Great pictorial Charlie Don’t Surf AAR from the archives of Kevin Gonzales.
A surprise NVA human wave attack led to the American first platoon being overwhelmed. After overrunning 1st Platoon the NVA was able to get within six inches of the company commander, who was forced to call napalm on his own position!
Click on the picture below to see all…
With two good wins already under my belt, it was inevitable that my third battle of the day was going to be against Peter and his Gurjara-Pratihran Indians.
This was going to be a tough battle (I have never beaten Peter in competition, and only managed to hold him to a draw twice…which adds up to a lot of losses!) so, after losing the scouting, I decided to abandon my usual “infantry in the middle, knights on the flank” set up and put all my knights on my left flank.
This did give Peter some food for thought, and he pondered my deployment for a bit longer than usual before, as expected, weighting his troops on one side: his plan being to form a schwerepunkt on his right wing, fighting two thirds of his army against a third of mine, then turn and roll up my line.
View from behind the Gujarati lines
As predicted, The Indians slam forward on the left
As you can see, I knew exactly what was coming…and still couldn’t stop it…but at least I had all my knights (my best troops) where the action was as opposed to seeing them flail around on the isolated flank for the first part of the game.
Anyhoo, we were barely out of the second turn before his cavalry and elephants were upon my line: the elephants and camelry being particularly troublesome to my knights (the veteran nellies save on only a 3+ when facing mounted troops!) and his lights threatening to lap around my far right flank.
The gallery below shows the battlefield at this point from left to right. It looks pretty bad, (and it is!) but the one thing I have learnt when facing Peter in this position is not to give up: you have to get your troops that he has managed to isolate on the flank opposite the action back into the game as soon as possible, ignoring the lights that hover to harrass them, and hope that your knights can hold out for long enough for the reinforcements to get there!
Fortunately, my knights on the left were wearing their metal armour for this game (they often seem to be wearing their ceremonial cardboard armour!) and managed to hold out against both elephants and camelry for the next couple of turns, even managing to push back the centre of Peter’s line as my infantry started to arrive from the right.
The writing, however, was on the wall, and soon my far left command collapsed entirely, and Peter turned his troops in and prepared to roll me up like a kati roll on a Kolkata street corner.
Rolled up like a kati roll on a kolkata street corner!
Then, much to both our surprises, the “time” was announced: no new turns could now be started. As I was just finishing off a turn, literally about to draw cards to activate my final command, that meant that the game would end once I had finished what I was doing: no chance for Peter to polish me off.
I won’t say that this wasn’t a collosal relief, as one more turn would, I think, have given Peter the victory. Looking at the picture above, I can see the light cavalry next to the pen taking my camp, possibly both; the other lights on the back row and his elephants smashing my knights with the army standard from the flank and off the table; and me also losing the disordered knights in the centre. As he already had nine of my coins, Peter only needed another four to get a total victory, and I’ve just listed the opportunities to gain ten!
As the game had seemed very short (and we weren’t playing particularly slowly) I checked with the organiser whether we could, in fact, start another turn, but was told very firmly that we couldn’t. Madness to check, I hear you cry, but, fair’s fair: Peter had me beaten and deserved the overall victory…but I won’t say I wasn’t pleased that the “end the game” decision stood!
So a winning draw for Peter 6-9, leaving all to play for in the final game of the day.
My Celtic army is coming along nicely: I’ve now finished three more units of heavy horse, and started to add some heroes as well.
Here are the three new units of horse. All are Victrix figures painted using Contrast paints, and with shield transfers from Little Big Man Studios (available via Victrix) and all with cloaks from Weave of War.
I’m going to need a lot of heroes for any Celtic army: six for the warbands and then another three to five as standard. I’ve decided to try andget as many Celtic personaities into the heroes mix as possible, which means trawling the Internet for interesting one-off figures. Here’s the first two I’ve completed: Boudicca and Obelix.
Boudicca is a metal casting from Belt Fed Gaming available from the Colonel Bills website. She is also painted with Contrast paints, but I have attempted to glaze her skin tone.
Obelix is, quite rightly, a giant of a figure. He is one of the Aquila Empire: Gaul Heroes set of two resin prints from Anima Games UK available via Etsy. The other is Asterix, who will appear in due course.
My second game at this year’s Roll Call tournament was against Chris’ Bretons with Norman allies.
The Bretons won scouting and, after deployment and as expected, headed straight for my line. Of particular concern was my right flank, where I could see the potential for a worrying overlap.
I managed to block the overlap, with my knights taking full advantage of the situation to drive back the Breton attack there.
This led to an amusing situation where both Chris and I used our stratagem cards in the same turn: each playing Someone has blundered!, and each using it to turn a unit of our opponent’s horse through 180° so ending up back to back on the edge of the table!
Meanwhile, the left and centres were thundering towards each other, and I had a quick success as my two units of knights on the left smashed a Breton cavalry unit from the table and forced another to evade backwards.
Elsewhere, more Breton cavalry charged my spearmen in the centre, but the Venetians held firm, with more of my infantry turning to take them in the flank.
My rapid advance on the right and the Breton rapid advance in the centre had meant that a gap had developed between the main points of contact. The Venetian Alabardiers, led by their general, saw an opportunity and marched through that gap and into the Breton camp, with three easy victory medals as their reward.
With the fleeing Breton cavalry unit on the left now hit in the rear and destroyed, and a Breton general killed somewhere on the field (I forget where!), Chris was now down to just one coin…which I took by driving the light cavalry off board on the right for a 10-1 victory for the Venetians.
A really fast-moving game of TTS where the action was literally non-stop. For once my knights were having a good day (i.e. were wearing their metal armour rather than the ceremonial cardboard version they usually seem to wear) and swept all before them, and my spearmen remembered which way round their weapons went!
Absolutely brilliant pictorial AAR from John Savage and chums, who played one of the scenarios from the Lard Magazine: Relief of the MACV Compound during the Tet Offensive.
Click on the photo below to see all, but highly, highly recommended:
My first game at this year’s Roll Call ‘Medievals-Only’ tournament was against Adrian’s Medieval Scots-Irish army.
The Venetians were outscouted, so deployed in a traditional “infantry in the centre, cavalry on the wings” formation. The woods on the right hand side of the battlefield looked ideal terrain for the enemy, so my plan was to hang back on the right, advance on the left and, quite frankly, see what opportunities presented themselves!
First up, however, was a general advance forward one square to give the Venetians some fighting room, making sure to keep the integrity of the line intact. Note the large numbers of Irish light troops trying to get around my right flank.
And it was on the right that the first threat emerged: those advancing enemy lights being joined by a unit that had started the game lost off table to pose a potentially tricky situation that required a bit of careful manoeuvring to deal with.
But in one of those coincidences that makes life interesting, I too had had one of my units lost off table: a squadron of light mounted crossbowmen appearing directly behind the Scots-Irish.
This disrupted Adrian’s plans as neatly as the appearance of his lights on the right had disrupted mine. He turned his longbowmen, safely ensconsed behind stakes on the central hill, to deal with the threat, only to see the flank of the archers charged by some of my knights coming in from the left.
Charging uphill against infantry behind stakes rarely goes well, even when from the flank: the knights failed to budge the enemy archers, leaving the situation as shown in the photo below:
Adrian (who was not having much luck in this game) turned some Scots spearmen to threaten the knights, only to see my horsemen retreat backwards two squares and then charge the same spearmen in the flank (whilst they still could, as ES14 has stopped this cheesy manoeuvre happening), whilst the Ballesteri Montati (mounted light crossbowmen) charged the rear of another bunch of Scots.
Meanwhile, the fighting on the right hand side of the field had intensified, with the superior armour of my knights there countered by the larger numbers of troops they were facing. Neither side seemed able to make much progress.
Back to the centre, where the Scots spearmen in the centre had crumbled under the loving attentions of the Venetian Alabardiers. The Scots spearmen near the hill, however, although disordered and attacked on the flanks, were still putting up a brave fight.
This stabilised Adrian’s centre, but I now had fresh knights, still with their lances, coming in from the left…but then a unit of veteran Irish javelinmen were thereatening the rear of my line.
Adrian had, however, gradually been losing coins throughout the game: in particular losing light infantry to crossbow fire and one, or perhaps it was two, generals in combat: as I said, he was having a particularly unlucky day.
The three coins lost when the spear in the centre routed took him close to the edge, and a final charge from my Knights into disordered Irish javelinmen on the right broke his army as a whole, although it took a Venetian hero to do so.
So a big 14-1 victory for the Venetians to open proceedings…although I was glad that the battle eneded then as too many of my units had fallen into disorder and, of course. that Lady Luck had shunned my opponent throughout!
Time for another playtest of Lust for Glory. Last time we played, our game was set in the mid-1600s, the lower limit of the period covered by the rules. This time, we’d go to the other limit and re-fight the Battle of Mollwitz, one of the first major conflicts of the War of the Austrian Succession.
Fought on 10 April 1741 in Silesia (modern-day Poland), Prussian forces under Frederick the Great clashed with an Austrian army led by Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg. The battle opened in heavy snow, which hampered movement and reduced visibility. Austrian cavalry quickly gained the upper hand, routing the Prussian horse on the right flank and in the centre. Believing the battle lost, Frederick fled the field early.
Despite this, the Prussian infantry maintained remarkable discipline. Under the direction of Kurt Christoph von Schwerin, they held their lines and delivered controlled, effective musket fire that steadily drove back the Austrian forces. What began as a near-defeat ultimately turned into a decisive Prussian victory.
Rather than the snow enjoyed by the original participants, our game began with sunlight streaming onto the table from behind the Prussian positions.
Taken from just behind the Austrian line. Note the massed Austrian cavalry in the foreground.
As one of the Prussian commanders, I was obviously very concerned about the superior Austrian cavalry, particularly as, in command of the right wing and first line of infantry, I was facing them!
The battle, however, began on the left wing, where the Prussian cavalry there was fairly quickly overwhelmed by more Austrian horsemen. This necessitated moving some of our infantry from the second line across the cover that flank, leaving me wondering how we were going survive once we lost our first line to the main body of enemy cavalry!
I needn’t have worried, however, as the main body of Austrian cavalry were having a bad day - a very bad day - getting thoroughly trounced by the combination of Prussian infantry and cavalry that faced them.
While the Prussians were still digesting the fact that they hadn’t been overrun on the right, the Austrian left-centre forces launched an attack to support their success on the Prussian left, and the next phase of the battle really consisted of dealing with that and sorting out the traffic jam of Prussian units now eager to get forward and into action on the right and right-centre.
That left the situation overall as shown in the pictures below. The Prussian left was still under some pressure (Mark was having a very bad day) but the centre and right were steady, re-organised and ready to steamroller the remaining Austrians.
We called the battle at this point: a decisive Prussian victory as although the left flank was currently still looking a bit shaky, there were reserves that could block that off, and the centre and right were now just about a foregone conclusion.
A great game, with the rules really starting to flow. Mark’s beautifully painted figures looked amazing and all in all it was a great morning’s gaming. I can’t wait for the final version of the rules to be published.
Here’s a pictorial AAR from the Storm of Steel blog featuring a Soviet attack on a German held village.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Time to take advantage of the bank holiday weekend to update the entries to this year’s Challenge.
First up, we have Nick Cooper with a positive horde of fantasy figures in 28mm and larger. Here are just some of his submissions, please do visit his gallery (accessed from the NavBar, above) to see all.
Next we have Carole, also with a mix of fantasy figures, mainly from Bad Squiddo Games:
Back to historical gaming now, where Zofficus has been adding extras to his latest armies. Here’s a command base for the Sassanids:
Dex has been mostly painting terrain. Here’s a longshot of what’s been built, along with a close up of his orchards. I’m liking the apples!
And last, but by no means least, Mervyn takes a break from his little ‘planes and has sent in cops and federal agents for Packing Heat/The Chicago Way:
That’s all for now, but keep them coming!
I’ve been trying to get friend John to try his Vikings using the new non-deep options in the lists, and finally managed to get him to test them out using my 15mm figures. At the same time, I wanted to get my early Arabs onto the table again…as I didn’t spend all that time painting deep units just to let gather dust in storage! The result: a To The Strongest spectacular featuring an Aran Conquest army versus the Scandanavian Leidang (effectively Vikings on their home territory).
The Arab cavalry won the scouting and immediately set off on a quest to outscout the hairies on both flanks.
This worked well on the left, but the Scandies quickly moved a couple of units over to block the Arab advance on the right. Meanwhile, the main body of Vikings thundered forward, axes at the ready!
The Vikings managed to get the initiative in the centre, but suddenly found that they couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag!
The Arabs, however, were not…and one Scandie warband was soon sent fleeing from the field by a combination of fanatical infantry and their Daylami mountain-men allies.
Meanwhile, both Viking flanks were now suffering at the hands of the Arab cavalry…
Back to the centre, where the second line of Viking warriors were proving much harder to break for the Arabs, and it was only the intervention of the Jund cavalry that had been harrassing the Scandie left that made the difference.
This was a much-needed intervention, as the Viking wings had rallied and were proving impossible for the Arabs to crack!
The by-n0w-much-reduced Vikings continued their success by breaking the right of the Arab line…
…but it was too little too late as the last Scandie coins disappeared as the rest of their centre collapsed. The victorious Vikings heading for the Arab camp, along with the rest of the surviving invaders, slunk off the table, leaving the Arabs to claim the win!
A great game which I hope, despite the result, has given John a renewed enthusiasm for his own Vikings hordes. As a final note, it has to be said that he had the worst luck possible throughout the game, but especially at those critical moments that can decide who wins!
Here’s an IABSM after action report from James. He did what I sometimes do: left a table from another game up and then used it for a different encounter!
Click on the picture below to see all:
Time for a game of For King & Parliament - Eastern Front variant with my Cossacks taking on Dave’s Muscovites.
Ukrainians versus Russians? Nah, would never happen these days!
Unsurprisingly, the Cossacks lost the deployment, so I set up my tabor (wagons) in a long line in the middle of the battlefield, and squashed the rest of my troops in on the flanks!
Muscovites on the left, Cossacks on the right
This turned out to be a bit of a mistake, as Dave promptly ignored most of my troops, instead launching a massive attack with his elite cavalry on the right of my position.
My deployment error was compounded by the fact that, in a moment of madness, I had thought that I might get a Cossack infantry command out from behind the tabor to the left…meaning that as the axis of Dave’s attack unfolded, I also had half my infantry marching away from the schwerpunkt!
On the right, my outnumbered and outclassed Cossack cavalry was very soon swept away by the Muscovite hordes, and I found myself contemplating the possibility that I would be pinned in place, outflanked and rolled up like a winter cloak on the steppe!
[and you wonder why I don’t use AI for my battle reports: that metaphor is courtesy of ChatGPT]
Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, my Tatar allies were enthusiastically murdering the Muscovites’ ally Tatars and some traitorous Cossacks…but I had a horrible feeling that this would prove a success too little, too late.
And so it proved!
Although my infantrymen fought bravely, and I managed to get some of the fools who had initially headed left back into the fray, the result at this stage was a foregone conclusion.
Here’s a gallery of the textbook destruction of my main battle line!
In the end, and as a suitable example of how total was my defeat, Dave’s Muscovites took my last coin by taking my artillery with some foreign-trained troops - presumably North Koreans!
A geat game, despite the result, and kudos to Dave for a strategy and then execution that proved to be such an…well, execution!
Time for the re-match, with the Al Andalus forces smarting from their defeat last game and the Early Feudal Spanish busy tying dead El Cid’s body* to his horse!
As Arab commander, having learnt my lesson last time, I deployed my men in a much tighter line: stacking my cavalry on one side rather than splitting them between the flanks.
*he’d been killed in the last game!
Advancing forward strongly, I thought I saw the chance for an overlap on the left, but the Spanish moved quickly to counter and, in a decidedly unsporting move, manoeuvred to actually outflank me there themselves!
Meanwhile, in the centre, I had sent the light horse forward to generally harrass the advancing Spanish infantry, hoping to soften them up a bit before the main melee began.
Back to the left, where the Spanish had now managed to turn my flank, forcing me to try and pull back my infantry to avoid my line being rolled up.
Despite my best efforts, I had to leave a unit of the Black Guard vulnerable to a flank charge, and could only watch with horror as the Spanish cabelleros, led by El Cid himself, took the corks off the tips of their lances and charged in.
Unfortunately for the Spanish, they had forgotten that El Cid was actually now dead, merely a corpse tied to his horse, and the move into charge distance and then the charge itself didn’t make contact with the very relieved Guard!
This enabled me to stabilise the situation, my spearmen ready to hold the Spanish horse at bay.
One weak point, however, was the green-pennant unit of Arab infantry, who had been disordered previously. In went another unit of Spanish cavalry, again led by Dead Cid. This time they actually made contact, but gloriously failed to do any damage even with Dead Cid’s extra replays.
Do the Spanish still not realise he’s dead? Leave the man to rest in peace!
Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, some of my light cavalry had a narrow escape after failing to do any damage to some Spanish shieldwall.
At risk of being pushed off table, they watched with glee as the hapless Spaniards foundered around in the rough ground: eventually even managing to kill the Spanish general and disorder the unit.
As the flanks weren’t working for them, the Spanish then sent everything they had left forward in the centre.
This was another decidely worrying development for the Al Andalus, as there were far too many lights holding my line, with my formed cavalry (including the mercenary christian knights that you can see bottom-centre in the pic below) not really in that much of a position to help.
Fortunately, it turned out that the money I’d invested in the mercenary unbelievers was money very well spent.
In an extraordinary series of events, they charged over the hill in front of them to smash the end unit of cabelleros from the table…
They then turned and did the same thing to the next lot of enemy horse: hitting them in the flank to devastating effect!
With Rob’s men pinned in place by my infantry line, it was Rob’s turn to look on in horror as a flank charge went in…but fortune smiled on him as the mercenaries paused to renegotiate their fee:
Fee safely doubled, however, they went in again…this time securing the Al Andalus the last two coins they needed for victory!
So a glorious victory for Al Andalusia helped, it must be said, by cards that were decidely in my favour for once: the poor Spanish learning that you can’t rely on a dead body for inspiration and that gold sometimes means more than faith!
Rob and I really fancied some Reconquista action, so played a game featuring Rob leading the Early Feudal Spanish (with El Cid in command) and me playing an Al Andalus army.
Losing the scouting, I formed my men into one long line: confident that my superior numbers would overwhelm the upstart Spaniards!
My cavalry on the left could see the Christian knights stacked against them and were therefore not quite so sure of the outcome and initially refused to advance. Opposite me, El Cid found he had the same problem, even with his superior Great Leader command ability!
Despite these teething troubles, battle was soon well and truly joined on the left, with superior numbers of Christian horse generally mullering the Arabs until almost half my coins had gone and I was forced to bring infantry over from the centre to help.
Meanwhile, on the right, I was hoping that the gold I had spent hiring some mercenary Christian knights would prove a wise investment, but they got stuck dealing with some pesky light infantry and would take no significant part in the battle!
Back to the mass Christian assault on the left, where my troops were fighting on bravely…even if the writing was now firmly on the wall!
I had a moment of hope when El Cid himself was killed (just like the film!) but, in the end and despite a card-induced temporary reprieve (the photo, bottom left, above), my last coin went and the Christians were victorious!
A great game which, I think, I lost in the deployment phase: Rob stacking his knights against one end of my line was a genius strategy that paid off in Spades!
Now on to the re-match…presumably with Dead El Cid now tied to his horse!
More from Alex “Storm of Steel” Sotheran: a re-play of one of the historical scenarios included in the I Ain’t Been Shot Mum v3 rulebook: North of Caen: the British are pushing forward cautiously…
Click on the pic below to see all:
Plenty of entries pouring in for this year’s Painting Challenge. Here’s a batch for the first and mid-April update.
Let’s start with Andrew Helliwell, and a selection of 15mm Napoleonic and 28mm Medieval figures, plus some scrath built trees.
Next up is Carole, again with a combination of Napoleonics and Medievals, but this time all in 28mm.
Next up we have Mr Luther and Mr Douglas, both sending in entries involving multiple small aircraft. On the left is Mark, with some WW2 aircraft for the Far East: Spitfires and a Japanese recce flight. On the right is Mervyn, with some WW1 machines.
Dex has now managed to add some support to his WW2 French infantry platoon in 15mm:
And last, but by no means least, Stumpy continues his Test of Honour journey with a most impressive 28mm dojo and some more character figures:
Let’s keep them coming!
More To The Strongest action in 2mm: this time I would play an Early Crusader army against Neil’s Arab Conquest force.
I lost scouting so, wary of being outflanked, I set up my camps in one corner of the battlefield, put my infantry in front of them, and then placed my two commands of Crusader Knights on the right. The Arabs responded by placing all their light cavalry opposite my camp, their large contingent of mobs in the centre, and all their cavalry opposite my right.
A plan emerged: my infantry would cover the left flank, with my crossbowmen aiming to shoot down any enemy lights that came within range. My religeous-order knights on right would attempt to contain the enemy cavalry, using the patches of rough ground to try and fight one line at a time rather than being swamped by Arab horse. Finally, my other knights would wait until the Arab army was sufficiently battered, and then attempt to win the game by targeting the raw Arab mobs, looking to take batches of three coins of poor quality troops off the table at a time.
As the game began, the enemy lights swept forward towards my camp, the Arab cavalry on the right cantered towards the gap in the rough ground and, excellently, the Arab mobs resolutely stayed where they were: consecutive Aces for a group move pinning them in place. Phew! My plan might just work!
On the right, the Arab horse came forward and, misere de misere, smashed one of my religeous-order knight units right off the table! This was definitely not in the plan but, as the mobs had remained pinned to the Arab baseline, I was able to redeploy some of my normal knights to plug the gap.
The cards then helped me out again, refusing to let Neil’s Arab cavalry turn to face my knights…but although I charged in successfully, the nimble Arab horse evaded and would eventually leave the table.
That Ace also stopped the rest of the Arab horse coming forward, which was a bit lucky as the mobs had now finally got moving…
Meanwhile, on the left, my foot had done an excellent job in containing the Arab light horse, killing half of them and their general for no loss.
This meant that I could move some Crusader spearmen over to the centre to help the knights face the mobs, hopefully preventing them from getting overwhelmed by sheer numbers as the raggedy crowd closed for combat.
What was really worring me was all the Arab horse on the right. Yes, I’d knocked one unit off the table, but if the rest got moving before I could kill some mobs, it was actually here that the overwhelming might actually happen as I was effectively outnumbered five to three.
Fortunately, the cards came to my aid again, keeping the enemy from moving forward. Once they did get moving, however, my Crusaders were soon under huge pressure as, having retreated to avoid being outflanked, they just couldn’t seem to win a melee once contact had been made.
One unit did push forward but, again, soon found itself a bit isolated and at risk of being overwhelmed.
By now I’d taken a tidy pile of Arab coins, so it was time to see if I could break some mobs and take the rest. If I didn’t, I hasten to add, I could see my knights being beaten on the right and then waves of Arab horse sweeping round to roll me up!
Fortunately raw mobs don’t save for toffee, and soon my knights had sent one lot screaming for their baseline!
This was good, but my religeous order knights on the right were now in some trouble: another unit being destroyed and the third disordered.
To their rescue came some normal Crusader knights: the same ones who had dealt with the Arab cavalry that had initially smashed through my line.
This unit (the blue ones) were definitely the men of the match as they quickly polished off two units of Arabs - one with a flank charge, one just head on! - giving me four more coins and the game!
Exciting stuff and a glorious victory…but it has to be said that Neil didn’t have much luck throughout the game, particularly in terms of movement at key points in the battle. My religeous-order knights might not have been able to fight their way out of a wet paper bag (and it’s hard to find one of those in the desert!) but too often Arab units just stood there doing nothing when they desperately needed to move forward.
Another great game of TTS!
With the decision made to create a core Celtic force, it was now just a question of following up on the first warband by creating the other two warbands that could be fashioned out of a single bag of Victrix figures.
These actually took a lot less time to complete than the original warband: mainly, I think, because I sort of knew what I was doing now!
I used the same combination of Victrix plastics for the figures, LittleBigManStudios (now part of Victrix) for the shield transfers, and Weave of War for the cloaks. Full details can be found in the original post about my first warband: https://www.vislardica.com/blog/2026/3/4/first-of-the-celts
The only pain was the command figures: technically the 48-figure Victrix pack contains enough for two units and I was producing three, but I managed to bodge together a suitable leader, standard bearer and musician for each of the second two even if one of the two leaders isn’t wearing armour, one of the musicians has a horn not a carnyx, and one of the standard bearers has a shoulder built out of green stuff and an extra hand on the bottom of his pole!
So that was one bag of figures done…and I almost went straight into the second…but then I thought “well, I’ve got the Celtic infantry I need for a Carthaginian army: why I don’t I paint the Celtic cavalry I need for both a Celtic army and a Carthaginian army…and that way I don’t need to absolutely commit to one or the other for another four units”.
And that’s what I did. Here’s the first unit of Celtic horse:
I’m really pleased that the Weave of War cloaks fit nicely onto the cavalrymen as well as the infantrymen, although I think that for the next unit I’ll have the cloaks streaming out behind…like the horses’ tails!
My final game at this year’s world championships was against old friend Matt’s Normans.
Matt won the scouting, and deployed his massed cavalry in two chunks facing my wings:
The game began,, and I was almost immediaely in trouble on not one but both wings: my Knights having dressed, as is often the case, in their ceremonial cardboard armour instead of the proper metal kit!
Let’s start on the right, where I then repidly lost the Later Knights and was forced to withdraw right to the table’s edge to regroup and send infantry over from the centre to help.
Although the Knights on the right rallied and pushed forward, I was now facing a roll up from the right as the Norman cavalry pivoted through 90 degrees and headed for the centre.
The infantry I had redeployed to stabilise the situation succumbed to attacks from their flank and rear, and it was only by throwing in the Alabardiers and some desperate fighting from the Crossbowmen and Lights that I managed to stave off disaster.
Meanwhile, on the left, I had managed to rally the Later Knights and push forward to drive the Norman cavalry back, but had had the Knights become disordered and was threatened by enemy infantry lapping around the flank.
At this point we were starting to run out of time. My first thought was that this was a relief, as I had really felt that I was only just holding on throughout the game so far.
Then I looked at the table again and thought, hang on, I’ve killed everything threatening me on the right and am actually now chasing disordered Norman units to finish them off…and actually the same is true on the left. With each of us down to our last few coins - helped by the fact that I had killed two of Matt’s generals - I could actually win this game despite the fact that I had nearly crumbled into defeat in turn two!
Unfortunately it was not to be.
On the right, in the last turn of the game, my Knights and Alabardier units, each led by their command’s generals, failed to break units of already-disordered enemy cavalry…
And on the left, a desperate melee involving three already-disordered Norman units also failed to result in any coins heading my way.
Time was called, and we had both taken nine of our opponent’s coins, so a technical win for the Venetians so something like 90-82 points in my favour…and what a game!
I honestly thought the game would end after about three turns as my Knights crumbled and the Norman army lapped around both my flanks, but a great fight back ensued until the Venetians were within Ames Ace of victory: just failing to secure a win mainly due to some outrageous saving cards from Matt, probably deserved as his officers had fallen like flies earlier in the game.
So what did all this mean for the competition as a whole?
Well, I came eighth overall—a considerable improvement on the 19th place I managed last year, when I had a real mare! - with two outright wins and two winning draws…but if you look at the results table below, you can see just how close the competition was. Not so much for first place (with four wins out of four, Peter was well ahead of everyone else), but for the other top spots: the extra 25 points from one more outright win, rather than a winning draw, would have given any of the next eight players second place—including me!
A cracking tournament all round, and I really would encourage people to enter the To The Strongest competitions that are run just about throughout the year: great fun, great sportsmanship, great gameplay…just great!
Having painted all the Belgian armour from bayonetsandbrushes.com, I was keen to get them onto the table, so set up a scenario where elements of the German 3rd Panzer Division would attempt to force the crossing of a canal “somewhere in Belgian” around 11th-12th May 1940.
A cracking game of IABSM. Click on the photo below to see all:
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). There’s also a lot of content devoted to To The Strongest (Ancients/Medievals) and For King & Parliament (17th Century).
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.
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