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!

TTS AAR: Fanatical Berbers versus Early Feudal Spanish

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Time for another game of To The Strongest in 2mm: I would play the Fanatical Berbers against Neil’s Early Feudal Spanish.

I lost the scouting and could only watch in horror as Neil deployed the vast majority of his army in a schwerepunkt against my right flank.

Not only that but, as the action began, the command he had left behind on my left turned and headed right to join their comrades…who were advancing rapidly towards me as fast as their horses could carry them.

Fortunately for me, Neil’s attempt to consolidate his commands on my right meant that the light cavalry I had deployed on my left could sweep forward and flank charge the Spanish troops moving sideways.

Although the latest Even Stronger now prevents light cavalry charging through other light cavalry, I was fortunate enough to have the time and space to hit the unfortunate sideways-movers from flank and rear, rapidly wiping out one formed unit, one light unit and a general for an immediate five coin advantage, and even threaten the final unit of lights as well.

Meanwhile, on the right, my counter-advance had brought the two sides within easy charge distance and a messy and extremely savage series of melees broke out with neither side particularly gaining the advantage.

If it helps when looking at the photos below, I’m using green disordered markers and Neil is using white skulls. It’s also worth noting that all the luck in the cards seemed to be with me: I was saving hits like there was no tomorrow and Neil, er, wasn’t!

Given that we each lost at least one unit in the kesselschlacht shown above, I was now feeling fairly confident of victory. I mean I was something like seven or eight coins to three ahead with thirteen getting the win, and my lights on the left were in a perfect position to sweep down onto the largely undefended Spanish camps.

My hubris was, of course, immediately punished by Lady Luck: my next two turns neatly preventing my lights from doing anything remotely ressembling sweeping, and the tide turning against me on the right, with even the elite Black Guard suffering the effects of my current run of misfortune.

Neil, meanwhile, had been battling away, refusing to give up. His cavalry on the right had taken full advantage of my troops’ card-enforced pause in doing anything and had effectively won the fight there, and the ‘scores on the doors’ were now showing that the coin count was just about even.

I now had two coins left, Neil had one, so whoever broke the next unit would win the game, and it looked as if I was about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!

The rest of that turn was very frustrating: all my possibilties being nerfed by the cards again.

In Neil’s next turn, he managed to drive my light cavalry (bottom-right in the picture, above) off the table, meaning that we were now even on coins and into what was effectively a sudden death match!

Fortunately, lights from the left came to my rescue: their general ordering them to throw their javelins at the enemy lights in the nearest camp. I scored a hit, and Neil (despite the advantages of being in a fortified camp) pulled just one pip lower than he needed: the lights were routed and I had won the game - just!

An absolutely cracking game of TTS that played out in only just over 90 minutes. It was the sit-down I needed afterwards that took the time!

TTS AAR: Gauls versus Vikings

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Time to get the Celts back on the tabletop. Up until now they’ve manifested as Galatians, but I’d now had a chance to paint enough missile-armed light infantry to field them as Gauls…so today’s encounter would be Gauls against Vikings using To The Strongest.

The Gauls outscouted, and I managed to get all my cavalry onto the Vikings’ open wing on the right. The Scandies had, however, put their six units of veteran Huscarls (armed with big choppers) on their right, so I faced them with my two veteran warbands and hoped they could hold out until the cavalry had done its job.

Note that the Viking longship represents a three-square fortified camp: something that would prove highly significant in the battle that followed.

Things began with me advancing forward strongly on the right, with my cavalry aiming to outflank as my infantry pinned the enemy in place. As planned, I kept my left wing back and was lucky in that my opponent, Peter, drew poor cards and couldn’t, initially get his lethal Huscarls moving.

As battle was joined in the centre, my cavalry swept in from the flank…but to little or no effect: Peter had manoeuvred into an echelon formation anchored on his fortified camp which protected the flanks of nearly all his infantry, and those footsoldiers that I could get at stubbornly resisted my attempts to run them down.

Nothing I did with the cavalry seemed to work, and my “brilliant manouevre” looked like being nothing more than an inconvenience for the Vikings, even when the cards did decide to help me out a little. It was only the intervention of some slingers that actually managed to break one of his infantry units, even with my multiple flank attacks.

Meanwhile the infantry melee in the centre had drawn just about everyone else into one big scrap, and my poor Gauls were getting the worst of it.

Fortunately, I now managed to bring the warbands on the right into play: crashing them into the centre anyhow just to take the pressure off the rest of my troops.

Every surviving unit on both sides was now engaged either in the mass melee in the centre or on the right where my cavalry were still trying to win the game for the Gauls. Both sides were hemorrhaging coins, and the result was totally in the balance.

Ultimately, however, it was the Gauls who broke first: one of my veteran warbands (who’d already lost their general) finally giving up the ghost when assailed from front and flank. A victory for the Vikings!

It had been a very close and exciting game. I still can’t quite work out why my cavalry didn’t sweep all before them but, looking through the pictures above, it was probably down to a combination of brilliant manouevring on Peter’s part backed up by some very lucky “save” cards. If the cavalry had been able to break even just one of the Viking units they had spent most of the game attacking from the flank, then I think it would have been the Gauls celebrating rather than the Scandies!

An excellent game of To The Strongest!

TTS AAR: Classical Indians versus Siamese (Thai)

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Plenty of time left for a second battle before vanishing off the the Vanquish show. Rob would use his Siamese/Thai again, but I switched to a Classical Indian army, but a Republican version with few elephants, only two-horse chariots, and loads of raw troops.

I lost the deployment but as Rob chose to concentrate his troops on the right side of the battlefield, I could still look to outflank his line on the left with my chariots, the elephants lumbering slowly after them.

I was a bit worried about the block of cavalry and elephants heading down towards the right hand end of my line: it was very much going to be a case of holding them off until the chariots could pounce!

Unlike the last game, my outflanking manouevre arrived in position with almost perfect timing: the chariots could attack the flank of his infantry on the hill while my longbow and javelin men kept the enemy pinned in place from the front.

Unfortunately, Rob’s troops proved quite manouevrable themselves, so I had to abandon the idea of outflanking the troops on the hill, just pinning them in place with javelin-throwing chariots, and concentrate on the other enemy infantry at the bottom of the hill. Here I got into exactly the position I wanted and prepared to wreak havoc!

Meanwhile, however, Rob’s big block of cavalry and elephants had been sweeping forward towards my right flank: defended only by a couple of useful units of javelinmen (in blue), a single unit of chariots, and a couple of units of raw horsemen (in yellow).

Worse, Rob’s other infantry brigade had managed to get away from the centre and had joined his “big push” to the right.

Fortunately for me, Rob’s initial cavalry attack on the far right hand side got bottlenecked by the trees and the edge of the table so that he couldn’t apply his numbers and, even better, one unit of my raw cavalry got the bit between their teeth (see what I did there!) and actually managed to win a combat against their Thai opponents.

An incredibly hard-fought melee broke out all along the line in this sector of the battlefield, with my troops, despite being outclassed, holding their own until the Thai elephants came lumbering out of the forest and smashed them from the field!

But, you ask, what about your outflanking force: surely your troops have by now run over the Thai infantry near the hill and are heading back towards the action to save the day?

Er, no.

An unfortunate double Ace countered my initial advantage, and another hard-fought melee broke out around the hill.

Meanwhile, becasue the combat in the bottom right hand corner was going well for Rob, he was able to divert some of his infantry near their to turn and attack the flank of my line of raw longbowmen (in green) who were still trying to get forward to support the flanking attack.

This looked bad but, with a bit of luck with the cards, the raw longbowmen held firm even if they were all disordered.

I was now starting to win the combat around the hill, largely due to outnumbering the Thai 5:2 in terms of units and had the occasional flank attack advantage, but it was all happening very slowly and, as we have seen, the rest of the Thai were winning in the bottom right hand corner…

Let’s go back to the right where I was now down to only two victory coins remaining…so it was all over if one set of Thai elephants got into my camp, or the other defeated my raw cavalry. This was all very much too close to call!

Luckily, the Thai elephants had obviously exhausted themselves traipsing across the battlefield and slaughtering my troops, so neither managed their allocated tasks.

Two match points saved!

Which, as Rob was also down to his last victory coin, gave me the opportunity to block some enemy Lights from evading and then run over them with my own elephants charging in from the flank.

If you click on the left hand picture below, you can see that the elephants are in position to charge the flank of the Lights in front of them, but the Lights could evade through their infantry on the hill into the empty square on the other side. In the right hand picture, however, you can see that I have moved my javelinmen first (in blue, with the 9 next to them) to block that square. Now when the Nellies charge forward, the Lights have nowhere to evade to and get squashed!

The squishing of the Lights by the Nellies gave me Rob’s last victory coin and a win, but only by the merest scrape of the skin of my teeth!

It had been a magnificent game where my outflanking manouevre had been countered by Rob’s mass assault on my right, where the Thai elephants had wreaked havoc once they had cleared the forest.

A close run and most enjoyable game!

TTS AAR: Timurids versus Siamese (Thai)

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Time for my Timurids to take the field again, bolstered by my latest spot of painting: some “flaming oxen” courtesy of Ten Kingdoms prints from Micks Bits via Etsy. Their opponents would be the Siamese (Thai) army of good friend Rob.

Unsurprisingly, the Timurids won the scouting, and I used the opportunity to stack most of my cavalry on the left flank, looking to advance quickly, turn and then roll up the enemy line. My main worries were the Thai elephants lurking opposite my cavalry on the right flank - I’d have to keep well away from them - and the massed infantry facing my largely empty centre: if my flank attacks didn’t go in as planned, I could see my camps overrun for a hefty loss of coin.

Once the game began, I advanced quickly across my entire front, and was happy to see at least some of my left-hand flanking force get into position before an unfortunate Ace stopped the rest from following.

On the other flank, I send my Turkoman light cavalry in to harrass the advancing Thai horse, but no arrows found their mark. No worries: all I wanted to do here was to pin the enemy in place whilst my flank attack went in.

But where was the flank attack?

Yes, I now had four units of cavalry behind the right flank of the advancing Thais, but they seemed to have disappeared from view: the rapid Thai advance leaving my outflanking horsemen too far from the action to immediately intervene.

And that rapid Thai advance was now causing me some problems: more elephants pushed some of my lancers backwards; the “flaming cattle” were sent flying from the field without achieving a thing as his infantry pushed forward; and even my right flank was now fully engaged and foundering!

Finally my flanking force appeared but, again, the rapid advance of the Thais meant that had, so far, little effect.

The main melee across the centre of the field continued with the Timurds, despite being somewhat on the back foot, proving that they still had teeth…particularly on my right, where the enemy elephants had been shot down and more lancers had won a duel with their Thai equivalents and returned to smash into the enemy flank.

My flanking force still hadn’t intervened, but my third cavalry command (the one that had started just to the right of the flanking force) finally dealt with the threat of the Thai cavalry and elephants in front of them, turned, and managed to crash into the flank of the still-advancing Thai infantry.

You can see them in the bottom half of the picture below…and, yes, that’s the flanking force above them, still desperately trying to get into position to have some effect on the battle!

Their intervention meant the end of the left-hand Thai infantry command, and my flanking force finally got into contact, hitting the rear of the other Thai infantry command and causing one measely disorder!

The writing was now on the wall for the Thai, but their guard infantry still managed to dispose of the last of the Kharash (driven slaves) and then crash into one of the Timurid camps.

This was, however, too little too late: the lead unit from the outflanking force finally got its act together and crashed into the back of some unfortunate Thai archers sending them, and Rob’s last three coins, reeling from the field.

So, a commanding 14–3 victory for the Timurids in the end, despite how long it took for the flanking attack to make any meaningful impact on the battle. Credit also to Rob: the scoreline hardly reflects just how close he came to turning defeat into victory. His decision to drive his battle line forward so aggressively very nearly neutralised my flank attack altogether, and the single camp he captured could easily have become three — especially if the Kharash hadn’t held out for as long as they did.

Ewelme '26 Game Four: Galatians versus (a different lot of) Palmyrans

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With one loss and two wins already under my belt, it was on to the final game at this year’s Ewelme tournament. I’d be fighting Palmyrans again, but this time under Dillon’s able generalship.

As I’d beaten them in the last game by putting all my cavalry on one flank and refusing the other, I decided that that’s what I’d try again. I mean, it had worked last time, so what could possibly go wrong?

As the game began, my horsemen shot forward and immediately engaged the enemy. This worked well, as I routed one unit of Palmyran cataphracts and my cavalry penetrated deep up the right flank, preparing to turn and roll up the enemy line.

Things were not, however, going so well on the left and in the centre. In the last game, the Palmyrans had initially held back a bit, giving me a chance to develop my outflanking manoeuvre on the right. Not so in this game: the enemy shot foward and my warbands were soon under some pressure, particularly on the far left.

No matter: the plan was still viable, and I could now turn my cavalry and drive into the Palmyran left flank.

Well that’s what should have happened, but Lady Luck intervened and decided that my troops deserved a hefty kick in the fork!

Now I know that some people think that I blame the cards for every one of my defeats, but I would maintain that my luck in TTS competitions is, at best, erratic. It’s not always bad (those of you who have been paying attention will remember that in the last game I drew a 4/5/6/7 for consecutive activations giving me three flank attacks against an unwitting enemy unit) but on this occasion it was not just bad…it was the pits, man!

Ready to turn my cavalry and send them into the Palmyran flank, I drew seven cards in a row with none higher than a 2. Let me say that again: seven cards in a row, none higher than a two.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the evidence:

A quick reminder of the stats. That’s a probability of:

P = 16/80 ​× 15/79 ​×14/78 ​× 13/77 x 12/76 ​× 11/75 ​× 10/74​

Which works out to approximately: 0.00000536

So the odds are about:

  • 0.000536%

  • or roughly 1 in 186,000

This pause in the action gave the Palmyrans time to recover from my right flank assault, consolidate, then capitalise on their success against my left and centre, and before long one of my cmaps was taken and I suffered a 69-165 defeat!

So kudos to Dillon for riding out my initial assualt and focusing on what was important: knocking my three-coin warbands and/or camps off the table. A well-taken victory for him.

Disappointing, but my two big victories in games two and three still meant that I finished in fourth place overall in the tournament. Here are the full results:

 

One consolation, though: my army did win the prize for the Best Presented Army, even if I did have to vote for them myself!

Thanks to Peter for organising (and congrats on another big win) and to all my opponents throughout the event. I highly recommend the TTS tournament circuit to everyone: lots of fun games in a competitive but very friendly environment. Here are the rest of the year’s fixtures:

  • To The Smallest (15mm): July, Cardiff

  • British Open at Britcon: August, Leicester

  • TTS at Colours: September, Newbury

  • TTS Open at Warfare: November, Farnborough

  • Two the Strongest (Doubles): December, London (TBC)

Ewelme '26 Game Three: Galatians versus Palmyrans

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My third game at this year’s Ewelme To The Strongest tournament was against Adrian’s Palmyrans: legionaries and cataphracts, gulp!

Learning from my previous games and a discussion on tactics from Mr Butler, I massed my cavalry on one wing, intending to blast through any enemy there whilst my warbands held up any advance against my centre and left.

As I’d lost the scouting, the game began with the Palmyrans advancing aggressively. As planned, I sent my horsemen forward on the right flank, and they soon secured an excellent position from which to roll up the enemy’s main battleline.

Adrian had, meanwhile, been a bit unlucky with his activations on the other side of the table: his nasty superheavy cavalry and mincing-machine legionaries not yet in a position to cause me any trouble on the left.

Even better, my warbands in the centre had taken full advantage of the need for the Palmyrans to deal with my cavalry coming in from the right, with one (led by their general) bursting through the main enemy line.

Adrian diverted some of his heavy infantry to deal with this warband, but an amazing run of cards meant that the usually cumbersome deep unit pivoted neatly in place and charged the flank of some Palmyran heavies not once, not twice but three times in the same turn!

More decent cards also saw my cavalry properly curling in from the right to achieve total domination of that sector of the tabletop.

This was too much for the Palmyrans to take: the loss of the heavy infantry being the final nail in their coffin with my Galatians winning a massive 186-21 victory!

So a cracking win due, in part, to the cards…but I’ll take that as I’ve so often been on the other end of Lady Luck’s tender ministrations!

More Celts and the first Chinese

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I needed a few bits and pieces to finish off my Celts.

First up were the casualty figures: unfortunately important the way I play! These are 3D prints from 3D Breed’s March or Die range printed by Bunker Miniatures.

These are great figures. I especially like the chaps with the spear sticking up out of them, and the mailed warrior with a sword but without his head! I even managed to use up the last few cloaks I had lying around and, yes, the figure underneath is fully painted.

Next up are some light infantry with slings: a troop type I will need when I field the Celts as Ancient British. I very much like the way the 3D Breed designs have translated into 28mm: very chunky figures, almost cubist in nature. They paint up very easily and are nicely posed. One slight issue: I always thought of the Celtic slingers as Iouantoues (youths) and these are definitely not that…I mean, check out the balding figure in the red and white stripes!

These size reasonably well with the Victrix figures that make up most of my army: only very slightly shorter even if they are quite a bit chunkier.

Finally we have one of the 3D Breed’s specials: one of the two druids that they offer. The other is more of a generic holy man with knife figure, so I’ve saved him for another use. The chap below is another antler-wearing ‘Herne the Hatstand’ so fits well with the general theme of my Celts. Lovely figure: paints up easily.

All the above are painted with Contrast paints on a Grey Seer undercoat, with any highlights etc done using standard acrylics. The cloaks are highly recommended and are from Weave of War.

Finally in today’s bulletin, we have the first bits of a 15mm Han Chinese army: three units of Billmen armed with the dagger-axe, and four units of Spearmen armed with, er, spears. These are Lurkio figures from the range now being made available again from Gripping Beast, with the command and standard anachronistically coming from Ten Kingdom’s Song Chinese range via Micks Bits on Etsy.

It was a bit odd painting relatively old school 15mm metal figures again after spending so much time on plastic and 3D printed 28mm figures, but I think they have turned out okay.

I will say that this project very much demonstrated the difference between metal casts and 3D prints: the 3D prints have much more animation in them, looking better overall even if the extra detail sometimes makes them more difficult to paint. I would have gone 3D printed Song all the way, but wanted an earlier Chinese army that can pass for Spring, Warring States, Han, Three Kingdoms etc. Once the Han are finished, I’ll probably eventually end up doing enough Song units to convert the army into a later Chinese army anyway!

Note that these are based ten to a 75mm frontage base (FK&P2 from Big Red Bat), which means I can now field three units of Billmen/Spearmen on a 15cms grid (two bases together) or six units of Billmen/Spearmen on a 10cm grid (one base). The standards are coloured in pairs (green, yellow, blue, red) to make pairing them easy.

Next up are three units of Crossbowmen, so another 60 figures in total. I think I might need some more red paint!

Ewelme '26 Game Two: Galatians versus Principate Romans

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Still reeling after my devastating loss to the Tuaregs in game one, my fourth loss in a row with the Galatians, my lads now faced a powerful Principate (Early Imperial) Roman army. I was not looking forward to this: the Roman mincing machine was built to defeat Celts!

The only area where I did enjoy superiority was in terms of cavalry, so I opted to deploy all my horsemen on one wing, hoping to overwhelm their Roman equivalents as fast as possible then turn into the centre.

The battle began with the Roman army moving forward like space invaders.

In reply, to conform to my plan, I hung back on the left, but advanced forward on the right, my cavalry in particular shooting forward in a card-induced raggedy fashion, eager to bring their opponents to battle!

The two cavalry forces met in a thunderous clash. Despite their ragged advance, my men held firm against the initial charge before steadily driving the outnumbered Romans backwards. Yet this was no easy victory; the Roman veterans fought with grim determination and proved exceptionally difficult to break.

Meanwhile, back in the centre, a bit of luck with the cards (well, a bit of unluck for Dave) had seen the Roman line effectively break into two parts, each of which I could hopefully destroy before closing in on the rest.

On the left, where my objective was really only to pin the enemy in place, a brutal grinding melee erupted. Much to my surprise, my warriors initially gained the upper hand, driving back a Roman Cohort and wiping out a unit of Auxilia.

The Romans fought back hard, however, and honours were very much even by the time things were decided elsewhere on the field, although some Sagittarii were now threatening the Lights guarding the camp.

On the right, my superior numbers did indeed start to come into play, with the victorious cavalry then joining the infantry to drive back a mix of Roman Legionaries and Lights.

Again my infantry proved very successful in combat, one warband bursting through the enemy line and heading straight for their camp.

And it was this warband that won the game for the Galatians: taking the enemy camp and the Romans’ last few coins for a 168-79 victory.

So a first victory for the Galatians: a hard-fought affair as you would expect facing such a powerful opponent.

On to game three, where I would need another big win to salvage my hopes of a respectable finish!

Ewelme '26 Game One: Galatians versus Tuareg

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The theme for this year’s Ewelme tournament was Africa and the Middle-East. I could have fielded my usual Venetians Abroad, but as I now had just enough of my new Celts to make up a Galatian army, that was what I decided to field. I even finished them in time to have three practice games prior to the event, but as I lost all three battles (and two of them badly!) I wasn’t feeling too confident of success.

My first game was against Steve’s Tuaregs: an army comprised mostly of lance-armed camelry. I lost the scouting, deployed, and watched as the Arabs came forward.

It’s always bad to surrender the initiative to the enemy, and so it proved here as Steve’s first action of the game was to neatly pick off the Galatian cavalry on the far left of my line with a unit of his camels: their bonus in defence against my horsemen being irrelevant as my chaps were immediately blasted off the table without any chance to fight back.

This set an unfortunate pattern for the game as, certainly for the first few turns, Steve couldn’t miss a hit and I couldn’t save a thing!

The Tuaregs also came forward on my other wing, where my other cavalry there were also soon under huge pressure.

There was a glimmer of hope when my flank march arrived shortly after this, but the Tuareg had so many units that they could spare a couple to bottle up my horsemen, and all that happened was that I eventually lost a few more coins, although we were both quite surprised at how long the Galatian horse ended up lasting!

Steve’s tactics were now obvious: avoid my fanatical warbands and win the game by destroying my vulnerable-to-camels cavalry. This worked very well for the Tuareg, especially given the cards we were pulling, and with both commands of Galatian horse defeated and off the table, I was soon down twelve of my fourteen victory medals.

I did have a little success with my infantry, but nothing to write home about, and it wasn’t long before I was handing over my last two medals for a heavy 31-150 defeat!

Well I have to say that that was a brilliantly executed, textbook victory for Steve, with my only consolation being that I had plenty of time to look at the other games being played!

One game down and three to go, and it looked like being dark clouds over Ewelme for the Galatians!

TTS AAR: Galatians versus the Scandanavian Leidang

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With the Ewelme tournament coming up fast (Ed’s note: by the time this report gets published, it will have been and gone. Doubtless a trophy is now adorning my mantlepiece…) I needed some more practice with the Galatians I was intending to use, especially as their first two outings had resulting in a couple of stuffings of epic proportions! I therefore persuaded friend John to bring his Scandanavian Leidang types over to my place for a game.

Once deployed, the Galatians still looked very impressive, and I was very much hoping that this goregeousness would translate into military success, especially as it looked as if I could overlap the quasi-Vikings on the right. I duly advanced forward strongly…

The Scandies turned some of their troops towards my flanking force, and I was thinking that I could attack their left from two sides but, somehow, my coordinated assault failed to go in at the right time and I ended up losing my flanking cavalry to, of all things, some Viking light infantry archers! I’m still not sure how I let this opportunity slip through my hands!

My cavalry on the other flank weren’t having a very good time either. I think I’m used to having my Venetians Abroad knights on the wings, and thus being able to largely ignore missile fire, so have suffered bady when trying to use mere cavalry in the same way!

Looking back at the photos, I am also struck by how ragged my line looks compared to the solid mass of the enemy. This is obviously something I will have to watch out for in future!

Back to the action.

On the left, I sorted out my battered battle line, and advanced forward to take the wood that looked to be key to the Leidang position. Unfortunately, three Galatian warbands failed to dislodge the one unit of Huscarls occupying said wood, and that was that opportunity gone as the Vikings reinforced and I failed to make any further progress…

…so it was on the right where the battle would be decided.

Both sides had by now taken large amounts of casualties, and we were rapidly approaching a sudden death situation, where the next side to lose a significant unit would lose the battle. I still had a bit of an advantage, and had the potential to take the enemy camp, but somehow I just couldn’t get the cards I needed and the initiative swung to the Vikings.

Now when my deep units had tried to manoeuvre around the battlefield, I hadn’t managed to pull the cards I needed. Not so John, who neatly pivoted a deep unit of Bondi onto the flank of one of my warbands, hitting twice and polishing them, and my last three medals off!

So another loss for the Galatians: making three in a row! Let’s hope it goes better on the day.

(Ed’s note: I won’t bother to clear a space in the trophy cabinet then…)

Well they looked good advancing forward!

Fanatics ≠ Archers - Again

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

Peter writes…

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

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

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

The Battle Begins

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

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

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

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

The Battle Continues

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

My Comments

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

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

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

Fanatics ≠ Archers

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

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

Peter writes:

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

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

Anyway…

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

Essentially an army of archers fighting against hordes of hairies.

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

The Plan

My plan had 3 components …

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

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

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

The Battle Starts

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

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

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

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

The Plan Unfolds

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

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

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

The End Is Nigh!

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

Lessons Learned

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, that was the first battle of two.

My Comments

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

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

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

Rajputs Come A Cropper - Part Two!

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

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

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

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

Perhaps my other unit of elephants would do better?

Perhaps not!

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

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

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

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

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

Rajputs Come A Cropper - Part One!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roll Call '26 Game Four: Venetians Abroad versus Ayyubids

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the final results:

 

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

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

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

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

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

View from behind the Gujarati lines

As predicted, The Indians slam forward on the left

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even More Celts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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