TTS AAR: Roll Call #4: Venice Abroad vs Komnenon Byzantines

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My fourth and last game at this year’s Roll Call was against Nigel’s Byzantines: a powerful army who had carved up my Romans at the rceent World Championships!

My stratagem was Flank March so I decided to leave my right flank very light and send my best unit of veteran Later Knights (with army standard) off that way to see if I could temp Nigel’s cavalry forward to then be neatly taken in the flank or rear by my Knights.

This worked very nicely (although I messed up how it should have been played, so thanks to Tim, as referee, for ruling so adroitly and to Nigel for waving off my error) with one unit of enemy cavalry being smashed right off the table immediately after the Knights’ arrival.

On the other flank, both sides had advanced rapidly towards each other and an enormous, sprawling melee broke out. Fortunately for the Venetians, Nigel’s Varangian Guard and Skoutatoi were not having a particularly good day (they were the lads who had eviscerated my Romans!) and were contained by my troops, helped by the terrain. The Venetians also manged to knock quite a few Byzantine light units off the table: perhaps not tactically significant but still a trickle of Byzantine coins lost.

Meanwhile, back to the other flank, and my Knights had polished off all the Byzantine cavalry they could find to kill. They were having a good day: also killing the enemy general and taking the Byzantine Holy Icon standard.

I was now significantly ahead on coins, but under huge pressure back on the left. It was, in fact, fair to say that my troops there were about to collapse!

My camps were also under attack, but the militia Spearmen (led by the chef-and-chicken) were doing their best to defend them.

I needed to finish the game quickly, especially as we were also just about out of time, and suddenly saw an opportunity to do so.

I had a unit of Spearmen plus attached General on a hill about two thirds of the way up the board. They had been killing Byzantine lights and were now in a position to turn and attack the rear of the Skoutatoi who were meleeing with more of my Knights.

This I was about to do when I noticed that actually there was a clear path to the enemy camp in front of them. Okay, it was a few squares away, but I had a general with me, and taking the camp would give me the coins I needed to win.

For once the cards were with me, and the Spearmen marched straight into the camp to take Nigel’s last three coins and victory!

This was another game where the result (14-3 to me) didn’t actually reflect the situation. Although I had won the right, taking nine of Nigel’s coins from eliminating three cavalry units, their general and a standard, and only lost a smattering of units myself, I had about four units disordered and ready to break in Nigel’s next turn. I think I would still have won (time allowing) but it would have been a much closer result.

The overall scores were totted up and, much to my surprise, I found that I had come second! I was expecting somewhere 4th or 5th, so it must have been a weird combination of results elsewhere to let me snatch the runner up position: that’s the joy of the Swiss Chess system!

Thanks to Tim for organising the tournament, and to all my opponents for giving me such great games. Congrats to Peter for winning: those of you who have read the AAR of our game will know that I almost had him (score notwithstanding!), which would, presumably, mean that I would hve won overall. Something to work towards next time!

TTS AAR: Roll Call #3: Venice Abroad vs Tibetans

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My third game at this year’s Roll Call was against Peter and his Tibetans. Peter has sliced and diced me before with this lot, so I was determined to do better this time round.

I had a fair idea of what tactics he was going to employ: one command of light cavalry would dart forward from the outset and attempt to get around one of my flanks. If that worked, then the cataphracts would follow. Failing that, he would use the superior mobility of his all-cavalry army to weight one side of the table, forcing me to fight his whole army with only part of mine.

That was all well and good - I knew what he would try to do - but the real question was whether I could do anything about it!

Things started well when, much to my surprise, I won the scouting. This meant that I could try to counter his intended plans through my deployment.

Note that I have lights on the left to counter his lights, my knights are all in front of his army, and most of my infantry is in the right place as well. Okay, I would have to shift my left flank infantry over to the right as soon as possible, but this was a better position from which to start the battle than I could have anticipated!

The action began on the right, where the heavy cavalry forces on either side advanced cautiously towards each other. I knew I needed to get “first charge” advantage here, so it was a question of tempting Peter into advancing forward and then not quite reaching my troops so I could then charge forward myself.

I didn’t quite manage to do this, but Peter’s first charge on the far right proved unfortunate for him as a unit of Cataphracts disordered themselves charging a unit of my Later Knights whilst my militia Spearmen on hill survived everything the Tibetans could throw at them.

You’ll also see, in the picture above, how Peter has managed to concentrate his forces on my right flank despite me knowing that that was what he was going to do and making every effort to stop him doing so! If you count them up, you’ll see I have two units of Knights, one militia Spear and a Light Cavalry versus four units of Cataphracts, some veteran, and five units of horse archers.

And this is also actually where I lost the battle. On my next turn the Later Knights on the far right charged their disordered opponents and not only failed to sweep them from the board (potentially also taking out some of the light cavalry following through morale checks) but were actually dashed from the tabletop themselves! Extraordinary: but there’s not much you can do against luck like that!

This effectively let Peter through on that flank…but more of that in a moment.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, I had not only countered his annoying light cavalry but was actually driving the Tibetans backwards: the cunning use of Cry Havoc! caltrops giving me an initial advantage that I was quick to exploit.

Unfortunately I just couldn’t pin the mobile mounted Tibetans down for long enough to actually kill them, so although we were about even on medals won, I just couldn’t finish off the units I was fighting.

We had now been playing for almost the whole of the allocated 90 minutes, the scores were about even, and we went into Peter’s last turn.

Firstly, he took full advantage of his success on the right and cleared my troops from that side of the table, including the equally-cunning use of his stratagem Someone has Blundered! to take control of my last remaining unit of Knights there and make them retreat backwards off the table. That was four medals gone immediately, and you can see that the militia Spearmen, already disordered and hit in the flank, are next!

You can, by the way, also see just on the other side of the hill, a unit of my Knights hitting some of his horse. This was originally a flank charge by my Knights into his cavalry that should, by rights, have at least disordered the Tibetans but, no, they survived and by this time had turned to face me. That would have been four coins my way as their general would have gone as well.

At this point we were on for a draw: probably a winning draw in Peter’s favour but still a draw.

Unfortunately all this excitement had caused me to leave the tiniest gap in my defences which, with the last cards of the game, Peter managed to exploit and get into one of my camps.

This took the last of my victory medals and cost me a full loss rather than a losing draw. If only I’d found the time to move those light crossbowmen to the right at some earleir stage!

So I came close, but still ended up being trounced 14-3, with eleven coins lost in the final moments of the game.

I took some consolation, however, in the fact that the result didn’t really reflect the game, and in the thought that I’d pretty much countered Peter’s standard strategies through my deployment and tactics and had been on an even keel with him right up to when my Knights failed to take advantage of a great position on my right. I’ll ‘ave him next time!

TTS AAR: Roll Call #2: Venice Abroad vs Vikings

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My second game at this year’s Roll Call tournament was against Andy and his Vikings: an infantry army full of large, hairy types armed with big choppers!

Somewhat unsurprisingly, I won the scouting and, having seen where the Vikings had positioned themselves decided to try and turn his left flank with my Knights whilst the rest of my army kept as far away from the enemy as possible, largely deploying on the edge of my side of the table.

This was all very well, but Andy then played the This Way Effendi stratagem on me, which meant that the infantry command that were supposed to be occupying my camp had been led astray by a guide who was in the pay of the enemy and would start the game one box to the rear which, as they were on the edge of the table, meant off-table…which meant that my lovely three fortified camps would start the game empty of any Venetians!

Obviously this wouldn’t be a problem, as all I needed to bring them on in the first turn was to draw a 4+ (camps are difficult terrain):

A good start to the game but, no matter, on with the plan as I sent my knights forwards as fast and as far as possible.

The cards were with me, and the Viking left flank was soon under huge pressure as a mass of heavily armoured horsemen his them in the front and flank and rapidly started to roll them up.

The rest of the Vikings, however. had rushed forward as fast as they could, intending to win the game by just running over the rest of my troops.

Although by now I had managed to get the force that was supposed to be guarding the camp back on the table, this didn’t stop one unit of Scandies punching through my line like a seax through butter and taking one of my camps. Ouch!

It was now a race to see who could exploit their situation fastest: could I polish off Andy’s left flank, taking his army standard and hopefully the game, before he could turn the hairies in my camp and take the other two sections to get the coins he needed to win.

My knights were. for once, on good form, and were able to totally clear the Vikings in front of them from the table.

Unfortunately, this still left me a two coins short of ultimate victory. The tension was now so great that one of my units suffered a casualty and had to be replaced from my reserves!

Things were also critical on my left flank. Although the Vikings in my camp had failed to make the turn that would have let them take the other two sections (presumably looting the fabulous luxuries that acompany my troops on their campaigns), my Alabardiers were being attacked by three Viking warbands, and surely couldn’t hold out for long.

Fortunately, I had chosen them to receive the Tonight we dine in hell! stratagem, so they were able to shrug off their first disorder, add a hero, and hold their own for that turn. They are top left in the picture below.

The Vikings then surrounded the Alabardiers, and things looked even more critical: I could see myself losing them, the other two camps, and the two Spearman units shown in the picture above in the Vikings’ next turn…and the victorious knights were still a square or two short of being able to return to the action and take the Vikings in the rear.

That would give the Vikings victory despite the fact that they themselves only now had two coins left and I had loads. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

Salvation, however, came from an unlikely source.

I had been covering my far left flank with a couple of units of Atmati di schioppe or handgunner light infantry, and one of these now crashed into the rear of the veteran Huscarls flanking the Alabardiers.

Incredibly, the handgunners managed to inflict two disorders on the veteran Huscarls, but that was still not enough to break them and win the game. I’d have to get a 7+ to go in again, and then hope that my two 8+ attacks would succeed against the ‘saving on a 6+’ Huscarls: not very good odds (just over 6% I think).

But wait…that’s a general with the Huscarls, and we haven’t checked to see if he is hit yet.

Andy pulled his chits…it was a hit and the general died: taken in the rear by a Venetian hand gunner!

Those two coins were Andy’s last, and the game was mine by 14 coins to 7…but it had been a close run thing and the tables would have been turned on Andy’s next turn if that general had survived.

What a great game!

TTS AAR: Roll Call #1: Venice Abroad vs Burgundian Ordnance

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Off to Cranfield for the Medieval Mayhem competition at Roll Call. I would field a Venice Abroad force: a mixture of Knights and Spearmen with a good sprinkling of light troops as well.

My first game was against Dillon’s Brugundian Ordnance force: an army very similar to mine, the main difference being that Dillon’s infantry were spear and longbow combined whereas I had separate spear and light infantry missile troops.

The Burgundians pulled the Flank March stratagem, so would start the game with one unit off table. I was initially minded to hold back and see where this arrived, but then decided that boldness was the way forward with the huge open space on the right flank just too tempting: the plan being to overwhelm his cavalry there with my Knights leaving the rest of his force vulnerable to a roll-up from that flank.

Unfortunately the two patches of rough ground and the wood that you can see in the picture above created a bit of a bottleneck that would come back to haunt me later in the game.

This concentration of horse on my right did mean that my left flank was very light: two units of light handgunners, in fact, that seemed to be facing an awful lot of Burgundians panzers, especially as that is where Dillon’s flanking troops eventually turned up.

Back to the right, where my Knights and Light Horse were slowly battering their way through the opposition: the bottleneck initially preventing me from applying my superior number efficiently. Yes, I eventually “won” that flank, but it took far too long to do so!

Meanwhile, on the left, Dillon was trying to clear my inferior force away so that he could do to me there what I was intending to do to him on the right. Unfortunately, a combination of the cards and my Alabardiers refusing to go backwards made things very difficult for him, meaning that his Knights there spent a lot of time dominating an extremely useless empty space!

All this shilly-shallying around, however, meant that we were out of time. This was extremely frustrating as if we’d played one more turn I think I would have had victory: I only needed a couple more of Dillon’s victory medals to win outright, and I had three places where I had fresh troops able to attack disordered Burgundians.

I begged Tim, the refereee, to let us play one more turn…offered bribes of the finest entertainments that Venice has to offer…but all to no avail: the game ended in a draw with the resultant points slightly in my favour as I had killed a slightly greater proportion of Dillon’s troops than he had mine.

A great game, but I rued getting jammed between the rough ground and the woods on the right: open terrain would have meant that I could have applied superior numbers earlier. But it was not to be: all that was left was the faint cry of “please, just let me play one more card”!

TTS AAR: Hittites versus Neo-Assyrians

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Great to get a game of To The Strongest in with friend Bevan. We went biblical, with Bevan using the Neo-Assyrians versus my Hittites.

Neither side wasted any time, both thundering towards the other…apart from one Assyrian infantry command on the flank that really didn’t want to be involved.

Note the Assyrian infantry peaking into the frame from the left hand side

Whilst the Syrian light chariots kept some of the finally-advancing Assyrian infantry on the left occupied, the left hand command of Hittite heavy chariots smashed into the rest of the left-hand Assyrian infantry and the Assyrian heavy chariots in the centre of the enemy line.

Amazingly (good cards!) the Hittite chariots smashed through both one unit of enemy infantry and one set of Assyrian chariots, punching a huge hole in the centre of the Assyrian line.

Breakthrough at the schwerepunkt!

The other unit of Assyrian Heavy Chariots would also soon be sent flying off table, along with the Assyrian commander-in-chief.

Meanwhile, on the other flank, the other Hittite heavy chariot command had slammed into the Assyrian heavy cavalry, and a fierce melee broke out.

New tech versus old tech on the right

Keeping that flank locked safe was vital to the Hittite cause, as their infantry and more chariots in the centre had fallen victim to a deluge of Assyrian bowfire, and were wavering as the Assyrians closed for combat!

Hittites suffering a nasty attack of the missile fire!

Fortunately the chariots rallied and the Hittite Royal Guard were able to intervene to protect the wavering infantry. Note the Gasgan tribesmen on the left also seeking to get into the action.

Royal Guard to the rescue

Meanwhile, back to the left flank, where the Syrians were still keeping the Assyrian javelinmen occupied.

Back t he right again, where even the Royal Guard had been forced backwards onto a hill. If the Assyrians got their act together and advanced their heavy infantry, the Hittie centre could collapse…especially as the rest of the Hittite chariots were losing the melee on the far right.

Things getting a bit critical on the right!

All the above, however, was just a distraction from the main event: the victorious Hittite chariots left/centre continuing their punch forward to take the Assyrian camp, already packed with the survivors/fleeing infantry/broken chariots of the initial clashes.

Although the first lot of chariots were resoundingly unsuccessful in their attempt to get into the camp, the Hittite chariot commander, briefly delayed by the need to wipe out the other Assyrian heavy chariots, soon arrived to seal the win for the Hittites: taking both their camp and their last few coins.

It had been a very exciting game.

The Hittites had had fantastic early success against the Assyrian heavy chariots, punching right through them, but the Assyrians had responded quickly, taking advantage of their extra strength on the right to put so much pressure on the Hittite line that it almsot buckled. If it hadn’t been for the Hittite Royal Guard intervening at the critical moment, the entire Hittite line could have routed.

Kudos also to the Syrian light chariots on the left. Their skirmishing prevented the Assyrian javelnmen from either rushing back to defend their camp or from intervening in the centre.

This allowed the Hittite chariots in the centre/left, the ones who had broken through, to take the Assyrian camp and thus rip the heart out of the remaining near-victorious army, forcing their retreat and giving the Hittites a win.

Designed by committee...

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Now that the bulk of my Arab Conquest army is complete (six units each of Jund cavalry and warrior warbands) it’s time to start filling in the rest of what’s needed.

First up are the camels, and the first of them are the two units of light camelry with lances. These are Red Copper sculpts printed for me by Baueda before they were sold.

These are lovely sculpts, and whilst I’m not sure how useful they are going to be on the battlefield, they will at least look good whilst doing so!

I then needed some bow-armed camel-riding arabs as Scouts. Red Copper unfortunately don’t do any of them, so I fell back on the Forged in Battle War & Empire range for these beauties.

For those interested, the camels are painted with a single coat of Contrast Skeleton Horde over a Grey Seer undercoat, which gives the perfect camel colour.

The riders are painted mainly in Contrast Apothecary White, again over the Grey Seer undercoat, but in order to make the colour ‘pop’ I then highlight the Apothecary with a standard acrylic white.

The final camel-mounted element consists more of markers than actual army-contingent figures.

A lot of the Arab Conquest infantry are mounted, and I wanted a representative marker that I could place with a mounted unit at deployment. Red Copper do a great army commander figure mounted on a camel that would do the trick and, as I had had to use plenty of packets of army commanders to produce the Jund cavalry, I had enough for my needs. Here are the front and back views:

So that’s all my camels painted. They were a lot more fun to do than the Jund cavalry: less furniture and something different, as I haven’t painted a camel since I built some late 19th Century Camel Corps for the sudan.

TTS AAR: Crusaders versus Sassanids

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Time for a quick game of To The Strongest against friend Rob. As I wanted to use my ‘first time on the table’ pilgrims, I would play the early Crusaders. Rob chose to play the Sassanids.

The Sassanids won the scouting, and chose to deploy a long line of Savaran cavalry on the left, their cataphracts in the centre, all backed up by their infantry and elephants on their right.

The Crusaders deployed all their Knights on their left, their lesser troops (pilgrims etc) in the centre, and their shieldwall foot knights on the right.

On the left hand side of the battlefield, the Knights and cataphracts advanced towards each other slowly. I had four units of Knights handy, so was pretty confident that I could use my numbers to get an advantage here and then sweep into the flank of the rest of the Sassanid cavalry.

I was a little concerned about the horse-archers sweeping past my left flank, but I was about to charge forward so would worry about them later!

Or rather not, as a pair of Aces prevented me from getting that first charge advantage!

Worse, once my Knights had received the Cataphract charge, I checked that my general had survived the combat only to see him murdered by a Sassanid spy! Things had not begun particularly well!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, the Savaran had advanced into contact with my infantry.

This was almost equally disastrous: with two of my shieldwall units fleeing the field after receiving a rain of arrows and a nasty lance-charge, one exposing a unit of archers as they did so. The Savaran then crashed into the archers and, to much hilarity on my side, were disordered then broken by the bowmen!

Back to the left, and I had somewhat recovered the situation, destroying both cataphract units and one lot of horse archers. Both units of Knights were, however, disordered, so I couldn’t afford to lose another combat.

Rob and I were both now so short of coins that one more unit broken would lose either of us the game. The initiative was with me, so I had a quick look around the table to see which Sassanid units were the most vulnerable.

I could charge the disordered Daylami in the woods in the right hand picture above, but I was disordered and couldn’t use my lance amidst the trees, and they were veteran javelinmen who would get saves for defending cover…no, I needed to pick an easier target.

Ah ha! The other unit of Daylami were out in the open, and I had two units of Knights that could charge them. Here was my victory!

In went the first unit of Knights: mutual disorder. Good enough, I had the others to follow.

In they went, but I just couldn’t break the insert expletive javelinmen. The cream of chivalry unable to break disordered mountain men out in the open: pitiful!

Well that was my best chance of a win gone, and I could only watch as his elephants thundered forward and broke the Knights in front of the woods. That was bye-bye two coins and bye-bye the game!

An excellent game that I so nearly managed to recover from early losses to win. So nearly!

My only consolation was the fact that I am painting up a couple of Daylami units for my Arab Conquest force. May they achieve similar success when they hit the tabletop!

TTS AAR: Classical Indians vs Hittites

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Time to get a couple of my favourite 15mm armies onto the tabletop: I would play the Classicial Indians versus Rob playing the Hittites.

During deployment, I had weighted my left flank: the plan being to win a quick victory there and then swing around and take his centre from the rear.

Unfortunately, although I did eventually get a win on the left, it was by no means the ‘quick victory’ I wanted.

This meant that my weaker right flank came under huge amounts of pressure, starting with the Hittites’ ally-Syrian Light Chariots dancing around my flank to threaten my camps and rear.

Rob’s clever use of a Someone had Blundered stratagem in the right-centre also meant my elephants there failed to intervene.

In the end, I had to consolidate my right-centre position and hope that the troops out on the right would survive without support.

Paricularly vulnerable were the javelinmen on the hill on the far right of the field, who were beign assaulted from the flank and rear by those pesky Syrians but, unbelievably, the javelinmen were made of stern stuff and just simply refused to die!

The Hittites, well aware that they were losing on the left, slammed everything they had left at my centre and right, but the Indian elephants proved very difficult for the Hittite chariots to kill (+2 defensive bonus for elephants fighting mounted meant my veteran Nellies were saving on a 4+) and those Indian javelinmen on the hill were still refusing to die!

As my left flank force polished off their opponents and began to arrive back in the centre, the Hittites tried one last assault on my troops there, but this proved their undoing: I was ahead on victory medals, so even a one-for-one result to any melees would give me the victory.

In the end, and very appropriately, it was the elephants in the centre that finally broke the last Hittite unit that I needed to rout for the victory: a glorious win for the Indians.

It had been an interesting game. I thought that my chariots and elephants on the left would easily beat the Hittite chariots and infantry there, but although I eventually ended up ahead there, it had been a hard slog and left the rest of my troops to fend for themselves.

The Syrian light chariots proved difficult to contain: a little more luck coming Rob’s way and I would have lost a camp and a couple of units to their depradations, but fortune smiled on me and the resolute javelinmen on the hill gave me the time to adjust my positions to counter their attack.

In the end it was the staying power of the elephants (especially versus mounted opponents) that won me the day, but it had certainly been a close run thing!

To The World's Strongest Game Four: Early Imperial Romans vs Late Achaemenids

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My fourth and final game at this year’s To The World’s Strongest torunament was against Pete and his Late Achaemenid Persians.

With two losses and one win under their cingula, the Romans were looking for a big win to get at least somewhere near the top ten when the scores were all added up.

Neither side were in the mood for much mucking around, and advanced towards each other at a rapid rate of knots, determined to get stuck in as soon as possible.

Things started off very well indeed, with the large infantry unti you can see on the right of the Persian line being routed by the two legionary units in front of it.

That had been worth a lot of victory medals to the Persians: IIRC it was deep, had a standard, and the general had gone down with the unit so six medals flew my way. Things were going well!

The action then moved to the centre, with massed Persian horse charging my veteran legionaries...

…and getting punished for their presumption!

I was now ten victory medals to zero ahead, needing only two (or it might have been four) more coins to finish the Persians off.

Unfortunately, things then started to go wrong, so horribly wrong!

On the right flank, a unit of Persian guard cavalry plus some lesser horse managed to take out a couple of legionary units (the ones that had beaten the expensive deep unit earlier) due to some foolishness with the cards.

This then enabled the same cavalry to slip around behind my line and hit the disordered centre of my line in the rear, breaking the unit there.

I reached for the coins to give my opponent the two he needed due to the lost unit and found, to my horror, that these were my last two coins. I had lost the game!

But hang on, I hear you cry, you’ve only lost three two-coin units and a two-coin general: how can this be?

Well, the fighting had been fierce, and my Romans had been rallying in between the action…and I had handed over four - yes, four - coins as the ‘penalty’ for a successful rally on an even card. So going into that final rear charge, I had effectively lost ten coins (two two-coin units, a general and four rally=penalty coins) then lost another two, making twelve in all.

From being ten coins up, I had lost the game!

Now I have never liked the coin-for-an-even-card-on-a-successful-rally penalty rule, and now I don’t like it even more! I may have to move to Wales!

But well done to Pete for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: an excellent example of why you should never give up playing TTS, and how spotting and taking advantage of an opportunity is the key to success. It was a great game to play, even if the result was somewhat of a nasty surprise!

Aftermath

It had been a most enjoyable tournament, despite the fact that my Romans, so successful on other occasions, didn’t rise to the challenge. With three losses and one win, I finished 19th out of 32: not as bad as I had thought it was going to be.

Thanks to Si et al. for organising and hosting, and to all my opponents on the day. Great fun, and I highly recommend a bit of TTS tournament play for anyone who enjoys the game.

To The World's Strongest Game Three: Early Imperial Romans vs Pergamene

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My third outing at this year’s world’s was against Dillon’s Pergamene: a core of infantry and cavalry supported by lots (minimum eight units) of light infantry.

My plan was simple. Hold his cavalry and lights in place on each wing (legionaries to do the job on the left, my cavalry to do the job on the right) whilst advancing forward strongly to crush the inferior Pergamene infantry in the centre.

The action began on the right wing with the Pergamene cavalry coming forward to engage my equites. I chanced a charge with my contariorum lancers and immediately became disordered (which just goes to show that if you have a plan you should stick with it for at least the first turn!) but otherwise the threat of my veteran horse did the trick and seemed to hold up the enemy advance.

Elsewhere on the field, the other Pergamene cavalry command had hung back (Dillon drawing an Ace for his first group move), so I took the opportunity to move my main line forward, English at Agincourt style, to put him under a bit of pressure.

The Pergamene line on the left and centre came forward and the first main clash took place.

This went very much to my advantage, with the legionaries on the far left disposing of an enemy squadron of horse and the veteran legionaries in the centre routing one of the Pergamene army’s three formed infantry units. Four coins up was good, even if one cohort of legionaries had become disordered.

Now contact had been made, it was time to start using the Roman mincing machine to cut through the enemy line. Here’s a tryptych of pictures that show this phase of the game, left to right:

The Pergamene right flank then collapsed spectacularly, with the only units left to them there being a few light infantry that I had to continually send off the board.

Although everything was going well on the left, the action there had tied up a lot of my troops (four of my five heavy infantry units). This meant that the centre was being held by the veteran legionaries (well known for collapsing at the first sight of blood!) and the right by my horse (outnumbered and outclasssed).

The centre proved annoyingly sticky: two veteran legionaries versus one enemy infatry unit supported by a couple of light unts should have been a foregone conclusion…but wasn’t.

And the right was now looking distinctly dodgy:

Fortunately, the initiative then fell to me and, using a little bit of luck, I was able to finish off the Pergamene by firstly taking one of their camps with a rather sweet “10” drawn for a move…

…followed by another ‘10’ to drive a unit of lights plus officer off the table for three coins and the victory!

So a 14-4 victory in game three: all I needed now was aother big victory in game four to get somewhere near the top ten!

To The World's Strongest Game Two: Early Imperial Romans vs Komenonon Byzantines

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After the disaster that was game one, I was looking forward to the chance for redemption in game two. My opponent was Nigel and his Komenonon Byzantines, who I’d fought at Warfare last year, although that was using the Venetians. Let’s see how the Romans would do…

I was facing cavalry on either flank, but was not that concerned about my left: my camp was protected by Impassable ground and defended by elite Lanciarii light infantry, meaning I felt safe to concentrate my veteran cavalry on the right, aiming to overwhelm the enemy horse and, again, loop round to take the rest of his army in the rear. All my infantry needed to do was to hold the centre against the Varangian Guard and all would be good.

I therefore advanced my centre and right forward strongly whilst holding back my left.

My cavalry did indeed “do the business”, with the Equites Alares smashing through on the far right wing and looping around into the rear of the rest of the enemy horse. all was proceeding to plan!

Nigel, however, realised what was about to happen and rapidly transferred his other cavalry command over to this wing, meaning that instead of being able to run riot in his infantry’s rear, my victorious cavalry had to fight more heavy cavalry coming in from the left.

Meanwhile, the Varangian guard had been heading straight for my line, determined to get into contact as soon as possible. That was okay by me: my legionaries were the equal of any infantry, and with the success of the cavalry, all I needed to do was to hold them for a couple of turns.

Unfortunately there was, again, something wrong with my infantry today, with every legionary or auxilia unit that came into contact with the enemy becoming disordered whether they were the attackers or not.

No matter, I had plenty of infantry ready to put the boot in, but some clever use of lights plus the fact that he had one unit of cavalry free to interfere, meant that Nigel was able to take the initiative in the centre.

Would my legionaries like to charge into either (a) the rear of the Varangians or (b) the cavalry threatening the flanks of their comrades?

No, they would not, thank you very much: far too much like hard work.

Worse, when the Byzantine cavalry charged the flank of my veteran legionaries, the “elite” Roman infantry broke and ran…and, like the last game, took the unit next to them with them as well!

Suddenly, from being in a commanding position well on the way to victory, the roles were reversed and I was looking at defeat!

The Varangians charged forward again, and another two legionary units dissolved. What was going on with my milites today?

And that was it: my last two medals gone as I went down to a narrow 11-12 defeat. I had only needed one more victory medal for the game to be mine, but the legionarirs just weren’t up for it.

Congratulations to Nigel for fighting his way back into the game: I think at one stage I was eight victory medals up!

As for my Romans…well, there were still two more game to go, so two more chances for them to redeem themselves or face consequences that could well involve the traditional punishment of decimation, but through the tender application of a large club hammer!

To The World's Strongest Game One: Early Imperial Romans vs Dacians

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Time for this years To The World’s Strongest tournament, once again in Blewbury, near Oxford. This was a superbly organised competition with thirty-two players competing: the largest tournament I’ve been in and, I think, the largest To The Strongest tournament ever.

My first game was my Early Imperial Romans against Andy’s Dacians, with their very nasty two-handed falx choppers. This was a repeat of the first game of the 2023 SELWG competition, and in fact the fourth time in the last two years that I have played Andy first game in a tournament!

Excuse the thumb!

My plan was to defeat Andy’s command on the left flank with my veteran cavalry, then loop around the take his infantry in the rear as the Roman “mincing machine” attacked them from the front. Unbeknownst to Andy, I also had an Equites Alares unit Flank Marching off table on the left: the arrival of which would hopefully come as a nasty shock!

The Dacians seemed to have the same idea as the Romans, but reversed: so as battle opened, both sides’ infanry lines hung back as the left (Romans)/rigth (Dacians) flanks advanced strongly forward.

As battle was joined there, I then sprang my flank march surprise: my Equites arriving on the flank of the Dacians’ Sarmatian allies. All was going to plan!

I didn’t have it all my own way, but as the situation on the flank resolved itself, I definitely had the upper hand and, although I wouldn’t be looping round onto the enemy’s infantry’s rear for some time, had built up an advantage in victory medals that would serve me in good stead for the main infantry combat.

Back to the centre, where my infantry were now closing with the enemy. Five units of legionaries, two veteran, plus a unit of auxilia, versus five Dacian warbands. Given the situation with the cavalry, all I needed was an exchange of units, one-for-one, to win the game, and I had an overlap with the auxilia.

Then disaster struck!

As the two lines came together, the first combat to be calculated was on the far right of my line. The auxilia were broken by the Dacian charge and fled the table. Okay: not good, but, as I said, a one-for-one would still be okay.

Unfortunately, the legionaries next to them were Disordered by the sight of the fleeing auxilia (failing to achieve at least one [5] on two cards drawn: only a 16% probability) and then broken by the Dacians hitting them.

Their rout led to the next unit of legionaries also being Disordered and, you guessed it, then being broken by the charging Dacians.

Almost unbelievably, this rout then led to the next unit of legionaries going Disordered and then being destroyed, taking an officer with them.

That’s one auxilia and three legionary units being destroyed in one charge, with only the veteran legionaries on the left of the line standing their ground!

Just to emphasise, that was four units and an officer gone in one turn: a loss of ten victory medals and the game!

It was only the cavalry unit I had destroyed on the left that gave me any points at all, with the score going 2-11 to Andy…my only consolation being that I now had plenty of time to watch the other round one games!

A fantastic win for the Dacians!

So an unprecedented disaster of epic proportions in my first game but , ho hum, on to the next!

To The World's Warm-Up Game Two

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With a careless loss in the first game, I wanted a chance for revenge, so Peter and I swapped sides, with me now taking the Norse Irish and Peter using my Early Imperial Romans.

As you can see, Peter skulked the Romans into one corner of the table, aiming to concentrate his force against only a proportion of my troops, aiming to beat them soundly before turning to crush the rest.

So I could see what Peter was trying to do: the question was, could I do anything about it!

Battle was joined almost immediately, and you can see that the left wing of my army is currently fighting air! His plan seems to be succeeding!

And given the Roman veteran cavalry were facing my weak right wing, my succeed very quickly indeed!

But I had more success in the centre, with Peter rather pleasingly falling foul of a common bête noire of mine: my cards and veteran legionaries proving fragile as eggs!

Meanwhile, my troops were still rushing over from the left: if I could get them into battle, then there was a good chance of a rare victory.

In they came from the left, and prepared to roll up the Roman line. An easy target was the already-disordered legionaries on the central hill. I had two units that could hit them from the sides, so I was confident they would go, hopefully leading to a cascade of disorders infecting the rest of the Latins!

Unfortunately, the first unit to attack (the bottom one in the picture above) failed to do anything, but I had the other, stronger unit still to go.

Peter, however, then pulled an interpretation of the rules that I had not come across before. I won’t bore you with the details (you can read the 50+ posts on the TTS Facebook group for that!) but suffice to say that Peter’s view was that unit A couldn’t charge the rear of unit B because enemy unit C was too close to let them do that as units D were blocking their path on their other side.

I was there very much to play a game not have an argument, and Peter was the host, so I reluctantly agreed with his way of doing things, therefore failing to break that pesky unit B.

What is the correct interpretation, I hear you ask? Well that’s still not 100% decided. The FB Group was split about 60:40 in my favour, with Simon Miller, the writer of the rules saying that I was 100% right and that unit A could charge unit B, but the To The World’s tournament was played Peter’s way, and I think everyone is waiting for the topic to be finally ruled on in a future Even Stronger rules update.

Anyhow, so back to the game. My units didn’t charge into the rear of the legionaries on the hill, which gave the Romans time to reorganise, react to the threat, and get their line back under control.

With his centre now stabilised, Peter was also then able to use his cavalry to finish off my weak right flank and, despite a last ditch attempt to take the Roman camp, my Norse-Irish surrendered their final victory medal and the game.

So a frustrating “so near and yet so far” loss for the Norse-Irish. Would I have won the game if the crucial rear charge had gone in? I think so…but as Peter was kind enough to remind me: “it’s only a game”!

To The World's Warm-Up Game One

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Always good to do a little preparation for a tournament, so the weekend before it was off to Peter’s house for a couple of warm=up games.

The first game was my Early Imperial Romans versus the Norse-Irish: loads of ‘em, and seemingly all carrying javelins!

The Early Imperial Roman army is tactically very flexible (in that the legionaries can make non-terrain difficult moves with no penalty) but strategically a bit of a one trick pony: get stuck in being the order of the day. I duly moved my line forward, pila and gladii at the ready!

Note my one bit of non-conformist thinking: my cavalry were not deployed on the left wing, but one command in from the left. Let’s see if that works…

My right flank advanced up to the rough ground across the centre of the battlefield, and awaited the barbarian onslaught. Those are my veteran legionaries on the right: they should do the business!

At this point I realised I had made a mistake. If you look at the picture above, you’ll see an empty square next to the right hand legionary unit: a square that just cries out for enemy troops to use it for getting past my line and threaten my flanks and rear.

I had intended to shift my entire line forward and diagonal during the advance to the centre, covering the gap, but had forgotten to do so. I blame Peter’s cunning placement of a mirror at the end of the battlefield. On reflection (see what I did there) I’m not sure why that should make a difference, but I’m sure that it was Peter’s fault not incompetence on my part.

To make matters worse, it was also now obvious that the Norse-Irish had spotted the gap as well, and were heading for it at a rapid rate of knots. Lucky my cavalry weren’t right the way over on the other wing: I could leave a couple of units to deal with the enemy horse, and use my equites to plug the gap.

Unfortunately you’ll also see in the picture above that one of my legionary units has turned to its right to follow the cavalry, and left its flank exposed to the enemy.

I’m not sure why I did this, and can’t remember if it was unlucky cards that left them there, but Peter and the Norse-Irish took full advantage…

They were also taking full advantage of my mistake at the other end of the line:

The Romans are, however, a resilient lot, and whilst I was not able to rescue the situation on the right entirely, I was able to make it a bit better!

Unfortunately (I seem to be using that word a lot) the hole in the centre of my line was not quite so easy to fix. The Norse-Irish poured through it, attacked my flanks, and soon the last of my victory medals was on its way to the other side of the table.

So a fairly horrible defeat in my first warm up game. Come back in a day or so, and we’ll look at game two…

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Four: Early Imperial Romans vs Later Romans (East)

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Onto the last of my games at this year’s Godentag Weslh Open event. Game one had been a loss, but glorious victories in games two and three had brought me right back into the running. My last game was to be against Si and his Later Romans (East), victory in which would see me somewhere around the third to sixth mark in the competition as a whole.

Incidentally, that would be three Roman armies I faced in four games, and all against opponents who I knew well or quite well. So much for entering competitions for a bit of variety in opponents!

As battle began, both sides advanced forward cautiously. Si then moved his veteran cataphracts up the flank to go just behind and to the right of the hill in front of the field on the left in the picture above. He then failed an activation to charge them, meaning my lancers could get the drop on them and charge in first.

You may notice an absence of my lancers in the picture below:

Yes, that’s right: my veteran lancers with general, hero, lance and all round goodness charged forward and missed both their attacks and the hero’s re-draw. Si then attacked back, hit my lancers twice, neither of which they saved: dead, along with the general! Four coins lost!

Well that was a good start!

I then made a tactical error (I blame the shock of losing the lancers!) and sent my veteran legionaries to counteract the advance of Si’s cavalry on the other wing. All that then happened was that my best troops spent the rest of the battle running after the equites, who merely retreated or evaded combat as required, Si dancing them effortlessly around my hapless infantry.

This was not good, but I still had my centre intact could achieve a 4:3 superiority there:

Meanwhile, Si was skillfully edging his light cavalry around my flanks…this did not bode well for the future!

Disaster then almost struck on the left: one of my veteran legionary units tried to keep up with the enemy cavalry one too many times and got disordered.

The cavalry then threatened a flank attack, but all I needed was an easy activation to get out of the situation, which I promptly failed. Luckily their commander was there to save the situation and get them moving…but it had been a close run thing!

Back to the right where my equites alares had managed to disorder some enemy auxilia with their javelins. Here was a chance to drive the auxilia from the field: all I needed was anything except…

A complicated series of cavalry manoeuvres then took place, ending up honours even (I lost an equites unit, Si lost his two light cavalry units) but with my horsemen in exactly the right position to charge his cataphracts on the flank.

I needed an 8+ to hit, no general available for a re-draw (he had been killed in the first action of the game), but managed to draw a nine. In my cavalry went…

Two misses: the cards weren’t with me at all!

Whilst this was going on, the centre had seen a big melee between each side’s legionaries and auxilia. Again, honours were even, but after the four coins I’d lost in the first turn, I could ill-afford a one-for-one exchange of units.

Back to the left, where my vets had been forced into orbis to avoid being overrun:

But the final moment of the game happened when the enemy cataphracts whom I had failed to damage with my flank attack turned and charged home on my equites.

The cavalry were disordered in the first round of combat, then KO’d as the cataphracts attacked again:

So a somewhat frustrating loss 27-186 which drove me down into 9th place overall.

Si, who hadn’t put a foot wrong all game, ended up in third place overall, the top and second places being taken by Peter Ryding and Steve Butler respectively.

My thanks to Ty who organised everything, and to all my opponents during the tournament. With 24 players, this was one of the largest I’d attended,

And, finally, for those of you who haven’t tried a TTS competition, I heartily encourage you to do so: four great games all played in a fun and generous spirit. Highly recommended.

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Three: Early Imperial Romans vs Hundred Years War English

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With one win and one loss under my belt, I really needed another big win to give me any chance of placing near the top of the table.

My opponent for game three was John and his Hundred Years War English: longbows, longbows and more longbows!

I hate facing longbow armies: they shoot a lot and a long way…which means if you’re using a mostly infantry army like my Romans that you just have to bite the bullet and advnace through the hail of arrows and get stuck in.

As you can see in the picture, above, John had assumed a defensive posture, with almost a mini-fortress on his left wing and an unbroken line of archers facing the open ground in front of his line. Tricky!

My plan was to have my cavalry cover the ground on my right (i.e. opposite his mini fortress which, whilst being very strong, also tied up a lot of his best troops) and then advance forward to just out of longbow range to see if I could temp John forward. Even if I narrowed the gap to two squares rather than three, that was one turn of being shot at avoided.

This all went to plan, and John saw my legionaries standing there just out of range, resisted for a turn, and then cracked and sent his line forward one square i.e. putting his archers in range but closing the gap between us to two squares. Now was my moment to charge forward and stab his bowmen into mincemeat!

Apparently not! Failed activations in my two main legionary commands meant that the message didn’t get through…which meant that the arrows were about to fly! That’s three Aces drawn in a row by the way: which I reckon only happens 0.07% of the time or one in 1,428 draws. Ouch!

Somehow, however, the Romans got through the storm, and closed to contact with only one cohort disordered and hanging back to reform.

My cavalry, meanwhile, were still “in reserve” waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

That moment came when it turned out that these longbowmen were harder to kill than I thought they would be.

With my legionaries hitting on ‘6’ versus the longbowmen’s ‘8’, and saving better as well, I thought the fight in the centre would be a bit of a foregone conclusion once the Roman Mincing Machine had got into the action.

Regretably not, and the first round of combat led to a single disorder on each side. I therefore moved one equites alares unit up to reinforce the right hand side of my line, where necessity meant my infantry suffered a two-on-one overlap, not to charge the enemy behind their stakes, but to block their attack and throw javelins at them.

I needed something on the enemy line to give, and my opportunity came by way of my Strategem card: for some reason, known only to those involved, one unit of enemy archers suddenly about faced right in front of a cohort of legionaries. Now’s your chance Maitlandius, up Guards and at ‘em!

It was now only a matter of time in the centre but, meanwhile, a crisis had presented itslef on the far left.

The English household Knights had moved forward and engaged the cohort of legionaries that I had stationd there to bottle the dismounted tin cans up. Foolishly I thought a steady unit of veteran infantry supported by horse archers would be able to hold the Knights back but, no, the legionaries were disordered in the first charge, and then had to condust a fighting retreat backwards towards the rear of the table.

Fortunately I had my cavalry reserve and, led by the cavalry commander, they shot right across the table and intervened before the legionaries could be overwhelmed by the tender mercies of both the dismounted Knights andyet another unit of longbowmen.

Naturally my veteran lancers (equites contarium) couldn’t do things the easy way: despite having every advantage they ended up disordering themselves when charging, with their lances, against men carrying nothing more deadly than long bits of wood and daggers!

Things were getting quite serious down in that corner: that was seven victory coins I had at risk, and that’s a lot when you start with only eleven! I could now easily lose this battle before I’d finished chopping through his main line of archers!

Fortunately my faith in the legions was not misplaced, and before I could lose the game on the left, my heavy infantry finally finished off his main line.

Phew! That was close!

It had been terrific game whose scoreline (164-73 in my favour) didn’t really reflect how close I’d come to losing.

Now on to the fourth and last game of the day…

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Two: Early Imperial Romans vs Middle Imperial Romans

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Battered after my loss to Mark’s Middle Imperial Romans (Eastern variety) I bounced straight into fighting Colin’s Middle Imperial Romans (Western variety). That’s an awful lot of Romans in only two games!

This is a picture taken just after I had made my first move. My plan was to defeat his cavalry with my superior horse, giving Colin a headache on his left flank, then temp his line forward so that I can get my light cavalry (you can just see a horse’s head by the trees, far left) around his right flank to either take his large and undefended camp or just generally harrass the rear of his veteran legionaries.

You can see that I wasn’t mucking around in this encounter: my line has advanced towards his and, in an exciting and perhaps foolhardy rush of blood to the head, my equites have charged straight into contact!

Unfortunately I had failed to consider Fortuna’s baleful influence, and the glorious charge of my lancers achieved a big fat zero as all three of my attacks (I had a hero present) missed by a zillion miles!

I was also now vulnerable to Colin’s infantry trying to swamp my cavalry column, but managed to at least counter that threat…but my plan for the right flank was definitely now in tatters!

Meanwhile, in the centre of the field, the two battle lines had drawn together, although I had initially refused my left flank in order to allow my light horsement to get past the advancing enemy legionaries.

The lights were now threatening the enemy camp, forcing Colin to take one of his infantry units out of the main line to protect against them, and in a perfect position to flank charge the unit of enemy legionaries on the far right of Colin’s line.

The light horse, however, were not keen!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, the confused situation with the cavalry had sorted itself out with a series of clashes that left my lancers withdrawing to recover, Colin’s cavalry doing the same, and one unit of Equites Alares finding themselves alone and facing the deserted enemy camp.

Unfortunately, much like the lights on the left, the cavalry just wouldn’t move into the camp: failing the necessary activation on two consecutive turns before being forced to withdraw as Colin threatened them with infantry taken, again, from his main line. How frustrating, particularly as there were nine coins on offer if I’d taken all three enemy camps: enough to finish the game!

Now, however, my luck seemed to turn. My veteran infantry forced the enemy veteran infantry back, assisted by the flank attacks of the lights who had finally decided/been bribed/threatened/all of the above to attack, and my regular infantry, much to everyone’s surprise, had also been successful.

I was on the cusp of a glorious victory, but we were almost out of time. If I didn’t finish the enemy Romans off in my next activation, I would have to settle for a winnign draw rather than an outright victory.

Fortunately things fell my way: the enemy infantry were sent reeling back, and an opportunity to hit some cavalry in their flank after they had killed one of my units proved final, with my Romans taking the day with a glorious 191-18 victory.

That had been a great way to recover from my loss in the first game. Now I had to do it all again in my third clash…

TTS AAR: Godentag Game One: Early Imperial Romans vs Middle Imperial Romans

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I’m just back from another excellent Godentag (Welsh Open) To The Strongest tournament held, as ever, at Firestorm Games in Cardiff.

I cannot recomend these tournaments enough: a whole day of super-friendly wargaming at an excellent venue, lunch included!

I travelled to Wales on the Friday, stopping off at a very windy Uffington Castle and White Horse en route as I hadn’t been there for many years, and enjoying a very convivial evening of beer, wine, curry and conversation with Peter, Tim and Si starting at the City Arms and ending at The Spice Quarter, highly recommended.

I was thus refereshed and ready for my first game on Saturday morning: my opponent being Mark Freeth and his Middle Imperial Romans.

view from behind the early imperial lines

We were tied on scouting points, so when I drew a ‘9’ for the scouting itself, I was fairly confident of winning, only to see Mark promptly draw a ‘10’.

This was unfortunately a harbinger of what was to come, especially as I then realised that I had perhaps not constructed a very good army list as I think I was the only player with his troops grouped into three as opposed to four commands: it seemed that I had sacrificed manoeuvrability to max out on strength!

The game began with Mark advancing his horse on the wings, so I sent out my veteran legionaries on the left, and my veteran equites on the right to deal with them. On the left, my General there had a narrow escape when it looked as if he had been killed in the very first clash, being saved only by the Patroculus strategum card that I had drawn before the game.

A narrow escape for the man in purple

Mark, bit between his teeth, then assaulted my main line with a couple of units of is legionaries, but the fall of the cards meant that both his units arrived right in front of mine but without being able to charge me.

This meant that I could get the drop on his troops: attacking first and with a three vs two advantage.

Unfortunately not. Fortuna had, as all too often, decided to kick me firmly in the fork and delivered the first pair of Aces of my game…meaning my men just stood there and looked at the enemy rather than dishing out a good shoe-ing!

ace…ace

Worse, his attack next turn smashed the legionaries aside, leaving the way to my camp open!

surely a flank charge will KO the enemy threatening my camp!

Meanwhile, the rest of the battlefield looked like this:

overview

In the foreground are my camps with, as described above, his legionaries in combat with what was left of my ‘standard’ legionary command. I wouldn’t even get to flank charge the unit that has burst through my line: more aces for activation!

On the right at the back, I had managed to destroy one of his cavalry units with one of mine, and get the drop and disorder another two of his units. Unfortunately, try as I might, I just couldn’t get through the two disordered units, and even became disordered myself as a result of a poorly drawn card or two.

On the right in the foreground, my other two cavalry units are locked in combat with more of his horse, but I couldn’t win this fight either, despite a two on one advantage. I had managed to see off his light cavalry, but they were merely off table rather than destroyed, and I knew they would return as soon as they were able to do so.

Just left of centre, two of my veteran legionary units are in melee with more enemy infantry. Again I had the advantage on paper, but lost the fight. I couldn’t draw a hit or a save to, er, save my life.

Finally, on the left, my other veteran legionaries were battling two enemy horse units for control of that flank, but, as you can see in the picture below, were rapidly becoming overwhelmed despite the help of my equites sagittarii horse archers who, having achieved the enemy’s flank, seemingly dropped their weapons and assaulted their foe with, as the saying goes, mango slices!

this is not looking good!

Back to the right flank, and I was still trying to kill his cavalry, along with his light horse who had made their way back onto the field.

just die will you!

All the disorders inflicted on me now came back to haunt me with a vengeance. In rapid succession, I lost two veteran legionary units, the auxilia on the hill in front of my camp (although, to be fair, they had withstood three charges whilst disordered), and the cavalry at the other end of the table.

I had one coin left, which I then promptly threw away, thinking to retreat the legionaries on the other hill in front of my camp, rally them and then return. Yes, they retreated. Yes, they rallied. No, they didn’t manage to get back on the hill despite having an officer present. This let enemy infantry slip into my camp and take my last remaining medal: a silly mistake on which to end the game!

A careless mistake on my part ends the game

This had been a very frustrating game: the cards refusing to let me hit or save anything. Even Mark, as he celebrated his 168-35 total victory, agreed that luck had not been on my side.

Not a very good start, but there were still three games to go, so all was still to play for…!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans versus Anglo-Normans

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A second run out for my Romans in the same weekend, this time against Peter playing Anglo-Normans.

The Romans won the scouting, achieving a rather nice right flank overlap in the deployment that followed.

My strategy was simple: hammer down the right hand side of the field, then curl round to take the AN’s in their left flank.

I had the plan, I had the men: what could possibly go wrong?

Things began well, with my advance in the centre moving forward strongly.

In response, Peter’s plan was to hold his left flank with a deep unit of Fyrd forming orbis on a convenient hill, whilst the rest of his men defeated the veteran legionaries in front of them. If he could then use his heavy Norman cavalry to outflank my line on the left, then so much the better.

Let’s look at my out-flanking manoeuvre first.

Although the initial advance into an outflanking position had gone well, I just couldn’t quite get into actual combat before Peter had time to stabilise his line.

The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that the unit of Auxilia with the blue shields refused to charge the orbis on the hill three times in a row, despite having an officer present, meaning that the whole infantry command there was effectively moribund, meaning that I had to send in the cavalry before the enemy infantry line was properly softened up.

Despite this, the situation on the right ended up generally positive…but a far cry from the sweeping victory I needed to win the game before anything could go wrong on the left.

Meanwhile, on the left, Peter had advanced forward strongly, intending to beat me there with his knights and foot knights before I had a chance to win on the right.

Although I managed to use the terrain to anchor my veteran legionaries in place, a small but significant gap in my line allowed a unit Norman Knights, accompanied by some Lights, to sneak through and threaten my flanks.

This was a bit of a problem but, meanwhile, there was some very good news from the flank: a unit of eastern auxiliary light horse archers managed to shoot down a unit of veteran Norman knights - and it’s not often that that happens!

The Equites Sagittarii would go on to almost taking out another unit of Norman Knights with their bows, only failing because they ran out of ammo, having used every arrow in the camp as well!

More good news in that a good run of the cards allowed me to stabilise the situation on that flank. I was still outnumbered, but had formed a rough defensive circle as I waited for the game to be won on the right!

Unfortunately my luck then visciously rebounded, with a couple of Aces at critical moments effectively losing me the battle, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious. Firstly, the Legionaries in the centre of the picture above failed to make an easy turn to take two Norman units in the flank. Secondly, a unit of veteran Legionaries failed to activate when in the midst of fighting more Norman knights. To put that in perspective, the two Aces appear like that only 1% of the time!

Then I made a bad tactical error…or at least a tactical error as far as the To The Strongest rules are concerned.

Worried about the disordered Legionaries in the right-hand picture, above, I retreated them back into a square containing another unit of Legionaries, but facing the other way: the idea being that the Romans would fight bravely back-to-back. What I hadn’t realised was that the way that the Zone of Control rules work meant that if Peter was able to get a unit onto the flank of the back-to-backers, the back-to-backers would then be effectively pinned in place unable to rotate to face their aggressors.

I had never encountered this situation before, and it was a bit of a hard lesson to learn, as my Legionaries had to just sit there and be hit in the flank, unable to fight back, until one of the units died!

It’s a quirk in the rules, to be sure, but not one that breaks To The Strongest (I could argue it’s “realism” either way if I needed to!) but is something to be aware of and watch out for. As I said: a hard lesson to learn!

Meanwhile, back on the right flank, my winning situation had been reversed by the fact that my failures on the left had freed up a couple of units of Norman Knights to use their internal lines to rescue the situation: as you can see in the picture below, I went from an “about to take the two Anglo-Norman camps” situation to a “hit in the flank and rear” situation!

All was not lost, however, as high casualties on both sides meant that the game could still be mine. All I really needed was for my infantry on the right to finish off the Fyrd that were in orbis. The Fyrd had already been disordered, and I had two strong units ready to attack them. Surely the Fyrd would now die or, if that attack failed, there were some disordered Knights to kill instead.

All was looking good as I prepared to start my turn…

The bad news continued as we resolved the back-to-back situation, leading to a debate about whther I was actually just unlucky or, given that I had had some luck in the game, just unlucky at the wrong times in a game: is an Ace just an Ace, or is it an ACE!

And unfortunately I didn’t get another chance, as on Peter’s subsequent turn he managed to break one more of my units sending my troops reeling into retreat.

A roller coaster of game that both sides could easily have won. I was glad that I’d learnt about the back-to-back quirk in the rules: something to watch out for in future games.

So my losing streak continues: five games of To The Strongest in a row now. Hopefully this means that I’ll have got all the losses out of my system before the Wales tournament in a week’s time!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans vs Medieval Irish

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Time for a bit of training before the first tournament of the year: a friendly game involving my Early imperial Romans taking on Peter’s Medieval Irish.

The Romans leave their box for the first time in twelve months

Outscouting me, Peter had tried his usual trick of weighting his troops on the side of the table (my left) opposite to where my command of veteran legionaries had deployed: the idea being that he would win the battle on my left without the vets having had the chance to properly take part in the game.

To counter this cunning tactic, I refused my left flank cavalry command and began moving the veteran legionaries over to the left as fast as they could march. This left my right flank open and, sure enough, Peter had light cavalry on the way there to exploit the gap.

The situation was compounded by a lucky shot from Irish light bowmen that took out my Equites Sagittarrii light horse, leaving that flank even more vulnerable!

I wasn’t too worried on my left, as even my standard legionaries are a pretty tough bunch, with the Roman cavalry all being veterans as well.

This was good, as battle there was joined very quickly, with both sides rapidly being drawn into a grinding melee.

Meanwhile, on my right, I had been forced to deploy to contain the Irish lights and the troops Peter had moved up to support them.

This, of course, meant that he had achieved exactly what he had set out to do, although not as successfully as he migth have hoped as, on the far right (picture bottom left in the gallery above) it had taken him abiut 20 points of lights to occupy 20 points of legionaries/auxiliaries.

Meanwhile, back on the left, the grinding melee had not gone my way. We both thought that this was to do with Peter having had the cards when he needed them (i.e. luck) as on paper the two sides were evenly matched with five decent fighting units apiece. Whatever the reason, I had decidedly lost the fight there and was on the point of being wiped out!

The game ended when, on the right/centre of the field, the Irish lights finally slipped through my cordon of legionaries and auxiliaries and managed to take one of my camps. A rather ignominious 4-11 defeat for the Romans!

Some valuable lessons re-learned after the Christmas break: and not just “don’t play Peter if you want to win”!

I understand that Irish armies are this year’s “thing”, and one can see why given how they performed in this game. We Romans are, however, a resilient lot, so it’s just a matter of time before even the Irish will be conjugating their Latin just like the Gauls, Germans, Spaniards etc!