I Played Some Actual Games!

Over the past couple of years I haven't actually played many games against real live opponents but over the past month or so I've been getting back into putting troops back onto the table and facing off against real live opponents.

Game 1

The First of these games was an ancient battle - Republican Rome v's Carthage, using the To The Strongest rules. My opponent for this game was Jenko. Rome had Spanish allies and Carthage had Gauls. It was a great game. We missed some of the finer details of the rules but TTS is an easy set of rules to pick up. Rome came out the victor this time around.

A big cavalry/light infantry bash on the Roman left flank saw early success for Hannibal's men with one unit of Gauls standing up to repeated attacks. But in the end they were over come and the advantage went to Rome. 

The major Roman push was in the centre where the legions advanced. Hannibal on his elephant was routed and it stampeded through the Carthaginian lines causing havoc and opening up the centre.

Game 2.

My next opponent was Lorne. We played a game of Sword and Spear - Vikings V's Anglo-Saxons. This gave me a chance to bring out my Anglo-Saxons for the first time in a long lime. It had also been a long time since I last played S&S and I think that last time was also against Lorne.

The vikings had a smaller but better trained army whereas my Anglo-Saxon army, lead by Æthelguy the Seeker was larger but less battle hardened. However, in the end my brave men defended their heath and home and repelled the viking invaders.

My plan was simple: Send out skirmishers, hold back and make the enemy come to me with the hope that a long advance would break up their battle line. Lucky for Æthelguy, that this tactic paid off.

In the pic below a unit of Viking Berserkers smashed their way through the thinly defended Anglo-Saxon right flank routing several units. They were stopped by a unit of poorly armed and untrained fyrd who hit them in the flank and stopped them for just long enough to ensure the Anglo-Saxon victory.

Æthelguy also had some wild Irish allies in the form of light javelinmen. One unit advanced, hurled their javelins and got wiped out by  group of mounted hauscarls. The second band of Irish faired batter by seeing off the horsemen. Unfortunately they got carried away and hurled themselves into the flank of some heavy infantry who routed the wild Paddies with ease.

Game 3

WWII this time, and again my opponent was Jenko. We played O Group using the introductory scenario in the rulebook - Attack at Christot. Jenko took command of the attacking British and I played the Germans. This is a good intro game will all the elements present to teach someone the rules as you go along.

This time around Colonel Jenkins lead his brave battalion to victory by driving the Bosche from Christot and securing the town. I forgot to take photo's for most of this game but the action starts with the appearance of a German PAK40 taking out a Cromwell (those who know the game and scenario will note that I subbed Sherman's for Cromwell's because I don't have any British Sherman's).

And this was Col. Jenkins's response.

A second Cromwell is hit but the British infantry keep up a steady advance.

An assault on the farmhouse sees the Germans hurled back in disarray from their strong point.

And that's all the photo's I took of that one. An artillery barrage and infantry fire took out the PAK40 and also damaged the Panther tank that came up behind it in support. A second armoured section that included a Firefly came into play and took out the Panther. 

All in all, it's good to be playing some games again.

Thanks to Jenko and Lorne.

P.S. And just in case you're wondering Athol Guy is the bass player from the 60's folk group The Seekers.

Did You Say You Want More Iberians?

I got a few more of my Ancient Iberians done during the week. These figures are taking me a bit longer than normal because of the shields. Choosing to do them by hand is really slowing me down and making the job of painting them a bit of a chore. I don't usually put a lot of detail in 15mm, I just do enough to make them look good en mass. I wish I had opted to go for decals but... In for a penny, in for a pound. I'm painting them and that's that!

I wasn't sure about the shields on these guys. I wasn't too keen on the cavalry using the scutum (large shield) as it seemed a bit off and I thought they'd be better with the lighter (caetra) shields. Unfortunately, there is very little information available online so I went back to my, somewhat vague, Osprey book.  Reading through that tome of wisdom once again, I read a passage where it stated that the caetra was the most popular shield for all cavalry. So, in my newly enlightened state, I decided to go 50/50 on the shields.

Once again, I decided to base them on 80x40mm bases. I'm not sure if this is a good move or not. I do like the look of them and I also like that they are less fiddly when handling them. But I don't know... Maybe I'm just stuck in the DBA/M mind set. I want them to be versatile for any set of rules and the DB[insert relative initial] style still seems the most prevalent way of basing ancients.

This is a commander. He's from the Iberian Nobles pack. The Standard Bearer set comes with standard bearers (shock!) but no actual standards. To get them I need to put in another order and wait for them to arrive from Scotland. I decided that a bit of greenstuff and some carefully selected swear words were the quicker option.

Because I'm basing the infantry 11 to a base I have left over figures. These come in handy. In To The Strongest you can attach Champions or Heroes (I can't remember what they're called) to some units. They give a unit a one off bonus. Off the top of my head I recall that you can use the champion to re-flip a card to give the unit a combat bonus or to get them motivated and moving. They might also do other things that I can't remember. In any games, I prefer to use single figures instead of tokens where I can. So here you go. A couple of Iberian champions.

So they're slowly coming along. I've doubled my cavalry and next I think I need to make a bit more infantry. We'll see what happens (no doubt I'll get distracted).

First Legion ~ Redux

In my last post I mentioned that I wasn't really happy with my initial Roman Legion so I came upon a solution which I like.

As you can see from the photos I've doubled the amount of hastati, principes & velites. The velites were easy because it was just a matter of painting up another unit of 4 bases. However for the heavy infantry I decided on a different solution.

What I did was remove one figure from each base filled in the area with some grit and flock and put the bases side by side again. So this gave me a smaller looking unit of 12 figures (instead of 16) with four figures left over. All I needed to do was paint up another 8-pack of figures and I had a second unit.

This worked for both the hastati and principes. For the triarii I removed the figures from the end of the two bases I already had and painted up another four figures. Done!

This looks much better to my eye. It's still small for a legion but the quincunx formation looks better and I'm counting on a second legion to complete the illusion. I also have some Italian allies on order to make up the numbers (in true Roman fashion). I was going to go for Iberian's but went with the Italiotes at the last minute.

Oh yes... I'm also getting some equites ready for paint as I type. I'm going small for these guys - If the hastatii, principes & velite each amount to 1200 troops then each unit equates to 600 troops. So... I'm thinking that 4 bases of cavalry should account for the combined cavalry of 2 legions ~ but I might boost it to 6 bases later. We'll see...

The Dice are Cursed ~ Macedon v's Sparta

It's been a while since I last posted because I haven't done much worth noting (just finishing off odd bits and pieces for different things).

For the time being, I've shifted my focus to getting some more 15mm ancients finished. I was also lucky enough to get a game with them last night (Friday) at our club's new venue at House of War in Ringwood. HoW is a bricks and mortar store which is very well appointed. It's large, has plenty of space (and tables) for gaming, modeling and hanging out. But more on that later...

I introduced Lorne to a game of Sword & Spear. You may remember Lorne from my last post. He commanded the right of the enemy forces in my last post. Introduce I say... I hadn't played S&S for quite some time and had forgotten about 80% of the rules but I did remember the basics like the turn sequence & things like that. I also had two 400pt armies to pit against each other.

This was the first time I got my un-blooded Successor Macedonians/Antigonids onto the table and they faced off against a rebellious Sparta and her allies.

I won't go into details of the game because I forgot to take photo's toward the end of the game as my phalanx crumbled when the Spartans got into their flank and rear. But I will say that the "Dice" had decided who to favour (and it wasn't me).

I started with less dice in the bag - 15 to Lorne's 18 but that was no major issue. However, some outrageous Discipline Test die rolling by the Spartans saw the Macedonian advance stopped in it's tracks. Then the loss of one, then two then three light/skirmish units saw my dice pool shrink to 12 to 18 and I couldn't recover any initiative. And it just got worse from there. It also didn't help that it was at this point the dice decided that favouring my opponent wasn't enough. Now they decided to punish my own rolling just to rub salt into the wound/s.

O Fortuna, Alea iacta est...

Towards the end I managed to get my aegema into the action and they pummeled the Spartiotes. Only three of their hoplite units were actual Spartans - The rest were undrilled allies. Still strong heavy foot but less maneuverable. 

My elephants also got into action early on and a prolonged fight took place on my right flank. This was where the first Outrageous Discipline Test roll took place and the Spartans who should have been trampled into the dust withstood my mighty pachyderms. At least they stomped the allied Thracians flat.

Anyway, as Marty Di Bergi said: "Enough of my yakkin'." Here's some photo's.

 The phalanxes closing in...

The Cretan Archers who stopped my Companion Cavalry dead

with yet more Outrageous Discipline Test die rolling.

The Dead Pool.