FK&P AAR: Scots versus Swedes!

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John and I both fancied a game of For King & Parliament, but couldn’t decide what to play. I definitely wanted to play my Scots Covenantor force, but also wanted to get some of my lesser used units onto the table as well. The solution was to fight a very unhistorical and ungeographical battle between the Scots Covenantors and a Swedish army from about the same period!

View from behind the Swedish Lines

View from behind the Scottish Lines

The battle opened with both sides advancing strongly forward. The Swedes had vastly superior numbers of cavalry concentrated on the wings, and their infantry in two lines in the centre.

The Scots had matched the Swedes in terms of cavalry deployment i.e. some on either wing, but there were far fewer of them and their horses were all poor mounts. They had about as many ‘line’ infantry as the Swedes, but positioned in one long line in the centre. Finally, there was a brigade of Highlanders on the left, and we’d be using the enhanced Highlander rules from the Celtic handbook.

The action began on the left, where one unit of Swedish horse (literally and as a description!) had got overexcited and pulled forward in fron tof its colleagues. This was too good an opportunity for the nearby Scottish lancers to resist, and they hopped the hedge in front of them and engaged.

The resultant melee took most of the rest of the game to ressolve but, somewhat surprisingly, ended in victory for the Scots lancers and, although their horses were badly blown, the survivors headed (slowly!) into the centre of the field to see what damage they could do there.

On the right wing, the terrain was much heavier: a hedge and nearby grove of trees forming a bit of a bottleneck. The Scots used their Pistoliers and some supporting infantry to hold up the Swedes: a bold advance isolating the Swedish dragoons from their horseholders and causing the Swedish Cuirassiers some trouble.

Although the Scots horsemen would effectively hold up the Cuirassiers for the whole game, the rest of the Swedish horse did eventually manage to break through the Scottish infantry, but with casualties heavy on both sides.

So with the clashes on the left ending in favour of the Scots, and the clashes on the right ending really honours even with the Swedes having a slight positional advantage, the battle would be decided in the centre.

Here the Swedes had again advanced strongly, and soon the first line of Swedish infantry and the Scottish pike and shot units were engaged in a furious melee. The Swedes of their first line were pike-heavy, so favoured charging in against the Scots who were happy to hold back and double-fire as much as possible.

A Scottish battalia to the left broke, but fortunately there were commanded shot and highlanders to plug the gap.

The Scots were now fully committed, at which point the Swedes brought up their second line. Rolling volleys crashed across the infantry, punctuated with fierce charges into melee. The action swayed backwards and forwards as battalia were gradually worn down.

Either side could have won the centre, but it was the Swedes who actually gave way first, especially as their troops could see the remains of the Scottish lancers ambling slowly towards their rear, their tired ponies puffing and blowing as their riders flailed fruitlessly at their flanks.

First one Swedish battalia gave way, then another, until suddenly the centre looked almost empty of fighting men. The day belonged to the Scots!

An epic battle which, right until the very end, could have gone either way. The Swedish cavalry had actually broken through the right hand side of the Scottish line, but had been held up for long enough for their infantry to be beaten in the centre, despite the fact that the pike-heavy “Swedish” infantry (as opposed to the “German” standard infantry) had proved very effective in melee.

Plaudits to the Scottish cavalry on both wings who, despite being mounted on little better than nags, managed to give their opponents a very bloody nose, and to the Scottish infantry, who held on just long enough to win the day.

A great game.

Painting Challenge: mid-June update

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Technically a little early perhaps, but here are the latest entries to this year’s Challenge.

First up we have new participant Bill, whose initial entry includes figures for expanding his 28mm Hundred Years War Midgard armies; two complete 15mm platoons (one British, one American Airborne) for Chain of Command; and a couple of bits of scenery. I especially love the Caribbean distillery:

Keeping on a Midgard theme, Carole has been painting Wargames Atlantic conquistadors for a Fantasy Empire army. Here we have great swordsmen, halbardiers and a couple of units fo sword-and-buckler men.

Time for Mr Helliwell’s usual influx of painted goodness: there’s more medieval types, a handful of Romans, some 15mm Napoleonic cavalry and even a couple of 3D fantasy prints. You can see his gallery (and, indeed, everyone else’s) by using the NavBar, above: there’s plenty more than shown below…

Next up are more WW2 vehicles from Dex: everything he’s painted since his last holiday. There are Kangaroos and a selection of Frenchies: all 3D prints, and all for Chain of Command.

And finally a couple of singleton shots: ACW (or similar) artillery limbers from Stumpy, and German Fallschirmjaeger from Mr Burt:

That’s all for now, but do keep the coming. Believe it or not, we’re almost half way through the year already!

Fanatics ≠ Archers - Again

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With our first game taking not very long at all, Peter and I had plenty of time for a second. I’ll let him tell the story again:

Peter writes…

In our second Galatian vs Western Sudanese battle, Rob deployed his camp slightly off centre to my left and surrounded it with his scary hairy warbands. He then deployed one cavalry command to my left of that and the other way off on my right.

So I again used my camp as a hardpoint on my left flank garrisoned by an entire command of archers to counter any possible attack by his cavalry on that flank.

I then deployed another command of archers centrally to create an interlocking field of fire in the middle. On my right I deployed my only cavalry command supported by a full infantry command to face his single cavalry command.

The Battle Begins

On that right flank I quickly marched forward with my 8 units and 22 arrows facing 2 units and 4 javelins. The numbers quickly showed and Rob’s command was quickly disordered and surrounded.

In the centre I advanced my massed bows to create interlocking fields of fire directly in front of his warbands. This deterred them from advancing.

Just as they were deciding they were fanatical enough to charge forward, Rob attempted to drag his cavalry on my left, that were facing my well garrisoned camp, into the centre enroute to supporting his outnumbered cavalry command on my right.

However this blocked the advance if his warbands and the combination of rough terrain, hesitant unwieldy warbands and intimidating fields of fire quickly turned into a log-jam with the cavalry baulking at entering rough terrain, and his unwieldy warbands both getting in the way and still reluctant to advance into the interlocking fields of fire.

The Battle Continues

On my right, Robs outnumbered, outflanked and unsupported cavalry quickly caved in allowing me to threaten the flanks of his central warbands.

At this stage I advanced my camp garrison out into the main battle area and started to shoot into the flanks of his bogged down cavalry and the still reluctant warbands.

Before long the constant rain of arrows in the middle and the cavalry attacks into his flank was enough to conclude the battle.

Conclusion

Every battle with Rob is always enjoyable and good fun, especially when we are both trying out new armies. In this case Rob’s conclusion was that Galatians don't like being shot at and so my Nigerian army almost exclusively of archers was his worst nightmare.

It does show that sometimes massed archery can work although like me, most TtS players have experienced disappointing and unreliable volleys from massed bowmen. And I know from my personal experience at the World’s that sometimes it's the enemy’s raw LI/javelin that throws its one javelin and kills off both your wounded verteran cataphract and its heroic senior general!

That’s all part of the joy of TtS and means that whatever situation you are ever in, never give up, because your opponent might just fail the save and give you a last minute victory!

My Comments

Well that didn’t work out very well, did it!

I still need to find a way to get my fanatics into combat without being shot to pieces by massed archers; and need to remember how difficult it is (on a competition-size table) to switch a command from one side of the field to the other: the table-size is designed to get a result not allow for anything other than micro-tactical manoeuvers.

That’s two games in a row without a win for my Galatians!

Fanatics ≠ Archers

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With enough Celts now painted to have a game, I was keen to get them onto the tabletop. Perhaps unwisely, my first opponent was Peter, winner of almost every To The Strongest competition he enters.

The first incarnation I tried was the Celts as fanatical Galatians: an army comprised of six units of deep fanatics and some cavalry. I’ll let Peter tell you what happened…

Peter writes:

I love experimenting with new armies, new troop type combinations and new tactics and seeing how well they perform, either as an official tournament army or with slight variations to stress test their full potential.

I’ve been inspired by a Nigerian CEO mentoring client who told me about the fascinating medieval history of his nation including Mansa Musa who is, relatively speaking, the richest man who has ever lived, far outpacing the likes of Gates, and Musk through his extraordinary gold mines. Although beware any email from his 20 times great grand son who claims to have found his inheritance down a mine!

Anyway…

So I created a Western Sudanese Nigerian army and fought two battles against my good friend Rob, who wanted to test out his brand new Galatian hordes with gorgeous tartan cloaks.

Essentially an army of archers fighting against hordes of hairies.

In our first battle Rob deployed his hordes in the middle with cavalry protecting each flank. I deployed my archers centrally with my small cavalry command on my left and my camp as a hard point protecting my right flank.

The Plan

My plan had 3 components …

  1. To have a melee free stand off in the middle whilst peppering him with arrows.

  2. To draw Rob’s cavalry command on my right forward into a killing zone surrounded by archers in my camp and nearby woods.

  3. To win the whole battle on my left with a combined arms attack of cavalry and massed archery, around two woods that would constrain and frustrate both his cavalry and his deep warbands.

The Battle Starts

On my left I pushed forward with all my cavalry supported by several bow units. This sucked his cavalry and three warbands forward, with a bloodlust to crush my impertinent bowman.

I then manoeuvred my three mounted units against just one of Robs and moved four archer units just into range to pour arrows into his other cavalry unit and three deep warbands that were struggling to manaouvre around the two woods. The deep hairies were also attempting to swerve right to avoid the interlocking field of fire of yet more of my formed bowmen on top of a central defensive hill. This led them into a very constricted area between the two woods where their lack of manoeuvrability bogged them down into in-action and created a traffic jam. In an attempt unblock this cloggage one unit of fanatics chased some annoying archers into a wood getting delightfully entangled in the vegetation. Not ideal for a deep unit.

Meanwhile in the middle I selectively advanced more bowmen into range to annoy his central wall of warriors who chose to stand and take it, presumably scared that their naked private parts may get skewered by my arrows if they charged me. This stand off suited me as I had 14 points of bowmen holding up 44 points of warbands. Inevitably this meant I had superiority elsewhere on the battlefield.

On my right I advanced and then retreated my apparently helpless archers to tempt Rob’s cavalry forwards into my killing zone. Sure enough one cavalry unit fell for the trap whilst the other, luckily helped by poor cards, decided discretion was the batter part of valor and held back - abandoning their mates to a porcupine death.

The Plan Unfolds

Back on my left I had outflanked one of his cavalry units but despite multiple frontal and flank attacks it survived against the odds. So using the 3rd “P” of my 7 “P” wargaming principles – “Pranking and Surprise”, I unexpectedly pivoted and manoeuvred two of my mounted units to charge Robs exposed and very surprised warband flanks. The bulky naked Galatians stuck between the woods couldn’t react in time and quickly collapsed.

This left the lone warband that had now extracted itself out of the “fire pan” of the wood into the “fire” of being surround by 3 formed bow units, one in front, one on the flank and one behind. With a likely 10 attack cards every turn the outcome was surely inevitable?

Back on my far right, the interlocking fields of fire easily took out the lone cavalry unit that had got too excited and isolated without any cover or support.

The End Is Nigh!

Eventually in the middle the four big Galatian warbands decided at last to risk their surprisingly small private parts by advancing towards my bowmen - who instantly started to edge backwards. But it was too late. On my left the surrounded warband succumbed to repeated double volleys from behind (to get the -1 save), and being charged from the flank. As both Galatian flanks collapsed they gave up enough medals for my plucky (did you see what I did there?) Nigerian archers to win an almost casualty free outright victory in just over 60 minutes.

Lessons Learned

  1. Massed bowmen CAN be deadly even in TtS - provided you keep them out of melee against superior melee troops.

  2. The 3rd “P” - Pranking and Surprising your opponent with unanticipated tactics can be deadly!

  3. Overlapping fields of fire in an Agincourt style killing zone, can be devastating especially when focussed on foolhardy individual targets and can also scare off even superior yet hesitant enemies.

  4. When you have inferiority - slowly back away. When you have superiority use it or lose it!

  5. Experimenting with unusual armies is fun and can unearth some real gold!

  6. The Western Sudanese Nigerian army is the first Sub Saharan army I have ever seen used in TtS and is well worth an experiment or two!

  7. Plans don’t always work, but it’s better to have one than not.

Anyway, that was the first battle of two.

My Comments

Although I might quibble with some of the above, it was indeed a masterful demonstration of how to use mass archers against fanatics. Indeed, I’ve done something similar with crossbows against Ikko-Ikki in the past.

Peter’s mounted units did do a lot of damage but, to be fair and as you’ll see in the pictures below, this was as much to do with the fact that the first two cards my horsemen drew for the first two turns were Aces. My fault for not following Trevor’s Rule - always move the general first!

I certainly found the combination of deep units and an 8+ save a challenge: but one I will work on for the future! Here are my pictures of the game:

SYW AAR: Refighting Lobositz - Again

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As our group would be demo-ing the Lobositz game at Vanquish 2026, we needed to play through it a few times in order to make sure that everything ran smoothly on the day.

My first playthrough was as the Prussians: an encounter that I had won mainly through a super-aggressive advance straight at the town of Lobositz, our objective. This time I would play the Austrians: aiming to keep what seemed to me to be vast numbers of Prussians out of the town!

View from behind the Austrian lines: Lobositz is top right, near the mug

The massed Austrian infantry you can see at the bottom of the picture, above, played no part in our last game, as I had taken Lobositz before they had a chance to get stuck in. I was determined not to let that happen this time round, so rather than advance either my cavalry (centre) or other infantry (top right) forward, I waited for the Prussians to come to me.

I was then very lucky, as Mark (my opponent) twice failed to activate his main infantry body (it’s that mist again!) meaning that rather than face a combined arms onslaught, only his cavalry came forward in the initial phase of the game.

My own cavalry waited until the perfect moment to charge the Prussian horse, with my first line of horsemen (supported by artillery from the left) soundly defeating the Prussian first row.

Normally, I would have followed up by charging blindly into the rest of the Prussians and watching my men be overwhelmed by a fresh enemy. But, mindful of my overall strategy of letting them come to us, I instead pulled my victorious but battered men back to regroup, forcing the remaining Prussian cavalry to advance even closer to my waiting infantry.

This meant that rather than losing all my cavalry (with the resultant risk of army collapse) it was actually the Prussians that found themselves down on points as their infantry approached contact with my “thin white streak” in front of the town.

Even better, it also meant that my infantry on the left had time to get themselves moving, cross the brook in front of them, and threaten the Prussian right flank just as the climax of the battle began.

And that moment was now upon us, as two Prussian infantry brigades approached the two battalions of foot I had in front of Lobositz.

Usually this would be a foregone conclusion: a couple of rounds of musketry from the disciplined Prussian infantry, a quick charge in with grenadiers, and my men would have melted away like ice cream in hot sunshine - but not today!

Worried about their right flank, the Prussian paused to reorganise before advancing to contact: something that gave me more time to pour cannister and musketry into their close-packed ranks.

The high tide of the Prussian attack came with the capture of the two guns visible in the picture above. But the arrival of my infantry from the left, supported by my newly rallied cavalry, combined with my original infantry wheeling around to strike the enemy from the right, left the Prussians with no choice but to retreat or face annihilation.

So a victory for the Austrians helped, it must be said by the dice, who were definitely with me and against Mark all day. Highlights have to be rolling three sixes on three dice for rallying my Cuirassiers that allowed them to hold their positions against the second line of Prussian cavalry; and my initial close-range fire into the Prussian infantry just before they charged my line in front of Lobositz: seven hits out of seven shots!

Honorable mention must also be made of the Austrian light troops on the hill to the front-right of Lobositz: they held up a Prussian brigade there, inflicting significant casualties, before beign forced to retreat.

I also made enough fortitude saves (a 50% chance of success) to make even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern raise an eyebrow!

Here are some more pictures of the game:

Final Batch of Celts

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Here is the final batch of figures that I need to actually field either a Galatian or a Gallic army (the Ancient Brits will have to wait for chariots, slingers and light cavalry).

First up are the command figures:

Then there are three more bases of warriors. These are all Victrix figures:

Always important, here are two bases of light infantry with javelins:

For a warband-bases army, you need a lot of heroes. I decided early on to use Celtic character figures for my heroes, collected from a variety of ranges:

I’ll actually use Cernunnos, who stands about 9cms high, as the army standard!

Finally, I built a nice camp of standing stones using Alternative Armies’ new Standing Stones.

IABSM AAR: Qualburg Reichswald

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Mark Luther and friends played a game taking place in the sodden Reichswald in February 1945, with the Coldstream Guards and 7th Seaforths taking on some stubborn Fallschirmjagers east of Kleve. Lots of bogging Churchills and Kangaroos, and some ineffective close range antitank fire!

Click on the picture below to see all:

Painting Challenge: June Update

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The first of the month is always a good time to do an update (even if this publishes on the second!) so here’s a June 1st 2026 Painting Challenge update.

It’s all been a bit thin on the ground throughout May, but Mr Helliwell has sent in his usual cornucopia of delights: Napoleonics, ACW and a bit of terrain:

Stumpy has had some eBay success, and has been busy rebasing all his goodies. Here’s an ACW Rebel brigade on their shiny new bases:

Steve has allowed himself to get diverted by a nice new set of coastal forces rules ( Torpedoes and Tides). Here are the models he’s quickly amassed to set sail: about six bought second hand, the rest scratch built, all 1:1200 scale.

And last, but by no means least, here’s Mervyn’s contribution: four Wild West buildings and a scratch built graveyard he threw together the day before a game of Midgard for a show:

That’s all that’s been submitted for this update, so come on the rest of you: I know the weather is lovely, but that just means you don’t have to wait so long before the paint dries!

IABSM AAR: Bloody Burma #04: Paung

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In 2016-17, I wrote a pair of campaign books for I Ain’t Been Shot Mum covering the Japanese capture of Malaya/Singapore (Fall of the Lion Gate) and Burma (Bloody Burma). Between them, the two packs contain 45 scenarios set in the Far East in 1941/2, designed to be played with IABSM but easily convertible to any other company-sized WW2 tabletop wargame.

Regular visitors to this site will also know that it holds an extraordinary repository of After Action Reports for all the Lardy company-sized games, including hundreds (I gave up counting them today at 250!) for IABSM.

Unbelievably, none of these reports have covered any of the Bloody Burma scenarios. There are 14 reports from games using Liongate but nothing for Burma…until now!

Chris Lane and friends played the Paung scenario, and here’s his report (taken from the IABSM Facebook group). Click on the picture below to see all, and I’m always happy to publish more AARs here. Next target is 1,000!

Rajputs Come A Cropper - Part Two!

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After botching my deployment in the previous game—a mistake that clearly played a part in my defeat—I made sure not to repeat it this time. In particular, I avoided trapping my cavalry behind my infantry line. I also wanted to give my elephants the best possible chance to engage the Norman cavalry (who really don’t like Nellies), so I positioned them squarely in the centre of my line.

The eventual deployment gave me strength of numbers on the left flank, so I rushed that forward looking to win there and then curl back into the centre.

In the centre, the two battle lines crept towards each other…

…but when the first major clash happened, it was a disaster for the Rajputanis: Norman knights thundered into my veteran fanatical cavalry, smashing them—and their general—off the field. The accompanying elephants were swept away as well on a failed rout check, leaving me five coins down in seconds and a gaping hole in the centre of my line.

Perhaps my other unit of elephants would do better?

Perhaps not!

Meanwhile, my infantry on the left had finally gotten into bow range, and were peppering the opposition with arrows, not that it seemed to have much effect. The battlefield now looked like this:

The tide did turn slightly on the far left flank, where the remains of my cavalry, supported by javelin-armed infantry (in blue) and some more archers (in yellow) did manage to do some damage…

…and my infantry on the left were just about holding their own…

…but in the end I had lost too many coins already, and when a squadron of Norman knights slipped through my empty centre and took my camp, it was all over!

So two defeats in a row for the Rajputanis, but a fun army to play and one that might do better against a different type of army.

Talavera Using Commands & Colours

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More kriegspiel-inspired Napoleonic action with Commands & Colours: this time I would command the British and Spanish against the French at the battle of Talavera.

A little reminder:

The Battle of Talavera was fought on 27–28 July 1809 during the Peninsular War in Spain, where a combined British and Spanish force led by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) and Spanish General Gregorio de la Cuesta faced the French army under King Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan. The Allies held a defensive position near Talavera, repelling several determined French assaults, particularly against British lines on key high ground, and ultimately forced the French to withdraw after heavy casualties on both sides. Despite the tactical victory boosting Wellesley’s reputation, the success was limited strategically because supply shortages and the threat of other French forces soon compelled the Allies to retreat.

Here’s the inital set up. The British (red) occupy the high ground, the Spanish (yellow) are holding the town of Talavera, the French are…everywhere!

The action began with a major French assault on the Spanish holding Talavera. Things got pretty frought very quickly, and I had to use my British reserves to prop up the Spanish position.

The French were eventually repelled, but there were not many Spaniards left, and only really holding Talavera itself. Kudos goes to the Spanish light cavalry, who intervened at a desperate moment, and the Spanish and British troops holding the redoubt in the centre of the table. Had that fallen, then I think the game would have finished then.

The French then switched the axis of their attack to the centre, looking to take advantage of the fact that my reserves had been committed on the right. The Froggies also advanced on the left, looking to evict the Spanish from a walled farm there.

On the left, the Spanish were forced out of the farm, but the French couldn’t follow up because they needed their troops there to join the assault on the British position in the centre. That had started well, with the British forced by artillery fire to retreat off the lower slopes, ceding the ground to the advancing French whilst bringing up what reserves they could.

Fortunately, the Brits then managed to hold their new line, although only with the intervention of the last of their reserves, the Guard Cavalry. The French were poised to do enough damage to the Allies to force a retreat but, in the nick of time, the British Guard Cavalry crashed into the enemy line, breaking an infantry unit and doing just enough to force the French back.

So a very narrow victory for the Allies 15 points to 14. The French would have won if they had had the heart to go forward one more time, but the British Guard Cavalry took that from them. Another of Wellington’s close run things!

Rajputs Come A Cropper - Part One!

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Time for some To The Strongest and an opportunity to test out all the changes from Even Stronger v14: new elephant rules, cavalry no longer able to move two squares backwards and more.

In order to test out the elephant rules, you have to have some elephants on the battlefield, so I would play a Rajputi/Later Hindu Indian army versus Rob using Italo-Normans.

The Rajputs are an unusual army: a strike force of fanatical, veteran, lance-armed cavalry backed up by large numbers of raw bowmen: talk about the sublime to the ridiculous! I wasn’t sure quite what I was going to do with them, but I did know that (a) I wanted to get my fanatics into the action as soon as possible and (b) I wanted my elephants to fight the Norman knights.

I had won the scouting, so looked on with interest as Rob placed said Norman knights squarely in the centre of his battleline, with what infantry he had relegated to covering the wings. This non-standard deployment completely banjaxed me, and I ended up with a horrible deployment with half my cavalry trapped behind my infantry and both elephant units miles from where I wanted them!

As I had the initiative there was therefore only one way to sort the situation out: an all out charge straight at the enemy, using the time it would take my men to get there to sort out getting the right units into the right place. In particular, I wanted my lancers to hit the unsupported Italo-Norman archers on the far right of Rob’s line: easy meat to give me an initial boost!

Unbelievably, my fanatical cavalry, despite nicely charging home with their lances, failed to even disorder the archers, who would go on to be an immovable bastion securing that end of the enemy line!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, my own archers had moved up and were peppering the Norman cavalry there with arrows. If you look at the Norman horse in front of the trees in the pictures below, you will see that all three cavalry units have been disordered by bowfire, with only one of my units suffering in return.

The Normans on the left were therefore now in prime position to be finished off, garnering me lots of lovely victory medals but, try as I might, I just couldn’t land a knockout blow. For the rest of the game, my bowmen would fire off the last of their arrows plus some brought up from the camp, and my javelinmen would bravely charge in to melee, but nothing I did would break the veteran Norman knights. Very annoying, especially as my raw bowmen were evaporating under the pressure!

Back to the far right wing, where those pesky Norman archers were, and would forever, hold up my cavalry from sweeping around the enemy flank. Look at the third picture, top right, in the gallery below…another unit of fanatical lancers, led by their general, in the perfect position to charge the rear of the enemy bowmen, but failing to drive home, leaving the unit ripe for annihilation by some Norman knights and the clever use of the Someone has Blundered stratagem.

With things not going very well on both the left and the right, I now had to hope that good things would happen in the centre. I had finally managed to extricate the rest of my cavalry from their unfortunate deployment positions, but now found that I couldn’t get them and their accompanying elephants into action against the rest of the Norman knights, Rob making sure to keep his horses well away from the smelly Nellies and focussing his efforts on my loose order infantry: easy prey for knights.

By this time I had also worked out that the cards had decided to hate on me for this battle. As you’ll hopefully have seen, there had already been several occasions where I had manouevred into the perfect position only to fail to achieve anything remotely ressembling useful!

Battle was effectively now joined right the way across the table, and it wouldn’t be long before something had to give somewhere…but, again, I just couldn’t seem to land the knockout blow, not even on the deep unit of Italo-Norman spearmen in the picture bottom right in the gallery below.

Both sides were now on their last few coins and, inevitably, it was the Indians who broke first: an already disordered unit of bowmen routing when Norman cavalry invaded their forest refuge!

That had been a cracking game of To The Strongest, despite the result not being in my favour. Rob’s initial deployment was superbly disruptive, totally psyching me out despite my won-the-scouting initiative, but I like to think that I battled back from this strategic disadvantage to gain a local, tactical advantage on several occasions, with my good intentions then only thwarted by the cards. Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

SYW AAR: Refighting Lobositz

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This week’s Thursday game was a re-fight of the battle of Lobositz from the Seven Years War using Valour & Fortitude rules.

As a reminder:

The Battle of Lobositz, fought on 1 October 1756, marked the first major engagement of the Seven Years' War in Europe. It took place in Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic) between Prussian forces led by Frederick the Great and an Austrian army under Maximilian Ulysses von Browne. The battle unfolded in difficult terrain shrouded by morning fog, leading to confusion and intense fighting, particularly around the Lobosch hill and the village of Lobositz. Although Frederick initially underestimated the Austrian resistance, Prussian discipline and artillery eventually forced the Austrians to withdraw. While tactically a Prussian victory, the battle demonstrated that Austria remained a formidable opponent, setting the tone for a long and hard-fought war.

I would command the Prussian against a motley crew in charge of the Austrians.

The view from behind the Austrian lines

Despite the lovely sunshine in the photo above, game-time dictated that we started very early in the morning with the battlefield shrouded in mist. That meant that long range observation and fire was very patchy.

My main objective was the village by the river, which was protected by a strong force of infantry and guns.

To the left, there was an annoying enemy position: several battalions of enemy light troops skulking in vineyards atop the Lobosch hill.

In front of me were large numbers of enemy cavalry blocking my cavalry from sweeping forward.

Finally, I did have one advantage over Frederick as I “knew” that one of the main body of Austrian infantry wouldn’t be moving for a few turns as, historically, that’s what happened.

Dealing with the Annoying Enemy Position

First thing on the agenda was to deal with the annoying enemy positions to the left. Historically these proved very difficult to shift, so I decided to take a bit of time to work a battalion over the steep hill/rough ground around the enemy’s flank, then give them a volley to weaken them before charging in with the Grenadiers.

This all worked very nicely, and although it would take me the whole battle to deal with the situation, it would give me me a decent number of victory points to build on.

Dealing with the Enemy Cavalry

Next on the list was the enemy cavalry: they had to be neutralised in order to avoid them sweeping into my right flank as my infantry advanced towards their objective.

In this period, I tend to find that without one side having overwhelming numbers, big cavalry clashes in a battle tend to lead to both sides losing all their horsemen: either to combat or the pursuit that usually follows. I was happy to work towards a result like that: as I said, all I wanted to do was to protect my infantry’s advance.

Both sides’ cavalry streamed forward and a typically-brutal Valour & Fortitude melee followed. I suffered some initial reverses, but fortunately could support my horse with heavy artillery firing from the hill behind, who wreaked all sorts of damage on the enemy’s first line, and with my right hand infantry battalion, who shot enough enemy horse to pieces to give my remaining cavalry the advantage they needed.

Job done, and I even had two squadrons of cavalry left over to shield my right flank when the stationary enemy infantry and some more of their cavalry on the far right did eventually get moving.

Taking the Village

Everything seemed to be going okay so far, so it was now time to move up my main infantry body and try and take the village of Lobositz: my objective for the day.

Forward went my infantry, rapidly closing with the enemy line. It looked like being a tough scrap as advancing into a line of enemy muskets is never fun, especially when they have cannon supporting them on one flank.

I did, however, have an Ace up my sleeve…or rather a Nine. Valour & Fortitude allows certain special moves dictated by cards that you can draw, and I had drawn a Nine or Surprise Attack. That gives you an extra move followed by an assault.

As my infantry approached the Austrian line, my right hand battalion ‘played this card’ and suddenly shot forward and to the right, charging both batteries of very some surprised Austrian gunners who had previously been looking forward to remaining well out of hand-to-hand combat as they fired cannister at my advancing infantry safe from their position just to the right of their infantry comrades.

Caught off guard, the Austrian gunners turned and fled, leaving the main Austrian infantry line unsupported and outnumbered.

Along with the victory points gained from dealing with the Austrian lights in the vineyard and the victory in the cavalry melee, it was now only a matter of time before I took the final few I needed for an overall victory…espcecially as I had plenty more infantry about to arrive at the schwerepunkt.

So a quick and decisive win for the Prussians, and a great game all round!

SOGS will be demo-ing the above game at the Vanquish wargames show in Bourne End this Sunday.

See you there!

Roll Call '26 Game Four: Venetians Abroad versus Ayyubids

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So it was on to the final game at this year’s Medieval Madness competition at Roll Call.

At least six of us were in contention for the title: Peter, Dene, Mark, Tim, Si and Yours Truly…with Mark and I, and Peter and Dene, playing each other in this final match up. Not difficult to see that in order to secure overall victory, I needed to beat Mark and see Dene beat Peter. Exciting stuff!

The Ayyubids set up mostly in the middle of the battlefield with, I was told, a force off-table as well. I adopted my usual ‘cavalry on the wings, infantry in the middle’ formation, planning to smash his cavalry on the right with my knights, and use my other knights to curl around the Ayyubid right wing. My infantry would advance to assist where possible.

My knights on the right duly advanced into range, charged in with their lances and, much to my consternation/annoyance, were disordered and forced to retire. This was very much not part of the plan!

Fortunately, my knights survived the Arab follow-up and, with the help of reinforcements from the centre, held and then overwhelmed the advancing enemy cavalry. All well and good, but I’m using double the number of units to deal with the incursion, leaving me light elsewhere on the field!

Meanwhile, on the left, my other knights punched a hole in the end of the Arab line and, supported by the Alabardiers, managed to get into a position to first threaten, then take the one of the enemy camps

With the general I had killed on the right, I was now on nine coins taken, so within a couple more units of winning, but now faced two new threats.

Firstly, on the left, the Ayyubid off-table force arrived: a ‘massed lights’ double unit of light cavalry which, combined with the light’s Mark had had floating around there since the beginning of the game, meant three light cavalry units roaming around in my rear.

I manged to move some infantry across to contain the threat, but lost the first of my coins as the Arabs picked me off from the flank.

Secondly, the Ayyubids advanced strongly in the centre, which I had needed to weaken in order to reinforce the right to contain the Arab breakthrough there.

Attacked from two directions, and with only lights and crossbowmen to hold off elite heavy cavalry, I was punished badly: suddenly finding that Mark had drawn just about level on coins, and needed only three more to finish me off. The Alabardiers had also been unlucky with their cards and were now disordered and in danger of breaking. Time was ticking on, as well, which meant I had to do something fast.

Fortunately my second unit of knights on the left had so far sailed through the battle unscathed, and were in the perfect position to assault the already-disordered Arab infantry in front of them. In went the knights, the Arabs broke, and Mark’s last two coins were mine.

So I had won the outright victory I needed, but a tight one: 12 coins to 10…but what of Peter and Dene? A big victory for either could see them take the tournament overall, with my money being on Peter managing to do just that!

Fortunately, Dene had managed to hold Peter to a draw…which meant that I had won the tournament: the first that I have won outright (i.e. not as part of a doubles team) or had organised myself (the last two Britcon events). Thanks for pointing that out, btw, you know who your are!

Here are the final results:

 

A great tournament and a great day’s gaming, and not just because I won!

CDS AAR: Broken Arrow

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Great pictorial Charlie Don’t Surf AAR from the archives of Kevin Gonzales.

A surprise NVA human wave attack led to the American first platoon being overwhelmed. After overrunning 1st Platoon the NVA was able to get within six inches of the company commander, who was forced to call napalm on his own position!

Click on the picture below to see all…

Roll Call '26 Game Three: Venetians Abroad versus Gurjara-Pratihara Indians

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With two good wins already under my belt, it was inevitable that my third battle of the day was going to be against Peter and his Gurjara-Pratihran Indians.

This was going to be a tough battle (I have never beaten Peter in competition, and only managed to hold him to a draw twice…which adds up to a lot of losses!) so, after losing the scouting, I decided to abandon my usual “infantry in the middle, knights on the flank” set up and put all my knights on my left flank.

This did give Peter some food for thought, and he pondered my deployment for a bit longer than usual before, as expected, weighting his troops on one side: his plan being to form a schwerepunkt on his right wing, fighting two thirds of his army against a third of mine, then turn and roll up my line.

View from behind the Gujarati lines

As predicted, The Indians slam forward on the left

As you can see, I knew exactly what was coming…and still couldn’t stop it…but at least I had all my knights (my best troops) where the action was as opposed to seeing them flail around on the isolated flank for the first part of the game.

Anyhoo, we were barely out of the second turn before his cavalry and elephants were upon my line: the elephants and camelry being particularly troublesome to my knights (the veteran nellies save on only a 3+ when facing mounted troops!) and his lights threatening to lap around my far right flank.

The gallery below shows the battlefield at this point from left to right. It looks pretty bad, (and it is!) but the one thing I have learnt when facing Peter in this position is not to give up: you have to get your troops that he has managed to isolate on the flank opposite the action back into the game as soon as possible, ignoring the lights that hover to harrass them, and hope that your knights can hold out for long enough for the reinforcements to get there!

Fortunately, my knights on the left were wearing their metal armour for this game (they often seem to be wearing their ceremonial cardboard armour!) and managed to hold out against both elephants and camelry for the next couple of turns, even managing to push back the centre of Peter’s line as my infantry started to arrive from the right.

The writing, however, was on the wall, and soon my far left command collapsed entirely, and Peter turned his troops in and prepared to roll me up like a kati roll on a Kolkata street corner.

Rolled up like a kati roll on a kolkata street corner!

Then, much to both our surprises, the “time” was announced: no new turns could now be started. As I was just finishing off a turn, literally about to draw cards to activate my final command, that meant that the game would end once I had finished what I was doing: no chance for Peter to polish me off.

I won’t say that this wasn’t a collosal relief, as one more turn would, I think, have given Peter the victory. Looking at the picture above, I can see the light cavalry next to the pen taking my camp, possibly both; the other lights on the back row and his elephants smashing my knights with the army standard from the flank and off the table; and me also losing the disordered knights in the centre. As he already had nine of my coins, Peter only needed another four to get a total victory, and I’ve just listed the opportunities to gain ten!

As the game had seemed very short (and we weren’t playing particularly slowly) I checked with the organiser whether we could, in fact, start another turn, but was told very firmly that we couldn’t. Madness to check, I hear you cry, but, fair’s fair: Peter had me beaten and deserved the overall victory…but I won’t say I wasn’t pleased that the “end the game” decision stood!

So a winning draw for Peter 6-9, leaving all to play for in the final game of the day.

Even More Celts

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My Celtic army is coming along nicely: I’ve now finished three more units of heavy horse, and started to add some heroes as well.

Here are the three new units of horse. All are Victrix figures painted using Contrast paints, and with shield transfers from Little Big Man Studios (available via Victrix) and all with cloaks from Weave of War.

I’m going to need a lot of heroes for any Celtic army: six for the warbands and then another three to five as standard. I’ve decided to try andget as many Celtic personaities into the heroes mix as possible, which means trawling the Internet for interesting one-off figures. Here’s the first two I’ve completed: Boudicca and Obelix.

Boudicca is a metal casting from Belt Fed Gaming available from the Colonel Bills website. She is also painted with Contrast paints, but I have attempted to glaze her skin tone.

Obelix is, quite rightly, a giant of a figure. He is one of the Aquila Empire: Gaul Heroes set of two resin prints from Anima Games UK available via Etsy. The other is Asterix, who will appear in due course.

Roll Call '26 Game Two: Venetians Abroad versus Bretons with Norman allies

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My second game at this year’s Roll Call tournament was against Chris’ Bretons with Norman allies.

The Bretons won scouting and, after deployment and as expected, headed straight for my line. Of particular concern was my right flank, where I could see the potential for a worrying overlap.

I managed to block the overlap, with my knights taking full advantage of the situation to drive back the Breton attack there.

This led to an amusing situation where both Chris and I used our stratagem cards in the same turn: each playing Someone has blundered!, and each using it to turn a unit of our opponent’s horse through 180° so ending up back to back on the edge of the table!

Meanwhile, the left and centres were thundering towards each other, and I had a quick success as my two units of knights on the left smashed a Breton cavalry unit from the table and forced another to evade backwards.

Elsewhere, more Breton cavalry charged my spearmen in the centre, but the Venetians held firm, with more of my infantry turning to take them in the flank.

My rapid advance on the right and the Breton rapid advance in the centre had meant that a gap had developed between the main points of contact. The Venetian Alabardiers, led by their general, saw an opportunity and marched through that gap and into the Breton camp, with three easy victory medals as their reward.

With the fleeing Breton cavalry unit on the left now hit in the rear and destroyed, and a Breton general killed somewhere on the field (I forget where!), Chris was now down to just one coin…which I took by driving the light cavalry off board on the right for a 10-1 victory for the Venetians.

A really fast-moving game of TTS where the action was literally non-stop. For once my knights were having a good day (i.e. were wearing their metal armour rather than the ceremonial cardboard version they usually seem to wear) and swept all before them, and my spearmen remembered which way round their weapons went!