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!

Roll Call '26 Game One: Venetians Abroad versus Medieval Irish with Feudal Scots Allies

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My first game at this year’s Roll Call ‘Medievals-Only’ tournament was against Adrian’s Medieval Scots-Irish army.

The Venetians were outscouted, so deployed in a traditional “infantry in the centre, cavalry on the wings” formation. The woods on the right hand side of the battlefield looked ideal terrain for the enemy, so my plan was to hang back on the right, advance on the left and, quite frankly, see what opportunities presented themselves!

First up, however, was a general advance forward one square to give the Venetians some fighting room, making sure to keep the integrity of the line intact. Note the large numbers of Irish light troops trying to get around my right flank.

And it was on the right that the first threat emerged: those advancing enemy lights being joined by a unit that had started the game lost off table to pose a potentially tricky situation that required a bit of careful manoeuvring to deal with.

But in one of those coincidences that makes life interesting, I too had had one of my units lost off table: a squadron of light mounted crossbowmen appearing directly behind the Scots-Irish.

This disrupted Adrian’s plans as neatly as the appearance of his lights on the right had disrupted mine. He turned his longbowmen, safely ensconsed behind stakes on the central hill, to deal with the threat, only to see the flank of the archers charged by some of my knights coming in from the left.

Charging uphill against infantry behind stakes rarely goes well, even when from the flank: the knights failed to budge the enemy archers, leaving the situation as shown in the photo below:

Adrian (who was not having much luck in this game) turned some Scots spearmen to threaten the knights, only to see my horsemen retreat backwards two squares and then charge the same spearmen in the flank (whilst they still could, as ES14 has stopped this cheesy manoeuvre happening), whilst the Ballesteri Montati (mounted light crossbowmen) charged the rear of another bunch of Scots.

Meanwhile, the fighting on the right hand side of the field had intensified, with the superior armour of my knights there countered by the larger numbers of troops they were facing. Neither side seemed able to make much progress.

Back to the centre, where the Scots spearmen in the centre had crumbled under the loving attentions of the Venetian Alabardiers. The Scots spearmen near the hill, however, although disordered and attacked on the flanks, were still putting up a brave fight.

This stabilised Adrian’s centre, but I now had fresh knights, still with their lances, coming in from the left…but then a unit of veteran Irish javelinmen were thereatening the rear of my line.

Adrian had, however, gradually been losing coins throughout the game: in particular losing light infantry to crossbow fire and one, or perhaps it was two, generals in combat: as I said, he was having a particularly unlucky day.

The three coins lost when the spear in the centre routed took him close to the edge, and a final charge from my Knights into disordered Irish javelinmen on the right broke his army as a whole, although it took a Venetian hero to do so.

So a big 14-1 victory for the Venetians to open proceedings…although I was glad that the battle ended then as too many of my units had fallen into disorder and, of course. that Lady Luck had shunned my opponent throughout!

Re-Fighting Mollwitz with Lust!

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Time for another playtest of Lust for Glory. Last time we played, our game was set in the mid-1600s, the lower limit of the period covered by the rules. This time, we’d go to the other limit and re-fight the Battle of Mollwitz, one of the first major conflicts of the War of the Austrian Succession.

The History

Fought on 10 April 1741 in Silesia (modern-day Poland), Prussian forces under Frederick the Great clashed with an Austrian army led by Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg. The battle opened in heavy snow, which hampered movement and reduced visibility. Austrian cavalry quickly gained the upper hand, routing the Prussian horse on the right flank and in the centre. Believing the battle lost, Frederick fled the field early.

Despite this, the Prussian infantry maintained remarkable discipline. Under the direction of Kurt Christoph von Schwerin, they held their lines and delivered controlled, effective musket fire that steadily drove back the Austrian forces. What began as a near-defeat ultimately turned into a decisive Prussian victory.

Our Game

Rather than the snow enjoyed by the original participants, our game began with sunlight streaming onto the table from behind the Prussian positions.

Taken from just behind the Austrian line. Note the massed Austrian cavalry in the foreground.

As one of the Prussian commanders, I was obviously very concerned about the superior Austrian cavalry, particularly as, in command of the right wing and first line of infantry, I was facing them!

The battle, however, began on the left wing, where the Prussian cavalry there was fairly quickly overwhelmed by more Austrian horsemen. This necessitated moving some of our infantry from the second line across the cover that flank, leaving me wondering how we were going survive once we lost our first line to the main body of enemy cavalry!

I needn’t have worried, however, as the main body of Austrian cavalry were having a bad day - a very bad day - getting thoroughly trounced by the combination of Prussian infantry and cavalry that faced them.

While the Prussians were still digesting the fact that they hadn’t been overrun on the right, the Austrian left-centre forces launched an attack to support their success on the Prussian left, and the next phase of the battle really consisted of dealing with that and sorting out the traffic jam of Prussian units now eager to get forward and into action on the right and right-centre.

That left the situation overall as shown in the pictures below. The Prussian left was still under some pressure (Mark was having a very bad day) but the centre and right were steady, re-organised and ready to steamroller the remaining Austrians.

We called the battle at this point: a decisive Prussian victory as although the left flank was currently still looking a bit shaky, there were reserves that could block that off, and the centre and right were now just about a foregone conclusion.

A great game, with the rules really starting to flow. Mark’s beautifully painted figures looked amazing and all in all it was a great morning’s gaming. I can’t wait for the final version of the rules to be published.

Painting Challenge: First May Update

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Time to take advantage of the bank holiday weekend to update the entries to this year’s Challenge.

First up, we have Nick Cooper with a positive horde of fantasy figures in 28mm and larger. Here are just some of his submissions, please do visit his gallery (accessed from the NavBar, above) to see all.

Next we have Carole, also with a mix of fantasy figures, mainly from Bad Squiddo Games:

Back to historical gaming now, where Zofficus has been adding extras to his latest armies. Here’s a command base for the Sassanids:

Dex has been mostly painting terrain. Here’s a longshot of what’s been built, along with a close up of his orchards. I’m liking the apples!

And last, but by no means least, Mervyn takes a break from his little ‘planes and has sent in cops and federal agents for Packing Heat/The Chicago Way:

That’s all for now, but keep them coming!

TTS AAR: Arab Conquest vs Scandanavian Leidang

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I’ve been trying to get friend John to try his Vikings using the new non-deep options in the lists, and finally managed to get him to test them out using my 15mm figures. At the same time, I wanted to get my early Arabs onto the table again…as I didn’t spend all that time painting deep units just to let gather dust in storage! The result: a To The Strongest spectacular featuring an Aran Conquest army versus the Scandanavian Leidang (effectively Vikings on their home territory).

The Arab cavalry won the scouting and immediately set off on a quest to outscout the hairies on both flanks.

This worked well on the left, but the Scandies quickly moved a couple of units over to block the Arab advance on the right. Meanwhile, the main body of Vikings thundered forward, axes at the ready!

The Vikings managed to get the initiative in the centre, but suddenly found that they couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag!

The Arabs, however, were not…and one Scandie warband was soon sent fleeing from the field by a combination of fanatical infantry and their Daylami mountain-men allies.

Meanwhile, both Viking flanks were now suffering at the hands of the Arab cavalry…

Back to the centre, where the second line of Viking warriors were proving much harder to break for the Arabs, and it was only the intervention of the Jund cavalry that had been harrassing the Scandie left that made the difference.

This was a much-needed intervention, as the Viking wings had rallied and were proving impossible for the Arabs to crack!

The by-n0w-much-reduced Vikings continued their success by breaking the right of the Arab line…

…but it was too little too late as the last Scandie coins disappeared as the rest of their centre collapsed. The victorious Vikings heading for the Arab camp, along with the rest of the surviving invaders, slunk off the table, leaving the Arabs to claim the win!

A great game which I hope, despite the result, has given John a renewed enthusiasm for his own Vikings hordes. As a final note, it has to be said that he had the worst luck possible throughout the game, but especially at those critical moments that can decide who wins!

FK&P AAR: Cossacks versus Muscovites

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Time for a game of For King & Parliament - Eastern Front variant with my Cossacks taking on Dave’s Muscovites.

Ukrainians versus Russians? Nah, would never happen these days!

Unsurprisingly, the Cossacks lost the deployment, so I set up my tabor (wagons) in a long line in the middle of the battlefield, and squashed the rest of my troops in on the flanks!

Muscovites on the left, Cossacks on the right

This turned out to be a bit of a mistake, as Dave promptly ignored most of my troops, instead launching a massive attack with his elite cavalry on the right of my position.

My deployment error was compounded by the fact that, in a moment of madness, I had thought that I might get a Cossack infantry command out from behind the tabor to the left…meaning that as the axis of Dave’s attack unfolded, I also had half my infantry marching away from the schwerpunkt!

On the right, my outnumbered and outclassed Cossack cavalry was very soon swept away by the Muscovite hordes, and I found myself contemplating the possibility that I would be pinned in place, outflanked and rolled up like a winter cloak on the steppe!

[and you wonder why I don’t use AI for my battle reports: that metaphor is courtesy of ChatGPT]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, my Tatar allies were enthusiastically murdering the Muscovites’ ally Tatars and some traitorous Cossacks…but I had a horrible feeling that this would prove a success too little, too late.

And so it proved!

Although my infantrymen fought bravely, and I managed to get some of the fools who had initially headed left back into the fray, the result at this stage was a foregone conclusion.

Here’s a gallery of the textbook destruction of my main battle line!

In the end, and as a suitable example of how total was my defeat, Dave’s Muscovites took my last coin by taking my artillery with some foreign-trained troops - presumably North Koreans!

A geat game, despite the result, and kudos to Dave for a strategy and then execution that proved to be such an…well, execution!

TTS AAR: Dead Cid Rides Again!

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Time for the re-match, with the Al Andalus forces smarting from their defeat last game and the Early Feudal Spanish busy tying dead El Cid’s body* to his horse!

As Arab commander, having learnt my lesson last time, I deployed my men in a much tighter line: stacking my cavalry on one side rather than splitting them between the flanks.

*he’d been killed in the last game!

Advancing forward strongly, I thought I saw the chance for an overlap on the left, but the Spanish moved quickly to counter and, in a decidedly unsporting move, manoeuvred to actually outflank me there themselves!

Meanwhile, in the centre, I had sent the light horse forward to generally harrass the advancing Spanish infantry, hoping to soften them up a bit before the main melee began.

Back to the left, where the Spanish had now managed to turn my flank, forcing me to try and pull back my infantry to avoid my line being rolled up.

Despite my best efforts, I had to leave a unit of the Black Guard vulnerable to a flank charge, and could only watch with horror as the Spanish cabelleros, led by El Cid himself, took the corks off the tips of their lances and charged in.

Unfortunately for the Spanish, they had forgotten that El Cid was actually now dead, merely a corpse tied to his horse, and the move into charge distance and then the charge itself didn’t make contact with the very relieved Guard!

This enabled me to stabilise the situation, my spearmen ready to hold the Spanish horse at bay.

One weak point, however, was the green-pennant unit of Arab infantry, who had been disordered previously. In went another unit of Spanish cavalry, again led by Dead Cid. This time they actually made contact, but gloriously failed to do any damage even with Dead Cid’s extra replays.

Do the Spanish still not realise he’s dead? Leave the man to rest in peace!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, some of my light cavalry had a narrow escape after failing to do any damage to some Spanish shieldwall.

At risk of being pushed off table, they watched with glee as the hapless Spaniards foundered around in the rough ground: eventually even managing to kill the Spanish general and disorder the unit.

As the flanks weren’t working for them, the Spanish then sent everything they had left forward in the centre.

This was another decidely worrying development for the Al Andalus, as there were far too many lights holding my line, with my formed cavalry (including the mercenary christian knights that you can see bottom-centre in the pic below) not really in that much of a position to help.

Fortunately, it turned out that the money I’d invested in the mercenary unbelievers was money very well spent.

In an extraordinary series of events, they charged over the hill in front of them to smash the end unit of cabelleros from the table…

They then turned and did the same thing to the next lot of enemy horse: hitting them in the flank to devastating effect!

With Rob’s men pinned in place by my infantry line, it was Rob’s turn to look on in horror as a flank charge went in…but fortune smiled on him as the mercenaries paused to renegotiate their fee:

Fee safely doubled, however, they went in again…this time securing the Al Andalus the last two coins they needed for victory!

So a glorious victory for Al Andalusia helped, it must be said, by cards that were decidely in my favour for once: the poor Spanish learning that you can’t rely on a dead body for inspiration and that gold sometimes means more than faith!

TTS AAR: Reconquista Action!

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Rob and I really fancied some Reconquista action, so played a game featuring Rob leading the Early Feudal Spanish (with El Cid in command) and me playing an Al Andalus army.

Losing the scouting, I formed my men into one long line: confident that my superior numbers would overwhelm the upstart Spaniards!

My cavalry on the left could see the Christian knights stacked against them and were therefore not quite so sure of the outcome and initially refused to advance. Opposite me, El Cid found he had the same problem, even with his superior Great Leader command ability!

Despite these teething troubles, battle was soon well and truly joined on the left, with superior numbers of Christian horse generally mullering the Arabs until almost half my coins had gone and I was forced to bring infantry over from the centre to help.

Meanwhile, on the right, I was hoping that the gold I had spent hiring some mercenary Christian knights would prove a wise investment, but they got stuck dealing with some pesky light infantry and would take no significant part in the battle!

Back to the mass Christian assault on the left, where my troops were fighting on bravely…even if the writing was now firmly on the wall!

I had a moment of hope when El Cid himself was killed (just like the film!) but, in the end and despite a card-induced temporary reprieve (the photo, bottom left, above), my last coin went and the Christians were victorious!

A great game which, I think, I lost in the deployment phase: Rob stacking his knights against one end of my line was a genius strategy that paid off in Spades!

Now on to the re-match…presumably with Dead El Cid now tied to his horse!

Painting Challenge: First April Update

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Plenty of entries pouring in for this year’s Painting Challenge. Here’s a batch for the first and mid-April update.

Let’s start with Andrew Helliwell, and a selection of 15mm Napoleonic and 28mm Medieval figures, plus some scrath built trees.

Next up is Carole, again with a combination of Napoleonics and Medievals, but this time all in 28mm.

Next up we have Mr Luther and Mr Douglas, both sending in entries involving multiple small aircraft. On the left is Mark, with some WW2 aircraft for the Far East: Spitfires and a Japanese recce flight. On the right is Mervyn, with some WW1 machines.

Dex has now managed to add some support to his WW2 French infantry platoon in 15mm:

And last, but by no means least, Stumpy continues his Test of Honour journey with a most impressive 28mm dojo and some more character figures:

Let’s keep them coming!