TTS AAR: Gauls versus Later Romans

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Another practice game for this year’s To The Strongest at Britcon tournament: this time my Gauls would face friend Si’s Later Romans.

The Gauls lost the scouting phase, so deployed their six warbands, two of them veteran, across the centre of the table, with their cavalry on the right wing. My plan was to defeat any Roman cavalry on that wing and then swing my horsemen into the centre to take the enemy infantry in the flank. You can see the start position and initial moves below.

Unfortunately, my cavalry were taking a bit of time to properly get going: one immediately fell victim to the Roman cataphracts, the other three flailing around without actually achieving much.

I then used the Someone Has Blundered stratgem to about-face the cataphracts but didn’t manage to damage them despite sending in multiple attacks from the flank and rear. In the end, I had to use some of the infantry from the centre to prevent one unit of my horsemen from being squished between two lots of Roman cavalry, but things couldn’t be said to be going well!

Meanwhile, things had been going equally badly at the other end of the infantry line i.e. my left flank.

There, the Romans had managed to get some light troops around the end of my line, who then punished me appropriately. The only good news was that my infantry in the centre had managed to kill a unit of Legionaries (taking the Roman Eagle) and that one Roman general had died in the fighting.

Luckily I was able to bring one unit of Gallic cavalry across the back on the battlefield to reinforce the left of my line, but it arrived too late to save my left-hand warband and, unless a miracle happened elsewhere, I was about to be rolled up and destroyed from both flanks!

Below are pictures of either end of my line. The right hand picture is a repeat of one shown above, but it shows how the Romans are on the flank of one warband and at the rear of a cavalry unit to give the context for the previous paragraph.

Luckily - and it was pure luck - such a miracle was forthcoming.

The disordered Gallic cavalry unit on the flank of the disordered Roman cataphracts charged home and miracle des miracles scored two hits.

The cataphracts failed to save one of them, so died, taking their general with them as, under the new amendment, he couldn’t get to another friendly unit so went down with his men. That was four coins and the game to me!

Not my finest hour, as I was definitely in a losing position at that point, and it was only luck that stopped Si winning. Mind you, if you want to see a tryly outrageous piece of good fortune on my part, make sure you read the next TTS battle report that appears on this site: that one was even better!

TTS AAR: Venice Abroad versus Gauls

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With the 15mm To The Smallest tournament done and dusted, it was time to start thinking about the 28mm Britcon To The Strongest tournament, only two weeks away.

My first practice game was to be with my Venetians against John playing the Gauls. I won the scouting, and was pleased to see the Gauls set up in a tight formation based around their two camps. This let me place my knights on the wings and, as the game began, send the ones on the right flying forward to outflank.

Unfortunately my rapid advance on the right had been so rapid that the two Gallic warbands at that end of the enemy line had time to turn to face my knights, particularly as I hadn’t yet had time to get any troops forward in support.

At the same time as that, my Knights on the left charged forward to engage half the Gallic cavalry, and the two infantry lines moved to within crossbow range, a lucky shot taking out one of the Gallic infantry generals!

On the left, my knights initially made very heavy weather of the Gallic horse: the first unit to go in, the Veteran Knights, bounced off their Celtic opponents and had to retire to reform. Luckily I had the Later Knights handy to take over, and the other half of the Gallic horse were taking their time about joining in the fun.

The Later Knights were having a good day and dashed both units of Gallic cavalry in front of them off the table, leaving only some somewhat nervous Celtic lights in between them and the Gallic camp.

Meanwhile, the disordered Veteran Knights turned to take the rest of the Gallic cavalry in the flank.

As the cavalry were fighting it out on the wings, the enemy centre came forward against my infantry. A hail of crossbow bolts slowed them down and the initial contact went my way, with the Gallic infantry withdrawing slightly to regroup. I tried my luck by sending the Alabardiers forward to follow up this initial success, but the brave billmen were cut down without effect and soon the two infantry lines paused and just stared at each other across the battlefield.

On the right flank, meanwhile, my Later Knights were still having extreme difficulty in breaking the Gallic warband in front of them. They got to the double disorder stage, but just couldn’t break them, not helped by the cards either!

Back to the left where, with some superb manoeuvring, John had managed to force my Veteran Knights to retreat again and (after initially ignoring them and hoping they would just go away!) to not only thwart my Later Knights in their attempt to take the Gallic camp, but also then get into a position to assault the left hand end of my infantry line.

At the same time, his warbands there came forward again and I was in real trouble!

Meanwhile, the position in the centre of the battlefield was very confused. I lost my Knights on the right, but then my infantry conducted a heroic defence against the main Gallic assault.

Back to the left, where my Veteran Knights took advantage of the fact that the Gallic cavalry that had been all over them had left to harrass my Later Knights theatening the enemy camp, and redeemed themselves by charging the Gallic warbands assaulting that end of the infantry line. At the same time, my Spearmen on this hill anchoring said line managed to hold off the other Gallic horse, and suddenly it was all to play for again.

Casualties had been high on both sides, and John and I each had only two coins left, which meant that the next loss of an ordered unit or general would decide the game.

It was John’s turn and a unit of pesky lights turned and assaulted the rear of the Later Knights who were still trying to finish off the warband on the right. The attack went in…a hit…but that bounced off the Later Knights’ armour…but their accompanying general wasn’t so lucky: he drew an Ace for his save so had been hit. This was bad: a 50% chance that he would die, losing his life and me the game!

The card was turned: a Four!

Phew! A light wound and I was still in the fight.

The Celts tried to go in again, but drew an Ace themselves and the iniative passed back to the Venetians!

All I needed was one kill…which was delivered by the Later Knights on the other side of the table, who may have been prevented from taking the enemy camp, but then turned and happily rode down their attackers. Victory for Venice!

Well that had been a cracking game of To The Strongest, with mayhem, action and fortune swaying wildly over the whole battlefield. It had been the narrowest of wins for the Venetians: definitely a little too close for comfort!

To The Smallest: Game Four: Khurasanians vs Galatians

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My fourth and final game at this year's To The Smallest 15mm competition in Cardiff was due to be against Simon Miller, the author of the rules, whose Galatians had, presumably, also won their first three games.

Unfortunately Simon was on a time limit and had to leave the competition early to catch a train, but luckily fellow-player Mike was around to substitute in and lead the fanatical Celts into battle. As Mike later said on his blog: But, the laughter stopped for me as Sid called me forward in round four to face the hot favourite, Rob. My opponent was high in the rankings and Mr Miller remembered he had a train to catch. Against an opponent who actually read the scenarios and practised against numerous opponents; it wasn’t going to end well…

I was a bit concerned about facing Galatians: having played them myself at Ewelme this year, I knew that if they could get their warbands stuck into my troops, infantry or cavalry, it would be all over very quickly. I was therefore very pleased to see that we were going to play on the Issus battlefield i.e. the one with a (fordable) river running right across the middle of it. My plan wrote itself: shoot the Galatians, with their unwieldy deep warbands, full of arrows as they were trying to cross the river, then hit the disordered survivors fast and hard!

The terrain could not have been better for me: open ground with a barrier bisecting the table

The game began with the Galatians advancing to the river line. A group move attempt on my right was stymied by an early Ace and gave the enemy a chance to cross the river with three of their warbands.

This was not in the plan, but still meant that I could focus my attacks on the part of his force that was across the river (i.e. giving me a local advantage in numbers) and still bottle up the troops on Mike’s far left.

My ghilman cavalry duly charged forward and before long I had destroyed two of the Galatian warbands, which put me 40% towards an overall victory.

Meanwhile, on the far right, Galatian cavalry and a chariot had also finally managed to get across the stream. These were also engaged, this time by a combination of my lancers and some Turkoman horse archers, but although the enemy advance was checked, I just couldn’t seem to knock any of his units off the table.

Ed’s note: there is a difference between the two photos, below. In the right hand photo, the Galatian chariots have been disordered by bowfire from the horse-archers.

Meanwhile on the left, my infantry had been girding their loins for an expected Galatian all-out assault. This didn’t happen, so the infantry began to slide sideways towards the centre of the table: eyes open for a sudden Galatian surge forward.

Some of the more central units essayed across the river but soon changed their minds and retreated in the face of enemy aggression., although they did cause a few casualties, including the Galatian cavalry general.

Back to the centre and right hand side of the field. I finally dispatched the enemy horsemen in melee with the lancers, which left me very close to taking all Mike’s coins.

These I finally did acquire when the loan warband in the centre failed to pull back and was caught between two units of ghilman horse and annihilated along with their general.

So a massive 171-7 victory over the Galatians. To be fair to Mike, he was playing an army he’d literally just been given and thrown well and truly into the deep end with an anvil chained to his feet!

Once all the games had finished, the points were totted up. I was not the only player on four wins out of four - I think there were three of us - so it was a bit of a nerve-wracking wait. In the end, however, I had done enough to win the tournament overall, coming out just ahead of Matt and Si:

 

It had been a cracking day’s gaming, and not just because I had won. A terrific, well-organised event fought in very good humour by all, in a great venue and with some great people. If you play TTS, I highly recommend you try a competition or two: great fun!

To The Smallest: Game Three: Khurasanians vs Mongol

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With two wins already under my belt, it was time for game three at this year’s To The Smallest tournament. Each terrain set-up was based on an historical battlefield and finally I was on a table that suited the half of my army that were mounted troops…it was just a bit unfortunate that my Khurasanians were facing Mongols, surely the ultimate cavalry army especially as they were all veterans!

I lost the deployment and watched as Steve positioned his men on the “bowling green” so that a good third of my army were once again fighting thin air!

I had pulled the Take the High Ground stratagem, which means I could have advanced the command on the far left forward another two boxes after depoyment, but what I really wanted was to get the Mongols forward enough to be pinned by my main battle line before I swung right with the overlap: I could see that if I did use the stratagem, Steve might have been tempted to pull the right hand end of his line backwards, which would have left my overlap command both too far and left and too far forward as opposed to being just too far left.

At least that’s what I post-rationalised, as I think at the time I just forgot to play it!

Anyway, the left hand end of the Mongol line closed with mine, and I sent the left hand end of my line forward to try and outflank the enemy before nasty things happened elsewhere. My troops on the left quickly got into position and soon I was threatening the Mongol right flank.

On my right, a hail of Mongol arrows had damaged my troops and, with Genghist’s lancers following them in, it all looked very grim.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photographs of the next, vital phase of the battle, as things were so intense and convoluted that I didn’t have the time nor inclination to take any.

To summarise, what happened was that somehow I managed to co-ordinate the arrival of the heavy cavalry from the left with the advance of my spearmen infantry facing forward left of centre, forming a kind of L-shape in front of me.

Steve’s troops caught in the angle of the L-shape got a bit traffic-jammed, meaning that two of his light cavalry units that had been facing my troops to my left took a charge in the flank from a unit of my spearmen facing forward, and were unable to evade as, after consultation with the referee, it was discovered that they would have been unable to pass through some Mongol heavy cavalry that were next to and perpendicular to them…which is a complicated way of saying that they were caught between my spears and their own cavalry and disintegrated.

My victorious spearmen, their blood thoroughly up, then charged the cavalry that had blocked the evade - and another unit of Mongol lights that were sharing the same box - in the flank, driving them backwards right to the Mongol baseline.

The pictures below show (left) the aftermath of the first charge (my charging spearmen are the ones in white with the black flags) and (right) the battlefield a turn of so later where my flank attacking L-shape has become a full tidal wave rolling across the table like the walls of the trash compactor from Star Wars!

Meanwhile, on my right, the Mongols had had the advantage of numbers and were winning, but had then had to to weaken their line to face the threat coming in from their right flank, which meant that rather than collapsing, the right of my line could stabilise and keep holding out, waiting for my flank attack on the left to win the game.

Steve was now down to his last few coins, but somewhat retrieved the situation when the charging spearmen tried for a “bridge too far” near the enemy camp, got disordered by bowfire from amongst the Mongol tents, then routed, along with their general, leaving the enemy cavalry free to threaten the flank of my heavy horse that were now sweeping down on the rest of the Mongol battleline, which was still occupied with the right hand end of my line.

That went some way to evening up both the score and the situation, but Lady Luck was with me as we entered the final few turns.

One of my heavy cavalry units from the right hand end of my line had been disordered in the initial clash with the enemy. They had fallen back and, after various manoeuvres, had headed to the left, pursued by a unit of Mongol lancers.

My cavalry managed to get a bit of distance between them and their pursuers, rally, then turn to face the enemy. At the same time, a unit of infantry (another one in white with black flags: medals all round for those boys) managed to come up behind the had-been-pursuing Mongols, who were then caught between the Scylla and Charybdis and squished…giving me Steve’s last two coins and victory!

That had been an epic game: very close and very exciting. Steve’s initial deployment was superb, and if I hadn’t managed to get my flank attack in, I would have been easily defeated.

The swivel in the centre of the battlefield was gripping stuff, and the final action equally intense. A 137-71 victory for the Khurasanians and on to face Simon Miller’s (the author of the rules) Galatians in the final round.

To The Smallest: Game Two: Khurasanians vs Early Muslims

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Well would you Adam and Eve it: my second game at this year’s To The Smallest tournament was a refight of my Friday evening warm-up game against friend Richard’s Early Muslims.

That game had been fought on the battlefield of Towton (all the To The Smallest tables represent historical battlefields) a most unsuitable place for both our cavalry armies, so surely this encounter would take place on the proverbial bowling green?

Er, no, even worse: Hastings!

As you’ll see from the picture below, I chose to play on the “hill” side of the table, as I’d always rather fight down a hill than up even if my initial position would be “interesting”. As a key, the hills with the round bush markers on them are steep, the others are gentle…which meant that the only way for me to deploy was cavalry-infantry-cavalry-infantry, with the infantry command second from the left taking their positions on the crags!

The Muslims had massed their cavalry on their right and,a s the game began, sent them forward in a massive wave determined to use sheer weight of numbers to bounce me backwards.

The two sides’ cavalry came together with a mighty and somewhat inconclusive crash. Looking at the pictures, it looks as if I managed to get more disorders on this first charge than Richard did, but that was mainly, I think, because those troops who were not receiving the frontal assault could pour bowfire into the flanks of the advancing Jund cavalry and their following infantry.

I’d also seen a bit of an opportunity on the right flank, where two of my light infantry archer units snuck forward to threaten (if light infantry can properly threaten) the enemy left.

Although they only achieved one kill (a unit of enemy lights) what they did manage to do was to keep four coins-worth (as opposed to their two coins-worth) of enemy infantry occupied for the rest of the game: a sound investment if I say so myself!

Back to the main action, where although I couldn’t break the Jund cavalry on the left, I was able to hold, pour bowfire into and then burst through the Muslim centre: the combination of veteran Ghilman lancers supported by solid, spear-armed Arab infantry (some with extra bows) proving very effective at keeping the enemy at bay and then counter-attacking.

I don’t usually play so defensively, but a starting position on Senlac hill lends itself to that strategy!

Richard had been steadily losing coins as his troops crashed against my defensive line, and the end came quickly: in fact, just as soon as my Ghilmen on the left got their act together and finally routed the disordered enemy cavalry in front of them for an excellent 154-21 point victory.

So two battles and two decent wins, but it was Steve’s Mongols up next…not a fight I was looking forward to!

To The Smallest: Game One: Khurasanians vs Nikephorian Byzantines

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My first game proper at this year’s To The Smallest (15mm) tournament was against friend Geoff’s formidable Nikephorian Byzantines.

I lost the scouting and Geoff took full advantage: superbly deploying so that one third of my army was out on the left fighting “thin air”, my only consolation being that I had managed to stack all my veteran cavalry on the right facing off against the mass of Byzantine horse.

I could then only watch as Geoff took full advantage of the situation, sweeping a cavalry unit past the end of my line looking to curl it back in to take my troops in the rear.

This was not good but, fortunately, the initial clashes of the main line went very much my way: two units of his horsemen, including the veteran cataphracts, being disordered whilst mine remained unscathed.

Unfortunately for Geoff, that was to set the pattern for the battle as a whole: although I couldn’t hit anything with my bows (literally nothing all game!) it seemed my troops couldn’t miss in melee, carving through Byzantines like they were made of butter!

Back to the action. My right flank was still technically in all sorts of trouble, but Geoff was unwilling to risk his disordered unit there in another round of combat, so moved it past my main line and out of harm’s way.

Unfortunately for him, this then left my lancers on the far right free to about face and engage the Byzantine outflanking force, pulling the situation back from the brink.

The next crisis to deal with was also on the right flank, where more Byzantine horse (there was a lot of it!) had got into a position to charge the flank of my other lancers - the ones who had disordered the cataphracts - and it required a bit of fancy footwork (moving the lights then retreating the lancers) to get out of that one.

My other lancers had by now finished off the Byzantine cavalry that had been trying to outflank my line - as I said, I seemingly couldn’t miss in melee - and were now heading back into the centre to help.

Meanwhile, my Arab infantry had been unsuccessfully trying to get into the action. A somewhat amusing two-step developed, where the Byzantine foot would step to their left (i.e. moving towards their cavalry) followed by my infantry stepping to their right to conform, all the while trying to get into bow range. Finally I decided that enough was enough and just turned some of them to the right and marched them towards the action.

My infantry with bows (the lights and the ones in black) eventually got into range but, as previously mentioned, there was something wrong with their arrows and they couldn’t hit a thing!

Back to the centre, where the cavalry that had dealt with the outflanking force now arrived in the rear of the Byzantine horse that had threatened the flank of my more centrally placed lancers.

These crashed into the back of the enemy, knocking them and their general off the table for Geoff’s last four coins and victory was mine.

I felt very sorry for Geoff: his deployment and initial moves had been flawless and totally put me on the back foot, and it was only the fighting ability (luck with the cards in melee!) of the veteran Khurasanian lancers that saved the day.

My infantry did nothing except keep the Byzantine foot occupied (although there was a cheeky little sideshow of one of my light archer units going off on its own to “threaten” the flank of the enemy infantry) and I counted myself very fortunate to have achieved a 154-43 points victory.

Next up: it’s Richard and his Early Muslims again!

To The Smallest: The Warm Up Game (Khurasanians vs Early Muslim)

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Off to Cardiff for the annual To The Strongest 15mm tournament, To The Smallest.

I arrived at the venue, the excellent Firestorm Games, already exhausted: I can usually do Cardiff in about 2½ hours, but the journey this time took me a good 4½ hours. I shot through until I reached the M5 interchange and then did the next 40 miles at 15mph. No accidents, no roadworks: just sheer weight of traffic. It was apparently bad all day: although I left home at about 1.30pm, someone else had left near me at 10.30am and someone else at 3pm and it was just as awful. Remind me never to travel to Wales on the first Friday of the school holidays!

One consolation was that quite a few people had arrived before me, and I was greeted by a wonderfully warm welcome. The TTS competition crowd really are a lovely bunch, and it was great to catch up with everyone. Better still, Firestorm has an excellent café, and a restorative combination of coffee, ice cream and cake left me feeling ready to tackle a warm-up game ahead of the main event the following day.

My opponents were friend Richard’s Early Muslim army: very similar to the Khurasanians I was fielding, the only real difference being that my heavy cavalry carried lance and bow rather than just lance.

There was one table already set-up and available, so we used that even though it was a representation of the battlefield for Towton (29 March 1461: the largest and bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses, ending in a decisive Yorkist victory that secured the English throne for Edward IV over the Lancastrian forces of Henry VI - all the games at To The Smallest are played on representations of historical battlefields) which suited neither of us as no-one had enough light troops to risk a trip over Cock Beck on one side of the table. That meant we both had to squeeze our armies into two thirds of the usual available space, which didn’t leave a lot of room for manouevring!

Richard also made the fatal mistake of letting me choose which side of the table to fight on, which meant he spent the whole game with the sun firmly in his eyes (even when the staff put down the shutters) and, in consequence, had to dress like Felix Leiter!

Apologies for the quality of the photographs: it was a very sunny day!

As the Muslims had more cavalry than I did, I stacked all my horsemen on the right in order to get as much parity as possible, and then got hit by the This Way Effendi stratagem which sent my furthermost Ghilman veterans almost off the table!

Fortunately I was able to recover the situation quickly, getting my horsemen back into a line of battle before a bit of luck with the cards enabled me to get the first charge advantage as the two mounted forces came within range. My Ghilmen thundered down the hill on the left, sweeping one enemy cavalry unit clean off the table and leaving another disordered, all for the cost of taking just a single disorder marker themselves.

I was, however, still outnumbered 5:4 in terms of heavy horse, and the enemy Jund cavalry struck back quickly, sending one of my units flying from the field. It was now 5:3.

This action on the right would continue for the rest of the game: the only thing saving my cavalry from being overwhelmed was the narrowness of the available space and my Turkomen horse archers, who both kept the enemy light horse at bay and distracted their heavies.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, I had decided to essay an outflanking manoeuvre with some of my infantry, but this was easily countered by some Muslim skirmishers firing from the cover of the trees, and my men were forced to retreat.

That left a big infantry on infantry battle in the centre of the field, and both sides marched into bow range and let fly. Fortunately my Khurasanians got the best of the initial volley and resultant melees, aided by more Turkoman horse archers and a couple of unfortunate (for Richard!) Aces.

Both sides were now down to their last coins, and it was very much a ‘sudden death’ situation. The battle could therefore have gone either way but, as luck would have it, the cards fell for the Khurasanians with a Muslim mounted unit routed by a cavalry charge and the day was mine…just!

How close was the game? I had one coin left myself, so won 14-13 for the very narrowest of victories! A great game fought in the very best of good humour on both sides, and a great way to warm-up for the next day’s tournament proper.

TTS AAR: Akkadian Empire versus Sassanid Persians

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I wanted to give Si’s Sassanids a run at an infantry-based army, so broke out the Akkadians: two units of Royal Guard, six units of spearmen with pavises and a command of veteran battle-cars.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the Akkadians lost the scouting, so deployed in a long line in the centre of the battlefield, the only outliers being the battle-carts, who were massed on my right flank and used the Take the High Ground strategy to push further towards the Persians.

My plan was simple: hold the left flank against an expected Sassanid outflanking manouevre; advance the centre in order to temp the Persians into charging my spearmen whilst soaking up their bowfire with my pavises; slam the battle-carts forward to crush and then turn the enemy left flank.

As anticipated, the Persians swept past my left flank and then turned and curled back into the centre. All that stood between them and the rear of my main battle line was a single unit of Spearmen, who quickly formed Orbis (marked on the tabletop by the hedgehog that it ressembles) and would hold out against a storm of arrows and the occasional charge for the rest of the game.

Meanwhile, on the right flank, the battle-cars were involved in a bitter war of attrition with the Persian cavalry facing them. In the end, two of three battle-carts would survive the melee and turn in towards the Sassanid centre.

As that was happening. the Royal Guard stepped forward in the centre of the field and proceeded to demonstrate how unwise it is to rely on chocolate-box soldiers as they (a) couldn’t hit the proverbial barn door with their bows and (b) weren’t sure which way up to hold their spears. On top of that, the officer of the infantry command on their right was quickly shot down by Persian arrows and things started looking a bit grim!

Back to the right where the battle-carts had finally swung in to take the Persians in the flank, but unfortunately their lack of manouevrability meant that they just couldn’t get into contact as they needed to.

The Akkadians then had a brief moment of success when a unit of Elamite light archers charged and killed a squadron of Persian heavy cavalry by charging it from the flank, pulling two 10’s to do so.

This was then countered by the loss of the Royal Guard’s officer - shot down by Persian bowfire - and I found myself, without quite knowing how, down to my last few coins. Looking at it with hindsight, I had lost two officers (four coins), one of the battle-carts (two coins), one infantry unit (also to bowfire, two coins), and a couple of coins to either losing lights or rallying. No matter, I thought, the Persians are only slightly better off: if I can last the rest of this turn then I can use the battle-carts’ flanking position to finish them off.

Unfortunately, this was not to be!

Realising that their position was as fragile as mine, the Persians threw everything into one final attack. A Sassanid cavalry unit charged the Akkadian Royal Guard who had just lost their officer (the unit with the face down playing card behind it in the photo above) and ran right over them despite the Guard’s veteran status. This loss caused the light archers in the square behind them to flee the table and I was suddenly down three coins and the game!

So a narrow loss for the Akkadians, mainly down to the poor performance of the Royal Guard and less so to the unmanouevrability of the battle-carts. One of those games that are so close that all the “if only’s” haunt you…well, at least until the next battle!

TTS AAR: Early Muslims versus Sassanid Persians

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This was (yet) another practice game for To The Smallest, this time featuring my Early Muslims against Si’s Sassanid Persians.

As battle opened, both sides advanced towards the other: the Muslims charging forward rapidly, the Sassanids more cautiously.

On the Sassanid left there was a patch of impassable terrain bordered by a wood, right next to the Persian camp. It looked like the perfect opportunity to take a chance, so I decided it was worth risking a coin's worth of Light Cavalry to see if I could sneak them through the rough ground and cause some mischief.

As it turned out, it worked even better than I'd hoped. The light horse managed to get behind the left-hand end of the Persian line. The camp itself looked a bit too tough a nut to crack—a fortified camp on a hill defended by light bowmen—so instead I wheeled them round and sent them charging into the rear of the Persian cavalry.

That opened the door nicely. I brought up some of the Jund cavalry to pile into the melee and, before long, a couple of enemy units had routed.

The troops in the camp did then make life awkward for my cavalry, but by that stage the Sassanid battle plan was in tatters. What had started as a speculative gamble with a single light cavalry unit had ended up somewhat disrupting their left flank.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the battlefield, the two sides had advanced towards each other, with the Muslims being much more aggressive following their success on the right.

Up in the top left hand corner of the battlefield, the two cavalry forces came together with a crash, with honours even the result.

The key difference was that after the initial clash, the Muslim cavalry were in a better position to turn and charge the rest of the Persian line, and although this attack from the flank didn’t achieve a great deal in terms of casualties, it did stop the more mobile Sassanid horse running rings around my infantry in the centre.

This was a good thing, and meant that the Muslims could bring their foot forward and force the Sassanids to charge straight onto their spears rather than having to sit there and wait to either be killed by archery or overwhelmed from the flanks.

The battle had now broken up into a whirling series of individual melees with units turning this way and that and charging anything they could see. As an example, although my attack on the right near the enemy camp had petered out (some skilful manoeuvring from Si to get out of that one!), one of my Jund horse units retiring disordered from that went almost straight into action against the flank of an enemy cavalry unit who, in turn, were threatening the flank of one of my infantry units who, in turn, were in a position to flank charge other Persian horse!

A combat of such intensity couldn’t last: someone had to give and, as luck would have it, it was the Sassanids who collapsed first, one of their cavalry units eventually failing to evade some Berber Spearmen and giving me the last two coins I needed for the win.

A hard-fought, narrow victory for the Muslims, and a great game of To The Strongest.

TTS AAR: Han Chinese versus Spartan

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Another opportunity to get the Han Chinese onto the table—this time without any proxies (aside from the delightfully anachronistic Boxers standing in for the Tribal Infantry). They faced what promised to be a stern test: a formidable Hoplite Greek army led by a contingent of veteran Spartans.

We deployed opposite one another, but before the first moves were made, friend Steve revealed he'd drawn the Take the High Ground stratagem. He advanced his Spartiates command another two boxes closer to my battle line and suddenly Leonidas and chums were right on top of me, and it looked as though this was going to be a very short—and extremely brutal—battle.

Steve’s plan soon became obvious: hit me hard on my right with the Spartans whilst the rest of his line protected their flanks by advancing in echelon, with the added bonus that the echelon formation would keep his men mostly out of range of my crossbows until the Spartans had finished their initial attack.

My plan, on the other hand, had been to attack his raw troops on my right flank (the ones with a yellow meeple on them in the pictures) and then to shoot crossbows at the rest of the Greeks until they’d had enough, but that had now been superseded by the situation (no plan survives first contact with the Spartans) and I’d now need to think of some other way of stopping the Lacedaemonian space invaders!

I had an overlap on the left, so decided to try and exploit that by getting around the enemy line there, and otherwise to hold the Spartiates with the Tribal Infantry (with three hits, it might take them long enough to be killed for my curl-around to happen) and otherwise to target all his single hit units - lights and a couple of “small” units of Hoplites - on the grounds that he had a lot of them and killing enough of them woudl therefore cost him a major number of coins.

One unit of Tribal Infantry therefore charged diagonally across the unit next to them and managed to kill the small unit of Hoplites at the front of the Spartan spearhead.

My lance-armed cavalry also charged forward diagonally, along with some spearmen and some very confused fighting and manoeuvring broke out.

Initially, the Spartiates and a Hoplite unit tried to take advantage of the supposed lack of manoeuvrability of my Tribal Infantry, who promptly confounded all expectations and danced forward and diagonally to threaten an attack on the unshielded side of the Hoplites. The other Tribal Infantry unit fell back disordered at the same time as my successful cavalry followed up forward, and eventually the situation ended up as shown in the final picture in the gallery below, with my cavalry heading off God knows where and the right hand units of my main infantry line coming in on the Spartiate right flank.

How were they able to do this, I hear you ask: well, my extra numbers on my left, facing Steve’s refused flank, had proved very successful in containing the Greeks, meaning that my infantry in the centre had been free to shoot down the enemy in front of them with their crossbows. This meant that my infantry in the centre were then free to execute a smart right turn and, as we saw above, threaten the flanks of the Spartiate command.

Inceidentally, the coffee stirrers in the pictures below delineate the two separate infantry brigades.

Meanwhile, my attempts to kill the raw command on the Spartiate left had failed miserably but, if you look at the picture below, you’ll see that the enemy troops in the raw command haven’t got anyone to fight, so are effectively wasting space, and although the Tribal Infantry are under some pressure from the Spartans themselves, they and the raw command are almost all the Greeks have left whereas my army is scattered but largely intact.

The end was nigh for the Greeks, and their final coin was lost when some of my crossbowmen, again coming in from the left, opened fire and shot down the Spartans’ mercenary Cretan archers.

I must confess that I’m still not sure quite how I won the game, but I think it boils down to me keeping the elite Spartiates occupied with the Tribal infantry whilst the rest of my army dealt with the rest of the Greeks. Oh, and keeping the raw command of Hoplites occupied by threatening them with a single Chinese heavy chariot (now deceased).

Lots of lessons learnt: which was a good thing as the To The Smallest tournament itself was approaching fast.

TTS AAR: Han Chinese versus Siamese (Thai)

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I was keen to get my Han Chinese back onto the table, so when Rob had time for another game after his Siamese had thrashed my Khurasanians, we decided to see how they would fare against the Han.

I was keen to keep my meagre cavalry command away from the enemy elephants, so deployed them on the other side of the stream on the left hand side of the table. This was all well and good, but the Thai’s also deployed their horsemen there, meaning that four formed units of Thai horse now faced of against my two formed and two light Han units, meaning that I was out-matched melee-strength-wise even if three of my units had bow or crossbows.

I was therefore very pleased when the Thai cavalry failed to activate in turn one, meaning that I now had a chance of getting my main battle-line into position where I could use the low hill in the centre of the field. I was less keen on having my less-manoeuvrable tribal infantry in a secondary battle-line, but that was better than having them facing ‘thin air’ on the right flank.

Unfortunately, Rob’s cavalry would then prove very nimble (the rest at the start of the game obviously did them good!) and would come forward and beat my horsemen back: my only consolation was that Rob had more points tied up on the other side of the stream even if it looked as if I might end up losing all of mine!

Meanwhile, the rest of the Thai army was coming forward fast, undeterred by the ineffective volleys of crossbow bolts heading their way.

The first proper clash occured around the central hill, with my crossbowmen there forced back off the crest in exchange for disordering three Thai javelin units.

If I could convert those disorders into kills, then that would leave a sizable hole in the enemy centre, so I ordered my heavy chariots in the centre (Assyrian proxies!) around the back of the hill and onto the Thai left flank. I was expecting their re-positioning to take some time, but a crazy run of cards had them almost where I wanted them almost immediately.

Meanwhile the main Thai elephant strike force had impacted on the left side of my main battleline, which bowed but did not break, especially when I used the Someone Has Blundered stratagem to sow confusion into advancing Nellies.

I thought I was doing pretty well at this point, but then the Thais facing my troops on the hill surged forward again, killing my general there and sending two infantry units fleeing from the field.

Meanwhile, a good run of cards enabled the Thai cavalry to overwhelm my horsemen at the stream sooner than I had anticipated…and that left me out of coins and handing Rob the victory!

Well that had been a bit of a surprise defeat, my second in a row that day! All credit to Rob for getting his cavalry moving forward fast after their initial lethargy, and for getting his mass of infantry stuck in to my line. As he pointed out afterwards, that was the Thai’s first two wins after a string of five defeats: good for him, and just the sort of reality check I needed in the run up to To The Smallest rather than in it!

Celtic Chariots from Victrix

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With enough figures painted and based to make a 28mm Galatian or Gallic army, it was time for the final conversion work to begin: adding an Ancient British option. This entailed adding chariots and light cavalry to my existing collection. First up were the chariots.

I went for the Victrix plastic chariots firstly as the style would match what I already had, and secondly for cost reasons: although three 3D printed chariots will cost you about the same as the Victrix three-chariot pack (around £30), metal chariots can cost you £18 each!

The Victrix pack also comes with a host of options: yes, you can only build three chariots, but they provide enough parts for 20 individual figures (well, more accurately 6 x Drivers; 8 x Armoured fighting crew; 3 x Boudiceas and 3 x Druids) and all sorts of extra bits you can customise with (severed heads, ribbons etc). You can also buy a set of transfers that give you colourful side panels on the chariots, patterns for the crew shields, horse-chest-straps, main axle and wheel rims. All in all an excellent offering from Victrix.

I was, however, warned (by friends - and Victrix themselves in the instructions) that the chariots were a bit tricky to put together…but let me dispel that myth immediately. Yes, the chariots were more difficult to do than, say, standard Victrix infantry, but they weren’t that hard and I reckon the average modeller, if they follow the instructions carefully, won’t have a problem. Put it this way: if I can make them, then anyone can!

Construction Hints from Me

  1. Follow the instructions exactly except where I say don’t, below.

  2. Before gluing, re-drill all the holes with a pin drill. Not strictly necessary, but makes live easier.

  3. I painted everything before assembly i.e. I painted the following separately: the chariot body with yoke attached, each wheel, the driver, the warrior, the driver’s hands/reins and the mini front reins. Don’t attach the wheels before painting, as it makes it hard to paint the chariot body properly, and hard to use the transfers on the side-of-chariot-panels. Finally, and this is perhaps crucial: paint the mini front reins on the sprue…as you will need to be able to identify them individually (they are numbered on the sprue) in order to fit them properly.

  4. Once everything was painted, and the chariot panel transfers applied, I then stuck the wheels on and stuck the now-wheeled chariot onto a base with the horses. Note that the horses go long horse one side, short horse the other. You now have horses and chariot painted and mounted on a base and are ready for the more difficult bit: the driver and the reins.

  5. For steps 5-7 in the instructions, I found it (much) easier to do it this way. Once you have painted the driver and the driver’s hands/reins, stick the driver’s hands/reins to the driver (before you glue the driver in place) and let dry. Then put a blob of glue into each of the holes for the reins on the yoke, and onto the feet of the driver. The model is so accurately designed that you can now slot all four reins into the holes on the yokes and then put the driver into the chariot wherever he fits best. Much to my surprise, as it looks hard, I had no difficulty with this bit at all on any of the three I built.

  6. For step 11, you need to make sure that the mini front reins go on the correct horse in the correct place. The horses are different lengths (one is at a stretch, one is gathered) and therefore the distance between the yoke and the bit is different lengths, and each mini front rein is made to fit each side of each horse’s head individually. Just look at the diagram given in step 11 and build the chariot to match.

Basing the Chariots

I had to have a bit of a think about how to base the chariots. My 15mm chariots are on bases with a 30mm frontage and 60mm depth i.e. the horses are running straight at the enemy. That works in 15mm and for the models I have, but I really need 3-4 chariots per unit to match the 15cm grid I use for To The Strongest. Even on a 10cm competition grid, I’d need 2-3 chariots per unit…all of which adds up to needing an awful lot of chariots.

In 28mm however, I use a standard TTS base which is about 15cm frontage but, and it’s a crucial but, isn’t deep enough to take a Victrix chariot running straight at the enemy. I could put the chariots at a very slight angle, but that didn’t look right. I therefore took the decision to base my chariots running across the base i.e. with their sides towards the enemy. I justify this by saying that (a) it looks much better and (b) it represents the fast-moving chariots sweeping backwards and forwards across the battlefield as described by Caesar himself.

I also made the decision that the warrior would be in the chariot if he was carrying a javelin and dismounted if carrying a sword…which follows my belief that:

  1. It would be very hard to throw a javelin past the driver if you’re driving straight at the enemy, so you’re more likely to throw your javelin forwards at an angle as you are driven by the enemy. It’s the same principle as battleships fighting better in line abreast!

  2. Using a sword from a chariot, whilst carrying a large shield, would also be difficult. You need to swipe to the sides anyway as you have the driver in the way in front, you can’t grip your mount like a cavalryman so balance is a problem, and you’ve got the wheels to watch out for as well. Far easier to be brought into melee in your chariot, leap down and hack into the individual you’ve fastened your attention on foot, and then either charge the next chap or remount. Great if you’re fighting other Celts, not so good if you’re facing serried ranks of legionaries…which is presumably (along with the rise of the size/strength of horses) why use of the chariot died out: the usual Roman bad practice of refusing to fight man-to-man like a proper warrior!

The chariots do look good based like that but, just as a quick word of caution, in the first game of TTS I played with them, my opponent did say that at one stage he was confused as to which way they were pointing…but it was only a brief confusion early in the game so not enough to make me regret what I’d done.

Painting the Chariots

Everything was painted using Contrast paints, with shield transfers and chariot panels from Little Big Man Studios (available via Victrix) and all with cloaks from Weave of War.

I used Aggaros Dunes for the wickerwork on the chariots, then Gore Grunta Fur for the wood on the chariot body and yoke. The wheels were done using Wyldwood. The reins and other horse furniture were painted in Cygor Brown then highlighted using acyrlic Mournfang Brown. Finally I used an acrylic Bronze to highlight where bronze would have been used.

A Quick Summary

I am loving the three Victrix chariots I now have in my Ancient British army. They are mildly challenging to build, but that challenge is all focused around the reins, so if you follow my suggestions, it should be very much lessened.

There are so many options available in how you build, base and paint your chariots. I’ve chosen a lengthways mounting with dismounted swordsmen, but how you field them is really up to you.

In all, highly recommended.

TTS AAR: Khurasanians versus Siamese (Thai)

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Time to give the Khurasanians another test, this time against Rob’s Thai army with all its anti-cavalry elephants.

The Khurasanians won the scouting, and set up in a position to sweep down and around the Thai’s left flank. There were a lot of those elephants in the centre of the battlefield, but as just about every Khurasanian carries a bow, I was confident that I could shoot them all down before we got into contact.

As soon as the battle began, I therefore shot forward along the right hand side of the battlefield, hanging back on the left where I was aided by some extreme hesitation by the Thai infantry there.

My Turkomen horse-archers were soon within range, and a volley of arrows towards the lumbering Nellies, but all to no effect.

I had got around the Thai left flank with one command of cavalry, but their infantry there had turned to face my lancers to force a stalemate that I would usually have broken by hitting their other flank from the centre…but unfortunately my horse-archers were still trying to deal with the elephants there, who remained impervious to arrow-fire.

Worse, the rest of the Thai infantry had got moving and, although mostly not very good troops, quantity has its own quality and there were an awful lot of them!

By using the elephants to hold the centre, Rob had now managed to carry out his plan, which was to swing the battlefield around so we were fighting lengthways up and down the table rather than across.

His troops on his right executed a neat 90° turn and suddenly it was me fighting to protect my flanks not him…and his elephants in the centre were still shrugging off arrows like they were made of rubber!

Although my infantry were holding up the flank attack coming in from the left, there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop the Nellies advancing forward. More arrows headed their way: still no kills. Incidentally, after the battle ended, we calculated that the elephants had been shot at 24 times and just kept on advancing like big, grey, wrinkly space invaders, rather than the 3.6 kills (i.e. all of them) probability would suggest would happen.

The elephants got in amongst my heavy cavalry, and suddenly my centre began to collapse! Worse, my left flank also gave way under sheer weight of numbers, and Rob was even able to drop an elephant unit back to help defeat my flanking attack, which rapidly ran out of steam as even more arrows bounced off the Nellies.

Unbelievably, I was still only down six of my fourteen coins: it was the situation on the battlefield not casualties that was the problem.

The end can come very quickly in some games of To The Strongest, and it did so here. Rob took full advantage of his positional superiority and moved in quickly for the kill. Fittingly, it was the elphants that delivered the coup de grace: taking out two units of Ghilman veteran cavalry and their officer for a loss of six coins in one melee.

So a catastrophic 14-0 loss for the Khurasanians that I am firmly blaming on those pooping elephants!

How three one-hit units saving on 6+ can survive so many attempts to cut them down with bowfire I do not know. It was up to Rob to celebrate his victory by providing a fitting image to finish off this battle report…

TTS AAR: Khurasanians versus Marian Romans

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More practice for To The Smallest: this time my Khurasanians would take on Si’s Marian Romans

Unsurprisingly, the Khurasanians won the scouting, so I deployed in order to hold the Roman legionaries in the centre of the field whilst my much superior cavalry smashed their hodge podge of Gallic, Roman and Persian cavalry from the field on the right, and swept round to outflank them on the left.

As the battle began, my horsemen swept forward as planned, and soon the game was split into three distinct sectors: the left, the centre and the right.

On the left hand side, my cavalry shot past the Roman right flank and then turned to do battle. Unfortunately, the Marians have very manoeuvrable infantry, and rather than face the rear of the Roman line, they faced some fierce-looking legionaries determined to protect their comrades’ open side.

Si then conducted a textbook demonstration of how to counter cavalry with infantry as, for the rest of the battle, the forces on my left fought each other to a standstill, with neither side gaining the upper hand. My only consolation was that this action tied up half the Roman legionaries (the bits of his army I was afraid of) for half of my cavalry, leaving all my infantry and half my cavalry to deal with half his infantry (the veteran half, unfortunately) and his hodge-podge cavalry.

On the right flank, my cavalry swept forward confident of victory.

This, of course, proved to mean “over-confident of victory” and, for a moment, it looked as if I was going to be beaten back on this flank.

Fortunately my Ghilman lancers proved why I pay so many points for them, and although I was definitely losing this flank, the position at the end of the battle was an 'honours-even draw.

That left the centre to decide things, where five units of veteran Roman legionaries faced six units of Arab spearmen, half of them with extra bows.

Fortunately for me, the initial Roman attack was piecemeal, as some of his infantry had turned to help his cavalry out in their battle on the right flank against my horsemen. This allowed me to pepper his line with arrows, killing two enemy cohorts (one base’s worth) and increasing my advantage from 6:5 to 6:4.

This numerical advantage allowed me to get some of my infantry onto the flank of the Roman line, and from there it was just a matter of time before the legionaries gave way. I was helped by the cards a little bit, especially when the Roman eagle-bearer was killed, and victory was mine with the demise of three of the five veteran legionary units.

Somewhat wierdly, the infantry fight in the centre of the table that would eventually decide the game seemed very much as sideshow, as both Si and I spent most of our time concentrating on the action on the flanks. It took a bit of time for the veteran legionaries to get moving in the centre: something that definitely played out to my foot-archers’ advantage.

A great game of TTS.

TTS AAR: Khurasanians versus Western Han Chinese

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Another practice game for To The Smallest: I would use the Khurasanians I’m using for the competition, John would use my newly painted Han Chinese army, and had even chosen a t-shirt to match their colour scheme!

As the Chinese had no cavalry on their open left, my first move was to send a command of Ghilman cavalry down that side of the table in an attempt to outflank the enemy’s main line. Despite having the right cards and manoeuvring into the perfect position, the attack itself was underwhelming, inflicting only a single disorder. Still, I had turned the Chinese flank and was well placed to build on the position.

On the opposite flank, I had managed to get my other cavalry command tangled up in the woods bordering the stream. Although they outmatched the Chinese in both numbers and quality, the rough terrain kept them tied down for the rest of the battle. The enemy units they eliminated were welcome additions to my coin tally, but the price was that my cavalry never made it back to the centre to influence the decisive fighting there.

Meanwhile, in the centre, John had sent the rest of his infantry, both regular and his tribal levies, forward to try and break my main line.

With some of his troops still having to react to my flank manouevre, I was able to contain the Chinese foot soldiers…but only just, especially after their heavy chariots (Assyrian proxies!) joined in the fun.

But it was back to the flanking attack to finish John off, despite an unfortunate encounter with the Someone has Blundered stratagem, especially as some success in the centre had freed up a couple of infantry units to help.

The coup de grace came from these infantry units: the Chinese camp falling to their advance:

A workmanlike win for the Khurasanians but, more importantly, lessons learnt in preparation for To The Smallest.

TTS AAR: First Outing for the Han Chinese

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More practice for the To The Smallest competition: this time my newly painted Han Chinese (so newly painted that I still had a couple of proxies in there: half an Arab camp, an Assyrian four-horse chariot, and some 19th Century Boxers) versus Si’s Sassanid Persians.

As the battle opened, the Sassanids advanced rapidly, particularly on my left flank. I wasn't overly concerned, as I had deployed my infantry two ranks deep in that sector, both to protect my camp and because I simply had too many foot units to fit into a single line. My greater concern was the right flank, where my relatively weak cavalry was positioned. Fortunately for me, the cards worked in my favour, and the Persian forces on that side were slow to press their attack.

Massed mounted bowfire against my left did cause me some initial problems, particularly as Persian lancers then targeted my melee-weak crossbowmen, but the hail of quarrels that I sent back evened things out.

On my right, my mounted crossbowmen were quickly dispatched, but the Sassanid horsemen still hung back a bit, hopefully giving me enough breathing room to break his army elsewhere before they brurst through and curled in towards the flank of my main line.

Up until this point, my attention had been firmly on my flanks, but then disaster struck in the centre!

A “Lost” (via a stratagem) Persian unit of horse archers burst into the rear of my Pagoda camp, costing me three coins immediately, and more Persian lancers got through my first infantry line to threaten the crossbowmen of the second line right in front of my other camp.

Fortunately my infantry on the far left had now managed to beat the Sassanids in front of them, so whilst some of my troops kept pressing forwards, I was able to bring others back to help re-take one camp and help defnd the other.

A fierce battle for the camps developed, and although I eventually managed to shoot the enemy horse archers in the left hand camp down, it was only the heroic defence put up by the crossbowmen in front of the right hand camp that allowed me to stabilise the situation.

There were more Chinese heroics on the right flank, where the horse archers kept a command of Sassanids occupied rather than letting them turn and attack my right flank.

To summarise the situation: the left flank was won, but I had nothing left there that could contribute to the rest of the battle. The right was lost, but the enemy there were tied up pursuing my slowly retreating horse archers. The camps in the centre were retaken/held, but the forces I had there were busy mopping up the last of the Sassanid central attackers. The coin count to date was in my favour, but I only had three or four coins left, so couldn’t really afford to lose more. The only place where I could properly win the game was in the centre, where my command of tribal foot and a single heavy chariot (the Assyrians!) faced more bow-armed Persian lancers.

There was nothing for it but to send the Tribesmen and Chariot forward and see what they could do!

The Sassanid lancers were just as keen to engage. They needed to kill one of my units there to win the game before the rest of my troops killed anything else of theirs elsewhere on the table: something that was quite likely in the areas off to the left and around my camps.

It was an epic clash: thousands of tribal warriors and some heavy chariots charging and being charged by Sassanid lance-armed cavalry. The advantage swayed backwards and forwards but eventually the tribal warriots prevailed (admittedly helped by some regular infantry coming in from the left!) and the last Persian coin was mine!

Victory for the Han Chinese…but there was barely anything left on the table that could celebrate. An epic battle that came right down to the wire!

Bulk of the Han Chinese now finished

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With the Celts now converted from Galatians to Gauls, it was time to settle down and finish off my nascent Han Chinese.

I’d already completed the dagger-axe men and the spearmen, so first on the painting table were the other mainstay of the army: the foot crossbowmen. These are again Lurkio cast metal figures with 3D printed Song Chinese command figures from Ten Kingdoms via MicksBits on Etsy: three units of formed crossbowmen and two units of lights (which can convert to six and four for a 10cm grid).

As with all the Lurkio figures, I found half the poses were absolutely cracking and half were shop window mannequins: the one with the crossbow at their shoulder about to fire or slung over one arm for transport being the worst examples of the latter.

I now needed a rest from painting infantry, so switched to the Han Chinese’s rather limited cavalry contingent. Here I used only Lurkio figures (available from Gripping Beast) and completed one unit of “lancers” (cavalry with dagger-axe), two units of mounted crossbowmen, and three units of horse archers that I painted in blue rather than red to represent the fact they are Xiongnu tribesmen recruited from the Chinese’s main opposition to the north.

Now onto some fun: the officers and a camp.

The officers are all from Ten Kingdoms’ Song Chinese range sourced, as always, from the excellent MicksBits on Etsy: fast service, great prints, and Mick will willingly print “off menu” for any specials you need.

These figures specifically represent three characters from the Water Margin stories that I first encountered in the 70’s through the Japanese TV series shown on BBC2 with the narration by Burt Kwok (“Do not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon?”) and dubbing by Mariam Margolyes and a host of others. Not historically accurate for my Han Chinese, but a must-have none-the-less!

From left to right:

  • Gongsun Sheng: a Taoist priest turned grand strategist

  • Lin Chong "Panther Head": sought redemption by helping the Song dynasty fight the Khitan-Liao but betrayed (by the evil Gao Qiu) after the war had finished

  • Li Kui: trusted bodyguard of bandit leader Song Jiang, the story’s archetypal reckless but loyal brute.

These are lovely models that print and paint up really well. Highly recommended.

Finally for today’s post, a camp:

This might look as if I have learnt to build model pagodas, but the building is a one-piece object from Aliexpress, appropriately produced and delivered from China itself. It’s part of a large range of similar products that would allow you to build the whole of the Forbidden City if you so wished! It only cost about a fiver including postage so is highly, highly recommended.

The figures outside the pagoda are from Lurkio: the “camp” pack. As you can see, you get two chaps chopping wood, two chaps cooking (includes pot, fireplace and the two racks), a straw Jong for practicing sword work and an archery target. I added the wood to be chopped (matches cut to size) and the swordsman (a Ten Kingdoms Song Chinese swordsman). I love this sort of thing, and I hope you agree that, combined with the pagoda, it makes a fine camp scene.

Just the chariots, more command and the heroes to go now…

TTS AAR: Khurasanians versus Sassanid Persians

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With the annual To The Smallest 15mm tournament only a couple of weeks away, it was time to get in some practice games, especially as ‘Smallest uses a 10cm grid rather than the more usual 15cm one, meaning a larger playing area, bigger armies (160 vs 130-140 points) and some specific rule changes.

Sid, the tournament organiser, had already published diagrams of the intended table set ups (each representing a different historical battlefield) so for this game we elected to fight over Beneventum in southern Italy, the last battle of the Pyrrhic War fought between the forces of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus in Greece, and the Romans, led by consul Manius Curius Dentatus (the result was a strategic Roman victory and Pyrrhus was forced to return to Tarentum, and later to Epirus).

I was going to use a Khurasanian army (a mix of two commands of Arabic infantry and two commands of Turkic cavalry) and would, for this first practice game, face Si’s Sassanid Persians.

I didn’t want to risk my cavalry getting entangled in the woods to my left, so controversially deployed (L to R) a command of infantry, a command of cavalry, a command of infantry, and a command of cavalry. All my plans were then promptly kicked into touch as Si played the This Way Effendi strategum on me, meaning my troops on the left were pushed back three boxes leaving a hole at that end of the line!

Initial deployment seen from behind the Persian lines

“Don’t listen to him, with his effendis and all that: the battlefield is this way!”

Fortunately I had won the scouting, so I was able to restablish my line before the Sassanids could take advantage, but the delay meant that I could only watch as the Persian horsemen thundered towards me.

Unfortunately for Si, the luck was really with me and had seriously deserted him for this game: I couldn’t fail an activation, miss with a bow, or flunk a melee hit and the Sassanids couldn’t save a thing.

My initial volley of arrows disordered three of four of his units, and when my Ghilman horsemen followed up, they cut through the enemy like a lance through butter! Things were so good that I even sent my infantry forward on the attack, not something you often see when spearmen face heavy cavalry!

The Persian right flank was forced to withdraw, my lancers burst through the Persian centre, and the Sassanid left was reduced to a couple of units of horse archers trying to hold up the Khurasanian high tide!

The climax came quickly: all the holes in the Sassanid line meant that my light Turkoman light cavalry could find the flanks of the heavier Persian horse, and it was soon all over for an emphatic 14-0 victory for the Khurasanians.

Much as I would love to chalk this up to my brilliant strategy and tactics, it was one of those games where everything went my way. On to the next one…

TTS AAR: Alexander vs Darius (again)

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Neil and I had already played Alexander’s Macedonians versus Darius’ Persians twice, with honours even, so a final, decider was warranted.

It wouldn’t be an exact replay, as we didn’t have quite as much table as usual to play with, so we removed a command from each side meaning that we’d play through with about 200 points per list rather than our previous 240.

The MaccyD’s lost the deployment so set up as traditional dictated: heavy infantry in the centre, cavalry on the wings. I was very worried about my left flank where four units of generally poor quality cavalry faced six units of decent Persian horsemen, so what I needed was for Alex to punch through quickly on the other win whilst the pikemen advanced in the centre. Annoyingly, Neil picked the This Way Effendi strategy chit and used it to push the left hand infantry command back a square: something that would have huge significance later in the game.

As battle commenced, I pushed forward across the line except for the left hand cavalry command which largely sat and waited for the Persians to come to them. You can see in the picture below how the left hand infantry command is still one square behind their colleagues on the right.

The first action was on the right flank, where Alexander and his Companions looked set to crash into the Persian cavalry led by Darius. Annoyingly, the Companions were disordered by bow fire on their final approach, so rather than dashing all before them, the combat degenerated into a grinding stalemate with neither side able to get an advantage.

I sought to break the deadlock by having one of my right-hand pike units attack some Persian cavalry on the diagonal, which sort-of worked, but combined with another pike block being disordered by missile fire and stubbornly refusing to rally, I now had my two most powerful commands distracted from the main task of punching through to the enemy camp and the six coins it represented. I can’t even blame the heat for this tactical lapse (we were gaming during one of the recent record-breaking heatwaves) as Neil’s wargaming shed was delightfully air-conditioned!

Meanwhile the Persian cavalry on the other wing had managed to get their act together (Neil did draw a lot of Aces for activation throughout the battle) and come forward.

The Macedonian non-elites facing them put up a very brave fight, but six decent versus four poor is a fairly foregone conclusion, and things were soon looking very bloody for my horsemen: the only good thing being that Neil seemed to want to finish them all off rather than heading into the centre to threaten the flanks of the infantry there.

I now rather belatedly woke up to the fact that as my flanks were both crumbling, I really needed my heavy infantry to stop messing around and get forward and get stuck in, especially as I had been well ahead on coins through clearing off a load of Persian lights but was now, with the collapse of my cavalry commands, just about back to parity.

This is where the significance of that This Way Effendi strategem comes into play. With my right hand infantry command still trying to re-orientate the axis of its attack back onto the enemy camp, I needed my left hand infantry command to quickly wipe out the Persian mobs and lesser troops in front of them: not a problem provided you are far enough up the table to get at them!

In short, Neil was now holding the troops facing my left hand infantry command back and retreating those now facing my right hand infantry command, meaning that although my pikemen would win every melee they fought, they just couldn’t fight enough of them to deal the Persians a mortal blow…and I was rapidly running out of coins as my two cavalry commands crumbled!

It was now the climax of the battle. From the vast number of victory coins we had started with, we both both down to our final few. Alexander had been forced off the table as the Companions he commanded were routed and, under the new Even Stronger amends, he was too far from any other Macedonian unit to transfer, but all I needed to do was to take out one more Persian unit or take the Persian camp to win, and the initiative was mine.

Could I do it?

No, I couldn’t, and could only watch as Neil finally managed to kill the last unit in my left hand cavalry command (which had been hanging on for dear life) and take my last four coins. Victory for the Persians!

So why did the Macedonians lose despite their initial success in clearing away all the Persian light?

Partly due to Alexander’s strong cavalry command having a very bad day, but mostly because I failed to get my heavy infantry stuck in early enough for them to win the day…and that was partly because I allowed myself to take my eyes off the main prize and partly due to Neil’s use of This Way Effendi at the start of the game and then his retreats in the centre as I pushed fowards in the battle’s final moments.

An excellent game of TTS!

TTS AAR: Gauls versus Early Imperial Romans

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A second battle using my newly finished Gauls: this time against a formidable Early Imperial Roman army consisting of five units of veteran legionaries (red shields) supported by a couple of units of standard legionaries, auxilia and cavalry. History would suggest that this was going to be a big ask of my troops!

Despite winning the scouting, Peter managed to play his usual trick of weighting his men onto one flank (my left) in an attempt to fight only a portion of my army with all of his. Not a problem on this occasion, however, as I used my initiative to start moving warbands left whilst holding back my main line.

After an initial slow start, the Romans got moving pretty rapidly, and it looked as if it was going to be a race between his veterans attacking my left flank and the main body of my troops trying to punch through his centre.

Battle was joined right the way across the left hand side of my line, with my Gauls taking the worst of it in the initial clash but, showing a fine bit of resilience, surviving to start giving as good as they were getting.

A big turning point was Peter replaying a natural “10” only to draw an Ace whilst attempting to turn a legionary unit onto the flank of my cavalry…

…and soon the centre-left was looking decidedly bare of troops with the action in that part of the field now fully focused on the bottom left hand corner of the table. It’s worth noting that at this point Peter had lost two Roman generals and was feeling the pain of that “+1 for out of command” penalty.

The schwerepunkt now switched to the area just in front of the Roman castrum, where units from my central command, backed up by those I’d switched from the right flank, were now threatening hard. Once again, it was a unit of slingers adding their weight of fire at the critical moment that made the difference (pictures top and bottom right in the gallery, below) and I was also being helped by the cards allowing my somewhat unwieldy warbands to manouevre just how I wanted.

Kudos also now to the troops in the bottom left hand corner of the field, where the Gallic cavalry managed to disorder their legionary opponents, with the warband next to them going one better to defeat the Romans in the woods in front of them!

The battle was now reaching its climax, with both sides nearing exhaustion. The Gauls survivied a final push from the Romans…

…and then, with a mighty roar, broke into the enemy camp to take three coins and the win!

(Looks easy, but start with a base 2+, add two for moving diagonally makes 4+, add two for the rough ground of the camp makes 6+, add two for crossing fortifications makes 8+, and I drew an ‘8’. Oh, and you have to ignore the lights defending the parapet right in front of you!)

To show you how close it was, I had lost 11 coins by this stage, so if one more warband had broken, victory would have gone to the Romans.

As it was, a very satisfactory result, with the Gauls proving both manoeuvrable and resilient right the way through the army from the warriors to the cavalry to the lights. Another cracking game!