To The World's Strongest, Game 4: Venice Abroad vs Normans

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My final game at this year’s world championships was against old friend Matt’s Normans.

Matt won the scouting, and deployed his massed cavalry in two chunks facing my wings:

The game began,, and I was almost immediaely in trouble on not one but both wings: my Knights having dressed, as is often the case, in their ceremonial cardboard armour instead of the proper metal kit!

Let’s start on the right, where I then repidly lost the Later Knights and was forced to withdraw right to the table’s edge to regroup and send infantry over from the centre to help.

Although the Knights on the right rallied and pushed forward, I was now facing a roll up from the right as the Norman cavalry pivoted through 90 degrees and headed for the centre.

The infantry I had redeployed to stabilise the situation succumbed to attacks from their flank and rear, and it was only by throwing in the Alabardiers and some desperate fighting from the Crossbowmen and Lights that I managed to stave off disaster.

Meanwhile, on the left, I had managed to rally the Later Knights and push forward to drive the Norman cavalry back, but had had the Knights become disordered and was threatened by enemy infantry lapping around the flank.

At this point we were starting to run out of time. My first thought was that this was a relief, as I had really felt that I was only just holding on throughout the game so far.

Then I looked at the table again and thought, hang on, I’ve killed everything threatening me on the right and am actually now chasing disordered Norman units to finish them off…and actually the same is true on the left. With each of us down to our last few coins - helped by the fact that I had killed two of Matt’s generals - I could actually win this game despite the fact that I had nearly crumbled into defeat in turn two!

Unfortunately it was not to be.

On the right, in the last turn of the game, my Knights and Alabardier units, each led by their command’s generals, failed to break units of already-disordered enemy cavalry…

And on the left, a desperate melee involving three already-disordered Norman units also failed to result in any coins heading my way.

Time was called, and we had both taken nine of our opponent’s coins, so a technical win for the Venetians so something like 90-82 points in my favour…and what a game!

I honestly thought the game would end after about three turns as my Knights crumbled and the Norman army lapped around both my flanks, but a great fight back ensued until the Venetians were within Ames Ace of victory: just failing to secure a win mainly due to some outrageous saving cards from Matt, probably deserved as his officers had fallen like flies earlier in the game.

So what did all this mean for the competition as a whole?

Well, I came eighth overall—a considerable improvement on the 19th place I managed last year, when I had a real mare! - with two outright wins and two winning draws…but if you look at the results table below, you can see just how close the competition was. Not so much for first place (with four wins out of four, Peter was well ahead of everyone else), but for the other top spots: the extra 25 points from one more outright win, rather than a winning draw, would have given any of the next eight players second place—including me!

A cracking tournament all round, and I really would encourage people to enter the To The Strongest competitions that are run just about throughout the year: great fun, great sportsmanship, great gameplay…just great!

To The World's Strongest, Game 3: Venice Abroad vs Eastern Latins

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My third game at this year’s To The World’s Strongest tournament was against Andrew and his Eastern Latins: a ferocious army with lots of good quality cavalry.

The terrain placement had been kind to me, with Impassable ground narrowing the battlefield in my deployment zone, especially on my right. I therefore determined to hold the right back along with most of my infantry, and send the Knights and some of my Spearmen forward to win on the left.

As the game began, a bit of luck came my way, with my mounted crossbowmen on the left disposing of some enemy Lights and perhaps leaving a path for an outflanking manouevre. Andrew wasn’t falling for that one, however, and soon a mass of enemy cavalry had moved to block my advance.

Latin Cavalry took out my mounted crossbowmen, but fortunately some of my just-successful Knights were in a position to turn back to counter their threat. The Byzantine horse didn’t fancy mixing it with my Knights, so evaded away in some disorder, ending up on the edge of the table pursued by the Knights and some lights that I had brought up from the camp.

Elsewhere on the left, my other Knights and their supporting Spearmen had pushed the Latin cavalry back and killed the cavalry’s commander, but that flank was now at a bit of a stalemate, with the Venetians having just tipped the strategic balance in their favour five coins to one and with the Byzantine horse very vulnerable.

Meanwhile, I had sat waiting for the rest of the Latins to come forward into crossbow range…although I had moved more of my Knights forward on the right to see if they could snatch a cheeky victory against some enemy cavalry who fancied a go.

Latin missile fire gradually stripped my Lights from the table, but in the end, I managed to fight his cavalry on the right with my Knights, knocking both units and their commander off table.

That gave me eleven of the twelve coins I needed, and I think it was then the Byzantines being pushed off table on the left that gave me the final one to give the Venetians a 12-5 victory (all my losses were Lights), but it might have been killing another Latin general that did it - Andrew was very unlucky with his officers!

A good game against an interesting army that I haven’t encountered before. All that cavalry on my left did worry me quite a bit at the beginning, and I was pleased that Andrew never managed to combine them and his infantry in a more general assault.

On to the last game of the day…

To The World's Strongest, Game 2: Venice Abroad vs Early Imperial Romans

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Game two at the World’s, and it’s another Roman army: Principate or Early Imperial commanded by friend Dave.

I have an EIR army myself, and I know that one potential weakness is the fact that you only really have enough cavalry for one command…so assuming that would be on one flank, my plan was to smash it off the table with one command of my Knights and then loop back into the centre. The rest of my army would pin his heavy infantry in place.

I duly advanced forward and, before long was in range to charge.

For once my Knights had their metal as opposed to cardboard armour on, and soon the enemy cavalry was beaten back and I could turn to face the Roman flank.

Unfortunately, poor follow-up cards and Roman manoeuvrability meant that it took me a bit of time to actually finish off the enemy horse, by which time I was facing a wall of Legionary steel that wouldn’t be easy to break through.

Meanwhile, on the right hand side of the table, both Dave and I deployed our stratagems: Flank March for me, Lost Unit for Dave.

My flank marching light cavalry failed to dent the Roman infantry they appeared behind, and were then shot down by the Saggittarrii archers: disappointing in the extreme.

Dave’s Lost Unit however, ended up arriving right in one of my camps: highly annoying, and although I did manage to evict them fairly easily, they went on to threaten the flank of my other Knights, meaning I had to spend some time and sacrifice some territory to redeem the situation!

Back to the left, and I was still trying to bash my way through the Roman troops on that flank, but nothing I did seemed to work. Dave made excellent use of the terrain and the ease with which his Legionaries could manoeuvre: add to that a run of poor attack cards for me and great saving cards for him, and I was making little if any headway at all!

Then a crisis developed in the centre. My now-disordered Alabardiers were forced to retreat back to the camp, and those pooping light cavalry were back: sneaking through my lines to add to my problems.

Fortunately, the Alabardiers were made of stern stuff and resisted all attempts to break them and, as you can see in the picture above, I had reinforcements available to sort the situation.

I was also now in a position to essay an attempt on the Roman infantry on the right: a bit of manoeuvring would be required, but I ought to be able to get a decent flank charge in somewhere!

Unfortunately at this stage we ran out of time. The first morning session had overrun, and combine that with all the time spent failing to break the Roman left flank (despite multiple flank charges) and then dealing with the situation in the centre and on the right, and Time’s Winged Chariot was upon us and the game was over! A technical 8-6 victory to me, but not the Total Victory I was looking for.

Very frustrating after the initial success on the left. I only needed to break one more Roman unit (maybe take a Light as well) and the game would have been properly mine, but congrats to Dave for managing to stabilise the left and then come right back at me elsewhere.

A great game of To The Strongest.

Another Lust Playtest: Swedes versus Habsburg/Imperialists

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Another chance to playtest the latest iteration of the forthcoming Lust for Glory rules for wargaming the late 17th/early eighteenth century period. Today’s encounter would just about fall into that bracket, with a Thirty Years’ War clash between the Swedes and the Habsburg/Imperialists.

Playing the Swedes, I saw I had an overlap on the left flank, so my plan would be to send a combined force of cavalry and infantry forward to defeat anything they encountered there (I assumed it would be only the enemy horse that would initially advance) whilst holding my line elsewhere.

My assumption proved to be correct, and soon my shock cavalry, supported by an infantry command, were facing off against John’s lighter, “shooting” horse. This was just what I wanted, and I was sure that soon my cavalry would just ride over the effete Imperialist donkey-wallopers, leaving them and my infantry in prime position to roll up the enemy flank.

Meanwhile, on the right, the enemy horse had come forward: some rather tasty looking cuirassier types, but leavened with some dragoons and lights. My artillery had scored a lucky hit on one of the cuirassier units, so I reckoned my shock cavalry could successfully have a go there as well…but as a secondary, distraction effort.

Back to the left where, unfortunately, I was discovering that the cards I had borrowed from Si were not happy about being so casually passed around, and decided to punish me accordingly: my brilliant plan, designed to pit five lethal fighting units against three units of horse with pistols, foundered on one of the worst runs of cards I’ve ever seen.

With a gradually unfolding disaster occuring on the left, I really needed a huge success on the right to balance the books…but that didn’t happen either!

Those tasty looking cuirassier types proved to be exceedingly tasty indeed - celebrity chef levels of taste in fact - and soon I was facing defeat there as well: including the Imperialists managing to sneak their light horse around my flank and into the Swedish camp!

This proved too much for the Swedes to bear, and my army promptly turned tail and fled: a brilliantly executed strategy (if I say so myself) ruined by the fact that my troops proved (with the help of the cards) unable to fight their way out of a wet, nay soaking, paper bag!

As a footnote, one of the reasons for playing this particular encounter (barely in the earliest period of Lust territory) was to see how it differed from playing the same game but using the more contemporary For King & Parliament - Eastern Front variant rules.

Well first impressions are that using FK&P would have been more dynamic to play. Lust seems to substitute playing vast numbers of attack cards (in some instances in FK&P, you can be playing ten attack cards in one combat!) with a duller, more serious adjustment of “to hit” factors that have to be considered (“up one for disorder, down two if using dash” etc). This is not necessarily a bad thing but, by golly, it’s quite fun to smash down ten consecutive cards eagerly looking for those Eights or Nines. I was going to make a comparison between ‘buckets of dice’ and a simple 2D6 roll, but then I’ve never found throwing buckets of dice much fun, whereas throwing down multiple cards I do find very amusing!

A great game, despite the result, but my conclusion so far is that Lust looks like being a more restrained, serious game than the madness that is often FK&P. This is not necessarily a bad thing - warfare in the Age of Reason and all that - but it looks like being an important differentiator between the two systems.

To The World's Strongest, Game 1: Venice Abroad vs Later Western Romans

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My first game at this year’s To The World’s Strongest tournament (held in Blewberry on 28th February) was against Chris and his Later Western Romans.

Although terrain placement had been in my favour, I had lost the scouting, so was quite pleased to see Chris open the game by advancing his cavalry forward on my left flank: my plan, you see, was to smash his horse from the field there with my superior Knights and then roll him up whilst the rest of my troops pinned his line in place.

Unfortunately, my Knights seemed, as is so often the case, to be wearing their ceremonial cardboard armour rather than the real McCoy, and I was soon having to pull back and consolidate before heading back into the fight.

Net gain: three coins from killing a unit of light cavalry and, more importantly, the Roman cavalry General…despite the fact that a glorious flank charge from the balestrieri montati failed to even scratch the armour of one of the Roman squadrons, followed by a narrow escape when they turned and tried to charge me back!

Meanwhile, on the right flank, two units of Roman Infantry (Legionaries have red/yellow shields, auxilia have blue or yellow shields) faced off against my other command of Knights: neither side willing to risk a frontal clash.

A hail of missiles followed from both sides (the Romans had archers and some chaps with plumbatae - darts - mixed in to their heavies) with one unit of Roman lights killed as a result.

A bit of action in the centre followed, as the Romans sent their light infantry there forward, only to have one shot down by the Venetian’s mercenary crossbowmen, and the other impaled on the spears of some lancieri. That was another two coins, which made nine when added to the two that I had won on the left by finally killing one of the Roman cavalry units there (the cataphracts I believe) and another for Chris rallying a unit on an even number: two more to go!

The Romans, now realising that they needed to get their infantry into action if they were to save the game, advanced one unit of Legionaries forward, but the Venetian Alabardiers met them in the middle and disordered them with their halberds.

The disordered Legionaries retreated back into their line in order to rally, but this was the opportunity I had been waiting for: a disordered infantry unit in range of my right hand lancers.

Sliding the left side unit of Knights across with a ‘4’ put me needing a ‘6’ or more to charge diagonally forward and then in. I drew a ‘6’ (phew!) slamming into the disordered Legionaries with a mighty crash.

First attack card was an Ace, but then I used a Hero to convert that to a ‘7’ then drew a ‘10’ for my lance: two hits, at least one of which the Romans failed to save…and that was Chris’ last two coins and game!

This was quite lucky, as in the meantime the last unit of Roman light cavalry had killed my right hand mounted crossbowmen and snuck through my lines to threaten my camp…bottom right in the picture below.

Anyhoo, a good start to the day with a 12-2 victory and, more importantly, a fun game with a very congenial opponent!

TTS AAR: Aghlabids versus Gauls

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Time for some more To The Strongest, and a clash between my Aghlabids and friend John’s Gauls: not exactly an historical match-up, but would hopefully give a good game!

As the Gallic horde was quite infantry heavy, my plan was to use my superior numbers of mounted troops on the right to smash the enemy horse from the table before turning and rolling the Celts up from that flank. This was helped by the Take the High Ground stratagem that I had drawn.

A good opening card saw my troops get into the perfect position to charge, but then the Card Gods punished me for hubris and my attack stopped dead. This gave the initiative to the Gauls, but it seemed that John had earned the CG’s wrath as well, as he forgot Trevor’s Law - “Always start with the General” - and also failed to charge home.

With my move on the right stymied, I tried the same thing on the left, with almost exactly the same result!

With the flanks getting nowhere, I move my infantry up to try and weaken the Gallic warbands with bowfire.

Back to the right flank, where my Arab cavalry finally charged home. An initial success was followed by multiple turns of frustration as the disordered Gallic horse in front of me just wouldn’t break, John saving time and time again.

Here’s an overview of the position so far:

Things continued to go wrong for me on the flanks. On the right, the Gallic chariots managed to send my other unit of Arab cavalry flying from the field…leaving me with a tactical advantage but not the crushingly dominant position I had hoped for!

And on the left I lost my Arab lancers and would spend the rest of the game with my two units of lights dancing around trying not to be killed as they harried the flanks of more Gallic cavalry and chariots!

The Gallic infantry warbands now started to move forward in the centre. I sent volley after volley of bowfire into them from my infantry, but John was saving and/or rallying like a demon, and although I did earn four coins from the Gauls drawing even cards for the latter, the writing was now firmly on the wall for the Arabs.

A last attempt on the right to save the day failed to deliver:

And although the Gallic chariots failed to take my camp, left unguarded courtesy of another Ace…

…the relentless wave of Gallic warriors (half veterans, half fanatics, all big and scary!) eventually smashed enough of my infantry from the field to capture my last few coins.

Despite the loss, this was a brilliant game of To The Strongest, full of action and Aces!

John played the Gauls masterfully: absorbing my early cavalry attacks and then advancing his warbands inexorably up the field to drive my infantry back and then off. Good fun and, hopefully, this will have used up all my Aces prior to the Worlds next weekend!

TTS AAR: Aghlabids versus Italo-Normans - The Return Match

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With the Italo-Normans victorious in our first game, there was still plenty of time for the Aghlabids to have a go at evening up the score before I had to collect Mother from her event and start the four-hour return leg of my trip to Huddersfield.

Deployment was similar to the last game, but the Italo-Normans put even more of their cavalry facing my left flank.

The Italo-Normans moved first, and almost immediately I was in big trouble again as the enemy heavy cavalry shot down towards my flank and forced my light horse back into the camp.

Fortunately, my heavy cavalry were able to partially recover the position, but it was all looking rather cramped in that corner!

Sticking with the action here in the corner, things got worse again when the Italo-Norman horse broke the rear unit of Arab lancers and, further up the table, managed to get a two-to-one advantage on my other cavalry unit. The situation was only partially rescued by deploying my reserve infantry (purple flag, behind the rock) to support my beleaguered troops.

My light horse, in prime position to charge the corner unit’s flank managed to fail to do any damage whatsoever, and I watched with huge misgivings as Geoff pulled a card to turn his cavalry to face my lights. Fortunately, luck was with me, and I was able to use Someone has Blundered to force the enemy heavies into facing the wrong direction.

My lights then remembered which end of the javelin goes in the enemy, and sent the Italo-Normans flying from the table with a hail of javelin-fire (they can’t evade that!) including, again, killing the enemy general.

Elsewhere on the table, my infantry had formed two lines, hoping to shoot the deep enemy spearman units to pieces before contact was made. There was also some action on the far right, where more of my Arab lancers had squared off against more Italo-Norman heavy cavalry.

Geoff also had a unit off-table carrying out a flank march. He now drew a card to get it onto the table and succeeded. I checked the diagram in the rulebook and confidently told him that he could bring it on anywhere in the central sector of my right flank.

This was wrong: it could come on anywhere on the right hand table edge…and my only pitiful excuse is that a quick glance at the diagram does seem to have just the central sector highlighted…but if you look properly, it’s the central sector and the single strip along the right hand edge of the tabletop. Mea culpa and all that, and we’ll count the Arabs as having lost again as a heavy cavalry unit in my right rear could have been very unpleasant indeed.

As it happens, I did get it wrong, and his cavalry entered the table just behind the melee that was already going on (it’s the unit with the Nine of Spades next to it).

This, of course, left the newly-arrived Italo-Norman horse in a prime position to be charged by my black-flag lancers, provided my lancers could get through the other Italo-Norman cavalry (the disordered unit)…needing only a 3+ to get their charge in.

Well, I had two turns to try and make the charge, and failed both times: the cards obviously aware that I had made a mistake with the table-entering position!

Which meant that it was on the other side of the table that the battle would be decided, as the two infantry lines had still not made contact.

In the end, the Italo-Normans lost their last couple of coins when their last remaining cavalry on the left was overwhelmed by numbers: the use of my reserve infantry meaning that I had three units versus one. Hit in the rear after evading, that was that!

So another closely fought battle, with the Arabs coming away with a victory overturned on a you-got-the-rules-wrong technicality. I also think Geoff captured more medals over the two battles combined than I did.

My thanks to Geoff for being such a great opponent, and to Gemini Games for their hospitality. I look forward to hitting Huddersfield again some time in the future.

TTS AAR: Aghlabids versus Italo-Normans

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I had to take Mother to Huddersfield (well, she’d managed to find her way back from Nottingham…) and faced the prospect of a long day with nothing to do whilst I waited for her event to finish. Luckily, in a post-match chat after the recent Doubles, fellow TTS-player, Geoff, mentioned that Huddersfield was his neck of the woods and, moments later, a game was arranged.

I liked Huddersfield: from Greggs on the main drag at six-thirty in the morning for a ‘sausage and bacon bap with red’ right through to Travelodge late at night, everyone was very pleasant. Lots of places to charge your car as well. Geoff and I met at Cafe Valencia, just around the corner from Gemini Games, the venue for our battle, where they bring you a proper pot of tea, with an egg-timer to make sure you let it mash for long enough.

Geoff wanted to get his Anglo-Normans onto the tabletop, which suited me just fine as I could then field the Aghlabid version of the Early Muslim, North Africa and Sicily army list, meaning that what I would transport to Huddersfield was a 15mm 3D printed resin army rather than a ton-weighing metal one. This proved to be a good decision, as the nearest carpark to Gemini Games was closed for repairs, which meant parking on the other side of town and using the Roman Baggage Train (my camping trolley) to wheel the Aghlabids to where the action was.

Gemini Games were very accomodating: providing a large table at the back of the shop’s gaming area free of charge, even though their main business seemed to be collectable/strategy card games such as Magic: the Gathering.

I won the scouting, and weighted my army on the left, intending to quickly wipe out the three units of horse in front of me using a four-formed-plus-two-lights verses three-formed advantage in numbers, with a couple more infantry units in reserve if needed. The rest of the army sat back and waited for the Anglo-Normans to advance, confident that they could bow them to death as they did so.

Unfortunately, that plan didn’t quite work out as I had intended.

On the left, Geoff’s three cavalry units made mincemeat of my more numerous Arabs, and I soon found myself down half my coins and very much unable to contemplate any kind of outflanking manoeuvre there.

Worse, on the right, the Anglo-Norman horse managed to burst through the end of my line, and proceed to do to me exactly what I had been hoping to do to them!

Some of the Italo-Norman cavalry that had broken through then kept pursuing my light horse, curling around towards my camp in another threatening manouevre.

I needed to stabilise my line, but only had a unit of disordered Bowmen to do so. They did have a good position on the flank of enemy cavalry, but their attack failed, with the Italo-Norman horse then turning to face them.

This was not good, but I did have a moment of hope when the enemy horse faltered for a second and I used my Someone Has Blundered stratagem, but unfortunately the enemy cavalry didn’t succumb to this attack either - very unsporting of them - and they soon turned back again and disposed of the unfortunate archers.

The death of the bowmen let the enemy cavalry through onto my flank and, despite the fact that the Black Guard had some success to their front, it was only a matter of time before I lost my last few coins and the battle…helped by the cards letting Geoff’s final attack go in.

It had been an excellent game, full of successes and reverses for both sides (I had killed one of Geoff’s generals on the left flank in just about the first combat). A significant victory for the Italo-Norman cavalry, with their infantry hardly involved at all!

Two the Strongest Game Three: Northern Dynasties Chinese versus Polybian Romans & New Kingdom Egyptians

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Our third game at the Doubles was against Geoff and Nate using Polybian Romans and New Kingdom Egyptians respectively. This was a crucial game as the way in which the points system worked meant that three pairings were still in with a very good chance of winning the tournament overall: not only, therefore, did we have to beat Geoff and Nate, but also beat them by more than Si and Dave beat their opponents. Exciting stuff!

I have a New Kingdom Egyptian army myself, so I know something of its strengths and weaknesses. My plan was therefore very simple: charge forward with my heavies and steamroller the enemy before they had a chance to use their superior shooting to pincushion me to death!

So that’s what I did: straight forward and to hell with the consequences!

Crude tactics, but they worked like a charm. The Egyptians crumpled under the onslaught of my heavy cavalry and were dismissed from the field after only the second turn!

This was very unfortunate for Geoff, who now found himself facing Peter’s army from the front and my army from the flank.

This turned out to be no foregone conclusion, as the Polybian quincunx proved incredibly difficult to break.

Peter did manage to get his cavalry past the main Roman line and capture the enemy camp, but then had to spend his time trying to keep the camp (and the three coins it represented) and trying not be killed by superior numbers of Roman cavalry, all the while watching the three quincunxes marching inexhorably forward.

Time was also ticking on, and in the very last turn of the game I finally managed to get enough of my own heavy horse across and into the flank of the Romans to finish them off, but it was a near run thing and the Latin infantry resisted charge after charge before finally giving way. A tremendous, if untimately unsuccessful, defence of a very difficult position by Geoff!

All that was left was to wait for the final scores to be added up…Peter and I were overall winners again, but only by the very narrowest of margins: 102 points versus Si and Dave on 99 points!

My thanks to Nate and colleagues for organising, to all my opponents and, of course, to my doubles partner, Peter. Perhaps I can have a rest now before next year’s competition!

Two the Strongest Game Two: Northern Dynasties Chinese versus Principate Romans & Armenians

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The second game that Peter and I fought at last year’s Doubles (actually held in January this year due to scheduling problems) was against the powerful combination of Principate Romans and Armenians, ably generalled by Matt and Tim respectively.

The Chinese won the scouting and we both immediately advanced strongly against our opponents.

On my side of the table, things went wrong very quickly, with two units of my heavy cavalry disordered in the first charge, and my lights on the wing, who were supposed to be outflanking the enemy line, driven backwards and right off the table!

The Armenian cavalry who had driven my lights back then turned around and headed towards the rear of my horse, who were still very much under pressure from the enemy in front of them.

This had disaster written all over it, but somehow my cavalry threatened by the Armenians in the rear survived the next couple of turns: once because Tim drew Aces and failed to charge them, and then because they managed to make their saves when hit from behind.

A very narrow escape!

And, in fact, a narrow escape that allowed me to charge and disorder an Armenian unit further into the centre of the battlefield, and then assault it with more lights, finally doing enough damage to break them and give me enough coins to win the game.

This was very lucky, as I only had two coins left myslf, and Tim’s other cavalry were about to hit the rear of my other horse again!

So that was my side of the battlefield, what of what Peter was doing on his. Here’s his report:

Peter writes

My CinC , Mulan (of Disney fame), led some brave but nervous LC facing the veteran Lance and javelin armed heavy Roman cavalry. Mulan advanced and sure enough the Romans took the bait and galloped forwards to kill or capture the apparently weak and defenceless girl. But of course she withdrew.

Meanwhile the solid line of Lorica segmenta clad legionaries trundled forward with no gaps across six boxes!

But this was a trap! My nearby command of cavalry and supporting light cav on the other side of the river shot forward. My veteran cav Lance bow, blocked the advancing legions and started shooting although scoring no hits. They then sat there with lowered lance, threatening to countercharge any further advance by the Romans.

Meanwhile, the bow armed cavalry surprised my opponent Mat by turning and offering their flank to the pilum armed pesky praetorians! Why? Because They then charged across the deadly river, at the Ford smashing into the flank of the Roman cavalry! Missing once and hitting the second, which Mat failed to save! The supporting light cavalry followed and again missed and then hit but frutatingly the vet cavalry saved!

So it was up to Mulans squadron of bow armed light cav to pour 6 volleys into the same unit and on the last arrow they failed to save and died!

This left just one unit of Roman cav facing a swarm of formed Chinese cav and Mulans light cav and they very wisely began withdrawing back to their base edge.

Meanwhile my veteran heavy Lance armed cav blocking the menacing Roman mincing machine, activated - and withdrew! This surprised Mat but also delighted him as he wanted to advance to take my camp.

So he blew his cornicens and the whole line of locked red scuta came forward in a rush.

But again this was a cunning trap!

By now the Final Roman cavalry unit had been pursued to their base edge and shot to pieces by the swarm.

This allowed Mulan and one unit of LC to turn and charge across the same Ford that the heavy cavalry had charged across the other way just two turns previoulsy.

You can see the moment in the photo above, where, just like in the AI video based on this very figure that I posted yesterday, the koi carp leapt into the air as Mulans tiger splashed through the water in Hollywood slow motion, before smashing into the flank of the already disordered legion!

The first card missed, the second card hit and the legion, obviously completely surprised by this unexpected attack across what it had assumed was a protective turbulent river, drew a 4 and failed its save!

These were the last two medals that the entire double army had left and the remaining Romans turned tail and ran!

I couldn’t have choreographed such a Hollywood moment any better…

  • A turbulent and deadly river.

  • One surprise charge across the Ford with heavy cav to take out Roman vet cav to close one trap.

  • Then another charge the other way to close the Second trap led by Mulan and her tiger to destroy a legion.

  • Winning the final medals for a total wipeout victory!

So another big win and on to the final game…

Two the Strongest Game One: Northern Dynasties Chinese versus Middle Sassanids

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Peter’s and my first game of the 2025 Two the Strongest Doubles Competition (actually taking place at the end of January 2026 due to scheduling problems) was against the formidable pairing of Simon Miller (writer of To the Strongest) and Ian Notter (who does the photography for the rulebooks), commanding a force of Middle Sassanids.

The tournament took place at the Seven Dials club in central London: a very cool venue for a wargaming competition!

Peter and I won the scouting and, with some very lucky cards, I managed to get one of my commands down onto the baseline behind Ian’s left flank.

Things went from bad to worse for Ian, who soon found himself fighting on two fronts—and before long, very much due to the fact that his cards had it in for him (I don’t think he made a single save all game), I had taken enough victory medals to drive his entire army off the table.

Simon, meanwhile, was doing his best to close with Peter’s troops, sensibly trying to stay as far away from my men, who were now heading over towards his side of the table, as fast as possible.

Most worrying for Peter was the unit of Savaran that almost managed to take the Chinese camp (gallery below: top right) something only avoided by the fact that I just managed to get some light infantry into the camp (to join the light cavalry there) in time.

There was also a general melee in the far left corner of the table (gallery below, bottom right) where various units of cavalry from both sides clashed over the small stream there.

All this fighting had weakened Simon’s army, especially as he was now fighting both of us at once, and eventually his force also collapsed, the coup de grace being delivered by more of our heavy cavalry, led by Mulan herself!

A great start to our campaign with a 16-5 victory.

TTS AAR: Burgundian Ordnance vs Sassanid Persians - Take Two

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With the first game over so quickly, Neil and I had time for another…so we kept the sides the same and started again.

As you’ll see from the pictures below, I decided to weight all my forces onto one flank in an attempt to win there before turning to wipe out the enemy elsewhere.

The Sassanids, wise to the tactic, came forward as fast as they could, and prepared to counterattack from the other flank:

My troops duly charged in but, shock, horror, failed to do more than just push the Sassanid foot backwards.

Things just weren’t happening fast enough, especially as the Sassanid heavy cavalry was almost in a position to counterattack: good moves by Neil!

It was all over very quickly!

My stacked troops on the left still failed to inflict the death blow on the Sassanids in front of them, which meant that Neil was free to launch a massive counter-attack of his own.

Yes, the unit of Burgundian Knights guarding my right flank did dispose of some of the Sassanids, but not enough to make a difference.

In the end, it was actually the troops on the Sassanid left, the one’s I was supposed to be overwhelming at the start of the game, who won the battle: taking full advantage of the ‘distraction’ posed by the Sassanid counterattack:

A disappointing loss for the Burgundians!

I worked out afterwards that the problem was that I didn’t commit enough to the main thrust on the left: I kept too much back defending my camp and in the centre protecting the thrust. That meant that Neil, keeping an excellently cool head, was able to absorb my main hit and then calmly counterattack with his overwhelming numbers of horse…but it was the troops that were hit by my main thrust that won the game even before those horse properly arrived!

A great game.

TTS AAR: Welsh Open Game Four: Venice Abroad versus WOTR Yorkists

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My fourth and last game at the Welsh Open To The Strongest tournament was against Steve’s Wars of the Roses Yorkists: a difficult army to face, packed full of longbows and with infantry armed with two-handed cutting weapons!

Attacking an enemy like that with a frontal advance is suicide: you walk right into a hail of longbow fire. The only way to do it is to attack its flanks and/or wings. I therefore sent the Knights forward, with the infantry pausing just outside longbow range, waiting for their own opportunity to go in.

Unfortunately, on the right, my Knights were wearing their ceremonial cardboard armour, and were soon fleeing the field. The intervention of my Light Mounted Crossbowmen, who had started the game off table and Lost, didn’t achieve anything and, despite huge opportunities for success on that flank, my attack petered out into nothing, with Steve able to bring the infantry that had disposed of my Knights back to counter the strength of my Later Knights.

I did have an opportunity to take the Yorkist camp there, but chose to try and improve the situation overall by sending the Lights into the rear of a Yorkist unit, but that didn’t work, leaving me to regret a potential three coins squandered.

Meanwhile, on the left, my Knights had broken onto the enemy flank, but the units they wer facing were veteran and proving very tough to actually evict from the tabletop, and I had to content myself with killing their general. I also just couldn’t quite get my Knights into the enemy camp: the cards weren’t quite falling for me.

I was now slightly ahead in terms of coins captured, but I needed an outright victory if I was going to make up for the crashing defeat I’d suffered against Peter in the last game. I therefore then made my second mistake of the battle: with the wings tied up but with the potential for my cavalry on either to head in to the centre, I sent my infantry forward to pin the Yorkist troops in place.

This was a mistake, as my poor spearmen and even the Alabardiers promply got cut to pieces by enemy Billmen!

This gave Steve enough coins to draw level and, with the game absolutely in the balance, astutely break through my line with his foot and attack my weakest line unit, the crossbowmen, sending them and my last two coins fleeing from the table for a 10-12 close fought loss!

A great game of To The Strongest despite the result, and very well played by Steve.

Overall, I was surprised to end up in 5th place, a good deal better than I was expecting and probably down to the size of my first two wins. Steve ended up second…which is presumably where I would have been if I’d beaten him!

Cracking tournament: my thanks to Ty for organising and for all four of my opponents on the day.

It’s now on to the delayed 2025 Doubles next weekend…

First go with Command & Colours

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Friend Neil wanted me to try Command & Colours, a board-wargame featuring wooden blocks representing units moving around a hex battlefield, with activation being card-driven and combat being resolved through throws of custom dice.

We played the Napoleonic version (there are versions that cover other periods in history), specifically the battle of Eggmuhl between the French and the Austrians.

So, what did I think? Firstly, let me say that this is definitely a wargame and not a boardgame. Put this onto a big table with a hexed mat (i.e. no different from To The Strongest’s grid) and substitute the wooden blocks for figures, and it plays exactly the same as a tabletop system. In fact, my first thought when I saw the game set up, was “oh look, it’s kriegspiel”.

We played two games, swapping sides for the second. I lost the first one, then we started another game but I made a critical mistake in my first turn and got heavily punished immediately, so we stopped that game and started again (consigning that encounter to the forgotten history file) and then won the second.

The system was easy to learn, although there are nuances that you need experience to exploit. For example, the cards drive what units you can activate…which means that to launch a game-winning attack, you have to make sure you have enough cards in your hand to allow you to push that attack forward for at least three turns, otherwise you will find yourself unable to exploit any success you might have had with your first card.

It also takes a little time to adjust your play for how brutal the combat can be. You definitely don’t want to be infantry caught out of square by cavalry, and using your artillery effectively (and without getting them killed!) is tricky.

All in all, I really enjoyed the two games we had. I’d always choose to play a figures-on-the-table game over a wooden-blocks game, but Command & Colours would certainly provide a great alternative if no full wargame was available.

I’m also tempted to get a huge hex mat on a suitably sized table and see what it would be like to fight a slightly later game with my 15mm collection: perhaps an 1859 Franco-Austrian encounter as I don’t really have any Napoleonics…

TTS AAR: Welsh Open Game Three: Venice Abroad versus Pradithra Indians

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With two big wins under my belt it, it was inevitable that my next game was against Peter and his Pradithran Indians: lots of heavy cavalry, lance and bow, supported by horse archers…sounds very familar…

I lost the scouting and, despite my best efforts, managed to deploy with half my army facing thin air. It’s a familiar story when playing Peter, and one that usually ends in disaster!

Turn one and forward came the Indians, their pooping camels straight down into the corner!

I counter-advanced whilst frantically rushing my troops over to the right.

The Indian cavalry charged my veteran Later Knights (saving on 4+) and disaster struck: I drew five Aces in the first eight cards and promptly lost the Later Knights and therefore my army standard!

No matter: these things happen and I had more Knights that I could use to recover on the left whilst still trying to shift my army over to the right.

Then disaster struck again: I pulled three consecutive Aces and lost both those Knights and some Handgunners that were in the area!

Words fail me! I had drawn eight Aces in about thirteen cards. At this point even Peter was telling me that he had never seen such appalling luck!

With my left flank now vaporised and my back firmly against the wall, I fought on, desperate to recover the situation.

As you’ll also see in the right hand picture, above, I managed to get my troops that has started the game on the left over into the centre, and began an heroic defence of my position, managing to stretch the game out (playing normally, I hasten to add: no long pauses to deliberate!) until there was only five minutes to go.

At this point I was still on something like six coins, so a losing draw would have been okay. Keen to keep hopes of a good placing alive, I did get a bit gamey (translation: act like an arse!) and tried to claim that we had no time to play another turn - in competition, the organiser can’t afford to let the time spent on a round go too much over the allocated time or you could end up giving out the prizes in the Donmar Warehouse (if you know, you know!) - but Ty consulted the competition pack and declared that even though there were only minutes to go, and any resultant turn could take the game considerably over the limit, the rules said that if a player wanted to start a new turn they could do.

Unsurprisingly, Peter did…and, with some very skillful manoeuvring, managed to infiltrate some light cavalry through the gaping holes in my left flank (which I had denuded to prop up the centre) and take two of my three camps. Game over and a 2-12 loss to the master!

So another shoe-ing from Peter…but I could take some comfort from the fact that this one was down much more to the cards - eight pooping Aces in thirteen pooping cards - than to lack of skill or error on my part.

On to the last game…

TTS AAR: Welsh Open Game Two: Venice Abroad versus Later Romans

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After dispatching Colin’s Ikko-Ikki in Game One, my opponent in Game Two was friend Si and his Later Romans: in effect, a repeat of my third battle at last year’s Warfare tournament. I’d won that one (beating Si for the first time in competition ever) so settled down to try and do so again.

Things didn’t start very well, as I lost the scouting and had to watch as significant numbers of Roman heavy cavalry thundered towards my left wing!

At this point I managed to muck up the settings on my camera, so some of the photos are weirdly focused: which is absolutely gutting as this was the key moment of the battle!

I advanced my Knights towards the Roman horse and managed to get the first charge in. Incredibly, a fortuitous run of the cards saw me knock out one of the Roman cavalry units along with their General, with their accompanying lights also fleeing the field in shock. That’s five coins won (about half the Roman total) in one hit!

It was now very much the case of not throwing away this advantage, so I calmed myself down (no easy feat after that bit of good luck) and took stock. A plan quickly evolved: the Knights to finish off his Roman cavalry on the left then advance on his camp; send everything else in against the so-far-untouched Romans on the right.

Romans are really hard to kill, especially when commanded by an experienced general like Si. I threw everything I had available at the enemy on the right, and despite having a considerable numerical advantage and Knights, at the end of the game I still hadn’t fully broken them there!

So it would all be down to what happened on the left.

First task was to polish off the rest of the Roman cavalry…

Again, this took much longer than it should have done, particularly once some Roman infantry got involved…but eventually the last enemy cavalryman fled the field and it was time to break the foot.

Stubborn? That word doesn’t properly encompass how difficult it was to finish them off!

In particular, the Roman legionaries on the hill at the back survived charge after charge in the rear from my light horse, and weren’t even much bothered by my Knights coming in from the front, disordering them the first time they tried it!

In the end, however, the Later Knights managed to break the infantry unit caught out in the open, and the game was mine.

This was another big win (12-2) but, I emphasise, solely down to the luck I had in the first turn in knocking five coins worth of veteran Roman cavalry and their general off the table with my first charge. Without that bit of extreme good fortune, things would have been very different indeed!

TTS AAR: Welsh Open Game One: Venice Abroad versus Ikko-Ikki

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My first game proper at this year’s Welsh Open (held at the ever-excellent Firestorm Games in Cardiff) was against Colin’s beautifully-painted Ikko-Ikki.

This is an unusual army consisting of a mix of raw and veteran fanatics wielding naginatas and other polearms, supported by a small contingent of fanatical cavalry and the odd unit of bowmen and handgunners.

I won the scouting, and was pleased to see Colin set up in one corner of the table, ripe for some kind of outflanking manouevre with my Knights on the left!

I knew the Ikko-Ikki would come straight at me - that’s what fanatical monks with big choppers do - but I also knew that they would all be very vulnerable to missile fire. I therefore determined to get forward into missile range, then wait for them to come to me as I pelted them with crossbow bolts and fire from my handgunners.

There was also the matter of their cavalry on my right: that was job for my other command of Knights!

The shooting was also going very well on the right, with a couple of units of raw fanatics neutralised, so I thought it was safe to send the infantry forward to distract Colin’s main line whilst I developed my flank attack on the left.

This worked surprisingly well: with last of the Ikko-Ikki disposed of by the Knights on the right, an attack by Lancieri Spearmen on the side of one unit that had swivelled to face my flank attack was enough to knock their target off the table and give me a 14-2 victory without my left-hand flank attack even going in.

All in all, a succesful start to the tournament. It has to be said that Colin was unlucky with his saves against my missile fire and, as you can probably deduce from the pictures above, did manage to kill my one unit of Later Knights on the right.

Facing a solid wall of polearm-wielding, fanatical infantry and cavalry is terrifying, by the way, and I was pleased I never had to properly close with them throughout!