Monday Night Mayhem

I managed a spot of Monday night mayhem at central London last week.  My Early Imperial Romans had their first outing of 2014  against Simon's Early Successors.   It is a fairly even fight between legions and pike blocks. So it is often down to who can utilise their other units best to get the upper hand. For this game I made some simple promises to myself which were to make a plan and  then stick to it. Easy enough one would think. 

Thankfully my deployment forced Simon to squeeze his army into just under half the board. This caused him serious problems in organising his battle line and meant he could not take advantage of his superior numbers and quality on the right flank. 

I had to  readjust my line to attempt to counter his strong flank. In doing this I over advanced on the left and did not leave enough space for my cavalry  to  put pressure on the right. 

 On the left was where the skirmishers met for their own private skirmish. Simon had two units of light horse against a unit of horse archers and a battle group of slingers. I used my advantage of greater range and focused my attacks on individual enemy battle groups to try to gain some sort of advantage. Luckily it worked out in my favour.

I had in reserve some roman cavalry to chase down one of Simon light horse units and then  swing around to the rear of his pikes.

The combat  between the main bodies of troops was pretty conclusive within a couple of rounds this was mainly due to really great dice which resulting in Simon’s pike blocks fracturing before he had the opportunity  to bring to bear this superior forces on the right flank. In the end I was pleased to claim a welcome victory, losing only a single base.        

Imperial Romans come up against Galatians

Right lets give you guys a battle report. It has been a while since I wrote up a report from one of my games for the blog. On Thursday night I fielded my early Imperial Romans against Alan's Galatians. I won the terrain and optioned for hilly. Nevertheless, in the set up I isolated my light troops by placing them to far over on the flank in an effort to protect a poorly placed camp. This was clear at the end of the game having lost a battle group of light foot and my fortified camp.  

My basic strategy was to attempt to keep the attention of the enemy with a battle line of superior legionnaires accompanied by a couple of battle groups of  cavalry who can pile in  at the appropriate moment to cause mayhem on the enemy's right flank. This was fifty percent successful with the Contonii lancers making short work of one warband  which allowed then to come in to the right flank  of his main battle line. The plan was very close to coming off. However, on reflection while my cavalry left me slightly flat footed. Despite being a little disconnected I felt I could prevail. 

When it came down to it was a game of nip and tuck. Alan killed one of my commanders and then in the following round I kill one of his. I dropped a cohesion level at one end of the melee while Alan dropped a level at the other end. I break a unit of his in the impact phase, he breaks a unit of mine in the melee round. 

At the end of the game I was sure I could edge it with a charge to the rear of the end of his battle line. Alias my brave legions charged in carrying a disrupted marker and lost the impact and double dropped to broken and ran away giving Alan a well deserved victory nine points against four.   

   

“Probably the most one sided game I've played to date”.*

That game was a great fun! Phil and I lined up with our Early Roman Imperial 800 point Army against Simon and Mark who fielded a later Macedonian pike army. True to form we lost the initiative. Despite this under the new rules Simon handed the choice of terrain back to us. After much discussion we opted for a hilly battlefield terrain. During the terrain placement Simon rolled all odd numbers so all the terrain pieces ended up on our side of the table. This dictated our set up, allowing the Legions to set up between terrain pieces.

Battle kicked off in the usual way we have lined up our heavy foot opposite one and other in preparation for the pike and legions units to mix it up. The medium foot set up on the left flank with some cavalry and light horse.  I noticed Simon placed some Cretan archers on my far right flank positioned to attempt to take the high ground. I felt it was important not to allow him take this high ground so because it would overlook my the main battle line of legions commanded by Phil. Using horse archers I charged them up the hill on to the high ground which not only deterred this Cretans from advancing on the high ground but it also gained the attention of a battle group of superior cavalry.          

On the far left we found ourselves outnumbered 2-1 on cavalry battle groups. I felt this could have got a little sticky at some point if my superior cavalry got flanked. Nevertheless, Mark opted for the direct approach and steamed in with both his cavalry units. Two to one he must have thought he'd have me. I survived the impact well getting the better of it on the right. In the following melee with two dice against four I got two hits to nil which on the cohesion roles dropped Mark's cavalry two levels. This was bad luck on his part. 

After lousing up my deployment of Numidian light horse and running them backwards and forwards in my usual manner. I let my medium foot form up into the battle line. All that was left for me to do was to march forward. 

While the legions matched up against. Simon's massed Macedonian pike for a slogging match which were basically evens. After the impact the roman medium foot found themselves with an advantage. In a couple of round the protected Macedonians broke and headed for the hills. This freed up Phil’s forth legion to create an overlap on the left of Simon's pike block and my pursuing auxiliary foot broke off their pursuit to hit the disordered pikes in their flank. Considering the number of disorder markers the pike had this was the end of the game, marking the most emphatic victory to date by winning six points to nil, (unadjusted for army size).

*Mark's remark after the game over email. 

Field of Glory 2.0...First Time...

I heard somewhere there have been some changes to Field of Glory.  This is a system I enjoy playing although I am not sure I understand the finer details of it fully, might I add this is more of a reflection on me than the system. I any case tomorrow evening I will have the opportunity to play my first game under the amended rules. With 800 points rather than the usual 650 point games we usually play at CLWC.

I find myself quite excited by the prospect since I haven’t managed a game of FoG for a couple of months, it is a good opportunity to reacquaint myself with the rules. What adds an extra level of excitement since this will be my first doubles game. My friend and colleague Phil is joining me to command the early Imperial Romans on this outing.

Last night I took the opportunity to review the troops in anticipation of Thursday’s clash against Simon and Mark’s Later Macedonians. This allowed me to ensure the base counts matched the army list.   I should also mention a special word of thanks to Alan who kindly lent me a couple of extra battle groups, allowing me to make up 795points for this game.

As a teaser I thought I would put up some pictures of the legions practicing their square bashing prior to being boxed up for the trip to the club tomorrow evening.  

                

Early Imperial Roman Army

Well, with a minimal fanfare of trumpets, the clatter of pots and pans and the sound of hobnails on cobbles I can finally announce I have completed painting my Early Imperial Roman Army. 

At this point it is worth while doing a little recap of the main elements that make it up:

We have three legions of  legionnaires making up the main force. These legions are made up of six bases apiece but obviously could be configured in to more flexible four base battle groups.

Supporting the legions are two battle groups of Roman Auxiliary who are classified as medium foot. They can fulfil a number of roles in addition to dealing with broken ground but also they can offer rear support.

In addition to the Roman Auxiliary I have included some archers units despite never having used before. Nevertheless, I have given myself  some extra options including using them on high ground or interspersed in a line to fire and withdraw.

Rocking up behind the Auxiliaries are the noble Roman Cavalry  who in my experience die quite easily no doubt due to my own poor handling. However I have promised myself not to squander the lives of the sons of Roman by charging it to all and sundry.

Next up are the light elements which comprise of a load of blokes who throw a load of rocks at the oncoming enemy and then get out of the way just in time for the next battle group of Equites Satgitti to sweep in and unleshing a volley of arrows before charging off on a heroic flanking mission of some description. 

On to the one of my favourite units the Numidian Light Horse who can case no end of mayhem to the enemy ranks by racing up and throwing pointy sticks at them. 

The final battle group is the light bolt shooters who can sit on an hill getting drunk waiting for anyone to stray into their field off fire and then they can unleash a couple of larger pointy sticks at  them before getting back their picnic.

One must not for get the illustrious command stands whose job it is to lead this army around the fields of felt and over the plywood hills to Elysium.

Painting Priorities

Amongst the bits and bobs I have collected over the last month one will find an eclectic mix of different figures, rules, wargaming tools and ephemera.

Nevertheless, the thing that should have the highest priority is to finish painting and basing my Imperial Romans so I can do battle with my very own army.  Currently the painting production line is full of the second cohort of legionnaires who must be feeling slightly neglected by now.

In addition to this, I am in the process of cleaning up my newly acquired Donnington Miniatures horse archers which arrived this week.  I need to give a bit of thought on how I'll paint these chaps up. Assuming they originated from an area of Roman's eastern European conquests, possibly present day Hungary or Romania and seem to be quite lightly armoured  I wonder if a brown cream palate would suit them?  

In any case I have plenty of time to think about this while I slog my way through all those legionnaires.

Legionnaires

Over the last week while on my holidays I’ve been painting up legionnaires. There should be enough figures to make up around twenty-one bases of heavy foot. I have divided the figures into two batches of nine and twelve groupings of four figures.


To add a bit of interest to the battle groups I have included some figures from command packs to act as centurions and signifers on some of the bases.

I believe historically the centurion was positioned on the front right of his century. This will be illustrated by the placement of a centurion figure on the right and a signifer on the left position of a base. Once formed up into a battle group it should appear as if the signifer is in the centre of the rank with the centurion on the front right of a battle group. Hopefully this will add a touch of interest to the massed ranks of legions.