As the title says, not a full battle report, but just some pictures of a “noodling game” that friend Peter and I played recently to test out the effect of the new rallying rule.
Early Imperial Romans versus Classical Indians, with the Romans facing a penalty for successfully rallying and the Indians maxing out their longbows and veteran, escorted elephants.
More practice for Britcon as friend Rob comes over for a couple of games of To The Strongest. The first game was my Early Imperial Romans (well, the Marian Romans proxying for them) versus Rob’s Classical Indians.
not a lot of romans…
but an awful lot of indians
My plan was simple: my veteran cavalry would sweep forward on my left wing and quickly dispose of his raw horse; meanwhile the Legion would advance forward into combat using their superior strength and flexibility to chew through his javelinmen and elephants; once the lines were fully committed, my cavalry would return and hit the enemy from the flank and rear or sack the enemy’s camp.
Unfortunately, my cavalry were having an off day and just couldn’t break the Indian horse: they spent the entire battle tied up way out on the left. That meant that the job of winning (as usual, some would say) was all down to the legionaries.
Fortunately they proved more than up for the task and, apart from the odd minor set back mainly down to the Auxilia, once the lines had closed and the Roman “mincing machine” had started up, there wasn’t a lot that could stop them.
The coup de grace came from one legionary unit breaking through the Indian line and sacking their camp, taking the last Indian victory medals in the process.
Here are some pics of the game:
Having played Kavan using the Akkadians versus his Classical Indians, we decided to swap sides and play the game the other way round.
The Akkadians were outscouted, and set up in a long line of men holding sharp pointy sticks, placing their veteran battle carts on their left/my right. I matched their infantry with my own, but put all my chariots and cavalry on my left. My plan was to hold my infantry back, giving them as long as possible to shoot their longbows, whilst I outflanked and won the battle with my mounted troops on the left.
Initially, this actually worked very well indeed. On the left, my chariots and horse neatly swung out a bit and headed past the end of his line at a rapid rate of knots.
This allowed me to send one unit of chariots towards his camp, and the other into the flank of his right-hand infantry.
Surely this was the game sown up…but, no, the Gods laughed and shuffled the deck, and the lone Akkadian spear unit at the end of his line snapped round neatly and disposed of my (previously outflanking) chariots without much difficulty!
This was disappointing, but his camp was still about to fall:
Meanwhile, on my right, his battle carts and infantry had finally reached my line and were dashing themselves against it.
This was actually quite worrying as although my javelinmen can hold their own in hand to hand combat, my longbowmen have a tendency to crumble really quickly.
Fortunately, the Akkadians assaulted the longbowmen piecemeal, so my three units of archers could concentrate their fire and pincushion the most forward enemy unit each turn. This meant that they tended to hit my line disordered, which really evened things up.
Moreover, my javelinmen were up on a hill, and resolutely refused to give way no matter what. Here’s a pictorial account of events on that wing:
So the left wing was doing well, but hadn’t won the game for me; and my right wing was holding, but under pressure. I would now have to win the game in the centre, and that was where I had my elephants and the elite Maiden Guard.
In they went as fast as a charging pachyderm, and nothing could stand before them!
Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but with the cavalry on the left now free to assist, and the right wing just about won, the elephants did provide the coup de grace needed to take the last of Kavan’s victory medals.
A glorious victory for the Classical Indians!
Time for a game of To The Strongest: I would take the Akkadians (the new, ‘slim-line’ version from the latest army lists) and Kavan would use a Classical Indian army of the Republican variety.
My plan was to act almost purely defensively: luring the Indians forward onto the tips of my spears. My only offensive move would be to send my heavy chariots forward on the left to try and get around the Indian right flank.
Everything went almost to plan, as the Indian javelinmen, chariots, elephants and cavalry hurled themselves forward without the first on the list even bothering with their extra longbows. To cut a long story short, they impaled themselves on the Akkadian line, and the game was won pretty easily.
Chronological pictures of the game appear below, but it’s worth mentioning why I said “almost” above. My heavy chariots did indeed thunder forward on the left most impressively, but then ran into bother facing a couple of raw units of Indian javelinmen. I sent some Household Infantry to help, and they got into trouble as well!
Unbelievably, the only thing that saved the day was the unit of Nim skirmishers in the rough ground (the unit with the die with ‘1’ on it in the picture above) who not only resisted every attempt of the Indian javelinmen to evict them from said rough ground, but went on to use their javelins to wipe them out as well!
Their success held my left flank together and allowed me to win the battle in the centre and on the right.
So a relatively workmanlike victory for the Akkadians. Here are the pics:
One thing to note: figures for both sides come from the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed Z ranges: highly recommended.
My last post involved re-based four heavy cavalry style bases for my Sassanids and a new unit of Classicial Indian Javelinmen.
Guess what? This post does too…but they are different cavalry and different Indians.
These are the Sassanid Clibanarii or Savaran: the next one down from the Cataphracts we saw last post. Again, four units. It’s actually that I’ve got too many cataphracts rather than too many clibanarii!
Incidentally, someone asked me the best way to get figures off existing bases.
Well, there’s no easy way to do it.
One way is to anticipate having the problem and to spray the bases with an undercoat before you mount the figures on them. That way, if you do ever come to need to re-base, the glue has bonded with the paint rather than fully with the base, so the figures are comparatively easy to pop off, even if superglue is your chosen adhesive.
Leaving that aside, however, I have found the best way to get figures off bases is to soak the bases in water for a few hours before making the attempt. I use half of one of the plastic blisters you get tufts in i.e. a plastic tray that is long and shallow.
Put the base to be de-nuded of figures in there and trickle water into the half-blister until the water just comes over the top of the base. Leave for at least four hours. Then use a sharp screwdriver (not a Philips head!) to find the edge of each figure’s base and slide it in with a chisel-like action. Never try to pull the figure off the base: you’ll just break it off at the legs or bend it well out of shape. The figure should be popped from the base, not pulled.
Touch wood and all that, but I’ve just re-based 80 cavalry that were superglued onto either MDF or metal bases and not lost a single one.
And here’s another unit of Classical Indian javelinmen. Just one more unit to go and then I'll have painted all the Indians in the lead mountain.
The re-basing of my Sassanids continues: this time with the cataphracts.
Re-basing is a horrible job. There’s the danger of destroying a paint-job or even a figure as you take them off the old bases. Then there’s the tedium of gluing the figures to the new base, adding the basing material, dry-brushing and flock…and after all that you haven’t actually added any more figures to the collection.
On the other hand, you have schroffed up figures that you might never have used again. Although I love playing a cataphract/horse-archer army, I had unconsciously avoided doing so as I didn’t like the basing.
All that has now changed, and my Sassanids will once again be taking the field in the very near future…once I’ve re-based the elephants, infantry etc of course!
So, in the end, well worth the effort.
Regular readers will know that I want to buy myself a Norman army with the new CAD designed range from Museum Miniatures.
Well, why haven’t you, I hear you cry?
Unfortunately my rule this year is that I can’t buy any new figures until I have painted an equivalent number from the lead mountain.
Stupid rule, I know, but said mountain was getting a bit out of control!
So here are another 19 Classical Indian javelinmen, also from the Museum Miniatures CAD designed range.
Coming back to an army after you’ve “finished” it is always difficult. You have to remember how you painted and based the previous units in the army. This blog helps, as I tend to note down the colours used when I’m displaying newly-painted figures, and I keep a spreadsheet with the details on it as well. Highly recommended thing to do, by the way.
So, with the French infantry I’ve recently painted, that’s now 83 figures removed from the lead mountain. Another couple of units of Indians, one more of French, and I think I’m ready to give the bank balance a hammering on the Normans!
The final game of our To The Strongest battle day was a double-sized game with two players and 260 points per side. Si and I would take the Classical Indians again, Peter and Cayden would take the Alexandrian Macedonians.
One slight twist was that the results of the last four games were applied on top of the existing TTS points system to further balance the armies…and as the Macedonians had won three of the day’s four encounters so far, they had their Victory Medals (lose them all and you lost the game) reduced by a third.
Si and I decided to try the same plan that had almost worked in an earlier game: our left flank (under me) would hang back and try and hold the enemy’s main attack with the Companions and Phalanx whilst our right flank (under Si) advanced quickly, brushed aside the lights in front of it, and curled around to hit the phalanx etc in the side.
That was the plan…but unfortunately it didn’t work. Although the left flank did some heroic work holding up the Companions (the new rules about Javelinmen in rough terrain being very useful), the various Macedonian Phalanxes proved pretty unstoppable in the left centre, and our troops on the right just couldn’t get into play fast enough.
So there you have it: despite even points and a bias on the Victory Medals, the Indians still lost, Over the course of the day, that made four out of five Macedonians victories: I guess there’s a reason Alexander conquered the known world!
For the second encounter of the three-game marathon organised by Peter, I would take the Alexandrian Macedonians into battle against the Classical Indians.
My opponent set up in a tight formation in the centre of the battlefield hoping, presumably to pepper me with arrows before we made contact. His right wing looked very strong, with his heavy chariots and some elephants facing off against my Companions, but his left wing…well it looked a big “hanging” to me!
I therefore placed my three units of horse archers way out on my right: their aim would be to swoop round and attack his left wing from the flank and rear.
Once the game had begun, I advanced in echelon: holding back my left whilst my horse archers sprinted for the other end of the table. My pike blocks moved forward as fast as they could and, admittedly, I got a bit lucky here: the phalangites trotted forward faster than expected and almost immediately threatened his front.
After that good start, the battle unfolded almost exactly to plan. The horse archers swept around his left flank and rear just as the two phalanx units hit his front, and his left flank crumbled.
I then brought forward my Companions to prevent his quality troops on the right from intervening, and then it was just a matter of letting things take their course. In the end I won a victory 12:2 i.e. I only lost a couple of light units.
Off to Peter’s house for a three game marathon with him, Si and Caydn. The idea was simple: two teams of two, individual battles in the morning, one giant game in the afternoon.
My first game, therefore, was to take the Classicial Indians into battle against Peter’s Macedonians.
I was out-scouted, so set up with my powerful escorted elephants on my left flank, standard infantry and normal elephants in the centre, and my chariots and cavalry on the right. Opposite my left flank were the dread Companions, in the centre the phalanx block, and on the right several units of light horse.
My plan was for the left flank and centre to hold the Macedonians at bay whilst my chariots and cavalry dealt with the light horse and then swung round to take his phalanx in the flank…and it so almost worked!
As the battle began, his Companions and Phalanx did indeed come forward. I held back my left and left-centre brigades, but was still engaged quite early on. My chariots and cavalry began dealing with the light horse opposite them, but were too slow to do so, and although my right-centre brigade did start turning the Phalanx’s flank, it just didn’t seem to be happening fast enough.
The strong Macedonian units facing my left and left-centre began chewing me up, and although I now had infantry in a good flanking position, my chariots and cavalry were still trying to mop up the last of his lights out on the right.
I did manage to take out one Phalanx, but ran out of medals on the left and in the centre before I could get everything I had on the right back and into his flank. Unfortunately my army crumbled before that could happen, and I lost the game 4:12.
We both agreed that if I’d managed to hold out on my left and centre for just one more turn, then things would have been very different (you can see my veteran heavy chariots posed to sweep his troops off the table in the picture bottom right of the gallery above) but it was not to be. A great game, though, and much closer than the result would suggest.
Amongst those of you who read my previous post (last Tuesday) about the changes to the To The Strongest army lists turning my Akkadian double-depth units into normal-depth Spearmen was friend Bevan. He suggested that the best thing to do was to immediately try out the new look “slim-line” Akkadians and proposed a battle.
This we duly arranged, fielding the Akka’s against a Classical Indian army. Figures for both sides came from the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed “Z” ranges, so looked very good indeed.
akkadians (left) versus classical indians (right)
The Akkadians boasted four brigades: a shock brigade of two units of battle carts (good in a straight line!) supported by a unit of lights; two foot brigades each of one “bodyguard” unit of Spearmen with extra bows and two normal Spearmen units; and then a reserve brigade of two raw, militia Spearmen units and two units of light archers.
The Classical Indians, on the other hand, had only three brigades. One consisted of a couple of units of veteran Heavy Chariots supported by a unit of crappy horse. The other two were built around a unit of escorted elephants: one had the veteran Maiden Guard (hard women all!) and two Longbowmen units, the other had three Longbowmen units.
The two sides set up very differently. The Akkadians concentrated their battle carts on the left, opposite one of the Indian elephant brigades. The Indians concentrated their heavy chariots on the left (i.e. at the opposite end of the battlefield to the Akkadian battle carts) opposite the Akkadian reserves. Both sides deployed their main infantry bodies in the centre.
The game began with both sides moving forwards whilst maintaining their battle lines. On the Akkadian right, the reserve brigade refused the flank, leaving the Indian chariots with no-one to immediately charge.
the advance
The Indian longbowmen opened fire as soon as the Akkadians came into range. A storm of arrows headed their way, but there was something wrong with the Indian bows and the results of two rounds of longbow fire were one disordered Akkadian spear unit. Admittedly this unit then spent the rest of the game skulking in broken ground trying to rally, but the Akkadians had still got off lightly.
On the Indian right, one unit of elephants and the raw longbowmen headed forward, but the longbowmen hung back as the elephants surged towards the enemy…who wasn’t really there any more. Not liking the smell of the pachyderms (you don’t get too many elephants in Akkad) the battle carts had headed into the centre of the battlefield to join the main charge there, leaving some lights to keep the nellie’s occupied. The elephants would spend the rest of the game uselessly chasing the Akkadian skirmishers around that area.
elephants
The Akkadians initiated the main clash of the two battle lines, which rapidly turned into a disaster!
The Maiden Guard destroyed a unit of Spearmen, and either combat or longbow fire accounted for another…which happened to be the veteran unit carrying the Akkadian army standard and lost their accompanying general as well. That was seven coins (out of 13) down in one hit!
Losing generals seemed to be the theme of the game. Out of the seven generals who arrived on the battlefield at the start of the game, five were killed!
Losing to a bunch of ladies!
All was not lost, however, as the Akkadians settled down and got stuck in.
One Akkadian spear unit (the one out front in the first picture in this post) burst through the Indian line, destroying some longbowmen in the process, and managed to take the enemy camp, a significant loss of coins for the Indians.
The Akkadian reserves moved forward and filled the hole caused by the losses suffered so far, preventing the Indian chariots from lapping around the flank.
Other Akkadian units also saw off enemy units, killing generals in the process.
Taking the camp
The reserves are committed to cover the right flank
The climax of the battle was now upon us: with each side having just one victory coin left i.e. the next kill would win the game…and with disordered units all round, and lights on the Akkadian side, there were plenty of opportunities for either side to win.
The initiative was with the Akkadians: no kills on their turn!
The Indians tried their best: no kills (phew!) but the Akkadians were wavering. If I didn’t pull off a win in my next turn, there was no way I was surviving another round of Indian attacks.
I went through all my obvious kill possibilities (my good morale units versus his disordered units, flank fire on the raw Indian cavalry etc) with no result. Oh dear: this was not looking good.
There was, however, one last thing to try. Veteran, but disordered, battle carts charging diagonally at the disordered Indian Maiden Guard.
The battle carts managed to make the difficult move into contact, but failed to hit the Guard. Oh no!
But what was this? Striding forward came an Akkadian hero (the chap under the blue parasol in the picture below) and smote the Maiden Guard with a cracking hit. Bevan and I held our breaths as his save card was turned: a five and therefore a fail. The Guard fled the field and I and the Akkadians had won the day!
As always, a cracking game of To The Strongest and a game that had gone down to the wire. The narrowest of victories for the new slim-line Akkadians!
Time for another game of To The Strongest: I would play the Akkadians, friend John would play the Classical Indians.
The Classical Indians were of the Republican variety: normal rather than heavy chariots (two units); loads of longbows (five units); a unit of Maiden Guard javelinwomen (questionable historically, but lovely figures, pun intended); two units of elephants escorted by light infantry (hard to kill); and two units of not very good cavalry.
My brave Akkadians consisted of a couple of units of battlecarts (four-wheeled proto-chariots drawn by equids: as manoeuvrable as that sounds); lots of citizen spearmen (five deep units); three units of regular soldiers (two carrying axes and one armed with bows); and four units of fairly scummy light infantry (two units of slingers, two units of archers).
My plan was simple. Battlecarts on the left would smash through the enemy cavalry then wheel round into the rear of the rest of the Indian army. The rest of my troops would advance steadily forward, spears to the front, weathering a storm of longbow fire but pinning his troops in place until the battlecarts arrived. What could possibly go wrong?
Accidental advance in echelon
To answer the previous question: quite a lot actually. Firstly, my various brigades refused to advance together and I ended up moving forward in echelon.
Secondly, the enemy cavalry, which should have folded before the might of my battlecarts, proved stubbornly difficult to break: in fact, at one stage it looked as if it would be my battlecarts that were smashed from the field!
On my right, enemy chariots smashed into one of my spear units and drove it and its accompanying light infantry from the field. I should have been able to support the spear unit that broke with another brigade of troops, but they were at the back of the field stubbornly refusing to move forward.
Two against one: my “BLUE” spearmen are about to leave the field
That meant that John could advance his elephants in the middle of the field, attempting to defeat each of my brigades in turn.
two against one again: elephants and longbowmen combine against my “turquoise” spearmen
The game was definitely starting to look in the balance. Although I managed to hold the centre, with both sides taking a lot of casualties, my left wing battlecarts were bogged down in melee and on my right wing the Indian chariots threatened to run riot into the flanks of what remained of my centre.
All was not lost, however, as an extraordinary passage of play was about to occur in which the Akkadian Royal Household Axemen, previously stuck miles from the action as part of the brigade that had stubbornly refused to advance, finally got forward and set to work.
Facing two Indian chariots units, they destroyed both and killed the Indian general commanding them. They then resisted attack after attack from the elite Maiden Guard despite already being Disordered.
The Royal Household axemen: heroes of Akkad!
This success gave me time to reorganise my centre and to get things sorted on my left wing. The battlecarts were reinforced with some infantry and finally broke through the enemy cavalry and swung round, as planned, into the enemy rear.
With their centre hit from the rear and under pressure from a reinvigorated Akkadian army, along with the Royal Household Axemen who were still clamouring for more, the Indian army collapsed and fled the field. Victory was mine.
Well that had been a close run thing! At the moment when the battle was truly in the balance, a rather convenient run of luck with the cards on my part swung the day in my favour, and all centred around one unit.
the situation at the end of the battle
A great game!
Whilst I’m still waiting to find inspiration for my next major project, I thought I’d finish up a few bits and pieces from the lead mountain.
First up are a couple of Gallant Gentlemen for my Scots Covenantor ECW army:
Wallace-sized. The real one, not the shorty Gibson effort.
These are 18mm figures from Blue Moon’s new Scottish ECW range, and lovely figures they are too.
I bought these as a test to see how well they fitted in with my existing collection as I still can’t get the hang of whether 18mm figures are actually large 15’s, small 20’s or a scale all of their own!
With these, however, there is no doubt: they are too big to fit in with the Hallmark (via Magister Militum), Peter Pig and Khurasan models that form the main part of my 15mm ECW forces.
That said, a couple of comparative giants as Gallant Gentlemen fit right in with the concept of the GG, so I am very happy to have these two fearsome warriors on board!
As I said: lovely figures, but 18mm, so highly recommended if you want to field an 18mm ECW Covenantor army, but not if you want to field one in 15mm.
Next up was another general for my Classical Indians:
May the Fourth be with you!
These are more figures from Museum Miniatures excellent CAD-designed “Z” range of Classical Indians.
I’m always being told that I should field four generals when playing To The Strongest at 130 points. Now, with these, I can…and I actually needed a more cavalry-orientated commander for the later Indian armies anyway: by the time you get into the ADs, chariot-mounted generals are so yesterday!
Finally, I’ve had these undercoated on my painting table for, like, forever (as Daughter #2 would say).
Thundercats are go!
These are more of Khurasan’s excellent Felids mounted on jetbikes. I already have a couple of squads worth, so can now field a platoon.
These new versions are painted with GW Contrast Paints, and it’s interesting to contrast them (did you see what I did there?) with how I painted their predecessors:
Both look really good, but the old-platoon were painted with the base coat/wash/highlight method (i.e. each figures was picked up three times per colour) whereas the new ones, with the Contrast Paints, are only one coat per colour i.e. each figures was picked up only once per colour.
You can decide which is better!
Regular visitors will know that a couple of week’s ago, my Classical Indians were defeated by an 11-phalanx strong Hoplite Greek army played by friend Bevan. Now it was time to get my revenge with a re-fight of the same battle.
Opening stages: so far everything is going to plan!
Well that was the plan!
Unfortunately things didn’t go at all to plan, and I ended up getting beaten more comprehensively than at our last encounter. Once again my massed longbow fire just failed to break his deep units, often getting to the stage of double-disordering but then not managing the extra hit needed to break them, but this time my impact troops suffered from terrible cards just at the point of impact, when it mattered most.
Just before the two battle lines came together
Although the game, as always with To The Strongest, was great fun, my troops were then gradually ground down by the remorseless space invaders from Greece!
Here’s a few more pictures of the game:
Restrictions lifted on Sunday, first face-to-face game on Tuesday!
My Classical Indians would face off against a Hoplite Greek army fielded by Bevan…and what a Hoplite Greek army it was: ten units of Hoplites and one of light infantry. The rules used were To The Strongest, a grid-based game, so with my table being twelve squares wide, Bevan could form a space-invader like line of hoplite units and just advance forward, spearpoints out!
So many hoplites that I had to draft in some Summerians as proxies!
On the other side of the battlefield, my Classical Indians consisted of five units of longbowmen as the softening-up element, with a hard core of two escorted elephant units and two heavy chariot units as the “finishers”. Reserves were provided by the Maiden Guard.
Maiden Guards, Elephants, Longbowmen
As predicted, the Greeks deployed in a largely straight line and spent the early stages of the battle manoeuvring around the patches of scrub and palm trees in order to keep their frontage solid as they came into longbow range.
opening stages
At one stage it did look as if the cards had opened up a couple of holes in the hoplite line and, given a little more lateral space and luck, I could perhaps have got one of my heavy chariot units through a gap and into his rear, but Bevan just managed to block my path on both occasions.
I really wanted to get through that gap!
Finally the Greeks (and pseudo-Greeks!) arrived into longbow range, and my men opened fire. I was determined not to end the game with a camp-full of spare ammunition, so shot for all I was worth.
The Greeks staggered slightly, but came on. There were so many enemy units in an unbroken line that I couldn’t concentrate my fire, so although I could disorder or even double-disorder half his unit, I couldn’t quite break any.
The View from the Other Side
It was time to commit my melee troops, so forward trundled the elephants and chariots, wherever possible aiming at already-disordered enemy units.
Helicopter Viewpoint
Unfortunately, things followed the same pattern again: I disordered or double-disordered the four units I hit, but couldn’t quite manage the break, apart from one raw hoplite unit that did flee the field…but this was soon, space-invader like, replaced by another.
Damage, of course, was being done to both sides, but my troops only had two hits each as opposed to his three. I lost a unit of elephants (to what looked like the Spartans, no less), evening things up again, and the battle became one enormous melee.
Bye bye Nellies!
My men (and maidens) resisted bravely for a couple of rounds, another unit of hoplites was destroyed by one of my chariot units, but the writing was on the wall: I hadn’t done enough damage in the missile-fire stages of the game to win the grinding melee that followed.
I started steadily losing units, victory coins and eventually, the battle itself.
The game was actually a lot closer than the above implies. At one stage, I did actually manage to break his line with some chariots and had two more of his hoplite units on double-disorder. Unfortunately, the chariots couldn’t turn and get into the enemy rear in time, and I just couldn’t get the extra hit I needed to break the spearmen. I did use up all my spare ammunition though!
So a close run thing despite the apparent disparity in sides. My Classical Indians will lick their wounds and have another go in a few week’s time!
The far chariot unit has broken through, but too late to alter the outcome of the battle
As mentioned in previous posts, I’m expanding my Classical Indians to embrace later Indian armies: the Graeco-Indians, Kushans and Indo-Scythians and so on.
A lot of the differences involve the decline of the chariot balanced by the ascent of the cavalryman leading, eventually, to the era of cataphract-like cavalry supported by lights.
Here then are a couple of units that allow me to begin to effect that change: two squadrons of Indian armoured horsemen:
As usual, these are the rather excellent Museum Miniatures CAD designed “Z” range of Classical Indians: very nice figures indeed. These were painted with a base coat of metallic paint washed with Agrax Earthshade and then highlighted. All non-metals are Contrast paints.
Having painted enough Classical Indians to field a 130 point Monarchist army, it was time to start looking at what figures I needed to add in order to be able to field other armies from the Indian sub-continent.
First up was obviously to check that I could field the Republican variant of the classic Classical Indians. Hmmm…in order to do that, I needed to paint up another unit of horse.
These have sat, undercoated only, on my painting table for some time but, once I’d actually picked up a brush and got started, were actually quite fun to paint. It’s always that first brushstroke that’s the hardest!
These are more of the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed “Z Range”, and very lovely they are too. I particularly like the cataphract command figure in the middle: full of life and animation. Okay, so the guys with the swords don’t look too comfortable, but this is a Raw unit after all, and the spear-holding figures are nice.
Now on to see what I need to make my Classical Indians into Vedic or Tamil Indians, and then onto the Graeco-Indians after that!
Another couple of games of To The Strongest, again on Zoom. This time it was to be my Classical Indians against the Marian Romans: a bit more of a challenge than the Achaemenid Persians!
As before, the set up was for my opponent to have a combination of a stationary overhead camera surveying the whole battlefield and a roving on-table ‘detail’ camera which could be moved to where the action was taking place.
I lost the scouting phase and, as can be seen in the picture above, ended up in a long line across the battlefield facing a Roman force who’s main contingent seemed to be skulking in one corner.
My plan was therefore to hold back my left wing and send forward my centre and right wings to destroy his two separated commands one by one, and then combine my forces again to attack his rather impressive looking camps. Hopefully my superior numbers and mass longbow fire would negate his heavily armoured veteran legionaries (gulp!).
Skulking, I tell you, skulking!
Brave, noble, well-painted!
As already mentioned, I had lost the scouting phase, so my opponent had the initiative and would move first. That should have got him a couple of squares forward, just out of longbow range, but perfectly in keeping with my plan.
Unfortunately not.
A combination of group moves, marches, good cards and, presumably, sheer Roman determination led to a line of annoyed looking Italians appearing right in front of me before my men had had a chance to even finish their breakfasts!
Two thirds of his legionaries are now in my face!
Worse, some of his hairy cavalry had got off the table to the left of my line and were threatening to re-appear and roll me up like a yoga mat!
Well, that was my plan out the window: time for a desperate scramble to retrieve the situation.
A desperate scramble
Most of my men are uninvolved!
The cards were not with me either: although my four-horse chariots managed to manoeuvre themselves into the right position for a flank charge (above left), there they halted to admire the scenery rather than getting stuck in; and my longbows seemed to be firing the wrong sort of arrows today: nerf guns would have been more effective!
Then it was the Romans to go again, and my left hand command just evaporated!
I’m sure I had a left flank around here somewhere!
The Romans were then able to “left turn” with their usual alacrity and, although I did manage to kill one unit of light cavalry, that was really that.
Well that was as comprehensive a mullering as I have ever had!
The good news was, of course, that that left us time for a second game: every cloud, silver lining etc!
Things started well: I won the scouting phase this time and ended up in a much better position as the first card was about to be drawn.
Good, tight formation from the Indians this time!
A tough nut to crack!
The Roman commander looks down on my troops with disdain!
My plan was to quickly kill the cavalry in front of my right wing, then bring the chariots back into the centre for some flank attacks. Meanwhile, my other two commands would advance en masse and pepper his men with their longbows, weakening them in time for the elephants to go in from the front just as my heavy chariots hit them from the side.
Unfortunately, the Gods were against me again (despite me changing the pack of cards I was using in a desperate attempt to change my luck!) and my first turn ended with my men arrayed as shown in the picture above. Chariots: yes, good. Division One: yes, good. Division two…where on earth is Division Two!
If there was anything I’d learnt today about the Romans it’s that they can react really quickly to anything that happens and, sure enough, forward and sideways they came as they attempted to retrieve the situiation.
There was, however, an opportunity here. If I could get my chariots across the field and into the flank of the two legionary units in the centre of the table, then I reckon that I could hit one and then the other and roll them both up. After all, I’d have three attack cards on the first unit with a Hero and a General to get replays. That would put him a third of his main force down with no casualties to me:
I had, of course, neglected to factor in the fact that it was not my day!
Although my chariots flew across the field and got into a perfect charge position, they then stopped! I had had two chances to draw a seven or more (i.e. a 64% chance of success) and failed both times.
The Roman cavalry were thus able to come forward and hit my chariots in the flank (bye bye one unit of chariots and a general), then move the rest of their troops to begin rolling up my line.
Not as bad a mullering as last time, but definitely another hammering!
A couple of great games of TTS despite my ill-fortune. Some of you might be muttering that a good workman doesn’t blame his tools, but even my opponent agreed that it seemed as if every second card I drew was an Ace. For the final chariot combat, needing two 6’s for saves, I drew two Aces: a fitting end to the day!
Still, onwards and upwards, as they say: I’d like to fight the Marian Romans again, but might try one of the other Indian-style armies next time!
Regular visitors will know that one of my current projects is to build a Classical Indian army using the excellent 15mm CAD designed “Z” range from Museum Miniatures.
I already had enough figures to field a standard 130 point army for To The Strongest, which has already and quite successfully hit the tabletop a couple of time, but I wanted to add some units to increase it’s flexibility.
I say ‘increase its flexibility’ to mean two different things.
Firstly, I wanted to extend the figures’ use into other TTS armies, looking at the Vedic Indians as a starting point. This is an earlier army mainly consisting of chariots and javelinmen.
Secondly, I wanted to increase the tactical flexibility of the Classicial Indians. At the moment, I only have three commands, with my impact units being Elephants and Heavy 4-Horse Chariots. These are great, but risk being outflanked by armies with loads of lights. I therefore need more, slightly less powerful units as potential substitutes for the usual mighty, but inflexible, fist.
The lists all mention two-horse chariots as a slightly less powerful version of the heavy four-horse variety: less powerful so you get more of them. These would be ideal, except for the fact that Museum didn’t do them in their Z range.
Or at least they didn’t!
A quick e-mail to Dave, proprietor, with the request and justification, and within a couple of days (yes, days!) a two-horse chariot option hit the shop.
I bought nine!
These are, like the other figures in the range, lovely models and highly recommended. Great service from Museum as well. I feel ready for Alexander now!
Two remote games of To The Strongest played at the weekend: both featuring my newly painted Classical Indians against a cobbled together army of Achaemenid Persians.
I say cobbled together because I don’t have an Achaemenid Persian army, so what ended up on the tabletop were Assyrians as Persian cavalry, some Medes from an Alexandrian army, some Greek types as Ionians, some Scythian types as horse archers, then Sassanid Persian infantry as Sparabara and, embarrassingly and perhaps the most heinous crime, Greek Hoplites as the Immortals!
Due to lockdown, the game was played remotely i.e. the table and figures were set up at my house, with my opponent being able to see what was going on over Zoom from his house. After last week’s first attempt, I’d invested in a new webcam, so the picture was much improved:
I also bought a little tripod for my mobile ‘phone (you can see it in position, above) so it was also a lot easier to move the “battlefield reporter” camera around as well.
I placed my CinC and his two Heavy Chariot units in the centre, with the elephants and longbowmen on the wings.
Unusual activation cards leaves two Persian and one Indian brigades stationary. It was the start of many poor cards for the Achaemenids.
I let the Achaemenids get too close, giving up the longbow’s greater range advantage.
The Maiden Guard in a fetching turquoise. Lovely figures: actually look like maidens!
…my elephants smash into one unit of Sparabara.
Against my chariots in the centre.
…and the Chariots charge forward into the enemy horse archers.
Leaving the Chariots free to sack the Achaemenid camp.
So a victory for the Indians: a couple of enemy units killed by missile fire, but the main damage was from the heavy chariots punching their way through the centre. After the game, Bevan mentioned that he wasn’t expecting to find “cavalry” in the centre of my line, and this discombobulated his battle plan!
I also feel honour bound to mention that the cards were most certainly not falling for the Achaemenids!
Note the sneaky Persian horse on my left!
Remember I mentioned how badly the cards were falling for the Achaemenids? Same thing this game: opening volley of longbows killed two of the three Persian cavalry units facing my left flank.
…mean nothing. They are to help Bevan see the rough ground over the webcam.
But I send the elephants forward relying on the longbowmen to deal with (or rather slow down!) the enemy horse when it reappears.
The Achaemenids have haemoraged Victory Coins!
What with my early missile-fire successes, the elephants punching through on the left, and the chariots/cavalry dealing with the right, the Achaemenids ran out of coins.
Note the chariots have also punched through on the far side.
So a second victory for the Persians, although things were a lot closer this time.
Massed longbow fire, and the elephants/heavy chariots at the schwerepunkt, proved a winning combination. Both sides had infantry with strong missile fire but weak melee skills supported by decent melee troops (his cavalry, my elephants and chariots) but I had the advantage in both areas: my longbows outranged his bows, and my elephants/chariots were a bit better than his cavalry. These two advantages gave me the win despite having less units (by one!) and less flexibility (three commands to his four).
Still, I suspect Bevan will have his revenge. Next encounter will see me fielding the Indians again, but against an Alexandrian army…gulp!
I’ve finally got around to finishing another unit of javelinmen for my 15mm Classical Indian army: seems to have taken me ages!
I’m not sure why things have slowed down so much, but I suspect it’s something to do with playing three remote games over the last couple of weeks. I don’t know if this is something that happens to you, but I find that I am either painting or playing, but not both in the same phase, as it were. Weird, as you would have thought that playing would encourage you to paint.
I think what I really need is a new project.
I have got projects to finish - another legion of Romans, more Classical Indians, more ECW, more Hoplites, more Alexandrian pikemen - but am not enthusiastic about any of them at the moment…and there’s nothing worse that trying to paint a unit when you’re not enthused. I shall have to have a hunt around for something new to start…so feel free to make some suggestions. Must be 15mm though, as I only game in that scale (and to mix scales is, I feel, the road to madness and bankruptcy).
That said, I am going to try and run my first remote game on Sunday, so am busy working out how to get the best position for the camera, laptop etc. A report will follow the game, so watch this space!
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
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