Showing posts with label Tournament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tournament. Show all posts

Wednesday, 27 July 2022

Precautionary pedestrian knights


I'm at the TtS! Britcon event on the 12th of August with an army of mounted knights, the only army that I have that is portable enough to carry on the train. Unfortunately it is any army that struggles with elephants (chum Sid held up my whole army with a single pachyderm, last year), and I suspect that elephants will be very "à la mode" at this year's events. So, as an anti-nellie precaution, I'm preparing dismounted versions of my mounted knights. I plan to do a speed paint job on two dozen Perry plastic knights I had lying around, assembled, and add them to a few finished minis I found in my "reserves". Here I've sprayed them all chrome and washed with Army Painter Dark Tone (they might well need a second coat). Plan is to paint the flesh, wooden handles and sword belts, then highlight the armour again and do a quick basing job. Sounds easy enough- but because of other commitments I only have a few painting sessions available- we'll see how it goes.

Just to recap, we have three TtS! tournaments planned for the second half of 2022. The first event is Britcon in Nottingham on 13th/14th August, less than two weeks away, but you can still enter if you get your skates on!, we had an entry yesterday.

The second event is the To the Strongest! Worlds in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire on Saturday 17th September. This is the most venerable and illustrious TtS! tournament, now in its eighth (or ninth?) year. It’s a thrilling event with four nail-biting games in one day. It is organised by Steve Dover (who you can mail to book your place by contacting StephenJamesDover at outlook.com. There are details on the forum here.

The third and final event is the BHGS Historical Teams event at the Lee Valley Leisure Centre in north London on Saturday 15th October. Like Chalgrove, there are four games in one day and you can use any army list from the Ancient Army List eBook. You can book this here. The ticket also gets you entry to SELWG which is in the same venue on the Sunday, a great show where I'll be running a game. Incidentally I'm looking for people who can play (and perhaps help set up) the big game on the Sunday, so if you are coming feel free to let me know.

Wednesday, 6 July 2022

Just-in-time TtS! Tournament Organisation!

We have three TtS! tournaments planned for the second half of 2022. The first event is Britcon in Nottingham on 13th/14th August, less than ten weeks away!  This two-day event with somewhat longer game durations- ideal if you are less familiar with the rules. I suspect there will be a great deal of socialising on the Friday and Saturday nights! The university accommodation is all booked so we will be staying in small hotels in the town itself. You can email me if you have any questions at the email on the left- or book, here.

The second event is the To the Strongest! Worlds in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire on Saturday 17th September. This is the most venerable and illustrious TtS! tournament, now in its eighth (or ninth?) year. It’s a thrilling event with four nail-biting games in one day. It is organised by Steve Dover (who you can mail to book your place by contacting StephenJamesDover at outlook.com. There are details on the forum here.

The third and final event is the BHGS Historical Teams event on Saturday 15th October.  This is held at the Lee Valley Leisure Centre in north London which is very easy to reach by car. Like Chalgrove, there are four games in one day and you can use any army list from the Ancient Army List eBook. You can book this here. https://www.bhgs.org.uk/tts-bhgs-teams.html  The ticket also gets you entry to SELWG which is in the same venue on the Sunday, where I'm hoping to run a big For King and Parliament demo game, assuming I can get the table space. It should be a glorious weekend of gaming!

If you have any questions about any of these, please mail me at the address to the left! I really hope to catch up with as many old friends (and new) as possible. That's me, below, I'll be bringing those 16 Indian nellies to at least one of the shows.

Friday, 1 October 2021

Cheesy Indians at the London GT!

      

Last Sunday I took my Classical Indians to the London GT tournament. This is a massive event, mostly attended by Warhammer players, but also the largest tournament gathering of historical players. Above at the Warhammer players. The historical players were amongst those in the mezzanine (below), our players are in the second photo.


We had an odd number of players so I stood down for the first round which meant I had time to take a few mediocre photos, which I present in no particular order. I took other photos later in the event.


Above Gary Stark, and below his Seleucids. The latter were an interesting blend of Foundry and Aventine- these worked together very well- something I shall have to try! A superb looking army. 


Below, there are a lot of elephants in my army, eight units for a total of sixteen models. Half of them are shown here. In one game I lost ten elephant models.



Above Steve Dover popped over for a chat. In the game I shot the Seleucids up with my Indians, killing their great leader (Antiochus Megas?) and generally gaining the upper hand (whilst losing a few elephants), although not winning outright. Below, the view from behind my lines.



Above, weedy Indian archers desperately try to pincushion the Seleucid pike before they get skewered in melee. Below Gary vs Dene Green (Lusitanians)



Above John Lavender (Principate Romans) vs. Colin Bright.


Above Steve Dover (I'm Spartacus!) vs. Andy Lyon (Gallic). Steve's army was composed of hordes of terrible-quality troops, but was very effective in his capable hands- he did some clever things with his generals.

Below Martin Sharp (Classical Indian) vs. Simon Purchon (Principate Roman).



Above Derek Pearson (Batavian Revolt Germans)- at the end of my final game. This was the only game of the six that I've played with the army where my plan (an arrow storm followed up by a big attack up the middle) actually payed off- in large part due to playing some fantastic lucky cards. An elephant trotted into the Batavian camp with minutes to spare.


Tim vs. Simon Purchon. Tim had a very interesting Galatian army, including lots of naked fanatics. Simon was using Principate Romans.


Above Martin Sharp (the other Classical Indian army) vs. Colin Bright (Middle Imperial Roman).


Above Andy Lyons (Gallic) and Dean Green (Lusitanian), and below Derek Pearson's Batavian Revolt vs. Gary Stark.


Tim has taken some photos which you can see on the forum  Tim's photos

Here are the final scores.

1TimThompson528Galatian
2Steve Dover525Third Servile War
3SimonMiller465Classical Indian
4MartinSharp450Classical Indian
5AndyLyon445Gallic
6SimonPurchon438Principate Roman
7GaryStark297Selucid Imperial
8DerekPearson279Batavian Revolt German
9ColinBright259Middle Imperial Roman
10Dene Green255Lusitanian
11JohnLavender249Principate Roman

Congratulations to Tim Thompson and Steve for runner up! A huge thank you to the organisers of the event and Dave Ruddock from the BHGS, and to Tim who did the scoring. Above all, thanks to everyone who scoffed in the face of Covid, the fuel crisis and the Insulate Britain fanatics in order to participate!

Friday, 22 January 2021

Hannibal and Chits

We've just started playing an online To the Strongest! tournament called Hannibal Ad Portas, this week I fought my first battle. That's my vast Italian Tribes army at the bottom; 16 victory medals - that's a whole lot for a 130 point army. I played fellow veteran blogger Monty from the US, who had Spanish. It wasn't a game of any great tactical subtlety; we just had at it!  I narrowly pipped him by one medal, once I eventually remembered how the rules work. Below is an in-game shot.

 

If you fancy joining the tournament, which is, I suspect, the only ancient big battle tournament running in the world, just now, please email me and I'll put you in touch with Antony, the organiser. Its very good natured and very international in its nature, and a really good way to learn the rules. Or you can just watch us play online, if you like.

In other news I've released some more coloured activation and stratagem chits, this time in red and dark blue. 



The new stratagem tokens are single sided (plain red or dark blue on the reverse).


You can find them, here.


Also I've received a major restock of bases. Pretty much everything that I'd run out of is now back in stock.

Bases

That's if for now- I hope to be able to show some more Swiss in a day or so, as that project grinds unremittingly towards completion. 

Wednesday, 13 January 2021

Hannibal Ante Portas online tournament

Look at those lovely Quincunxes!

Following on the heels of last year's successful TtS! 1066 and Kingmaker tournaments, Hannibal Ante Portas will be the next on-line To the Strongest! tournament, starting next week.

The tournament, organised by chum Antony, is set during the period of the 2nd Punic War 218 BCE. Players will fight with a variety of armies from the period – Gallic, Hellenistic Greek, Imperial Seleucid, Later Carthaginian, Later Macedonian, Numidian, Parthian, Polybian Roman, Southern Italian Tribes and Spanish, over 10 battlefields that take their inspiration from actual battlefields from the classical period – Lake Trasimenus, Metaurus, Cynoscephalae etc.

We'll be playing online using Tabletop Simulator, which is available on Steam.

The tournament will begin with a ‘pool’ stage that will start on Monday 18th January 2021 and finish on Sunday 14th March 2021, during which players may play as many of the other players in the tournament as they choose.

At the end of the pool stage, the top 8 players, based on their six best results, will then go forward to the knock-out stages. It is expected that we will have a number of players with the same points so we will use the following as the ‘tie breaker’ – Number of Decisive Victories in the 6 best results recorded, followed by, if required, the net Number of Medals Captured.

The quarter final battles will be fought between Monday 15th March and Sunday 21st March with the winners of the quarter final battles progressing to the semi-final battles.

The week commencing 22nd March is scheduled for the semi-final, 3rd/4th place battle and the battle for the title of Hannibal. There will be prizes at the whim of Antony and Simon.

How to Enter

Simply message Antony (aka antman1805), either through the TtS! Forum or the TtS! Discord server – https://discord.gg/4HqHRC7 ,  giving him your “Discord” handle and name and he will record you as a participant. Alternatively you can email Simon and he will forward it to Antony. Please also let him know which country/time zone you are in to help with arranging games. Antony will need to share names and email addresses in the form “simonmiller60 at gmail dot com” with the other participants so that players can contact each other to arrange games (if this is a problem for you, let him know, there may be a work around). As with previous TtS! tournaments we are looking for players from across the globe, who can't usually make it to the UK-based tournaments or, indeed, any other tournament at the present time.

Even if you are a newbie to the To The Strongest! rules or not even played them before please get involved. We have a great group of players who will be happy you teach you both the game mechanics and how to use Tabletop Simulator- you will be a battle-scarred veteran, by the end! Do please come along - we hope that the card gods will smile kindly upon you.

Wednesday, 26 August 2020

To the Strongest! War of the Roses

 TtS WoTR.jpg (63.83KiB)

Chum Antony Spencer has designed some stunning new digital miniatures for an online TtS! Wars of the Roses campaign, which he will run starting on 7 September. It'll be similar in some respects to the very successful 1066 tournament we ran in the spring, but as well as the tournament element, the outcome of the battles will determine whether York or Lancaster triumphs n the wars.


To join in you'll need a reasonably capable PC, broadband and the Tabletop Simulator software available from Steam. Antony or I can help you with these and with the rules. The new Wars of the Roses mod can be found at https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2207109539.


If you'd like to take part, please email me at the address above and to the left, and I'll forward your details straight to Antony- or if you are on Discord you may be able to contact him directly. 

I suppose I'd better get some practice games in... :-)

Thursday, 25 June 2020

TtS! 1066 Online Tournament- the Final Results!

Congratulations to Andy Lyon, our new Bretwalda,  who won the TtS! 1066 online tournament, and commiserations to Antony Spencer, who came second, after a very closely fought battle last night. 


Here's a shot from late in the game (above). Antony subsequently broke Andy's centre, but the heavy casualties he took doing so, and Andy's mercenary Normans taking his camp, led to a Scottish victory (below). 



Andy wins the Harald Hardrada victor's trophy. I think the mini was painted by James Morris- I still need to flock the base.  There will be modest prizes for the runners-up, including Wyatt Traina who came fourth (I came third)- I'll post them out tomorrow.


Thanks very much to everyone who participated in the tournament!. It's been great fun meeting new players, and all very good-natured. I've played way more games than I expected I would, this year! We played 59 games, in total- almost as many as are played at the TtS! Worlds in Chalgrove.

There will be another tournament starting in 3-4 weeks time- on the theme of the Italian Wars. It'll run for a longer duration, but with people playing a single game (or at most two) per week, which I hope will benefit those players who have busy jobs. It will also have what I hope will be an interesting campaign background, running in parallel with the tournament. I'll let you know more about it as we get closer to starting.

In other news, we are in the last few days of my current sale and I have rules, bases and even some mats marked down. Parcel postage prices to the USA will increase from Sunday, so it's a particularly good time to buy if you are American.

Monday, 18 May 2020

Midsummer Madness- Week 1 results!

We've been running the online To the Strongest! 1066 online tournament for a week, and, so far, ten players have played eight games between them- which is a super start.


Here's a shot from a game I played with Alex Meyers, this week. Alex played a bewildering number of Aces- four, out of eight cards, in one (all-to-brief for Alex) turn, captured in the photo. The game was very close- I won by only two medals.

One of the nice things about an online tournament is that once can play people all around the world- Alex is in Belgium. Next week I hope to play some US opponents.

Here are the scores at the end of week one; points depend upon victories and the number of games played, with a positive bonus for playing at least one game in a week. Most of us played one or two games, Paul played three. 


STOP-PRESS corrected results!

We have a couple more players starting this week, and I'm hoping to game with a couple of the other players, this week, who have signed up but haven't played yet. If you'd like to join in, just drop em an email at the address on the left and I'll help you to sort out your first game!

Thursday, 5 December 2019

TtS! Tournament in Paris


French chums are organising a To the Strongest! Tournament in Paris next summer, and say that we rosbifs would be most welcome to come along and join them. Unusually, it's in 15mm scale (the preferred scale in Mainland Europe) but they can lend armies - from what I've seen, they aren't short on miniatures!  Six games will be played over two days on a 6x4 15cm grid.  The price tag of the tournament is 25€ for the 2 days and includes the lunches.

I intend to go, travelling out Friday PM and back Sunday PM by Eurostar, and staying in a local hotel TBA, and hopefully scoffing a couple of nice French meals in the evenings. If you think you might like to come (no need for a firm commitment at this stage), then please email me at the address on the left. I'll collate the UK responses and get back to Pierre Aymeric who is organising it. 

Cheers, Simon

Monday, 23 September 2019

To the Strongest! in Glasgow, Part II

Here are some photos from the second day of the Glasgow To Strongest! event, starting with my third game. This was against Ian Austin and his Spartan army. Ian set up in the left corner of his side, and I set up in the left corner of mine. My flank attack failed to kill the Spartiates, largely on account of their excellent saves, and by mid-game most of my units were facing right, and most of his were facing left.


Despite our best efforts, nothing was dying. Nothing at all. I couldn't break his hoplites, frontally, and any knights that got disordered pulled back and rallied. It became a unique game with not a single unit lost, not even a measly helot. I cannot recall this in any previous game of TtS! that I've seen; it is a famously bloody set of rules.

In the penultimate turn of the game, though, I rode some light crossbowmen off of the table edge near his camp. On the final turn, I managed to bring them back onto the table, and activate them for a lucky second time, to trot into his adjacent camp, securing three points. You can make out Ian menacing the offending horsemen, in the image below. Ian had certainly picked the rules up, in only his fifth game, he was playing quite as well as I was, after well over 100.



In the final game, I found myself facing John Muir's Italo-Normans. across an open plain. This was a very different game from the previous three. Eschewing subtlety, John and I lined up opposite each other, and charged. He had more knights, but I had better-armoured knights, so it was pretty even. The battle degenerated into a single huge confused melee (below), with troops facing in all directions- charging, retiring, rallying and shooting. Slowly I was able to gain the upper hand and, eventually, cornered and killed one of his generals to win the battle 10:3. It could easily have gone the other way.


The scores...


And onto the presentations! 


Above is Liam Entwhistle, who secured third place with his beautiful ex-WAB Later Hungarian army.


And, second once again, yours truly! Always the bridesmaid, never the bride! ;-)  I received some lovely Claymore Castings minis, so I suppose I'll have to start another army, now.

Finally, below, the winner Peter Clarke whose Fatimid Egyptians had pipped me 63.5 points to 63. As well as a trophy, Dave Soutar presented him with a stunning command stand, painted and generously donated by chum David Imrie.



And finally Dave Soutar very kindly gave me some souvenirs - haggis, Scottish shortbread biccies and a limited edition Glasgow and District Wargames Society dice (!!!) tray. 

A huge thank you to Dave Soutar and the other organisers of the event, and to everyone who came along and played! It was a blast. I very much hope to come back next year. Dave and l set a provisional date, shortly.

p.s. Dave has just sent me some more photos- I'll either do a third post, tomorrow., or provide a link if he posts them online.

Sunday, 22 September 2019

To the Strongest! in Glasgow

This weekend I'm in Glasgow, where Dave Soutar of Glasgow and District Wargaming Society has organised a two day TtS! event. Dave very kindly picked me up from the station and we played the first two games, yesterday.


Above is game one vs. Balkan Dave, who I already knew of of from his excellent blog.  Predictably Dave had brought (Balkan) Dacians. I only got this one photo- You can see I've out scouted him, and am preparing to smite his right wing with the full might of Milanese chivalry. It went well for Milan, although the Sarmatians put up a tough fight. I spent the post game period trying to persuade Dave to write all the Medieval Balkan army lists that I'm lacking- Serbs, Albanians, Transylvanians.  :-)


Here's game two vs Bill. Bill had a beautifully painted Aventine Sassanid army. He outscouted me (the horror!) and started pushing his troops forward (below). I quickly found myself pinned on my side of the table, and out flanked on my left. I didn't have an answer for the Sassanid elephant, either!



It all went downhill fast and I had no time to take photos, until this shot taken about 15 minutes before the end of the game.  I am five medals to three down, and pinned like a caged beast into 1/4 of the table with my left flank totally in the air. It's never a good sign when the other player has to come round your side of the table to play his activation cards!

Luckily, shortly after this (below), I finally got my act together and launched a desperate counter-attack. Here are the last cards of the game- I managed to polish off some levy spearmen and a disordered cavalry unit and general to and snatch an 11th-hour ten-five victory from the jaws of defeat. It was one of the closest and most enjoyable games I've played.


So with two wins in my pocket; the omens are good for today!  Tomorrow, I'll post part two.

No photo description available.

GDWS is a great club- 50 years of wargaming history. I wish I was a bit more local! They are a super bunch of guys, very welcoming, indeed.  If you want to look them up, or better still, join,  you can find them here.