buckled. If it hadn’t been for the Hittite Royal Guard intervening at the critical moment, the entire Hittite line could have routed.

Kudos also to the Syrian light chariots on the left. Their skirmishing prevented the Assyrian javelnmen from either rushing back to defend their camp or from intervening in the centre.

This allowed the Hittite chariots in the centre/left, the ones who had broken through, to take the Assyrian camp and thus rip the heart out of the remaining near-victorious army, forcing their retreat and giving the Hittites a win.

Napoleonics with Valour & Fortitude

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A rare day off work so what better way to spend it than wargaming!

Friend Si was putting on a 28mm game of Valour & Fortitude, so I invited myself along and ended up joint-commanding a French rearguard trying to get away from some Prussians and Russians.

The Allied force headed straight for us, so our lead brigade stayed in column and headed towards the left hand ridge, whereas my brigade formed line and started side-stepping left as fast as they could!

Almost immediately some Russians Hussars charged our only battery of artillery. The Hussars were decimated by cannister fire but still managed to get in amongst the guns, sabres swinging. The result: retreating Hussars but no more artillery crew!

It was now fairly obvious that we were severely outnumbered, but all we could do is send off messengers asking for reinforcements whilst continuing with out plan.

My troops were now locked into a forefight with the advancing Prussians, but a very steady volley sent some enemy Militia scuttling backwards. There were, however, plenty more coming forward, and things were looking a bit dicey.

Then, huzzah: our reinforcements arrived. Two more brigades: one of which would reinforce Gary’s assault on the other ridge, one would bolster my wavering men.

Things were looking good at Gary’s end of the table, but a bit dicey at mine. Although I won the first melee I fought, the Prussian landwehr curling in from the right then destroyed my rearmost battalion.

My original brigade were, unfortunately doomed: especially as managed to roll ‘snake eyes’ for my two saves against losing a battalion.

But my reinforcements were now in position, and as the game ended we had certainly fought the enemy to at least a stalemate.

The umpire was consulted and ruled that this had been a French victory: I think that you achieved the mission. The Prussians had taken out most of your right but the left was quite intact and the Russians not too strong. They weren’t in a position to exit the table on your side after 10 turns.

Sacre bleu but that was a hard-fought battle! A French victory, but casualties had been high. My thanks to Si for hosting and running the game, and to Gary, my co-commander, and Dave, the Prussians!

Here are some shots of the table at the end of the game:

Designed by committee...

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Now that the bulk of my Arab Conquest army is complete (six units each of Jund cavalry and warrior warbands) it’s time to start filling in the rest of what’s needed.

First up are the camels, and the first of them are the two units of light camelry with lances. These are Red Copper sculpts printed for me by Baueda before they were sold.

These are lovely sculpts, and whilst I’m not sure how useful they are going to be on the battlefield, they will at least look good whilst doing so!

I then needed some bow-armed camel-riding arabs as Scouts. Red Copper unfortunately don’t do any of them, so I fell back on the Forged in Battle War & Empire range for these beauties.

For those interested, the camels are painted with a single coat of Contrast Skeleton Horde over a Grey Seer undercoat, which gives the perfect camel colour.

The riders are painted mainly in Contrast Apothecary White, again over the Grey Seer undercoat, but in order to make the colour ‘pop’ I then highlight the Apothecary with a standard acrylic white.

The final camel-mounted element consists more of markers than actual army-contingent figures.

A lot of the Arab Conquest infantry are mounted, and I wanted a representative marker that I could place with a mounted unit at deployment. Red Copper do a great army commander figure mounted on a camel that would do the trick and, as I had had to use plenty of packets of army commanders to produce the Jund cavalry, I had enough for my needs. Here are the front and back views:

So that’s all my camels painted. They were a lot more fun to do than the Jund cavalry: less furniture and something different, as I haven’t painted a camel since I built some late 19th Century Camel Corps for the sudan.

TTS AAR: Crusaders versus Sassanids

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Time for a quick game of To The Strongest against friend Rob. As I wanted to use my ‘first time on the table’ pilgrims, I would play the early Crusaders. Rob chose to play the Sassanids.

The Sassanids won the scouting, and chose to deploy a long line of Savaran cavalry on the left, their cataphracts in the centre, all backed up by their infantry and elephants on their right.

The Crusaders deployed all their Knights on their left, their lesser troops (pilgrims etc) in the centre, and their shieldwall foot knights on the right.

On the left hand side of the battlefield, the Knights and cataphracts advanced towards each other slowly. I had four units of Knights handy, so was pretty confident that I could use my numbers to get an advantage here and then sweep into the flank of the rest of the Sassanid cavalry.

I was a little concerned about the horse-archers sweeping past my left flank, but I was about to charge forward so would worry about them later!

Or rather not, as a pair of Aces prevented me from getting that first charge advantage!

Worse, once my Knights had received the Cataphract charge, I checked that my general had survived the combat only to see him murdered by a Sassanid spy! Things had not begun particularly well!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, the Savaran had advanced into contact with my infantry.

This was almost equally disastrous: with two of my shieldwall units fleeing the field after receiving a rain of arrows and a nasty lance-charge, one exposing a unit of archers as they did so. The Savaran then crashed into the archers and, to much hilarity on my side, were disordered then broken by the bowmen!

Back to the left, and I had somewhat recovered the situation, destroying both cataphract units and one lot of horse archers. Both units of Knights were, however, disordered, so I couldn’t afford to lose another combat.

Rob and I were both now so short of coins that one more unit broken would lose either of us the game. The initiative was with me, so I had a quick look around the table to see which Sassanid units were the most vulnerable.

I could charge the disordered Daylami in the woods in the right hand picture above, but I was disordered and couldn’t use my lance amidst the trees, and they were veteran javelinmen who would get saves for defending cover…no, I needed to pick an easier target.

Ah ha! The other unit of Daylami were out in the open, and I had two units of Knights that could charge them. Here was my victory!

In went the first unit of Knights: mutual disorder. Good enough, I had the others to follow.

In they went, but I just couldn’t break the insert expletive javelinmen. The cream of chivalry unable to break disordered mountain men out in the open: pitiful!

Well that was my best chance of a win gone, and I could only watch as his elephants thundered forward and broke the Knights in front of the woods. That was bye-bye two coins and bye-bye the game!

An excellent game that I so nearly managed to recover from early losses to win. So nearly!

My only consolation was the fact that I am painting up a couple of Daylami units for my Arab Conquest force. May they achieve similar success when they hit the tabletop!

IABSM AAR: The September War #01: Chojnice

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Here’s a battle repot from a game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum played in March.

It’s set on the first day of the second world war and involves advancing Germans trying to stop Polish engineers blowing a vital railway bridge so that they can bring up their armoured train.

Click on the picture below to see all:

TFL Painting Challenge: Last March Update

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A third update for March: we have all been busy!

First up is Sapper, with a whole column of 28mm French infantry retreating from Moscow and a horde of mounted Vikings:

Another mass entry from Carole: twenty Scots for the ‘English’ Civil War, all from Bloody Miniatures:

Mr Helliwell has also been very busy, with a cornucopia of entries mostly for his 15mm napoleonic collection:

Next up, a couple of singleton entries: Steve Burt’s French Knights for Agincourt; Stumpy’s Fallschirmjaeger in 28mm; and Ralph Plowman’s first entry of the year, some 15mm Greek psiloi:

And finally there’s Sapper, who has been busy down in the jungle:

An excellent final entry for March from everyone. Now lets keep them coming for April onwards!

FK&P AAR: Overlord!

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Off to Overlord, Abingdon Wargames society’s annual show, to play a game of For King & Parliament - Eastern Front variant pit on as a demonstration game by friends Si and Mark.

I would play the Polish-Lithuanians versus Gary and Si playing the Ottomans.

The set up was an approximate version of the end of a very important battle in the Vienna campaign (they’ll never know that I can’t remember which one!) in which the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, headed by the Winged Hussars, destroyed the Ottoman cavalry and won the day.

I had set up hoping that history would repeat itself, with the Hussars and Pancieri heavy cavalry on the right of the line facing the Ottoman horse, and with my lighter cavalry and Haiduk levy infantry on the left. The Ottomans had their guns and Janissery veteran infantry in the centre, but only their Azabs on the right, so I was hoping that even if the Hussars didn’t do the business, my infantry could defeat the far right of the Ottoman line and then loop in to roll up the fiendish Turk.

The battle began with the Poles pushing forward strongly across the whole front except the far right, where the cavalry command there stubbornly refused to move forward.

Confident in the quality of the Hussars, my tactics on the right were just “get stuck in”…which seemed to work very well as before long the Ottoman cavalry had melted away in front of me.

At the other end of the table, the Janisseries unwittingly played into my plan by not coming forward but choosing to exchange inconclusive long range fire with my Haiduks.

This meant that I could then, as planned, try to get around the left-hand end of his line…which sort of worked in that I did manage to get into a decent flanking position, but just couldn’t deliver a coup de grace that would let me start rolling it up.

Meanwhile, the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, having defeated their Ottoman equivalents, turned in (well, those who weren’t pursuing did) and started to roll up the enemy line from the other end.

This culminated in a flank charge into the Guard Janisseries plus “marching band army standard” that should have swept them off the board but unfortunately just bounced off!

There was still nothing much happening at the other end of the table. My flanking manoeuvre was still sort of working, the Janisseries were still hanging back…

…which gave me the opportunity to hit the pesky Guard Janisseries with another unit, and this time the extraordinary chits I pulled from the bag did the damage and destroyed them.

This actually won me the game as I think I took five medals from that one unit (two for the unit, two for an officer and one from the marching band standard) which was quite lucky as the rest of the Ottoman line had finally realised that they needed to do something and had moved forward in a threatening manner!

But they were too late. As mentioned above, the game was already mine not, I hasten to add, as a result of any great tactical manoeuvring on my part: it was the Winged Hussars crashing through the Ottoman horse that did the trick. I was having a good day on the chits as well: saving far more often than I should have, and getting some cracking attack chits in as well.

All in all it was a most enjoyable game and a great chance to play with Si’s beautifully painted toys. The Overlord show was good as well: heartily recommended for a visit and definitely on the list for next year.

19thC AAR: British versus Russians

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Friend Neil wanted to try the Neil Thomas Rules for 19th Century Wargaming, so I set up a quick battle: Crimean British versus Crimean Russians. I would play the Russians, Neil would take the Brits.

I set the game up as an encounter battle, with both sides advancing forward to take battle to the enemy. On reflection, I probably gave the British one or possibly two infantry battalions too many as, although they were outnumbered, their infantry was all elite.

My plan, as the Russians, was to advance forward and hold the small town on the left hand side of the battlefield, using the heavy artillery at the back of the column to pound the advancing Britig infantry into a state where I could successfully charge them. I would mass my cavalry on the right, as although that required a bit of manoeuvring to get into position, that would then give me superior numbers and a chance to break through and circle round the British left flank. In the centre, I would mass my infantry against the British , hopefully using a 5:3 advantage to stymie any advance.

The action began with the Russian heavy dragoons on the right facing of against British Lancers, witht he sheer weight of the Dragoons pushing the opposition back.

Unfortunately, the Dragoons were then hit by rockets from some British artillery and charged by Light Dragoons. This sent them reeling backwards past the advancing Russian Hussars. It looked like the cavalry battle was going to be the usual backwards-and-forwards sideshow!

The game then divided into two neat halves: with me facing the British Guards Brigade on the left and a brigade of British line infantry on the right…and with pesky Riflemen all over!

On the left, the British Guards brigade advanced forward and then switched into line, sending multiple volleys of musket fire into the approaching Russian columns (my plan to hold the village had been forgotten!) before launching a charge with the Grenadier Guards that was only held at bay by the Russian heavy artillery.

On the right, again the British moved forward in column and then switched to line. I thought my advantage in numbers might just allow me to break one of the British infantry units, but a charge by the 11th Hussars into the flank of one of my Guards battalions soon put paid to that, and I soon had nothing of significance to throw forward!

So a fairly conclusive British victory, with my only consolation being the pounding my heavy artillery gave the Guards. We didn’t play all aspects of the game correctly (it had been some time since I’d last played the rules) but it was a most enjoyable encounter, even with the hefty defeat!

Arab Conquest: the Jund Cavalry

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Regualr visitors will know that 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).

Already painted were the Warriors that form the bulk of the army, the next task was the next big chunk of figures: the Jund cavalry.

Again 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.

I painted the Red Copper figures in individual colour schemes: which took a long time and was very annoying: no ‘paint the same uniform 100 times’ fugue state possible!

This gave the impression of random figures, but I then tried to group them by colour to make the individual bases easier to identify. This didn’t work as well for the cavalry as for the infantry, but I was happy enough with the result.

Here are the individual units:

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 all the other bits and pieces you need to get an army actually onto the tabletop!

TTS AAR: Classical Indians vs Hittites

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Time to get a couple of my favourite 15mm armies onto the tabletop: I would play the Classicial Indians versus Rob playing the Hittites.

During deployment, I had weighted my left flank: the plan being to win a quick victory there and then swing around and take his centre from the rear.

Unfortunately, although I did eventually get a win on the left, it was by no means the ‘quick victory’ I wanted.

This meant that my weaker right flank came under huge amounts of pressure, starting with the Hittites’ ally-Syrian Light Chariots dancing around my flank to threaten my camps and rear.

Rob’s clever use of a Someone had Blundered stratagem in the right-centre also meant my elephants there failed to intervene.

In the end, I had to consolidate my right-centre position and hope that the troops out on the right would survive without support.

Paricularly vulnerable were the javelinmen on the hill on the far right of the field, who were beign assaulted from the flank and rear by those pesky Syrians but, unbelievably, the javelinmen were made of stern stuff and just simply refused to die!

The Hittites, well aware that they were losing on the left, slammed everything they had left at my centre and right, but the Indian elephants proved very difficult for the Hittite chariots to kill (+2 defensive bonus for elephants fighting mounted meant my veteran Nellies were saving on a 4+) and those Indian javelinmen on the hill were still refusing to die!

As my left flank force polished off their opponents and began to arrive back in the centre, the Hittites tried one last assault on my troops there, but this proved their undoing: I was ahead on victory medals, so even a one-for-one result to any melees would give me the victory.

In the end, and very appropriately, it was the elephants in the centre that finally broke the last Hittite unit that I needed to rout for the victory: a glorious win for the Indians.

It had been an interesting game. I thought that my chariots and elephants on the left would easily beat the Hittite chariots and infantry there, but although I eventually ended up ahead there, it had been a hard slog and left the rest of my troops to fend for themselves.

The Syrian light chariots proved difficult to contain: a little more luck coming Rob’s way and I would have lost a camp and a couple of units to their depradations, but fortune smiled on me and the resolute javelinmen on the hill gave me the time to adjust my positions to counter their attack.

In the end it was the staying power of the elephants (especially versus mounted opponents) that won me the day, but it had certainly been a close run thing!

TFL Painting Challenge

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Half way through the month, and a good time to have a very quick Challenge update.

Let’s start with Mr Helliwell, who has been painting and re-basing at his usual rapid pace. There’s a whole circumference of walls (three metres worth) and plenty of Napoleonic figures too.

Next up is Steve Burt with some Agincourt figures: knights and commanders…

Stumpy has been busy working, but still found a bit of time for some re-basing. Egyptians from the Sudan:

And last, but by no means least, we have John Emmett with some nice Silver Bayonet kit. I’m liking the “clue markers”!

Much more to see in the individual galleries, accessed through the NavBar, above.

Keep ‘em coming!

FK&P AAR: Skirmett Orchards (Siege of Norchester #12)

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And so Rob and I came to the last game of the Siege of Norchester campaign pack: Skirmett Orchards.

Rob and his Royalists had already won the camapign as a whole, but here was a last chance for the Parliamentarians to salvage a little bit of pride and close what would be the final gap.

Here’s the background to the scenario: Norchester has fallen! Despite the valiant efforts of Sir Edmund and his men, the city’s walls were eventually breached in several locations, and there were just not enough defenders left to cover them all. The Parliamentarian army swept forward, and after fierce fighting in the breaches, got into the city and forced its surrender.

Having escaped from the Parliamentarian trap near Ramshackle Bridge, Lord Arthur “Double” d’Artois therefore finds himself somewhat in a pickle: his mission was to help relieve the city, but the city has fallen. All he can now do is lead his men away from Norchester and join the Royalist fight elsewhere. There is, however, one more hurdle to overcome: Dread-Naught is on his trail again.

With his “English” troops exhausted after their final battle with Sir Edmund Dexter’s men, also fleeing Norchester, Sir Thomas has gathered together his troops from the Borders (along with General Rhapsody and the fittest two squadron of Puritan Horse) and swept up from the south to intercept d’Artois near the village of Skirmett, famous for its orchards.

One last clash remains…

view from the Royalist side of the table. The opposing commanders stare at each other from atop a couple of small hills.

My plan, as the Parliamentarians, was to refuse my left flank Scottish horse, forcing his veteran Swedish horse to come to me. Whilst that was happening, I’d advance forward in the centre to the edge of the town, but my main effort would be on the right, where my Puritan horse supported by infantry, would hopefully sweep away the Swedish horse in front of them before curling round the take the rest of the Royalist line in the rear.

A lot depended on the Scottish horse holding the left and a quick victory in the initial clash on the right.

View from behind the Parliamentarian right flank

The game began with both sides advancing on their respective right flanks.

My Puritan Horse were soon engaged with the Royalist cavalry, but the initial clash did not go well (demned counterchargers!). Where were the infantry?

The infantry arrived in the nick of time to stabilise the line…

…and although one squadron of Cavalier horse did break through, they were dealt with by the follow-up battalia of infantry, and the right flank was soon mine.

Meanwhile, on the left side of the field, my Scottish horse had been doing their best to avoid fighting the far superior Cavalier Swedish horse.

As you can see in the pictures below, they had been pretty successful in staying well away from the Royalists…with, almost unbelievably, the only actual clash resulting in a Scottish victory. This however left one squadron of Scottish horse isolated and with horses blown: it would be some time before they could do anything more.

The final shot shows the Royalist cavalry finally getting their act together and charging the Scots.

Up until now, things had been fairly quiet in the centre of the field, with neither side wanting to get their pikemen bogged down fighting amongst the buildings of Skirmett itself.

Realising, however, that things were not going well, the Royalists pushed forward into the village, and shots were exchanged to no great effect.

Meanwhile, on the right, the Royalists were doing a very good job at shoring up their precarious position, forcing my Roundheads to take a lot of time to get properly around that flank.

It was all happening now!

On the left, my Scottish horse finally gave way, leaving that flank to the Royalists. Fortunately the Cavaliers, as is often their wont, lost control and were chasing their defeated foe from the field rather than heading into the centre of the field where they could easily have turned the tide in their favour.

And in the centre a major advance by the Royalists had forced the Parliamentarians to retreat and consolidate their line, rotating their units to feed fresh ones in as required.

I now really did need to win the game on the right rather quickly.

Fortunately Colonel Rhapsody’s Puritan horse had finally manoeuvred themselves into a position where they could strike at the backs of the enemy.

Which they then did: launching a devastating rear charge that smashed an enemy infantry battalia from the field costing Rob his last few coins.

Aftermath

So that was the end of the campaign: twelve scenarios played over about twelve months, twelve great games, and a pretty convincing win for the Royalists overall. So well done Rob!

Being the ultimate nerd, I naturally kept a careful record of the scores for each game, helped by the helpful tracker included in the scenario pack. As you can see, everything was pretty neck and neck until the last few encounters.

It was nice to have a focus for our gaming as opposed to playing ad hoc encounters, and also good to have the opportunity to get really familiar with the two armies. I’d recomend playing a campaign at least once if you can, although it is quite a commitment!

To The World's Strongest Game Four: Early Imperial Romans vs Late Achaemenids

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My fourth and final game at this year’s To The World’s Strongest torunament was against Pete and his Late Achaemenid Persians.

With two losses and one win under their cingula, the Romans were looking for a big win to get at least somewhere near the top ten when the scores were all added up.

Neither side were in the mood for much mucking around, and advanced towards each other at a rapid rate of knots, determined to get stuck in as soon as possible.

Things started off very well indeed, with the large infantry unti you can see on the right of the Persian line being routed by the two legionary units in front of it.

That had been worth a lot of victory medals to the Persians: IIRC it was deep, had a standard, and the general had gone down with the unit so six medals flew my way. Things were going well!

The action then moved to the centre, with massed Persian horse charging my veteran legionaries...

…and getting punished for their presumption!

I was now ten victory medals to zero ahead, needing only two (or it might have been four) more coins to finish the Persians off.

Unfortunately, things then started to go wrong, so horribly wrong!

On the right flank, a unit of Persian guard cavalry plus some lesser horse managed to take out a couple of legionary units (the ones that had beaten the expensive deep unit earlier) due to some foolishness with the cards.

This then enabled the same cavalry to slip around behind my line and hit the disordered centre of my line in the rear, breaking the unit there.

I reached for the coins to give my opponent the two he needed due to the lost unit and found, to my horror, that these were my last two coins. I had lost the game!

But hang on, I hear you cry, you’ve only lost three two-coin units and a two-coin general: how can this be?

Well, the fighting had been fierce, and my Romans had been rallying in between the action…and I had handed over four - yes, four - coins as the ‘penalty’ for a successful rally on an even card. So going into that final rear charge, I had effectively lost ten coins (two two-coin units, a general and four rally=penalty coins) then lost another two, making twelve in all.

From being ten coins up, I had lost the game!

Now I have never liked the coin-for-an-even-card-on-a-successful-rally penalty rule, and now I don’t like it even more! I may have to move to Wales!

But well done to Pete for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: an excellent example of why you should never give up playing TTS, and how spotting and taking advantage of an opportunity is the key to success. It was a great game to play, even if the result was somewhat of a nasty surprise!

Aftermath

It had been a most enjoyable tournament, despite the fact that my Romans, so successful on other occasions, didn’t rise to the challenge. With three losses and one win, I finished 19th out of 32: not as bad as I had thought it was going to be.

Thanks to Si et al. for organising and hosting, and to all my opponents on the day. Great fun, and I highly recommend a bit of TTS tournament play for anyone who enjoys the game.