Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Three foot of laager and a packet of chits, please.


Last night I resumed work on my wagon laager, which has been something of a slow burner since I started work on it over 6 years ago!!!. Yesterday I painted the wicker screens and am contemplating approaching the long and tedious task of drybrushing of the woodwork, this evening.  


On a different front, I have received a big re-supply order of chits for "To the Strongest!".  As well as the packs with the three types of chits in, I am now also able to sell packs of the lovely ammunition markers separately.  They can all be found in the BigRedBatShop!

Sunday, 8 February 2015

World's Strongest 2015

Yesterday we fought the first ever "To the Strongest!" Tournament at Benson in Oxfordshire. I was delighted to be able to play, myself, to roundup an odd number of players. Ten players fought a total of 15 games, each lasting 2 hours. 10 games were decisive and 5 draws, with most of the draws occurring in the first round, before the players had "warmed up". 

Unfortunately in the rush I failed to take many photos of the players, but I did get shots of some of the armies and games.  Below, my "Decline" Romans in the foreground await (with considerable trepidation) the charge of John Sharman's Saxons.  My Hun wing, led by Attila, had a good game, ending up behind the Saxon centre.



Above is Nick Speller contemplating his own Caesarian Romans- a splendid-looking force (lovely shields and basing) but about to be roughly handled by John's Saxons.  Below Steve Dovers Granadines are menaced by Simon Purcheon's Sassanids.  The Sassanids, with their combination of armour, shooty-ness and mobility did very well indeed and I think Simon came second (or third?) overall.  Looked good, too!


Below my Decline Romans prepare to receive (my own) Early Imperial Romans, played by Trevor Holcroft. The Romans in my force didn't manage to kill anything at all, but their Hun and Gothic allies were lethally effective, especially the former who could do no wrong!  Atilla was again definitely Man of the Match.  Note the edible chocolate victory medals...



Above Peter Ryding's army of veteran (in two senses) Essex Caesarians proved very hard to kill- my Polybians (played by Ian Notter) seem to be keeping a safe distance!  Or maybe it was just early in the game.  


Finally I have a couple of shots of Barry Lee's lovely Late Romans. I particularly covet the Warlord wagon in the above photo. Below, there's nothing quite as good as Late Roman army when it comes to shield designs.  Hopefully Barry and I will be able to stage a Late Roman Civil War at some point later this year.


It was very interesting to see how others interpreted the rules, and to encounter armies which I've not previously experienced on the table.  Bevan Marchand won the tournament with a Hundred Years War English army (sadly I have no photos); shooting armies did quite well.

Huge thanks to Steve Dover and the South Oxfordshire Generals for organising the event. It was a splendid day out and I think everyone enjoyed themselves! I'd very much like to repeat the experience later this year or early next. 

Friday, 6 February 2015

Wargames Bloggers Quarterly Issue Three is out!



Wargames Bloggers Quarterly issue 3 is out!  This edition was edited by Panzer Kaput and produced by Millsy of Canister and Grape, and the cover and leading article is by Sir Sidney Roundwood.  You can download your free copy from here!

Benson Legion for the World's Strongest

I have been marking up tablecloths with grids for the World's Strongest tournament at Benson, tomorrow, and thought I'd lay out my new Roman army on them.  All the photos are clickable.


Above is the army; a mere 11 units, with 3 generals and 2 heroes (all I could fit into 120 points). On the left is the small cavalry wing with heroic general Maximus (no not that one!) and hero Longinus:


Next are two veteran cohorts painted by David Imrie, with another hero, Julianus, and a screen of Eastern archers.


The core of the force is three cohorts of legionaries, led by Tribune Marcus Flavius Aquila, and screened by slingers.


And last, but not least, two cohorts of auxiliaries; the prettiest units of the whole force, IMHO.


I'm very glad I laid these out; I've just realised that I've forgotten to get the C in C out of storage! Now I must dash, I need to grid-up two more cloths, sort out a couple more armies, boards and terrain and load the car for a dawn dash westwards.

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Roman reinforcements for Benson

This week I completed enough minis to complete my second Early Imperial Roman army, for use at our TtS! tournament at Benson near Oxford on Saturday.  This army are mostly Foundry Perry minis, and smaller than my main EIR army; I call them EIR2.  They have all been bought painted or part painted on eBay and tarted up. They are based up either for use with my own "To the Strongest!" rules or with Impetus.  All pictures are clickable!


This is my favourite unit - auxilia.  There are minis here from three very competent painters, and my involvement was mostly on painting some shields and adding staining.


Above is a unit of legionaries by a couple of different painters.  This is the third cohort I have from this legion - I aspire to eventually field six or eight.


Above are some fairly generic slingers; these are more or less complete repaints.


The Governor, Aulus Paulinus, of course!  Below is a hero figure - Longinus a brave Roman cavalryman from the siege of Jerusalem. During a combat at range with javelins, Longinus, a cavalryman, leaped out from the Roman lines and charged the mass of the enemy. He killed one, pulled his spear out, stabbed another in the side, and then made his way safely back to his comrades.


And finally below is a Warlord Testudo that David Imrie very kindly gave me; I did just a little work on the base so that it would better match my minis.  


When I get a chance, I'll take a picture of the complete army with the units that I completed earlier.

If you are at a loose end on Saturday and fancy dropping in to say hello at Benson, or even trying the rules, please email me for details.

Friday, 30 January 2015

Back to basing

I'm hurrying to finish a new Roman army for the first To the Strongest! Tournament on Saturday week.  I'm using the repaint eBay minis technique that I described in Wargames Soldiers Strategy.   The knack is to get the minis from 3 or 4 different painters to match- retouching, ink washes and muddying up the shields does a good job of this.


I need to finish a cohort of legionaries, one of auxiliaries, some slingers, two command stands and a hero (the auxiliary cavalryman, who I've given a lozenge-shaped base so that he's not confused with a command stand).  The other units in the army can be seen here; it is composed of the smaller Perry minis, with a few Warlord and First Corp for variety.  The bases are Impetus-stylee.


As you can see I'm quite far advanced with the process; basing tonight!

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Not Noreia 112BC


Here are some shots of a game of "To the Strongest" I played with mate Ian last week. In the foreground a horde of migrating Germans approach a Roman blocking force protecting a town. Below is a photo of the Roman centre and right, including three of their four legions. All of the photos are clickable.


The Roman force was Polybian, organised into small units of 8-16 figures, whereas the Germans (proxied with Gallic figures) were in 40+ strong blocks. One of the reasons I wanted to fight this match up was because I'd read an account of one test game where the small units of the Roman legions were entirely swept away by a wild Gallic charge, and I wanted to check that this wasn't going to happen every game!

Below Ianus advances the Roman and Numidian cavalry screening his left, against my rather scruffy German cavalry (most of whom were "raw").  


The velites also rushed forward and showered the German warriors with their javelins, disordering several of them (note the stepped-back element in the right foreground). Disordered warriors only hit on an 8 instead of a 6, and are really hard to rally. I pushed the warriors forward as quickly as I could, in an attempt to minimise Roman shooting, and eventually managed to catch and kill a couple of units of pesky velites.

Below is a view from behind the German right.  At one point I managed to get a scruffy German cavalry unit onto the flank of the left-hand Roman legion (rear, centre, in the wheat field). Unfortunately the legion's Triarii flanked them, in return, and drove them off.


In the centre, below, the warbands collided with the Roman line. They managed to smash through the Roman Hastati and then the Principes, but took a lot of casualties along the way, becoming progressively disordered.  It is very hard to rally warriors when the enemy are in charge or shooting range.


Unfortunately the Roman Triarii proved too tough a nut to crack, and I just couldn't kill them and break through to loot the temples on the edge of the town. It turned into a very narrow Roman victory - they had one medal left when the Germans ran out!

It was a very enjoyable game that lasted around two and a half hours.  I took some video clips- I'll see if I can work out how to post them, tomorrow. We played the game using my new "Chits of War" instead of playing cards, you should be able to make them out in some of the photographs.  The last two sets of chits (more to come in a couple of weeks) and the rules are available in my shop.