The Battle of Tribola 147 BC at Hereward wargames show

Made my first trip to the Hereward show in Peterborough yesterday, putting on a To The Strongest! game with James Morris and Simon Miller, along with Matt and Doug. 
James devised a scenario based upon the named action, where a column of Romans impetuously followed their Lusitanian foe into a valley where they were properly ambushed. I supplied the Romans, Simon is the author of these rather spiffing rules, and James brought his lovely Spanish army and all of the scenery - including the rather special mountain that was, of course, Keren in a previous life.

View from the mountainside

The Spanish start to realise that the Romans aren't running away!

Simon doing the wargamers point

Simon explaining finer points of the rules

All in all a very successful day. I didn't actually play - mostly hovering about chatting with punters and helping the gamers who joined in.

We all expected the scenario to pretty much lead to a Roman squishing, but the first game went on for ages and actually very nearly turned into a Roman victory as Tim (I think) , took grave offence at the audacity of these Iberians, and went on the offensive, not trying to withdraw his army at all, but rather crush the Lusitanians in toe-to-toe combat!

The Romans get offensive!

In the afternoon, a rather smaller engagement was played, using the leading legions , and I believe this went a little more to plan, with Matt being assisted by a young lady who took the glory.

I had a bit of a look around the show but didn't buy anything. (apart from a bacon cob!) It's noticeable how many smaller games there are these days - lots of 'big skirmishy' type of things - not that that's a bad thing - people seemed to be having a lot of fun over both halls, and many games were still in full swing as the traders were packing up after 4 o'clock.

Having picked up Sharp Practice 2 this year, I've yet to have a game, and I'm starting to work out the best way to do it. (I'd really like to collect stuff for the 'Maximillian adventure' but cost is a limiting factor).

A few crappy pictures from around the show..

This was actually a very loud and fun game, doesn't look like it here does it?

Culloden

I was just thinking.. 'Could I use Sharp Practice' for Mars? And Yes, yes you can.

A real masterpiece this one - Benfleet

Now that's what 'Saga' should look like!

A few more pictures just didn't come out very well, but there were some other nice looking games on display.

Roman in the Gloamin'...

Strewth it's been  long while!! Quite a few reasons.. kind of lost my mojo and there have been some pretty big family issues to deal with. I have been able to keep up a little with some rail modelling, painting the odd figure (finally got my fourth Italian Ala painted up).. but haven't had a game in months. Until this week...

The mounted Lusitanian flank apply pressure

James Morris was in touch recently and I've signed up for putting on a Romans in Spain game at the Hereward show in a couple of weeks, with Simon Miller (we'll be using his 'To The Strongest! rules) and Matt Moran.

Simon has tweaked the Roman infantry rules, or at least, provided an alternative, to try to counter the frailty of the small legion units, and to reflect some recent thinking in "Slingshot", the journal of the Society of Ancients. The Hastatii and Principes join to form a standard unit and have some special rules that allow them to swap places, bolstering the saves and re-arming the pila.

I was keen to try the new rules out, and just to have a refresher really, as I'd rather be fairly au fait once punters turn up at Hereward and ask what we're doing!

Anyhoo.. the other evening I drove over to James' house and we spent the evening playing a very enjoyable 155 point game with my Romans vs his Lusitanians, and of course, chatting generally about gaming, history, figures and basing, and ideas for the upcoming demo game.

James setting up the Lusitanians (Romans opposite) note the attractive cloth with subtle grid

I won't provide a battle report, as James has done a cracking job of that over on the Lead Adventure forum, along with some nice photos of the game in action.

See here:

Lusitanians vs Romans - TtS! Battle Report

A bit of a catch up on two recent games.. Seven Years War and Rome vs Seleucid

A brief update on two recent games at the club..Less burble.. more pics.. all on the phone, so apologies for that.. must remember to take the camera along.

A couple of weeks ago, Steve hosted a rather spiffing Seven Years War game using his collection of traditional toy soldiers... it's hard to convey the spectacle of these lovely toys with crappy phone pictures.. but at one point in the battle I did stop and think I felt as thought I'd stepped into the pages of one of those Grant and Featherstone books I used to read in the library as a kid!

We were using the Piquet 'Field of Battle' rules and Steve and I lead the Austrians to an ignominious defeat. (Being a Prussian sympathiser, I was secretly not too disappointed with Greg and Pete's victory!)

Last week Steve and Scrivs had a go at To The Strongest! with Steve's new Pikey army.. being less than pleased with his new army's turnout, I suggested a game against my Republican Romans last night, fully expecting his huge pike blocks to roll over my little maniples.

Things didn't quite work out that way. We had an enjoyable game, Greg joining Steve. As ever, there was a bit of bad luck that had some influence.. the Seleucids struggling to get hits in during the early part of the battle. Tactically, I decided to forgo my instinctive method of trying to maintain some kind of line with my Romans, and went for a chaotic 'get in amongst them' approach.. using my lights to cause as much disruption as possible. 

I had some good luck against the Seleucid cavalry, my Italian allies pretty much taking one flank whilst over on my left, the elites made a right nuisance of themselves, getting around the pikes and scaring off the elephants.

In the end it was a Roman victory. not by a lot.. I was down to half my medals.

postscript - I realised that I had priced my maniples using an older list, so points-wise I had a slight advantage as the units cost 1/2 point more these days! (and give me less victory points too)

More Arthurians

Hot on the heels of Partizan, Scrivs and I planned to meet up for a game on Tuesday..
"Fancy a small game.. something skirmishy perhaps?" says I, particularly after the massive epic Arthurian do on Sunday.. 

...short version, a few texts later and we decided to play a game of To The Strongest!

And I'm glad we did. Had a cracking game, probably all the better for having played so recently - very little time was spent looking up rules etc (Although I do tend to forget to modify Saves - learning point).

We played around 130 points each - Scrivs will be posting soon no doubt, and took pictures on a proper camera, so hopefully with better ones than I have here from my phone..

The armies deployed

Up against his Saxon host, I fielded my Romano-British force - a mix of Romanised 'Auxilia', Pedites (javelin men), Light Bows and cavalry, with a strong wing of Saxon mercenaries or allies (Two deep veteran war bands with Shock)

I made a fundamental mistake in deployment and placed my cavalry, very useful troops, in a stupid spot from which they never really recovered. For much of the game, the Saxon horse faced no real opposition.

For much of the game it was fairly fluid.. on my right the Saxons met their compatriots head on and got into a grinding melee.. 

Although one of the Saxon war bands broke through, I had some success in the centre, and on the left things were pretty balanced, swinging back and forth.

However, in a couple of turns things went quite wrong for me.. Firstly one of those big mercenary Saxon war bands was destroyed, taking their general with them - losing me 5 of my 11 medals in one go! Then over on my left I managed to get some success, getting a few medals back, but charged my flanking foot straight into the path of the Saxon advance! (Charging units occupy the square vacated by destroyed units). That was it - although Scrivs lost a few more medals, I was down to 1 and it was a a matter of time before my army quit the field, having enough for one Tuesday night. Can't say I blame them really.

One observation.. I've found that when I'm playing games with TtS! that I'm not playing the rules, or the game.. I'm actually thinking about the situation in front of me, trying to decide where to act, where to take a chance and where to play it safe..for me, that makes it an enjoyable ruleset. (Doesn't make me any better or improve my chances of winning clearly!!)

** I just realised that there are no cards to be seen on any of these pics.. we did use them, honest!

Partizan 2.. Arthurian To The Strongest!

Today was the last ever Partizan show to be held at Kelham Hall. In some ways sad, as for me it's been a place of bi-annual pilgrimage for many many years.. my first ever war-games show was Partizan, just before they moved to Kelham Hall and I've only missed a few. On the other hand, it's dark and a logistical mare, so probably about time.

Anyway - by way of a send off, I was lucky enough to be involved in helping out with a rather splendid game (actually two games), showcasing Simon's To The Strongest! rules.. The two tables represented both ends of the Arthurian period, with Picts and Late Romans fighting it on one side, and Arthur's Britons taking on a Saxon horde on the other table.

Overall view of the two battles

The figures and scenery were all from our joint collections, and hopefully there will be some better pictures appearing soon, as my phone really wasn't up to the job today!

The games were for participation and we had good fun introducing new players (often Dads with Sons) to the rules..nice to meet lots of new people and share the fun of the game.

Along with all the people who came along and played, (some names I didn't get, sorry).. the team today included:

Simon Miller

Steve Jones

James Morris (who needs to start a Blog!)

Paul Scrivens-Smith

Dan Mersey

Last year at Partizan, Simon presented James with a perfect baboon for Keren (long story!).. Scrivs and James returned the gesture today with some lovely Asterix legionaries painted up for Simon.. I didn't get a picture of the figures, but did capture the moment.. I think he was pleased :)

Tidying up the Arthurians

An upcoming possible big thing at the second Partizan show has kicked my backside into gear and I've spent a little time tidying up the Arthurians that I had re-based a while back.

Quite a few figures had lost their spears, and the bases were a bit messy. These figures have been re-based so many times, and this will definitely be the last for them. They are all Gripping Beast figures, mostly purchased ages ago (probably more years than I think) after reading the Cornwell Arthur books. 

They were originally based up for WAB and organised to the 'Fall of the West' supplement before James and Steve released their Arthur book.

They are all on 120mm unit bases, great for games of To The Strongest! and also for Hail Caesar or Dux Bellorum  (most of the units have integral dice frames).

Some skirmishers to finish off.. but these others are pretty ready I think.

(I'm not going to start re-painting shields and try to touch up too much)

Moving Pictures?

Something a little different this time. I do occasionally post videos relating to model rail stuff.. However,  this evening whilst I had my Romans out for a little box-shuffling, I thought I'd video them..

Generals and Heroes

If productivity (hobby-wise) comes in peaks and troughs, my wargaming activity of late has been somewhere on the valley's side. Just one of those things, I think, I'm somewhere in between bouts of inspiration. In fairness, I've also been fairly busy lately starting a new day job and cracking on with a model rail project.

Anyway, one little project I managed to get finished off today, is the painting and basing of a selection of generals and heroes for my Republican Roman army.*

*I say 'finished', although of course, seeing cruel close up photos means that there are still some finishing touches to be done! 

Too many chiefs?

I already had a few 1st Corps mounted generals on round 60mm bases, but thought it might be good to have some commanders mounted up on square bases to represent 'Attached' generals when playing To The Strongest! (and use the circular based chaps for 'detached')

The foot command figures here are Aventine, and despite my worst efforts to paint them, I think they are bloody lovely figures, full of character. I selected figures that look to be attired in a slightly more exotic 'Allied' look.

 

1st Corps figs

Aventine Heroes

I've done some Aventine Roman and Allied cavalry too, so I ought to post some pictures of them next!