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.

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.