TTS AAR: Warfare Game Three: Venetians Abroad versus Later Romans

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My third game at this year’s To The Strongest tournament at Warfare was against Si and his Later Romans.

This was not an encounter I was particularly looking forward to: not because Si isn’t a nice chap, quite the opposite, but because, as he was happy to remind me, although I’d beaten him a few times in friendlies, I’d never beaten him in competition, with these Later Romans often proving my Nemesis!

Looking at the table after deployment, I decided that, as with the last game, my plan had to be to take the fight to the enemy.

Two reasons for this: the first was that the Romans had deployed an isolated command of two legionary and one light units on the right who looked ripe for overwhelming with a combination of Knights and lights of my own; and second that I had to make sure that under no circumstances could I allow his veteran cavalry facing my left, including some lights that had proved very pesky in the past, through to threaten my flanks and rear.

As the game began, I therefore attempted to advance forward strongly on each wing: successfully on the left, less so on the right.

To continue the story of the right flank, I did indeed eventually engage and overwhelm the two enemy legionary units there with my Knights and lights, but the resilience of the Romans meant that even though I eventually knocked out both units, I effectively tied up just about the same amount of points to do so. Plenty of coins in due course: but a lot of time and some of my best troops used to get them!

Back to the rest of the table, where the wide gap I had left between my advancing-quickly left flank and my advancing-slowly centre had given Si an opportunity to shift troops from his centre to threaten the right flank of my left flank force (if you see what I mean!).

This was quite a crisis, only just averted my managing to get my centre forward to ZOC the Romans’ ally-cataphracts.

I then withdrew the Knights on the left flank, pulling them back two squares: something that seemed to surprise Si, presumably because he felt that two units of Knights were sufficient to take on anything he had there, and that I was therefore ceding ground unnecessarily.

Well, yes, technically perhaps so…but I had good reasons for doing so.

Firstly, I knew that I currently had an advantage in the centre and on the right, so I wanted to win those battles, reaping as many coins as possible to set me up nicely for a climactic fight on the left from a position of power.

Secondly, Si is a canny player, and I was a bit overexposed on the left (hence the cataphract crisis), with three of my units facing six of his. I’ve been caught by that before: seemingly winning the battle to suddenly find one of my flanks collapsing and losing the game before I quite realised what was going on!

Finally, I was ceding ground for time - time for my right to wipe out the legionaries there and perhaps get back into the centre to smash the Romans from the right (didn’t happen, as we’ve seen above) - and forcing the situation where, for a short time at any rate, six of his units faced empty air whilst my withdrawing Knights would hopefully contribute to the fight in the centre.

And boy, was I right to do so!

Si slammed his right-centre (facing my left) forward, and I was soon facing a major assault across my left-centre that I only managed to withstand with the help of the Knights from the left that, had I not withdrawn them, would have been stuck embroiled with Si’s veteran light cavalry somewhere up on the far left side of the table.

Luckily, by this stage, my right flank force had eventually beaten the legionaries they had chased back to the Roman baseline, giving me six coins (two units, one general) and bringing me to the edge of victory.

I must confess that I can’t remember what gave me the final coins I needed to win, but I must have broken one more of Si’s units which, combined with coins from Si successfully rallying on an even card (the boot, or rather caligulae, were on the other feet in this game: one of the reasons for my defeat in our last encounter was me losing four coins to rallying…Si lost at least two the same way this game) and the odd light killed gave me the victory.

And, when it came down to it, it was a good victory: 12-2 in my favour but, as you can see from the photos above, it was actually much more of a close-run thing than the result would suggest…at the end here I am effectively fighting with my back against the wall, enough units already disordered that my whole position could have collapsed at any moment.

So an epic game (at least from my point of view!) and one that set me right back into the running for a decent placing in the tournament as a whole.

Polish Dragoons

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Now that I had most of the pure cavalry that I needed for my 17th Century Poles, it was time to attend to the rest of the army. I’d already painted a unit of Haiduks (q.v.) so now needed to sort some Dragoons: a mainstay of any Polish force.

The boxed set of Polish Dragoons from By Fire & Sword was just what I needed in terms of mounted figures (the box comes with nine: just the right amount for my basing system) but light on foot: my Dragoon bases have seventeen figures on them rather than the nine provided.

Luckily, I had enough Haiduks left over (that box came with more than I needed!) to make up the numbers, although I did need to add a command set from the ever-reliable Essex Miniatures as well. As I wanted two units of Dragoons I therefore bought two boxed sets of Dragoons from By Fire & Sword, and then two sets of command figures and horseholders from Essex.

First up are the mounted Dragoons. These are okay figures but, as is now usual with the By Fire & Sword range, provided with plastic horses and metal men.

Firstly, let me say that the plastic horses are a million times better than the disasters that were the horses provided with the Winged Hussars from the same manufacturer. These horses were crisp and clean, no imperfections: lovely.

I still think it’s a bit weird to have metal figures on plastic horses - seems somewhat top heavy to me - but, as you can see, they paint up well…particularly as I was back to using Contrast Paints after an unfortunate attempt at a return to black undercoat and layering with the aforementioned Haiduks.

The foot Dragoons also came out nicely, particularly the command figure from Essex (even if you can’t see him very well in the photo) and the horseholders.

So that’s one unit of Dragoons done, with one more to go.

TTS AAR: Warfare Game Two: Venetians versus Thematic Byzantines

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My second game at this year’s Warfare tournament was against Nick and his Thematic Byzantines.

Chatting before we began, Nick mentioned that although he himself was a novice at To The Strongest (this being only his eighth ever game of TTS) his figures were about forty years old and veterans of many a tabletop encounter dating back to the days of WRG 5th or 6th. This made me wish that I’d been using my Early Imperials, also about forty years old, and reflect on all the changes there have been to this hobby of ours since I first started playing as a child, particularly as the Venetians are multi-part plastics less than three years old.

Anyhow, on to the game…

Quite unusually, I won the scouting, so decided to take the fight to the Byzantines, advancing forward strongly right across the battlefield.

My plan was to use my Knights, supported by infantry, to overwhelm the Byzantine cavalry on the left and right whilst avoiding the scutatoi in the centre.

On the right, my initial charge was the usual mix of positive and negative: one unit of Knights doing its job and disordering the enemy, the other getting disordered themselves and needing to be pulled back to recover. What was slightly different about this game, though, was the fact that I had brought my infantry right up with the Knights, so the foot could intervene and make up for the faltering unit of Knights.

On the left, the Knights did exactly what they were supposed to do: smashing a Byzantine cavalry unit from the table and giving me the opportunity to get my lights around behind the Byzantine line.

With the right flank locked into a combat that seemed to be going nowhere, I decided to now focus on the left, where my initial success was beginning to overstretch the Byzantine line, leaving a gap that I could perhaps exploit.

I had a “spare” unit of Knights on the left which I then sent back into the centre, right into the gap that I mentioned above. This worked very nicely, as I had also brought up my crossbow-armed infantry and was peppering the skutatoi with bolts.

With the skutatoi pinned in place, my Knights were able to turn onto their flank: setting the scene for what promised to be a very painful episode for the Byzantine infantry.

Before that could happen, however, the Byzantine right suddenly gave way, leaving the Venetians victorius!

So a 12-2 win that neatly cancelled out my 2-12 loss in the first round. On to game three…

TTS AAR: Warfare Game One: Venetians Abroad versus Parthians

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My first game at this year’s Warfare To The Strongest tournament was against Tim’s Parthians.

The action began on the right flank, when two units of my Knights advanced forward to take on a couple of Parthian Cataphracts. Mixed results for this initial clash, with one disorder inflicted and one disorder received despite having the first charge advantage.

I then made a devastatingly stupid decision to ignore “Trevor’s Rule” and decided to try and activate some mounted crossbowmen for a cheeky shot before the main action.

I was duly punished by the cards for my temerity but, in my defence, if the ballistieri had managed to knock out the disordered cataphracts, my veteran Knights would have been able to intervene to help the disordered Later Knights to their left, and there’s only a 10% chance of an Ace appearing…

But a post match analysis does show this to be an incredibly stupid thing to do and, no lie, this probably lost me the game, as you just can’t afford to make a mistake like this against a player of Tim’s calibre: on his next turn he finished off the Later Knights with a unit led by a general (no similar error on his part!), which meant all I could do was try and retreat my veteran Knights before they also were annihilated…

Okay, so that one was down to the cards…but it was still my initial error that caused the situation to arise in the first place!

Meanwhile, on the left hand side of the battlefield, more of my Knights had advanced against similar numbers of enemy cataphracts. Unfortunately, one of those units was a camelry unit that, try as I might, I just couldn’t shift from the field: the smell of these curious beasts making the steeds my Knights rode reluctant to close to melee properly.

I did eventually gain some advantage here, but only by committing my Alabardiers unit in support, and not to a battle-winning degree.

Which meant, of course, that things would be finally decided in the centre.

Here, the defeat of my Knights on the right had freed up a couple of Parthian heavy horse units to attack my Crossbowmen: hardly the best unit to withstand charging cavalry, especially when pulling an Ace to activate the turn before!

Withstand the charge they did, however, and I was even able to slide a unit of spearmen sideways to protect them from future depredations: slightly gamey, I know, but allowed within the rules.

More enemy Cataphracts were on the way in, however, and I was still drawing Aces to activate any defensive shooting!

The Venetians weren’t beaten yet, however, and managed to not only defend their camps against the furious Parthian frontal assault, but even drive their cavalry backwards.

The Venetians might even have knocked a couple of enemy units off the table as well…but the cards intervened again…

Now those of you who have been paying attention will remember that I said that my decision to lead with the mounted crossbowmen on the right, drawing an Ace for activation and thus ending my turn instead of having a possible replay if I had opened the batting with the general-led Knights, had lost me the game…well that moment was now upon us and the chickens firmly came home to roost as unopposed Parthian horse, heavy and light, swarmed down the right flank and hit my camps - the camps that had just repelled a frontal assault - in the flank.

The militia spearmen there just didn’t have the time to turn to face this new threat and, despite the barbed wire (okay, fortifications) protecting them, gave way, costing me five victory medals and the game!

A great performance from Tim and the Parthians, a less than stellar piece of decision-making on my part, and I was the loser 2 points to 12!

So let that be a salutory lesson for all you TTS players out there: obey Trevor’s Rule and always lead with your general’s unit!

TFL Painting Challenge: Mid-November Update

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Frost on the car this morning for the first time this winter, decorations and Christmas songs everywhere: must be almost the end of the year and the climax of the 2025 TFL Painting Challenge!

Lots of entries in this batch. First up we have Carole, and a lovely set of general Dungeons and Dragons types from Bad Squiddo:

Next we have Andrew and some more medievals: this time a mixture of 28’s and 15’s, all mostly from Mirliton:

The painting fairy has visited Stumpy, so lots of re-based figures from him. You still get half points for re-basing, so always worth sending them in:

Nick has been very busy: a huge entry of some very nice 28mm fantasy figures and a couple of outriders in a larger scale.

Dex has also been hard at it, sending in an ersatz German late WW2 Volksturm platoon for Chain of Command 2:

And last, but by no means least, here’s some of Mr Luther’s 6mm orchards along with Steve’s French knights from Agincourt:

Still plenty of time to get your entries for this year in: the Challenge doesn’t close until midnight on 31st December.

Keep them coming!

Warfare 2025

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This year’s Warfare show was once again held at the Farnborough International Exhibition Centre. I was there on the Saturday mainly because I was competing in the To The Strongest competition there - posts about which will follow in due course.

At least half the show is dedicated to the various competitions taking place: below is a shot taken from one corner of the competition area, with tradestands and demonstration/participation games shown in the background.

With four games to play in one day, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on the show itself, but I did manage to wander around the demonstration/participation games and was generally very impressed: they were certainly big enough, with most tables packed full of hundreds of figures and/or some stunning terrain.

Not a bad selection of trade stands as well: most of the big manufacturers were represented in some way, shape or form, and there were a nice selection of smaller suppliers present as well. There seemed to be a lot of space devoted to the tools and equipment you need to actually paint and mount the figures as well as the figures themselves: all very useful in terms of a re-stock.

A good Bring & Buy as well - I was almost tempted by a couple of things - but in the end opted for some Victrix plastics to paint. More on them later.

I’d have said that the show was busier than normal: there was certainly a real buzz around the place although, it being Farnborough, it never seemed too crowded.

I’d have been happy to have attended even if I wasn’t competing, so I’d recommend you add the 2026 show to your wargaming calendar.

Here are some shots of the larger demonstration/participation games:

TTS AAR: Darius' Revenge

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Neil was keen to have another go at a massive Macedonians vs Persians game using his 2mm blocks: Darius wanted his revenge and had reconfigured his army list accordingly!

Macedonians advance forward quickly, keen to get to grips with the enemy

As always when playing the Macedonians, my plan was for Alex and the Companions to punch through the enemy cavalry on one flank, and then turn and hit the rest of the Persian army in the flank as it was pinned in place by my advancing infantry.

Alexander and the Companions prepare to make their move

In our last game, Alex and Co. had done exactly that, but only in the nick of time as they had had to chew through deep units of Persian cavalry. This time I therefore positioned Alex opposite the smaller but better quality units of enemy horse, thinking that they wouldn’t take so long to win and break free.

The first part of the plan worked: Alexander and Co. charged forward and drove the enemy cavalry back…but unfortunately it still took a long time to actually break them (well, they were better quality) and, worse, the fighting moved away to the left: further from where Alexander would be needed to smash into the back of the enemy infantry.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, each sides’ poorer quality cavalry had closed to contact. This didn’t go too well for the out-numbered Macedonian ally-cavalry, and they were slowly driven backwards towards their baseline.

And in the centre, the Macedonian infantry grind forward…but much too slowly, especially as the Persian foot retreat backwards to avoid contact!

Persians pull back to avoid contact with the pikemen and ally-hoplites

So, to summarise the situation to date: on the left, Alexander and Co. have won the cavalry battle there but been drawn off further from the centre; on the right, the Persian cavalry are winning nd have pushed the Macedonian’s Ally-Cavalry back; and in the centre, the Macedonian infantry have advanced towards the retreating Persian infantry but not yet made significant contact.

What does this all mean?

Well, a gap had now opened up on the right of the advancing Macedonian infantry and the Persians, vastly superior in terms of overall numbers, were able to send their scythed chariots and mercenary/traitorous Hoplites into the space offered and assault the flank of main Macedonian infantry line.

Uh-oh!

With Alexander and Co. effectively out of the picture, it now became a race to see whether the Macedonian infantry could destroy the Persians in front of them, including taking the Persian camp, which which would then give them enough victory medals to win the game, before being mullered by the Persian flank charges coming in from the front!

Two units of Macedonian Ally-Hoplites had burst through the Persian line in front of their camp, and now needed to assault the place in order to win the game:

Unfortunately, Tyche was not with the Macedonians that day and, try as they might, the Ally-Hoplites just couldn’t get into the Persian camp…which meant that the Persians coming in from the right were able to overwhelm the right end of the Macedonian line doing enough damage to mean the Macedonians had to retreat, sarissas between their legs!

So a very close run thing, but a revenge win for the Persians, setting the scene for the deciding battle, to be held in a few weeks time!

TTS AAR: Practising for 2TS

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The end of the year sees the annual Two The Strongest (2TS) double tournament for To The Strongest.

As friend Peter and I have entered this year competition (going for out hat trick!) we thought we’d better have a bit of a practice, choosing a couple of armies from Peter’s collection: one was one of the later Roman/Bysantine armies, the other was a cataphract/horse-archer army, with Tibetans proxieing in.

I would take the Roman-Byzantine types, Peter the Tibetan types. Each side consisted of two allied armies, each of 100 points.

Unsurprisingly, Peter’s cataphract-types (I’ll call them Tibetans from now on) won the scouting, forcing me to deploy in a long line in order not to be outflanked on either side. This gave Peter the opportunity to try and use one of his favourite tactics (one that I have adopted myself) which is to try and concentrate all your force on one half of an enemy army at a time.

Accordingly, once the game had begun, the enemy facing my right flank turned to their right and sped over to the other side of the table, leaving a lot of my troops apparently facing air! I had, however, been ready for this and, using the Romans’ famed mobility, soon had most of my right hand troops facing left and ‘marching to the sound of the guns’.

The action began with a decent bit of fighting from the Romans: one legionary unit threw its pila like javelins against an enemy heavy cavalry unit, disordering it then moving in with the gladius (or perhaps by now the spatha) to finish them off. This left the legionaries surrounded on three sides, so they sent promptly marched backwards to resume their original position. Now that’s how Romans ought to fight all the time!

By this time, my Romans from the right were beginning to arrive to reinforce my left, and the fighting there became intense.

Fighting of this intensity couldn’t last long and, sure enough, some veteran Roman cavalry managed to destroy the proxie-Tibetans on the far left which, combined with my success elsewhere, took the last victory medals from Peter’s right-hand army. Under the rules of 2TS, this meant that the whole of that army then dispersed, leaving me master of that side of the field.

Well…almost. If you look at the second picture in the gallery below (top right of the four) you’ll see that there are still some Tibetan troops on that side of the field. Peter had managed to find a gap in my line to sneak them through and, in consequence, was able to charge them into the rear of my victorious cavalry (the unit with the ‘ten of spades’ behind it).

This was enough to break them, taking my last victory medal away, so I then lost all my remaining troops from my left hand army leaving, as you can see in the final picture (bottom, left) a very empty left hand side of the table.

A couple of things to note at this point.

Firstly, my Romans had effectively beaten ¾ of the Tibetans with only ½ of their force: a decent achievement especially against such a seasoned player as Peter.

Secondly, because Peter was using proxie figures from several collections mashed together and hadn’t had the time to mark them up properly, when he moved his left hand army to the right, the various commands got very intermingled…to the extent that for this phase of the battle neither of us were sure which of his units belonged to which command, having to guess what belonged where…which is why you’ll see the Tibetan bases now carrying coloured meeples in that final picture: the meeples marking which command each base was from. That meant that although we’re pretty sure we got it right, it’s entirely possible that the units that took my left-hand army off the table should actually have disappeared when his right hand army dispersed…

Anyhoo, on with the action…which took place between the remnants of each sides’ right hand armies.

Both Peter and I had left cavalry on the right hand side of the table, with the Tibetans having an advantage as they had hordes of lights versus much smaller numbers of Roman heavies, and a very open table in which to deploy them.

Unfortunately my luck also turned at this point, and a valiant attempt to take one of the enemy camps and so finish the game in my favour, ended up with my cavalry taking unexpectedly severe damage from the Tibetan lights so losing me my last victory medals on that side just before my infantry could intervene.

So an overall defeat, but a close run thing…and good practice for 2TS for its new date in January.

Enter the Haiduks

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With the Winged Hussars ready for action, it was time to paint the supporting infantry for my 17th Century Polish-Lithuanians.

First up are the Haiduks: the PBI.

I decided to use the By Fire & Sword box set because (a) their infantry figures are always very nice and (b) their unit sizes mean that buying the box set would give me the extra figures that I would need for the Polish Dragoons that I also needed to paint.

As Rob had produced such lovely Winged Hussars with the “undercoat black then acrylics” method, I decided to try and do the same for the Haiduks. Unfortunately it had been a long time since I’d painted figures like that, and despite using an undercoat, base coat, wash and highlight (rather than my usual Contrast paints) I just couldn’t get the figures to look how I wanted.

I think perhaps my choice of colours is partly at fauly here: The light blue just doesn’t work.

I put the figures away with the rest of the Poles…but they were preying on my mind. I briefly considered dumping them and starting again, but re-painting a unit you’ve “finished” is soul-destroying. Eventually I decided to see what I could do with my collection of washes and Contrast paints.

The actually colour of the uniforms I was trying to achieve was a light grey-blue coat, so I washed the Haiduks in a grey Contrast paint and crossed my fingers as I waited for the paint to dry.

Much better!

Not best, but much better than before. I’ll be sticking to Contrast paints to start off with from now on!

TTS AAR: Massive Macedonian Mash-Up

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Friend Neil was very keen to get all his 2mm Macedonian and Persian figures onto the tabletop, so we put together a massive 240-points-a-side game of To The Strongest and prepared for war!

I would take the part of Alexander (gloriously handsome God-King: it was made for me) and Neil would play Darius (“everywhere I go, I hear men laugh at your armies and whisper your generals’ names like excuses”).

The Macedonians won the scouting and carefully deployed with their Companions on the right (a bit of historical accuracy always goes a long way), the rest of their cavalry on the left, and all their heavy infantry lined up in the centre. As I had the advantage of seeing where the Persians deployed before I had to commit, I made sure that my mercenary Hoplites were facing the Persian rabble, with the Macedonian pike lining up against the traitorous mercenary Hoplites fighting for Darius: a TTS version of rock-paper-scissors as Hoplites should beat Mobs and Pike should beat Hoplites. I also used the Take The High Ground stratagem to push my mercenary Hoplites forward two squares: I wanted to get in amongst those Mobs as soon as I could.

a big battle

The Macedonians opened proceedings: intending to advance into contact with the enemy as soon as possible. Poor activation cards, however, meant that the advance was not quite as speedy as I’d hoped.

In return, the Persians largely hung back: the only exception being a strong advance on their right (i.e. opposite my weaker cavalry wing) obviously intending to overwhelm me there before swinging round my left flank.

The two wings were where the first fighting broke out. On my left wing, the superior Persian cavalry sent a hail of arrows my way, taking out two light units, and then advanced to contact with some Greek cavalry who were rapidly regretting their decision to accompany Alexander on his travels.

Meanwhile the Companions on the right had charged home and were slowly chewing their way through the deep Persian cavalry they faced. Average cards meant that rather than smashing them from the field at first contact, the Macedonian horse knocked the enemy backwards, but then got bogged down finishing the job!

Meanwhile the Macedonian infantry were still trudging forward towards the traitor-Hoplites and Tribal Levies in front of them.

It seemed to take an awfully long time to actually get into melee, particularly as the aforementioned traitor-Hoplites, rather than standing fast to be skewered, retreated back to the edge of the table, unwilling to go toe-to-toe with my sarissas.

Message from Alexander to the pike: will you hurry up please!

Worse, my ally-Hoplites, who had managed to get into the contact with the enemy Mobs, were getting the worse of the melee that followed: the Tribal Levies dishing out Disorder markers like there was no tomorrow. Perhaps it was because, given Darius’ nature, they knew that if they lost there would be no tomorrow, whether they survived the battle or not!

Oh come on: they are only mobs!

So that’s the left flank lost; the pike left of centre still striving to make a proper impact; the Hoplites centre-right not winning; and the Companions on the right stuck chewing through dense masses of horseflesh.

Not exactly where I wanted things to be at this stage of the battle!

What I was most nervous of was the left flank: Neil had at least two spare light cavalry units that could sweep around and either go for my camp or, more likely, crash into the back of my pikemen…and I’d be in even more trouble (or rather Trouble, with a capital T) if his veteran horse with Darius at their heads could dispose of the levy Greek cavalry they were currently fighting.

On top of that, he had managed to get some cavalry onto the flank of one block of pike who had ‘bravely been volunteered’ to act as a roadblock to the advancing enemy horse.

The Persians right: two spare light cavalry units (top leftish), elite cavalry attacking Greek levies (bottom centre), and flanking the pikeman road block (centre, slight right)

It was therefore with some relief that I realised that the potentially-flanking light cavalry seemed paralysed into inactivity, and the actually-flanking cavalry failed to contact the left-hand pike unit in the side, allowing the pikemen to turn and present them with a wall of spikes!

Even better, the raw Levy Greek Cavalry found some grit from somewhere and managed to (a) kill Darius himself and (b) disorder the Persian elite horse: for once a bit of luck going my way.

LOL

With the left now safe for the moment, it was time to win the battle elsewhere…and my thoughts, along with those of every Macedonian infantryman, were: where are the bl*@dy Companions?

Well they were finally here: on the right, behind the Persian lines, exactly where they were supposed to be.

Having disposed of the deep horse in front of them, the Companions, Alexander at their head, executed a neat left pivot and moved to first threaten, then smash from the field the Persian Mobs that had been causing the Hoplites so much trouble.

And done!

That was the last of the Persians coins gone, but it had not been an easy battle for the Macedonians: look at the pile of my lost victory medals next to the Persian camp in the picture above: had the Companions not finally got their act together, or if Neil had got his right flank moving as I feared, then things could have been very different indeed.

But they did and he didn’t, so a win for the MaccyD’s: although I have now been challenged to a re-match, so we shall have to see how that goes…

TFL Painting Challenge: End October Update

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Gosh, is it that time of year already? Soon be Christmas and another excuse to buy lots and lots of new little soldiers. And don’t forget the Black Friday sales argument either: I had to have it, it was such a bargain!

Once you have bought all the shinies, it’s time to paint them, and that’s where the Challenge comes in: more motivational than a goose giving a TED Talk in full business casual (thank ChatGPT for that one).

Here are this week’s entries: first up is Carole with some very nice 28mm figures from Bad Squiddo.

Next we have Mr Helliwell with his usual cornucopia. This time it’s a mix between the Napoleonic and the Medieval, with some lovely terrain builds as well. Below is only a fraction of what Andrew has sent in: a visit to his gallery (accessed via the NavBar at the top of the page) is highly recommended.

Mr Luther has some more tiny aeroplanes to add to his collection, and a vast amount of trees and bramble.

Steve Burt is still adding to his Agincourt collection. Here are some axemen and swordsmen.

Finally, here’s Stumpy, who’s been busy re-basing after a visit from the Painting Fairy:

Inspired by all the above, I’m off to put some paint on some Haiduks: keep them coming!

TTS AAR: Hittites versus Timurid

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Plenty of time for another game, so as friend Rob wanted another go with the Timurids, I re-packed the victorious Fanatic Berbers and broke out the Hittites…I wanted to get my new unit of archers and the Gasgan chariots onto the tabletop for the first time.

In order to avoid getting shot to death by all the Timurid mounted archers, my plan was to weight the right flank with my fighting chariots, then win there as I held back my centre and left before turning the successful chariots to take the rest of the Timurids in the flank and rear. Simples!

The battle began with a disaster of epic proportions. Rob used the This Way Effendi stratagem card to drive the Gasgan chariots, a general and a unit of Syrian light chariots back one square and therefore off the table.

No problem, I thought, I’ll just get them back on, needing a 4+, but of course I drew an Ace. Now drawing an Ace when re-entering the table means you lose the units in question, so that meant I was five coins down before we’d even properly started the game!

Since then, however, there has been a discussion on the To The Strongest Facebook group, and it seems that the consensus of opinion is that as the This Way Effendi card affects your troops before they have actually entered the table (it’s all about being led the wrong way before arriving at the battlefield) so the Ace-lose-the-units rule doesn’t actually apply.

That makes sense, and will doubtless be clarified in a later edition of Even Stronger amendments…but it was too late for this game so we went on with the game with the Hittites being down half a command and a third of their coins!

The rest of my plan then unfolded as, er, planned, with the Hittite chariots winning on the right hand side of the field.

Meanwhile, the somewhat reduced Hittites on the left and in the centre were fighting hard to survive until the right hand force could turn and roll up the Timurids.

This proved quite tough, but we did get one moment of success when a unit of Hittite spearmen managed to flank charge and destroy some of the Timurid heavy cavalry.

It was now time for the Hittite chariots on the right and crash into the left flank of the Timurid line…but although I managed the turn okay, I then found myself confronted with obstacles to my path in the form of a unit of Khadesh, a unit of escorted elephants, and rough ground, plus lights in the enemy camp ready to assault the flank of any chariots passing by!

Meanwhile, every Timurid on the other side of the field was closing in on the Hittite camp!

In the end, of course, I just couldn’t get my chariots through the obstacles in time to prevent the Timurids taking my camp, my last three coins and the victory.

Oh, how I missed having the command that had been led astray at the beginning of the game!

But it had been a great game of TTS played in the bet possible spirits, and I have taken a note to check the Facebook group for information on the interpretation of new Even Stronger rules before playing rather than after!

Oh look, the missing gasgan chariots have finally arrived…

Winged Hussars

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I’ve had bits and pieces of a 15mm Polish/Lithuanian army for For King & Parliament - Eastern Front for ages so, as I still can’t decide on my next Ancients army whether 15mm or 28mm, I thought that it was probably time to turn what I did have into a force that can take to the tabletop.

The key to a Polish/Lithuanian period of the time is, of course, the winged hussars. I did try the By Fire & Sword figures, sending them straight to friend Rob who had offered to paint them for me, but the quality on the new boxes of cavalry was not good, mainly because of the decision to use plastic horses with metal figures. As Rob said:

The riders are ok, some of the hands will need filing for lances to fit but par for the course and not great faces but workable. Standard BF&S figures as I recall them being like from the original edition.

The wings (a pair for each rider) are separate, very flat, and no instructions on how to attach them so I'll need to work that out. Not a problem once I have a look, just a bit of time & patience. Designed to attach to the saddle I think.

The horses though... are awful.

You've got one which has snapped off its integral base at the hooves, another with no tail, and several with mould flash around the head and mane. It's not the clean, light grey plastic like that of the Ottomans either, it's some rough brittle dark grey stuff, with terrible definition on the detail. Worst horses I have seen in ages, hands down.

Attached some pics of the horses; the issues mostly fairly obvious between damaged manes, missing bits, etc. Those I haven't photographed by no means great either - rough, poor casts, but at least 10 out of the 18, as pictured, have clear defects. The most ridiculous looking one is the one where the mane and half the neck is missing!

To give them their due, the By Fire & Sword people were happy to replace the value of the figures with a different box set, so I bought a whole load of Azabs for the Ottomans and started looking elsewhere for Winged Hussars. BTW the Azabs were nice and painted up well.

I eventually decided upon Khurasan Miniatures as the source of my winged hussars: you can see their 17th Century range here. With all the tax and postage issues, buying from Khurasan is a bit more of a pain than buying from a UK manufacturer, but Jon does his very best to make the process as painless as possible, and delivery is pretty quick considering too.

Rob declared that he was happy with these hussars, and painted them up. I think we can all agree that he has done a very nice job indeed.

Note that one base has got a couple of non-Khurasan hussars that I had lying around from when I had previously bought a unit of hussars from Instant Armies (recommended as a source of painted figures: always look out for them at shows).

So that’s the hussars done (although I shall probably collect a sixth unit in due course, just to make things symmetrical!) on to doing the infantry…

Announcing To The Worlds Strongest 2026

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The next staging of the “To the Worlds Strongest” will be held on 28th February 2026 at the Blewbury Village Hall (Heather Way, Blewbury, Oxfordshire. OX11 9QQ).

Any army from the Ancient and Medieval lists, that are current at 1st February 2026, can be used up to a value of 130 points using 28mm figures. There will be no amendments to the points values in the published lists.

The competition will comprise of the usual 4 games, being played on a 6’x4’ table using a 12 x 8 grid of 6” squares. Scoring system will be the same as previous Worlds competitions.

Entry fee will be £20.00

We would like competitors to pay in advance, for a ticket. Please email me (Simon Purchon at sipurchon@hotmail.com) stating your wish to enter. I will then send you the account details to use. For a reference, use your name and TtS. Once received, I will send you a confirmation email which will become your ticket. A refund will be possible up to 1 month before the tournament.

Terrain  will be as per the rule book. Please check pages 31 “Choosing the terrain pieces” to 33 “Positioning the terrain pieces”. With practise, terrain placement takes less than 5 minutes. This may seem like a backward step, to some, but it allows players an element of choice on what they need to beat their opponent after seeing what you’re facing. So, start practising and see what works for your army and against your opponent’s armies.

Full details of game timings and instructions for checking lists will be announced in December.

Action from Game 4 of to The Worlds Strongest 2025

IABSM AAR: Kamenewo at The Other Partisan 2025

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Here are two sets of pictures showing 1st Corps’ I Ain’t Been Shot Mum demonstration game at this year’s The Other Partisan show.

Beautifully presented, it’s a stunning simulation of the battle of Kamenewo, October 1941, where Soviet T-34s halted the Germans’ advance on Moscow.

Click on the photo below: highly recommended.

TTS AAR: Fanatic Berber versus Timurid

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Time for another session of To The Strongest against friend Rob. He wanted to use the Timurids, and I chose to get some of my new Arab figures onto the table with a Fanatic Berber army.

I lost the deployment and, as you’ll see in the left-hand picture below, set up with my Arab cavalry (supported by some mercenary Christian knights) on the right, my infantry in the centre, and a weak left flank comprising only of a horde of Berber light horse.

The Timurids deployed weak on their right (which suited me just fine), their infantry to the right of centre, and their main striking force on the left.

First off, I used the This Way Effendi strategem to push Rob’s left back a square, meaning that the heavy cavalry you can see on the right of the right-hand picture below started the game off-table, and Rob was very lucky not to lose them altogether as the first card he drew to activate the lights in that same command was an Ace: had he chosen to try and get his heavies on table before activating the lights, the Ace would have been theirs and they would never have returned!

The refusal of his left hand command to advance meant that Rob couldn’t really take advantage of the initiative winning the scouting had given him, meaning that my Arabs could advance off their start positions before the Timurids could dominate the centre of the table, meaning that I could dictate a strong advance with my right whilst refusing my weak left.

The Timurids, however, quickly got their act together, and soon the right hand axis of the battlefield was crowded with units all desperately trying to break through the enemy line and outflank.

I felt this initial clash went quite well for the Berbers, as I managed to clear away some of the Timurid horse-archers, and although one unit of Arab cavalry was pushed back, disordered, the Black Guard managed to move across to protect them whilst the mercenary Christian Knights broke through and thundered down the right hand side of the table.

Meanwhile, on the left, a combination of infantry bowfire and the javelins of the Berber light horse had driven off more Timurid horse-archers and, as the Timurid heavies hadn’t really moved forward at all, meant that that flank was still nicely secure.

Things seemed to be going rather well for the Berbers. I was something like five coins ahead from killing horse-archers, the left was safe, I was very strong in the centre as the Timurids hadn’t attacked there yet, and the right looked good too.

All this was, however, an illusion.

Yes, I had killed some horse-archers, but the Timurids had lots of them so losing a few wasn’t really a concern, especially as their fresh, veteran heavy cavalry armed with lance, bow, kitchen sink etc now moved forward and attacked my right with a vengeance…even having enough troops to send some back to deal with the now-isolated mercenary Christian knights.

The fighting was fierce, and soon I found myself pushed back into a defensive formation as the Timurid horse (both heavy and more lights…where on earth do they get them from!) started to stream around my flank.

I obviously needed to do something fast, so threw caution to the wind and sent the Berber light horse forward on the left (if they could get past the Timurid heavies there then they could wreak havoc from behind the enemy battle line) and the infantry forward in the centre.

Interestingly, the Timurid centre was held by a couple of units of Kharash slave-driven infantry: raw mobs with three hits each. Killing them wouldn’t give me any victory medals, but I couldn’t apply my superior strength in infantry to kill units that would give me victory medals until I’d dealt with the Kharash: a pain as I now needed to win the game (by taking victory medals) before my right collapsed.

The Berber light horse did a superb job: sneaking past the Timurid heavies on the left and doing what they do best and assault enemy units from the flanks and rear. The Berber infantry did well as well: the combination of the two driving Timurid units from the field.

And not before time, as the Timurids had now managed to get around my right flank, and managed to get some horse-archers (yes, more of them) through to attack my camps. Fortunately Lady Luck chose that moment to intervene on the side of the Arabs, but I really needed to win the game quickly now or I would risk snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

I’d battered the Timurids down to their last victory medal. One more push and they were done. Luckily, a unit of Black Guard was in just the right spot to charge a bunch of Timurid horse-archers (God knows where they came from: I thought I’d killed them all by now). The charge sent them sprinting off the table, netting me the final medal and the win.

That had been a very close run thing.

It had been a real surprise when, in the middle of the game, I suddenly realised that my apparently superior position was an illusion as I’d been spending a lot of time and effort doing not much at all and suddenly had four units of veteran heavy lancers backed up by horse-archers hitting my now-weakened right. If my Berber light cavalry on the left hadn’t managed to sneak past the Timurids guarding the other flank, and my infantry hadn’t proved so steady, and my camp had fallen…well, it wouldn’t have been the Berbers celebrating the win!

A great game really showcasing why I love To The Strongest so much.

TFL Painting Challenge: Early October Update

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Three weeks since the last Painting Challenge update, and plenty enough entries to justify another.

First up we have Dex, who adds to his collection of 15mm WW2 Japanese troops. I’m loving the coastal defence gun, might have to invest in some of them myself!

Next up we have Carole, with three technically 28mm figures. I say ‘technically’ as they are all of the giant/ogre types so well over 28mm tall. Mind you, with scale creep being what it is, in a few years time, these will probably be seen as “small 28’s”!

Time for Mr Helliwell’s regular monthly entry. Andrew has been chipping away at the base lof his lead mountain, so an eclectic mix of odds and ends plus a unit of 1/72 figures: you don’t see many of them these days.

Mervyn is back to the Napoleonics: more 15mm figures, this time British and Dutch.

And finally we’ll finish on an unlikely pairing: Greek slingers from Stumpy and Agincourt French spearmen from Mr Burt.

A very varied mix of figures taken from all parts of the broad church that we call wargaming!

Keep them coming!

IABSM AAR: Sealion at Bridlington

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Another spectacular I Ain’t Been Shot Mum after action report from Mercian Miniatures taken from the IABSM Facebook Group and featuring miniatures from 1st Corps.

This game in an Operation Sealion encounter at what started off as Bridlington but then became a generic British seasside town. The set up is truly inspirational and well worth a look.

Click on the picture below to see all: