Gallic Allies

According to the Field of Glory Mid-Republican Roman army list you have various  options to take units  other ancient tribes and peoples. So  after some consideration  I opted for a battle group of Gauls. I did this for two reasons firstly I thought they'd be fun to paint  and secondly they can be impact medium foot  and hide in the bushes  until they charge out an die heroically on the enemy's  spear tips.

Hopefully  this gives me enough  time to do something clever with my legions and turn the battle  in my favour. So far they have been very helpful in cancelling out the threat of my opponents medium troops. I guess I am beginning to think about this rules a bit more strategically and am starting to understand how to use different troop types for different roles,  rather than simply marching forward and dying.

I really enjoyed painting the Xyston figures, so much so that I am considering acquiring a few sets of Gaesati "tout  nu" guys to give me an extra  set of optional troops. It will  also give me a touch of practice painting some more Gallic shield designs.

Too Bloody Long.

A little while ago I completed six battle groups of triarii for my Mid-Republican Roman army. This means  that now I don't have to keep borrowing Dave and Clive’s figures every time I want to fight in the period before 50BCE.

These guys got there first run out a while ago against Simon’s Pyrrhic pikes and scraped a marginal victory! However, when packing them in the makeup box which I use to transport them, I noticed a fundamental flaw in the construction. I have left the offensive spear a tad too long. They don’t fit in to the box nicely and they have to be lying down. Aside from this minor hiccup I am quite pleased  with the end result, even the rendering of what is supposed to be a wolf on their  shields  is  quite  acceptable.

More soon, I promise!

Campaign 2015

Earlier this month I went to the Milton Keynes to attend Campaign the local club's annual show which is held in the massive MK shopping centre.  I participated in the Field of Glory Ancient & Medieval Competition over the weekend. It is always good fun to some of games under competition conditions to improve as a player. 

I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of the competition and this allowed myself to become tentative and hesitant.  This is not a sound strategy when you are face with more experienced better players. Nevertheless, by the final game on the Sunday afternoon I managed to avoid a fourth route and being satisfied with a narrow loss.  It was good to score some points over the weekend. I was fielding Mid-Republican Romans, for three of the battles I faced Successor armies and the fourth battle was a civil war against a Mid Republican Roman army. 

Campaign is a great sceptical and the guys at Milton Keynes Wargames Club do a fantastic job to put on a wargames show in such a great venue. Along with the competitions  there were also a fair few traders and exhibitors,  One of  my  favourites  was   the  early First World War  Exhibition  battle  by the creators  of Crush the Kaiser  rules.  Here are some snaps showing a German advance on  the British lines.

I took the time to pop back to the game over the weekend to see the game unfold. The pictures illustrate the Germans closing in on the British positions, and taking some serious damage in the process. Although, their artillery did manage to get force its British counterpart to retreat.  It was interesting and informative to see the authors play their own rules. In my limited  experience of these rules I have enjoyed  and find  them  nice and  simple  and representative of the period playing  them.

Extraordinarii

I have been rather lax of late in the write of this blog. This has been due to a number of real world factor converging with my innate laziness. Nevertheless, despite this over. The last week or so. I have managed to paint up a set of Roman ally medium foot, Extraordinarii for my developing mid-Republican Roman army. 

These guys are from the Mirliton range from Italy. They are really excellent figures , beautifully proportioned and cleanly cast. Once the get a lick of paint the spring to like. 

A further advantage is that since their spears and shields are separate it is possible to get a range of poses. 

I must add that I feel the colours on the Italian style shield has worked well with these figures. Although I would not claim any historical accuracy.

Next up for the painting table will be some triarii.                                         

Baggage

Clearly one of the major priorities for a wargamer such as myself who lives in a metropolitan area and depending on the public transport infrastructure is how to get me and my army from home to work and then on to the wargames club. Thus raises the question; how should figures be transported safely?

The first option was to borrow my wife’s floral print hold all which seems strangely appropriate way to carry the Mid Republican Roman Army I borrowed from Andy. This did cause a number smirks from some of the mothers in the school playground, when I arrived bag in hand to drop my daughter off for her day at school.  In response to the raised eyebrows my choice of baggage caused I stated that I was comfortable enough with my masculinity to wonder around with a lady's floral print bag.

Nevertheless, I still had the problem of how best to transport my new Imperial Roman figures. After cogitating the various options open to me it struck me that a couple of years ago I received a free gift of a figure case when I visited a Salute. Remembering this I went on to the KR Multicase website to order some foam trays fit it. Fantastic, all sorted. I even justified the purchase to my  wonderful wife  by saying that it was likely that most of my figure would be horribly killed the ensuing game so the least I could do is ensure that they could travel there and back in relative comfort. She concurred with a loving smile.

With the all the components acquired it was just left to me to work out how best to pack the army. Could I remember where I put the freebee case? Err… no idea. After empting every cupboard and checking every illogical place at home and finding things that I had previously lost and given up on I drew a complete blank on where the case might be. In the back of my mind I have the suspicion that this case may of fallen victim to my wife’s cleaning and de-cluttering regime  which at times can take on a slightly Stalinist ilk.

Despite this drawback I did stumble upon a laptop case which seems to fit the bill as my new figure case, due tobeing the correct size to take the foam trays. Hay presto, now when I show up in the school playground on the day of a game my army will be incognito encased in a rather suave black laptop case... Good morning Mums ;)       

Facing the Successors Once Again

Last night I had the opportunity to play FOG ancients against Alan's Successor army once again. I fielded the same Mid-Republican Roman Army that was victorious in our last encounter. Alan won the initiative and opted for an agricultural battlefield with plenty of terrain pieces.

From the off I planned to play in a more decisive manner and it almost paid off. I was pleased with my all important deployment which gave me a strong centre and a right flank stacked with my best quality troops. What's more I even had something resembling a plan. Engage the pike in the centre with the legions chase the elephants off with the light horse. Sweep around with my 3rd legion from the right flank and cause mayhem.

The hill on the made an obvious point to attempt to secure however realising my legion would be too slow to capture it I set the line an inch away from it.

My first offensive action was to charge with my Extraordinarii causing a bit of disruption to Alan's light horse.  Unfortunately, I failed to follow it up due to poor troop management.  This caused my flank to become stalled and the old enemy of indecision set in once again.

In the centre there was a good old slogging match between the pikes and my legions.  It was 50/50 in all respects with Alan managing to sneak a battle group around the right flank to execute a nicely timed rear charge due to the hole left by my stalled flanking legion.

On the left flank a slogging match between a couple of medium battle groups continued throughout the battle with both sides attempting to gain the upper hand. We called a night shortly after that with us evens in the centre and Alan slightly edging it on the flanks, giving him a one point victory.

The Scrape at the Escape

I passed an enjoyable Thursday evening playing the final group B game of the CLWC B4AD tournament. While the match up between Mid Republican Romans and the Pyrrhics could have gone either way. Last night, it was Simon's night. He out scored me 12.9 points to 7.2.

Deployment positions at the start Romans on the right 

Most of the damage was done in the final couple of turns on the right flank where I got myself tied up in knots with a traffic jam of light foot. As a result my flank screen of medium foot, in retrospect  they were deployed on the wrong flank, were exposed and trampled, chopped and squashed by a combination of elephants and cavalry. One of the medium foot units were Italian Extraordinairii. These chaps which served me well in previous games, however Simon had faced them before in a previous games, when I deployed them he mentioned that he found them a dangerous opponent. My inexperience showed  by allowing to let them get isolated and his elephants and cavalry made them pay dearly. Two bases were killed off and the remaining ones routed when they witnessed the attached troop commander getting flattened by an irritated battle group of elephants.

  Tentitive advances

Up until the penultimate round it was more or less square, with tentative advances by both sides until the Pyrrhic elephants and cavalry struck.

The legions forelorn charge 

In the set up I lost the initiative and every optional piece of terrain I put down was removed by Simon's dice coming up with sixes. This resulted with a feeling of agoraphobia on the part my commander, faced with a large pike contingent with lots of room to manoeuvre and no terrain for me to run and hide in.

On the last turn I had my legions charge Simon's pike after an bit of manoeuvring to nullify the prospect of counter charges. This was in the hope I could cause a bit of disruption and claw back a couple of points for pride.  In the end I did fragment a pike unit to salvage some pride, despite some dismal dice roles on my part.

All in all a highly enjoyable evening playing soldiers!

Fun Shopping

I don’t like shopping and what’s more I am not very good at it. So in preparation for my day out at Salute this year I am attempting to be very organised and putting in some advance orders with traders so I can come back with things I will actually want I want rather than finding I have bags full of impulse buys which seemed like a good idea at the time.

So what's on my shopping list ;
Well more early Imperial Romans
Some mounted commanders
Some more archers
Some slingers
Some principes to start my Mid-Republican Roman army
and maybe some dead guys for cohesion markers

I also need some measuring sticks because I am continually borrowing my opponent’s ones.

While I am on the subject of Salute, last year I was invited to write a guest blog post for the Out of this World exhibition at the British Library. I felt this is an opportune moment to refer to it once more.

As you can imagine the works H. G. Wells were well represented in the exhibition. The blog post highlights a lesser known work of Wells' "Little Wars" considered one of the first set of published wargames rules. It draws connections between the literary connections of the steam/diesel punk genres and the active a vibrant community of sci-fi gamers. Do have a read of Present Wargames.

Roma Vincit

Well Monday's game is done and the miracle occurred, I beat Alan’s Early Successor army by 1.8 points. Giving me my first Field of Glory victory 10.9 points to 9.1.

Any post battle analysis has to start by giving credit to Andy the owner of the Mid Republican Roman army I was using, firstly for the army, and secondly for the useful advise he dispensed after our tournament encounter and again directly before the game.

In previous games I managed to get my Roman cavalry killed with alarming regularity. So this time I dispensed with them opting for a battle group of Numidian Light Horse and an extra group of medium foot Italian allies.

The light horse paid dividends due to their manoeuvrability. Despite being placed on the right flank they managed to race across the field in front to the main battle line and intercept a battle group of elephants which were bearing down on the end of the line of legionnaires. This made all the difference to the end result because it occupied the elephants so they thought better of charging the legionnaires.

The deployment at the start of the game.

Despite losing the set up initiative roll at the beginning, the terrain fell in my favour providing me with a steep hill on the right flank and a large section of rough ground towards my left flank. In the centre I had a nice gentle hill to place a defensive line of legionnaires on and nullify Alan’s pike force since I didn’t think they would fancy attacking up hill.

Once my position was set I only had to worry about my flanks which were covered by a couple of battle-groups of superior legionnaires and a mix of light foot and auxiliaries.

The first rounds of fighting resulted in me losing a battle group of light foot on the left who ran away at the first sign of trouble. I made no impression against Alan’s light horse on the right. As a novice player I found myself out numbered in the in the shooting and combat phases so opted to pull out my remaining light troops and attempt to rally them.

On the right flank I moved forward a superior legionnaire battle group which had a couple of charges at the light horse. They managed to isolate themselves, at the time this worried me. Nevertheless, in retrospect I think this was a good thing to do since it kept his light horse in check, away from my main line and forced Alan to move troops across to counter them. Being superior they took a fair bit of punishment before they broke and ran.

The end positions to the from Alan's side of the table. you notice my legionnaires exiting on the fare left of the table and Alans battle groups breaking and exiting on the right.

However, it was on the left flank that the battle was decided. After having my velites chased from the rough ground by a combination of light and medium foot my other superior legionnaires stood up to charges first, from medium foot and then from superior cavalry both of which broke on their line. Alan’s light foot over ran its support and ended up being chased around my rear by triari. By the end of the game they found themselves in a precarious position of being surrounded on three sides by triari with velites closing on their position.

Alan's light foot finding themselves in a slightly unsavoury position by end of the game.

So far in the B4AD tournament I am one win and one loss. I was informed that I need to win the next game and score at least 25 points to displace Andy form second place in the group as Alan progresses to the next round being top of the group on points accrued despite my result. Naturally I will be supporting Alan to go all the way and win the tournament so I can claim a victory over the champion at the group stages!!

Photo credits : Alan.

Second Tournament Game

Monday evening approaches and it marks my second match in the Field of Glory B4AD club tournament. Since Andy mullered me with his purpose built, Roman killing, Seleucid army in my first match up any chance of progressing to the next round depends on achieving a big victory against Alan on Tommorrow. This is a big ask considering the quality of my opponent and my relative inexperience with FoG. Realistically, if I remain with five points of Alan at the end I'll be happy. Anything better will be nothing short of a miracle.

Resurrection of Minuature Inspiration

In the past couple of months I have started to wargame again after a few years away from the hobby. Since this blog has been lying idle for several years now I felt I could resurrect it to report on my various exploits in lead. Currently I am involved in a Field of Glory ancients tournament at the Central London Wargames Club, although I expect to be knocked out on Monday…

As many other wargamers do I thought it would be good to post occasional battle reports and other things that might catch my eye.

In my previous engagements of Field of Glory at the second time of trying I managed to pull a draw out of the bag against Alan’s Persian army using a Mid Republican Army kindly lent to me by a fellow member, Andy. The final stages of the battle are pictured below:

The second game was not so successful from my perspective, I lost! A full battle report can be read on Tamsin, my opponent’s, blog ...