I find myself back at the brush, painting some more Celts for a demo game at SELWG on Sunday week. To minimise painting the detested plaid, I decided to paint a unit of nekkid fanatics and fustian-robed druids. These, however, have turned out to be quite as annoying as their plaid-clad comrades to paint, as they all wear fiddly bangles and chains, and because most of them will need tattoos. Plus skin takes a lot of care to get right. And then there's the shields! So much for my shortcut.
I've been posting rather less frequently, of late, because I've been spending a lot of time getting my "To the Strongest!" rules into a publishable state. With the assistance of a few very helpful chaps who have been spotting errors and inconsistencies, this is going rather well, and today I've been churning out diagrams. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up the modelling and blogging rate in October.
The game at SELWG will follow on from the Caesar's "C-Day" landing at Salute, as the Romans push inland. If anyone coming to SELWG would like to play (for around two hours) then please drop me a line via comments. I've run the scenario before; its a blast!
I've been to busy writing to do very much modelling, recently, but am trying to get back in the saddle. This is a revival of a truly ancient project, which I've been working on in a very desultory manner, since 2009.
Recently I've bought and assembled the additional models I needed to complete the project, and mate Nick Speller has painted all of the civilians for the wagons, so I have no more excuses for delay! These pieces will form a one metre length of laager. A second phase will be to incorporate the civilians who will man the wagons, and the third and final phase will be to built a camp to go behind them.
Some of the models are from Irregular, and some from Front Rank. A couple of the old ones are Minifigs, c. 1975!
My brief tour of the Midlands culminated with our Pydna game at Partizan.
The Pydna Project was a joint venture between myself and friends Keith Branagh from Aventine, Craig Davey, David Imrie and his friend Jack Glanville, Dug Page-Scott, John Thompson, Shaun "Bunker" McLaughlin and Andrew Fielden, most of whom brought miniatures to the event.
I had initially planned a Zama-sized 1500-mini game, but the project spiraled upwards until we had 2,850 miniatures on the table on the day, recreating the battle at 1:30 scale. The phalanx (not including supports) was 2.8 metres wide, and 4-6 miniatures deep. David Imrie was kind enough to re-base his Roman legion in a similar style to those we already had, giving us the required 4 legions of around 200 miniatures each. Simon MacDowall kindly let me use the briefing and order of battle from his recent piece in Wargames Illustrated.
Here's a shot of the deployment (all pictures expand when clicked):
View down the phalanx, looking up the hill towards the legions
I build the terrain, which was roughly 6 metres wide by 1.6 metres deep, with a nearly invisible grid. To recreate the slopes of Mount Olocrus upon which the Roman formed up, I jacked up the rear nine boards by 130mm and supported it underneath with timber and Really Useful Boxes, so that a giant slope ran the entire length of the battlefield.
Here's a link to a 30 second video showing the table after deployment; this is too good to miss!
The rules we used were my "To the Strongest!" set (to be published in November), which I originally designed to play large games at shows. I was able to shout (!) the basics across the table to the players in around 15 minutes, and field questions as they went along. We didn't need to consult the rules. The game took 3 hours and ten minutes to come to a suitably bloody conclusion.
Mid battle
The Macedonians attacked fiercely from the outset, all along the line. From my position on the Roman right (assisting a 13 year old tyro called Solomon), I could see that the Keith's Macedonian Agema were making fast progress, successively carving their way through Dug's velites, hastati and principes. There were some local Roman successes, with Solomon pushing forward with the Numidian elephants.
The killer taxis
However Aventine Keith managed to kill a unit of triarii and get a taxis of the Macedonian guard phalanx (above) to the top of the hill, turn it through 90 degrees (not easy) and march through the rocky terrain at the top of the hill (not at all easy) to kill the four more units of triarii (pretty darned difficult) required for a Macedonian victory.
We all had a terrific day and it was great to catch up with friends made at previous Partizans and through blogging. An especial thanks to everyone who helped with setup and knock-down! My hat goes off to Richard and Laurence for organising the event, and dealing efficiently with the curve-ball delivered by the Kelham owners (an unexpected stage in the main hall).
A short video of a game I played today with Scrivs and Mog, to show them my " To the Strongest" rules. Mog's legion was roughly handled by the Britons, but managed to hold on (barely) until relieved by Caesar and the Xth.
I also played a game of Chain of Command with Scrivs lovely minis and terrain, the report is here. Thanks for a great day! Very nice curry supper with Saxon Dog and friends, too. Off to bed for a dawn start...
I am in the final stages of preparing for our Very Large Pydna 168BC battle to be fought at Partizan Wargaming and History in Newark on Sunday. Pydna was the last hurrah of the Macedonian army, and the Roman General Lucius Aemilius Paullus apparently suffered from nightmares about their phalanx for the rest of his life!
With 2500+ 28mm miniatures, I hope that this will be one of the largest ancient wargames ever played. We could do with four or five more generals (we ideally need a dozen), so if you are coming to Partizan and have 2 hours or so free, please drop me a line! Previous ancients experience is not essential, and I'll teach you the simple rules on the day.
Had a very enjoyable long weekend in Basingstoke gaming with a fine bunch of chaps at the Wargames Holiday Centre, near Basingstoke. Much lead was shifted, and fun had. Not a lot of photos were taken though. :-(
The below is of a game I am using to teach the rules and to test the maniple vs. legion mechanics for our Pydna game on Sunday. Watching the phalanx struggling up Mount Olocrus was a lot of fun. The Roman velites were particularly effective at discomforting the Macedonians.
Another battle was Megalopolis 331BC, AKA "The Battle of Mice". This was weighted in favour of the Macedonians, but the Spartans made them work very hard for their victory in both games.
The third of 5 was a battle in Kent in 55BC, with Caesar trying to rescue his ambushed foragers. He succeeded once, and failed once. I made good use of the WHC's very large tables and terrain boards for this one.
Alas I have no photos of the other two games. I was very happy with the way the rules worked, and took away some useful suggestions. But boy, am I knackered! :-)
