Nothing on IABSM for ages and then two AARs arrive at once!
Here’s a photo-report from a game played by Mark Luther and friends at the Gigabytes Cafe in July last year.
The game takes place a few days into Citadel with the German offensive running into a counterattacking Soviet force in wide open terrain.
Click on the picture below to see all:
I was browsing through Amazon Prime the other day looking for a film to watch when I came across this little gem: “Pippa”.
To quote the IMDB description: PIPPA tells the story of Captain Balram Singh Mehta of India's 45 Cavalry regiment who, along with his siblings, fought on the eastern front during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971. Named after the Russian amphibious war tank "PT-76", which floats on water like an empty 'pippa' (tin) of ghee, the film traces Mehta's coming-of-age as he steps up to prove himself in a war to liberate Bangladesh.
The main storyline is fairly standard stuff - youthful impetuous officer rebels against authority during training then comes good and saves the day when the action starts - but it is very well acted and there are a couple of decent sub-plots along the way.
Inciudentally, please don’t be put off by the Bollywood song and dance number very near the beginning of the film (I think it’s supposed to be the post-opening sequence theme music). This is the only one and, quite frankly, I can see how many famous war movies would have been improved by something similar!
For us wargamers, obviously, the real stars of the show are the PT-76 tanks. There are a lot of them to look at, and there are several excellent sequences showing them on both land and in amphibeous mode, including the preparations that need to be made to move between the two.
There’s plenty of time spent on them as well, so you can properly see them in action. The cinematography is good - there’s one scene in particular where the company is crossing a wide river that is quite beautiful: it looks more like a travelogue than a war movie - and the action sequences that take up the last third of the movie are excellent too: think Fury but with a company of tanks rather than just three.
So if you are in the mood for a decent war movie and fancy seeing how a PT-76 looks and operates, I’d recommend watching Pippa. It certainly had me reaching for the Flames of War catalogue, wallet in hand!
It’s been ages since we’ve had an I Ain’t Been Shot Mum after action report, so it’s great to pick this one up from Will Depusoy on the IABSM Facebook Group.
Will and friends are working their way through the PSC Storming the Citadel campaign.This is the report from their table five game: the Soviets are falling back from village of Butovo with the Germans in hot pursuit.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Here’s a few more figures off the Christmas-break production line: more later Venetian Condotta types for the 2024 To The Strongest competition season. Let’s just hope I can get them all finished before Wales at the end of the month or it will be back to my trusty Romans!
First up are a couple of units of schioppettiere light infantry handgunners.
And next some lancieri delle ordinanze pikemen:
All three units are Perry plastics in 28mm, and from the same box of Mercenary Infantry. As I paid only £18.50 for the box, and still have eight infantry to add to my next unit, that seems like very good value to me indeed.
Do I find having to build the miniatures a pain? Well, yes…but no more of a pain than prepping an all metal or plastic figure for painting and, as you will hopefully see in the pics above, you do get the chance to build figures with individual character: there are some weary looking individual in that pike block!
I still need to build more infantry and all the horse before the army is ready to hit the gaming table. I got a lot done over Christmas (32 infantry, 12 cavalry) but I can see it’s going to be tough to finish everything in time for my first tournament.
Here’s an After Action Report left over from last year: a game against an old friend of mine, Nog, that I hadn’t seen for ages. He’s only an occasionaly wargamer, and hadn’t played To The Strongest before, so this would be a teaching/learning game rather than all out battle.
I was keen to get my two newest armies onto the table, so Nog would play the Normans and I would play the Timurids. Not historically accurate, maybe, but somewhat mimincing a Crusdaer-rtyle clash!
The Timurids ready for action
Nog’s normans
I had ther initiative, so decided to advnace forward rapidly in order to engage the enemy with bowfire before closing to polish off any left standing.
Unfortunately, my mass advance faltered with my very first card, leaving my troops awkwardly split: some forward, some not.
Amusingly, Nog then proceeded to draw an Ace for his first card, but this time for the foot command in the centre, leaving his horsemen charging forward with the infantry left behind, and a very attractive (to me, anyway) hole in the middle of his line.
In my eagerness to get into bow range I had forgotten that there’s nothing a Norman likes more than charging home, so all those points spent on missile weapons for my Timurids were somewhat wasted as suddenly I had heavy horse all over me!
Both sides rapidly began losing units in the melee that followed. Although my lighter bowmen were outclassed and had to evade backwards, I had enough heavy cavalry of my own to hold the centre, although I did have to deploy the kharash (driven slaves) to bolsetr my line.
As the Normans pushed forward, I did manage to get some of my troops around his left flank and prepared to start rolling the Frenchmen up.
This led to an extraordinary run of cards, as shown in the photo below:
For the unitiated:
Draw a 6 to move into a position to charge the enemy flank
Try to charge, but draw a 2
Use the General to re-draw, pull a 9 and in they go…but combat cards are A and 2 meanign two misses
Need to draw a natural 10 to go in again: 10 drawn, but 2 and 5 for combat mean two more misses
Need to draw another natural 10 to go in a third time: 10 drawn (!) and two 8’s mean two hits and the enemy flee the field
By this time neither of us had many men left at all, and most of mine were on the point of fleeing:
We were, in fact, both down to our last coin, so it was a case of sudden death: whoever loses the next unit loses the game and, as mentioned above, my troops were in a lot worse state than his.
Fortunately, however, the luck remained with me, and a charge with some light troops returning from having evaded, hit the back of some of his, and just managed to dash them from the field. The last coin and the victory were mine!
It had been a great game, full of incident an excitement. We both agreed that I had been foolish to allow the Normans to close with my troops so early on in the game, and that Nog had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, helped by a final surge of luck on my part at the end of the encounter.
Cracking stuff, and we’re both eagerly awaiting our next battle.
A handful of last minute entries into the 2023 Painting Challenge, including David Scott’s first and last entries of the year just sneaking in before the 12 midnight deadline!
Today’s entries are the aforementioned Mr Scott’s Confederates and fencing; a horde of Byzantine cavalry from Sapper; the Peaky Blinders et al from Carole; and some Germanic types from Chris Kay.
There were some amazing entries into this year’s Challenge: two of our most prolific painters hit heights never before achieved: Matt Slade hits the 6,000 points mark (6,033), with Andrew Helliwell going past 5,000 points (5,008).
Honorable mentions must also go to Sapper, who achieved a new personal best this year with a score of 3,507; and to Mr Luther on 2,084.
Here’s a complete run down of the scores (and histories) of this year’s participants:
Be sure to check out everyone’s galleries: plenty of inspirational work to see.
The Challenge will be returning for 2024 - it’s 10 year anniversary - so be sure to clear that painting table, point those brushes, prime those models and get ready to hit a new personal best score!
So that’s another twelve months almost over, which means it must be time for a “year in review” look back at 2023.
Action from the Crimea: one of the few non-Ancients games that I played
My target for the year was to play 52 games (i.e. an average of one battle a week) with my previous highest score being 47.
Well I smashed it this year with a grand total of 65 games!
This was definitely down to my decision in March to play in all the To the Strongest (TTS) tournaments that I could, with 47 or 72% of all games being Ancients, and 24 or 37% being competition games.
Of the other games that I played, eleven of them were Pike & Shot, leaving just a smattering of WW2, fantasy, Napoleonic and 19th Century for the rest.
Back in March this year, friend Peter asked me to help at the new TTS European Championships he was organising.
This would involve helping set up, keep the scores etc or, if there were uneven numbers, stepping in to play. As it happened, due to an unfortunate drop out, there were uneven numbers for the first few games, so I got to play with a lent-to-me Burgundian Ordnance army. This gave me a new-found taste for competition gaming, with the result that my trusty Early Imperial Romans (at time of writing, the only complete 28mm army I own) fought in another five tournaments over the next nine months.
Just to demonstrate why you should never get rid of any figures, the Romans had spent the last 40 years in my Mother’s attic!
This is how I did:
So not bad for my first year of competing, and a good foundation for playing in more tournaments in 2024, beginning with the Welsh Open at the end of January, where I shall also debut my new competition army: love them to death, but I need a change from the Romans!
If you play TTS, I highly recommend trying a competition or two. They are always played in the best possible spirit, and are a great way to meet (and hopefully beat) new opponents!
Although unlike last year I didn’t achieve a new personal best in th Painting Challenge, I did manage to get a pretty healthy score overall with between 1700-1800 points dependent on what I do today!
The biggest project was the 15mm Normans using Museum Miniatures’ superb CAD designed range, with enough figures painted to field any type of Norman army, an Anglo-Norman army, an Early Crusader or, my favourite, a Sicilio-Norman army. That’s about 100 cavalry and over 300 infantry in total.
15mm Normans from Museum Miniatures
Another major project was to re-base a large amount of 28mm Romans to add more flexibility and potential points to my competition army, with the result that I could have provided all 200 points of Romans for Peter and I’s force at the Doubles.
I also finished off my 15mm Burgundian Ordnance army. This started life as a purchase of second-hand core units (knights, pikes and crossbows) with this year’s painting adding handgunners, organ guns and mounted crossbows.
Finally there were an assortment of other figures completed either to fill gaps in the collection or just because I like them. These included some great one-off figures for my 15mm Marian Romans (Scipio, warhounds, a medicus); more ECW/17thC figures; and the start of my new competition army for 2024 (top right in the gallery above: can you tell what it is yet?).
I also spent quite a lot of money on painted figures this year.
First up was a complete 15mm Timurid army that are now only missing a yurt or two as a camp. This is a beautifully painted army using Khurasan figures.
Then it was enough figures to complete my 15mm 17thC Transylvanians from the Fire & Sword range.
I think I will be taking a break from buying painted figures in 2024…
I’m not quite sure why, but in 2023 I went to more wargames shows than in any previous year.
The full list comprises: Overlord (Abingdon); Salute (London) ; Campaign (Milton Keynes); Partisan (Newark); Attack! (Devises); Britcon (Nottingham); Colours (Newbury) and Warfare (Farnborough). On top of this, I attended the Operation Market Lardon Lardy Day in Evesham.
Richard Clarke in the Lard Zone at Britcon
They were all good days out, and I shall be adding some of them to my “must go” list. The stand-out show has to be Partisan, with only the long drive being an issue. Next in line were Colours and Britcon: at each a slightly separate Lard Zone was worth the price of a ticket alone. I recall the Salute 50th as a bit disappointing, but it can’t have been that bad as I still managed to spend six hours there without much effort.
I’d like to get to at least as many shows next year, but am not sure if that is possible with the fairly hefty competition schedule I’ve set myself.
So all in all, 2023 proved to be a packed and very good wargaming year.
As always, a big thank you to all my gaming chums and opponents whose good natures and dedication to the hobby have made the last twelve months so much fun.
And to all those who have read Vis Lardica throughout the year: thanks for your visits, likes and comments throughout 2023, and I look forward to seeing you all throughout 2024 as well. Incidentally, we should pass the 500,000 page view mark in February or March, and that’s with not being on Blogger either. If you do own a blog of your own and like this site, please add VL to your list of recommended/favourite links: it seems a shame for all this content not to have a wider audience!
Here’s to doing it all again next year!
Cheers
R
Regular visitors will know that this year for the first time in a long time (35 years plus!) I decided to go back to competitive wargaming: entering as many To The Strongest tournaments as I could.
Apart from the Europeans at Ewelme, I have exclusively used the Early Imperial Romans: mainly because it was the only 28mm Ancients army that I had, and that only because a friend left it at my mother’s house some 40 years ago!
The Romans have proved a very good army to use, but after almost thirty games with them I fancied a change…so when I won a box of Perry Medievals at the ‘Two the Strongest’ doubles tournament in November I thought that I’d use it as a basis for a new army: settling on some kind of Later Italian Condotta force (each city state is slightly different) as that list provides a wide variety of troop types.
Father Christmas was good to me this year, bringing me more boxes of Perry’s to complete what I need, and time off work has given me the chance to paint some of the units up.
First off the production line were two units of balestrieri montati or mounted crossbowmen:
I’m using a combination of Contrast and standard acrylic paints, and have chosen a black and red colour scheme. As the way you build the figures means that each figure is unique, I will therefore get an army that is ‘uniformed but not uniform’: very suitable for a force from that period.
Next up are some stradiotti: veteran light cavalry with lances and perhaps crossbows. Very useful for annoying the opposition!
And the final unit of light horse, for the moment, are some more balestrieri montati but this time armed with handguns rather than crossbows:
The above are all from one box of WR 60 Light Cavalry 1450-1500 which retails at £22 or £1.83 per figure. To quote the blurb: The box contains 12 lightly armoured horsemen which can be assembled with light lances, crossbows or as mounted archers. command options are included as are banners and historical information.
So how did I get on with Perry plastics?
Yes, I quite like them. Glueing the horses together was easy. The men were slightly more difficult in that, even using Superglue, the heads take a bit of time to set in place, and the individual arms can be tricky in that the you’re glueing two completely flat, angled surfaces together so that it’s tough to exert pressure in the right direction…but it’s generally a painless process.
For those interested, I built the horse first, then built the figure by glueing the head on first then each arm. As this is a competition army that is going to get a lot of use, I didn’t bother with a lot of extra equipment (and there’s a ton of it on the sprues) but just focussed on the main weapon that shows the function of the unit…so that the mounted crossbowmen have only their crossbows, not a quiver, winding machine, sword, dagger, buckler etc, all of which are provided if you want to use them.
Painting the figures is easy. I let the Contrast paints do the work, but used two different reds to get a bit of variety and, here’s the top tip of this post, highlighted the black on the upper body clothing with a very dark blue standard acrylic paint, leaving the black hose as is.
Now it’s on to the first of the two infantry boxes…
I’m still working my way through a backlog of battle reports that seems to have built up over the last couple of months.
Today features the third and final game at the Two the Strongest doubles tournament organised by the London Wargaming Guild back in November. My partner, Peter, and I had won our first two games and woulkd now face Tim and Matt playing Normans and 100YW French respectively.
The game would be fought across quite an unusual set-up representing a famous battle from history. Apologies, but I can’t remeber which one…but there were a lot of hills on the flanks!
The Romans
The French
For this battle, Peter and I reversed our roles: I would go forward against the Normans whilst Peter hung back against the 100YW French.
My cavalry (Equites Alares and Equites Contarium) duly swung out to the right and advanced forward at speed. They soon met the enemy coming the other way and, much to my delight, almost immediately knocked one Norman unit off the table and sent another to the retreat.
My Roman cavalry have tken some stick this year for their performance on the tabletop, but I must confess that they didn’t put a foot (hoof?) wrong this game: a fitting redemption in the last tournament game of the season.
Meanwhile, my legionaries had also advanced towards the enemy line and pinned them in place as planned. I needed to get a move on, however, as I could see that Peter’s troops were under some pressure from a horde of Late Knights!
My troops began to wheel to their left, ready to roll up the enemy line but, before they could do any significant damage, my cavalry inflicted another loss on the Normans, including killing their commander in chief. This was too much for these early Frenchies to take, and they fled the field, leaving their later compatriots to fight on alone.
The game was a bit of a foregone conclusion from then on, as Peter’s troops were still resisting, leading to an eventual 15-6 victory for the Romans.
Points were totted up and it turned out the Peter and I had actually won the day!
A very good way to end the season, with my first tournament win, and huge thanks to all the Guilders for organising an excellent competition that I shall certainly enter again next year.
If you look at the picture to the right, you will see I am clutching a box of Perry Plastics as a prize (along with the rather marvellous “playing card” trophy). This box turned out to be the naissance of my new 28mm army for 2024, although which later medieval army I will actually paint up is still in doubt at time of writing, along with whether I can actually get it finished in time for the Welsh Open at the end of January!
I’ve borrowed this image from Bovingdon Tank Museum (a must visit for any wargamer) which, incidentally, was also where I got my Christmas jumper from!
It’s also time for a quick Painting Challenge update: lots of entries coming in at the last minute…although you do actually have another six days to get them in.
Today’s entries take two of our most prolific painters to heights never before achieved: Matt Slade hits the 6,000 points mark, with Andrew Helliwell going past 5,000 points! Although no entry today, Sapper has also achieved a new personal best this year with a scoreline that’s currently well over 3,000.
Do visit the individual galleries (accessed via the NavBar, above) but here’s a selection of today’s entries:
There’s still plenty of time to get more entries in this year: the Challenge is opne right up to midnight on the 31st.
Consider any late painting this year as a warm up to next year’s ten year anniversary challenge!
Peter and I’s second game at the inaugural Two the Strongest Doubles tournament organised by the London Guild of Wargames was against Tom and Nathanial, each fielding a Wars of the Roses army: lots of longbows, billmen and knights!
Our plan was very much the same as in the first game of the tournament. My solid legionaries would hold the bulk of the enemy in place whilst Peter’s lighter cavalry got around the enemy flank and rolled them up. As our opponents wavered at the sight of their flank collapsing, in would go my Roman mincing machine to finish them off.
Much to our surprise, the first stages of the game saw everything going to the plan: Peter’s men got around the right flank of Tom’s troops and started knocking units off the table, then turning to head into the centre. Meanwhile, I advanced cautiously forward, wary of a storm of longbow fire.
Nathaniel also took a cautious approach so, for a time, all the action was on one side. Here’s a montage of these first evolutions:
Then I’m afarid our opponents made what must be considered a fateful mistake.
Concerned about their right flank, they turned some of their units in the centre to the right, intending to take Peter’s legionaries, now heavily engaged with the right side of the enemy line, in the flank. This, of course, left them open to a rapid advance from my troops into their now-exposed left sides, knocking a couple off the table and certainly preventing them intervening to the right as Tom had planned.
At this point Tom’s half of their army collapsed, leading to all his remaining troops being removed from the board and leaving Nathaniel to face the might of the Empire alone!
Now severely outnumbered and already in a poor tactical situation, it was only a matter of time before Nathaniel’s troops were overwhelmed. It also didn’t help that his artillery now showed an alarming propensity to draw Aces!
So in all a fairly convincing 16-0 victory for the Romans, leaving us in a good position overall as we faced the final game of the day.
This year’s Lard Magazine has just hit the streets!
Packed with articles supporting a wide range of Lardy rules, there’s literally hours of reading to be had with each issue.
You can order yours here, and below you’ll find what this year’s festive conrucopia has to offer!
MALTESE FALCONE
Chain of Command set during a ‘what if ’ invasion of Malta
CANADIANS AT COURCELETTE
Great War action, for both Through the Mud and the Blood and CoCing Up
THE LIBERATION OF NARVIK
A Pint Sized Campaigns for Norway 1940.
IN GOTH WE TRUST
Goths for Infamy Infamy!
FIRE AND MANOEUVRE!
Tactical insights for Chain of Command.
BECAUSE WE’RE HERE, LAD!
Rorke’s Drift using Sharp Practice.
EUREKA! GOING GREEK WITH STRENGTH AND HONOUR
Ancient Greeks using Strength & Honour.
THE BATTLE OF THE MEDWAY
A scenario for Strength & Honour.
BLACK AND WHITE WARGAMES:
Night and Winter fighting in Chain of Command.`
THE PUNIC WARS WITH MIDGARD`
Using Midgard Heroic Battles in the ancient world.
THE BATTLE OF VERCELLAE
The Romans take on the Cimbri in this scenario for Strength & Honour
THE POLES DROP IN
A Half Pint Sized Campaign for Chain of Command
ACROSS THE AURE
Normandy scenario for O Group as the US 115th Infantry attempt to liberate Briqueville.
THE BATTLE OF PHARSALUS
Caesar goes head to head with Pompey in Strength & Honour scenario
RAIDING THE WILDERNESS
1777 AWI scenario for Sharp Practice.
WHAT A GANGSTER!
What a Cowboy in the world of 1920s Gangsters
A GREEN AND BROWN HELL
A Hurtgen Forest Pint Sized Campaigns for Chain of Command
SOLO COC ATTACK SID FOR PSC’s
further developments on the SID Solo CoC system in Lard Magazine 2020.
BAG THE BOK!
Eight scenarios for Bag the Hun as the South African Air Force battle the Italians for air supremacy over Eastern Africa.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BASE
Some tools and tips on making bases that will give your figures that extra wow factor!
BLIMUS! CANNAE BUILD A GAME FOR SALUTE?
Creating a landscape for the battle of Cannae
WHAT A TANKER – WITH BLOKES!
Not all games of What a Tanker are about tanks.
THE DEFENCE OF HAZEBROUCK
1940 Chain of Command scenario
DOWN IN THE VALLEY
Quế Sơn Valley in 1967 scenario for Charlie Don’t Surf!
GENERAL D’ARMEE II
What to expect in the forthcoming new edition of these popular Napoleonic rules.
GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL
A classic shoot out scenario for What a Cowboy.
LA PETITE GUERRE
Large skirmishes in the Champlain-Hudson Corridor 1756-1759 or Sharp Practice
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Another classic scenario for What a Cowboy.
A BROTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER
Inspiration from role playing games to enhance your narrative wargaming.
PORTENTS OF VICTORY
Using omens in Strength & Honour
THE ROAD FROM MANDALAY
The Indian Army taking on the Japanese in Burma with Chain of Command
This November just gone, those stalwart men of the London Wargaming Guild put on the first To The Strongest Doubles tournament at the 7 Dials Club in Covent Garden.
The concept was simple: teams of two players, with each player fielding 100 points of army. The armies did not have to be connected but it would obviously be better if they were.
Originally the idea had been for each team to be one experienced player and one less experienced if not novice player, but this requirement was softened in the run-up to the tournament…although personally and, as it turned out somewhat hypocritically, I think enforcing this would actually be an excellent idea for the future.
I say “somewhat hypocritically” because my partner was none other than Peter R., many times champion of many tournaments, which would presumably have made me the novice player!
Our first game was against Sid and Rob: the former also fielding Early Imperial Romans, the latter fielding Polybian Romans.
Our plan was simple: I would pin Sid’s EIR’s in place, whilst Peter lapped around the Polybian left flank. As it happens, our strategy was the same-but-opposite from that adopted by Sid and Rob: Rob would pin Peter’s troops whilst Sid wrapped around my right flank!
The two lines quickly came together, and immediately the flanking generals on each side began to do their thing.
Below left you can see my legionaries holding Sid’s in place whilst below right you can see Sid’s horse and lights attempting to turn my flank:
Fortunately I was able to turn my cavalry to face this threat and, with the Auxilia in Orbis (i.e. fighting to all sides) was able to keep Sid at bay.
Unfortunately for other Rob, Peter is a past master at outflanking, and Rob’s Polybian Romans were soon in a great deal of trouble: their cavalry driven from the field by an endless series of flank attacks from our light troop, leaving his infantry to fall in turn as our cavalry turned on them as Peter’s legions moved into contact.
With his camp falling to some Numidian light horse, Rob was soon forced to remove all his troops from the table, leaving Peter’s men free to come to my aid.
Fighting two opponents at once is never much fun and, despite valiant efforts, Sid’s men were soon reeling from the field as well, leaving us victors 18 points to 9.
Lots of submissions coming through as people try and get their last entries of the year in before the 31st December deadline.
Today we have updates from Carole, Matt, Ralph, Chris, Mr Luther, Mervyn and Sapper. Do visit their individual galleries, accessed via the NavBar, above, but here’s a taster of what you can see:
There’s still plenty of time to get your entries in for this year, and even if you don’t, the Challenge will be back next year for its Ten Year Anniversary edition!
Here’s wishing you good painting in the run up to Christmas!
I stopped buying Wargames Illustrated shortly after it turned into the Battlefront catalogue (a pity, as I have every issue of the old style magazine and still dip in and dip out of them on a regular basis) but, when I saw they had a free Warlord Epic ECW Scots sprue as part of the package, thought I’d take the opportunity to (a) give the new-look WI another chance and (b) try out the Warlord Epic Scots.
I hadn’t really interacted with any Warlord Epic figures up to this point: my collection is nearly all 15mm and thought of buying Napoleonics that were slightly but significantly smaller that what I have (the admittedly larger, more like 18mm AB range) didn’t appeal.
In fact, I’d always wondered what on earth Warlord were thinking when they introduced another unique scale into the wargaming world. Why not go 10mm or 15mm rather than something in between? Or were they trying to create a Hobby like GW?
Anyway, reading around, the Epic ECW ranges were supposed to be larger than the Epic Napoleonics, more like 13.5mm, so I was happy to give them a go. I duly bought my copy of WI and settled down to have a read and a look at the free sprue.
First impressions were good. A nice lot of detail on the figures and they certainly seemed a good size. They also looked like they would be quick to paint: no picking up lolly sticks with 3-4 figures on them, just bases of 10 figures a time…plus the fact that a percentage of each figure wouldn’t need to be painted as it was hidden by their neighbour next door.
The 10-figure blocks were a pain in one way, in that they don’t fit with my existing basing system, but I don’t have any Commanded Shot bases for my Scots yet (in fact, the army is positively short of muskets having several Pike Only battalia) so I thought I’d give four “shooter” blocks a go as an oversize Commanded Shot unit.
So, what do I think?
Yes, very nice really.
They were easy to paint: really detailed relief takes Contrast Paint beautifully, and they were as quick to paint as I thought they would be.
I added a command figure from Blue Moon’s 18mm range that towers over them a bit, and a standard bearer from Alternative’s Furiosa range who fits nicely. And a dog just for laughs.
The $64m question, of course, is how they would fit in with my other figures: mostly Peter Pig and Hallmark 15’s.
Well, the photo below shows the Scots and a battalia of English pike and shot side by side for comparison:
The height difference isn’t noticeable at all. In fact I think the Epic figures are 15mm from top of bonnet to foot and that the 13.5mm measurement is to their eyes.
They are obviously a little more densely packed than my usual basing system, but that won’t be a problem providing I’m consistent with deploying any Scottish Commanded Shot like this.
One thing: they are a bit slimmer front-to-back then their metal equivalents, almost on their way to being flats, but I’m going to put this down to a diet of good Scots’ porridge rather than anything else!
The price is also good. The sprue also contains four pike 10-man blocks and a smattering of singles, horsemen, artillerymen etc. Would certainly work out much cheaper than buying everything in metal.
Will I buy more?
Probably not…but only because I have loads of Scots already.
I do need some more Commanded Shot, however, so if anyone would like to donate a sprue they received with WI but don’t want, Comment or PM me at the usual address and I’ll quite happily take it off your hands!
Would I buy Epic if I didn’t have any ECW figures and wanted to get into the period?
Yes, I would.
I’d have a basing system that suited the 10-man blocks (FK&P is a very forgiving rule system basing-wise) and would quite happily have built a large collection of Royalist, Parliamentarian and Scots figures up.
So a big recommended from me, and I will certainly look at the other Epic ranges provided they are also 15mm equivalents.
They look even better from behind: the only direction I will ever see them from of course!
My fourth and final game at this year’s To The Strongest competition at Warfare was my Early Imperial Romans against Peter Ryding’s Tang Chinese.
Peter is a wily opponent and an expert of using a force that is a mixture of light cavalry, heavy cavalry and solid infantry…and the one thing I didn’t want to happen was him to get his Chinese around the end of my line and outflank my Romans.
As the battle began, Peter immediately went for my flanks with his light cavalry. I didn’t think I’d have a problem on the right: I’d kept that flank strong, intending to deal with the lights then use my superior drilled mobility to curl in and attack his infantry in the centre.
Likewise, on the left, all I would have to do is to move the rear left hand unit of cavalry (with the red cloaks) out to the side and I was sorted.
Unfortunately the poor cards that had been dogging me all day reared their ugly head again, and things did not go according to plan.
On the right, I shot down one of his light horse units almost immediately, and closed with the other to drive it back.
All well and good…but then my central infantry, which I had been intending to get back to the left to engage his main force, just refused to move. Where was my superior drilled mobility? It was buried in Aces!
Oh, and if you look, Peter is making it even more difficult to close with his troops by refusing that flank and presenting me with an oblique line to attack…meaning my men would have even further to go before being able to get stuck in. Clever, very clever!
Worse, the aforementioned red cloaked cavalry on my left had also refused to move as planned, leaving that flank horribly exposed. Peter, never one to miss an opportunity, took full advantage, and soon that flank was completely buggered!
I mean, look at them just sitting there! They obviously haven’t moved since their original deployment when only the smallest movement of one square would have stopped the Tang lights in their tracks.
Now there are those of you who are reading this who are saying “oh look, there’s Rob again complaining about his luck as opposed to admitting he’s playing badly”.
Yes, point taken: you play the cards you’re dealt and all that, and Peter has made no mistakes in executing a very cunning plan…but take a look at the photo below to show what happened as I moved in on his camp: something that could potentially have gained me enough coins to turn the battle my way.
Three Aces are showing…and what’s even more amusing is that for this game that wasn’t even the worst cards that I drew!
Anyway, suffice to say that I didn’t get into the enemy camp or in amongst his infantry before the flank attacks on my left took their toll and the Romans gave way and fled the field, giving Peter a colossal and well-deserved victory.
One colossal loss, one massive victory, and two losing draws gave me a seventh place in the overall competition: a bit of a disappointment to say the least!
But no matter: there was still the Doubles competition at the Seven Dials Club in Covent Garden to come.
My partner?
Peter, of course!
The reports on that tournament will follow in due course…
My third game at this year’s To The Strongest tournament at Warfare was my Early Imperial Romans against Nathaniel’s New Kingdom Egyptians.
Don’t be fooled by the compact look of Nat’s army: there were a lot of light chariot units clumped together, all with bows, so I could expect a hail of bowfire as I closed with the enemy.
I have an NKE army myself (in 15mm) and so was also expecting the Egyptians to rapidly expand their position and attempt to lap around my flanks, always a danger for an infantry army like the Romans. This didn’t happen, however, and Nat kept his troops closed together as he advanced towards me, doubtless determined to just shoot me down head on.
Unfortunately for Nat, this played directly into my strengths.
My Romans can usually soak up arrows or rally off any disorders that they do take on the way in, and love to melee with lesser quality infantry or, even better, light troops. Likewise, my cavalry would be happy to just keep charging his light chariots until they evaded off the table.
And that’s what happened for the rest of the game, as you’ll see from the photos below:
As you can see, enough of my infantry units won their initial clash quickly enough to help out those who hadn’t (the superior manouevrability of the Romans really helping those flank charges go in) and my cavalry did indeed chase his light chariots off the table.
So a workmanlike 13-2 victory for the Romans, with my only loss coming from a General who got in the way of one arrow too many!
Game two of the To The Strongest tournament at Warfare, using my Early Imperial Romans, was an interesting match against the Polybian Romans: an earlier-period Roman army that presented in a quincunx formation i.e. deployed in three lines in a chequerboard formation, with the younger hastati in front, followed by the more seasoned principes and the veteran triarii behind. This would allow Nigel’s units to rotate his lines on the spot: meaning that he could rally and bring more pila into action even when in a “zone of control”.
Romans in Quincunx
My plan was not a subtle one: it was to get stuck in with my legionaries whilst trying to lap my cavalry round his flanks. Accordingly, as the game began, I marched my troops forward smartly.
Things started well, with me managing to get a two-on-one advantage on two of his quincunx, one of which I managed to destroy. The picture below shows two legionary units perpendicular to each other as one has just moved into the square where the quincunx was:
Unfortunately this turned out to be the high point of the game for my Romans!
The two battle lines came together and a grinding melee developed with fortunes swaying backwards and forwards between the two sides. Here’s a pic taken just before the lines clashed:
At tbis point my flank forces should have finished with his and come back in to hit the sides of the enemy line, giving me victory.
What actually happened was that my flank forces got bogged down and couldn’t get the local victories I needed to break themselves free to intervene elsewhere. As an example, here’s a unit of enemy horse sandwiched between two of my units: it should have died very quickly, but just kept surviving everything I could throw at it!
All this grinding melee was using up the clock and, before I knew it, time was called.
We totted up the points and I had lost the game by the narrowest of margins: 6 points to 7!
Really interesting to face the Polybian Roman quincunx, well played by my opponent, but a frustrating result.
Two games in to the tournament and two losing draws racked up: not good!
As we enter the final month of this year’s Challenge, a whole host of entries sent in during the last two weeks of November.
Do visit the individual galleries, available via the NavBar above, and here’s a taster:
There’s still plenty of time to get your entries in for this year, so don’t put those brushes aside yet!
One of the main reasons for me going to the Warfare show this year was that I was competing in the To The Strongest tournament there. Four games in one day, 135 points, my Early Imperial Romans ready for action.
I was expecting my first game to be against Andy’s Dacians-with-Sarmatian-allies, as I nearly always face Andy’s Dacians in round one of a tournament as they and the Romans are usually the closest together historically, but Andy wasn’t there so I would instead face Tim’s Eastern Franks. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire…just what my Romans hate: an all cavalry army.
The photo above shows the position just after the start of the battle: you can see Tim is looking to sneak around my flanks. I’m not too worried, at this stage, about my right flank (my legionaries can oblique right) but I do need to pull my cavalry back on the left to protect against the enemy horse on the other side of the wood advancing forward and getting behind my line.
This should have been a fairly easy move to make, but unfortunately Fortuna obviously had it in for me that day and both my cavalry brigade and the left hand legionary brigade froze in place, presumably bamboozled by the fact that there were no Dacians to be seen!
Although not a good situation, all was not lost: all I needed to do was to turn my cavalry to face the outflankers and get the legionaries into action.
Aaargh!
Another turn where my troops would do nothing…unlike Tim’s Franks!
I was now down a cavalry unit, but managed to stabilise the far left by sheer good luck as my other unit of Equites Cohortales survived being hit in the flank, turned, and drove off their attackers. They then advanced forward themselves to threaten Tim’s camp.
The left-centre, however, was a mess. Tim had brilliantly taken advantage of my stagnation by concentrating his heavy horse: knocking out two of my legionary units there and effectively bursting through my line.
With me threatening his camp, and him threatening to surround and wipe out the rest of my cavalry, it looked as if we’d end up about honours even overall, so the game would be decided on the right.
Here things had not gone badly, just not well. I’d lost the Auxilia to another nicely executed outflanking manoeuvre, but killed one of Tim’s generals in return.
All this to-ing and fro-ing had, however, drained the clock and we were now out of time. Totting up the points, a winning draw to Tim 8-5.
Here’s the position at the end of the battle:
So a tight first game with a disappointing result. Excellent play from Tim: using his superior mobility on the flanks and then taking full advantage of the opportunity in the left centre.
Three games still to go: so plenty of time to rescue the situation!
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
If you need to contact me, you can do so at:
vislardica@gmail.com
If you have enjoyed visiting this site, please add a link to it on your own wargaming blog: www.vislardica.com.
![20231025_103955[1].jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5406c773e4b087d8052ef58b/1703939409670-54HE32W5WBVSD9N4T27G/20231025_103955%5B1%5D.jpg)
