TTS AAR: To The Smallest Game 4: Timurids vs Sassanid Persians

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My final game at this year’s To The Smallest 15mm tournament was against another Sassanid army: this one commanded by Michael L, with the tabletop being a representation of the WOTR battle of Towton…fortunately without the snow storm!

For a change, I won the scouting, and watched as Michael deployed his men with their right flank anchored on the small stream that crossed the battlefield. This gave me the opportunity to deploy one of my commands on my far left, with my plan being to advance them forward and hit Michael in the flank as I held my main line back. There was also the prospect of taking the Sassanid camp, which didn’t look very defended to me.

I did see some elephants on the left of Michael’s line, so was determined not to close with them, instead shooting the pachys with lots of arrows…once bitten, twice shy for those who have read my previous reports from this competition!

As the battle began, I advanced quickly forward on the left, although progress was a bit stymied by the cards that first of all split my heavies from my lights and then prevented me getting into my outflanking position as quickly as I wanted to.

Meanwhile, I held most of my line back, just sending the lighst forward to harrass the Sassanids in the centre and on the left.

Spotting my intentions, Michael advanced forward as fast as he could, and soon things were posed for a massive clash in the centre of the field.

I say posed for the massive clash, but tht never really happened as, sticking to my plan, I carried out a bit of a strategic hang-back or withdrawal, limiting my exposure to melee as much as I could.

It’s worth mentioning that Michael had committed quite a strong force to his far left, presumably intending to try and curl around my right flank, but this force was delayed by just two of my light cavalry units (Turkoman horse archers), who kept them occupied and therefore out of the main action for several turns.

The final picture in the gallery, below, shows one Sassanid unit finally managing to get across to the centre to attack the flank of one of my Timurid lancer units.

All the above, however, was just a distraction for me: my main thrust was down the left flank. Theere a combination of my heavy cavalry, kharash driven slaves and the force on the other side of the stream had launched a series of succesful attacks that had put me into a game-winning position:

All this manoeuvring around had, however, been using up valuable time and, at this point, despite Michael and I’s best efforts to bring the game to a firm conclusion, we had to finish.

I had done enough to achieve a 9-2 winning draw, but just another 15-30 minutes would, we were both sure, have resulted in victory…but it was still a great game fought in the best of spirits. I also think it’s fair to say that Michael did suffer from several appalling run of cards during the game!

So how did I do overall? Well, with one loss, one losing draw and two winning draws, my Timurids managed 12th position from a field of, I think, 18. Disappointing, but it had still been a cracking tournament that I have already diarised for next year.

The Other Side of the Hill

Michael also wrote this battle up on the To The Strongest Facebook Group. I wroye my report independently of his, so interesting to compare the two…!

Here it is then, the final report of my (mis)adventures in the To the Smallest Competition run superbly by the great Sid Ben.

My fourth attempt to win a battle foundered against Robert Avery’s lovely looking Timurid Army. We fought on the battlefield of Towton, an odd place to find both the Sassanians and Tamerlane the Great.

As usual I was outscouted. In my second and third games I had been irritated by catching the palm trees on one of my camps with my sleeve, so seeing all the trees on the Timurid side of Cock Beck (yes I looked it up and it’s too good to omit) I decided to repeat the example of my first battle and place my camps adjacent to Cock Beck. All was fine until Rob deployed his last command amongst all those woods with the dastardly intent to grab my camps! Yet another error which was compounded by my deploying the Levy (the camp was in their command unfortunately) to protect it so my least manoeuvrable troops would have to fight off Cavalry and light horse.

Never mind I could win the battle elsewhere against Rob’s sadly diminished forces, couldn’t I? Well I could dream. Purandokhr got forward on my left but was detained for far too long disposing of some Turkomans. The Elephants trundled forward but the Timurid horse, in the main, skipped away neatly. We did catch one unit at the end with the assistance of some horse archers sent over by Purandokhr.

However the main effort was to be made by Shapur. This hope was very short lived as one unit of Cataphracts was soon lost, the other, with Shapur himself, was disordered and any thought of attacking the enemy was gone only desperate thoughts of preserving what was left until Purandokhr came up.

Well despite some poor cards the Turkoman light horse seized my camps. I could barely get the Levy turned to face the threat before the enemy was upon them. However the Levy proved sturdier than I had expected though poor cards prevented Rob making heavier attacks upon them. He was attracted (or was that distracted?) by the six further medals they represented.

With Shapur’s men falling back, time was called leaving me with a loss of 8 medals (I think) out of 15 while I believe Rob had lost 4 though I may be wrong there. Regardless of the score it was a sound drubbing from a most sporting and friendly opponent. Though galling to make such a mess of it, it was a good finish to a thoroughly enjoyable day. It only remained to hear if I was in with a chance to “win” the Wooden Spoon (actually the “Mouse that Roared!” As it transpired I couldn’t even win that!

Thanks once again to Sid and all the other gamers who made it a special day. Thank you one and all.

Here’s the gallery of Michael’s images: all the pictures have captions describing the course of the battle, so be sure to check them out…

Phew! Pretty similar if you ask me!

TTS AAR: To The Smallest Game 3: Timurids vs Neo Assyrians

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My third game at the 2024 Tio The Smallest competition at Firestorm Games in Cardiff was against Michael’s Neo-Assyrians. The action would take place on the Thermopylae table i.e. a narrow-ish stretch of open ground flanked by the sea on one side and mountains on the other.

I forget who won the scouting, but the two armies set up very differently indeed. Michael, cautious of all my cavalry, squeezed his troops into one corner, whereas I, looking for that outflanking opportunity, occupied the other!

My plan was fairly obvious: advance forward strongly and curl around the Assyrians’ left flank, forcing them to fight to the front and sides at the same time.

For their part, the Assyrians stayed squeezed into their corner, which suited me down to the ground…although I was finding my cavalry weren’t advancing forward quite as fast as I wanted them too: the Assyrians had too much time to prepare for my assualt!

Finally I was in position to attack, but the delay had given Michael enough time to skillfully position his men in a defensive ring, making good use of the patches of rough ground to protect his flanks.

The first round of my attacks went in on the Assyrian flank with a collosal assault that swept the first line of Michael’s defence aside, forcing him to send his second line in to hold the Timurids back.

Meanwhile, a unit of kharash driven slaves probed the ‘corner’ of the Assyrian position and, much to everyon’e surprise, managed to send a unit of enemy infantry routing from the field.

The Assyrians, however, quickly recovered their balance, moving the last of their reserves to block the potential incursion.

Unfortunately, the clock was ticking onwards, and as the morning’s games had taken slightly longer than expected, the game’s slightly curtailed allocation of time was now coming to an end.

The Timurids smashed forward one more time, but just couldn’t break through the Assyrian lines.

With the game now ended, we totted up the victory medals: the Timurids might have sent quite a few Assyrian units fleeing from the field, but it had been an expensive business in terms of casaulties to do so.

In the end, the game was a winning draw in the Timurids’ favour: ten medals to nine i.e. the very narrowest of margins!

Michael had mounted a superb defence against my Timurids, and had come within Ames Ace of taking the result. A great game that had exhausted all involved!

TTS AAR: To The Smallest Game 1: Timurids vs Classical Indians

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Earlier in June, I made the long journey to the excellent Firestorm Games in Cardiff for the inaugral To The Smallest competition i.e. a To The Strongest tournament played in 15mm.

This featured 160 point armies (15-20% larger than the usual 28mm tournament armies) played on a 10mm rather than a 15mm grid, giving everybody much more room to manouevre.

My problem was that all my existing armies were set up for a 15mm grid, so the only army that I could easily convert (i.e. no re-basing, just purpose built movement trays) were my Timurids. This wasn’t actually a problem: the Timurids conquered quite a bit of the world, so were bound to do well in competition!

My first game was up against Matt Slade’s Classical Indians on the Khadesh battlefield: so at least my horsemen would indeed have lots of room.

My plan was to keep his heavy chariot strikeforce busy with one of my cavalry commands whilst sweeping around his right flank with the other, attacking from front and sides to get the advantage.

As the game began, I therefore advanced strongly towards the Indians.

On the left, I quickly got in amongst it with one of his commands, although the elephants there caused my cavalry plenty of problems (in TTS, horse fight very badly against nellies); whilst on the right, I hung back and began peppering his charioteers with arrows, unfortunately to no effect.

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t break through on the right (fighting elephants with cavalry was one reason - I just couldn’t kill that elephant no matter what I threw at it) but Matt’s heavy chariots burst through my light cavalry screen and then my heavy cavalry as well.

Things were not looking good!

I needed to do something to break through on the left, so committed my reserves: the kharash units of driven-slaves. Here you see them moving up into action (bottom left).

The kharash c-rashed into the fight and, combined with some heavy cavalry, knocked an Indian infantry unit out of action. I was whittling his forces down on the left, but two units of elephants were still giving me problems.

Meanwhile, on the left, my troops had given up the ghost, leaving the way clear for his chariots to head for my now-undefended camps.

Which then promptly fell, giving Matt all the coins he could possibly need to win the game!

The score was a 9-14 loss for me, with Matt justly rewarded for his good play: his use of elephants to de-fang my heavy cavalry was excellent. I should have hung back and peppered the pachyderms with arrows instead of mixing it in melee!

Three games to go…and my Timurids had better pull their socks up!

TTS AAR: Classical Indians versus Burgundian Ordnance

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As our ECW game had finished quite quickly, friend Rob and I decided to extend our gaming session with a quick bout of To The Strongest.

It wasn’t exactly a historical match-up - Classical Indians with their javelinmen and chariots vs Burgundian Ordnance with their Later Knights - but at least both sides had plenty of longbows to hand!

[For those of you looking for the heavy chariots, I was actually using a Republican Classical Indian army using standard chariots.]

Both sides opened the game by sprinting towards each other, keen to get into contact.

The Burgundians had advanced a unit of mounted infantry onto the hill to the right of my line. It looked a bit isolated to me, so a good target for my chariots and cavalry.

This worked very nciely, with my two mounted units combining to overwhelm the Burgundian foot from front and flank.

Rob followed up with one of his Later Knights units, charging forward to engage my javelinmen whilst some mounted crossbowmen kept the victorious chariots busy.

One unit of Later Knights versus four units of javelinmen, so I was confident that I could do the same again: overwhelm an isolated unit. I even got the initiative and sent my brave infantry in against the Knights.

Now some of you will know that I often feel that the cards are, quite frankly, against me; and I am sure that some of you think I should stop being wet and just get on with things: after all, luck is always even…

Add in a series of unfortunate morale checks and it’s a case of now you see them, now you don’t:

So that was eight victory medals gone up in smoke, my only consolation being that his Knights tried the same trick on the last remaining unit of javelinmen and got sent flying.

Phew! I might have lost the flank, but at least it was safe and I had a unit of cavalry keen to visit the enemy camps!

Meanwhile the rest of my army had advanced into contact with the Burgundian centre and right wing.

I had high hopes here: my escorted elephants were rock hard (even if Rob did manage to avoid hitting them with cavalry (who get a huge penalty for the effects that the nellies have on horses)) and accompanied by the equally tough Maiden Guard.

I also had my left wing in action: managing to outflank another units of his Knights:

My central command did its job: two of Rob’s units destroyed for no loss:

Both the Indians and Burgundians were now down to very few medals indeed, which meant that the battle would go to the next side that knocked an enemy unit from the field.

Luckily, I had my chariots still around in the centre of the field, now faced by only a lone unit of Burgundian organ guns. These were swiftly swept from the table, which caused the enemy general sheltering behind them to go as well, giving me enough victory coins to win the day!

So a narrow victory for the Indians over a very tough opponent…not that there were many of my men left to celebrate!

Timurids at Vanquish...Part Two

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With the first game such a disaster for the Timruids, I was keen to ‘get back on the horse’ and try my luck again against the Early Byzantines.

For this game, as it was supposed to be a participation/demonstration event, we had a brand new player join the table, so he (with a bit of help) would face me.

The calm before the storm

As you can see in the picture, above, this time I adopted a more traditional deployment: infantry in the centre, with my cavalry on the wings. My plan ws obviously to outflank on the left, and roll up his line to the right.

The two sides quickly headed towards each other, with my plan to conquer all on the left starting to unfold.

The plan unfolds

Unfortunately, the cards had other ideas and my flanking manouevre failed dismally!

Flanking force stymied by an Ace

This left me very vulnerable to the fire from his mass auxiliaries with bows, and soon our new companion was drawing 8s, 9s and 10s from his deck to shoot my heavy cavalry straight off the field.

I’ve never seen cards like it. Usually shooting is more of a nuisance than a threat, but here my opponent drew so many high cards that we calculated that there were only four 8s, 9s or 10s left in the deck, whereupon he promptly drew two 8s for his next two shots!

For my units in the center and right of the table, it really was a case of “now you see them, now you don’t”!

My flanking force on the left had now started to arrive, but it was too late to make a difference. One more ‘twang’ of enemy bows, and the last of my coins left the table!

All that was left was on the left!

So that was Vanquish: an excellent little show but with a decidedly sub-optimale performance from the Timurids.

Let’s hope this weekend’s inaugural To The Smallest goes better!

Timurid's at Vanquish...Part One

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I had another opportunity to practice for To The Smallest at this year’s Vanquish show in Bourne End, as friends of mine from SOGS were putting on a TTS demo game.

I only arrived at lunchtime, but we still managed to find time for two games: both would involve my Timurids fighting a force of Early Byzantines.

In the first game, my plan was to stack my infantry on the right, then head forward with them as fast as possible before turning to roll the Bysantines up from the flank. You can see the first moves in the picture above.

This worked really well, and had the added advantage of keeping my troops away from his rather nasty extra-bow-armed auxiliary-types in the centre.

My flanking force got into the perfect position, and turned to begin the rollup. Surely nothing could stop me now!

Well you’d think that, wouldn’t you!

Unfortunately the cards deserted me in a big way, and my perfectly positioned flanking force just wouldn’t get moving or, when they did, achieved almost nothing.

Meanwhile, in the centre, his largely-raw auxiliaries suddenly developed backbones and just wouldn’t break despite the attentions of my heavy, half-veteran cavalry. In fact, rather than fleeing from the field as they should, it was my horse that ran away!

Nothing was going right for me, and with the last of my victory medals handed over to my opponent, the game was lost!

A 2-14 defeat that boded ill for my chances in Wales!

TTS AAR: Timurids vs Sassanid Persian - The Re-Match

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As we still had plenty of time after the last battle, we decided to have a straight re-match.

This time our Timurids decided on a more sensible deployment: infantry in the middle, cavalry on the wings.

Neither side had any interest in shilly-shallying around, so headed for the opposition as fast their feet/hooves could carry them.

The first clash was on the left wing, where a brigade of Timurid cavalry crashed into a brigade of Sassanid cataphract horse.

Things did not go well for the Timurids: losing the whole brigade apart from the veteran heavy cavalry…and even they were forced to retreat back to the Timurid camp, horse-tails between their legs!

With the left flank thoroughly lost, it was time to look to the centre and right for success.

As the two battle lines came together, fierce melees broke out on the left-centre (kharash driven slaves versus Persian Savaran) and right-centre (a Timurid cavalry brigade commanded by Steve against some more Savaran supported by lights) but, in the centre-centre, Timur-the-Lame himself, at the head of some veteran cavalry, punched through the enemy troops in front of him.

Never one to miss an opportunity for death and destruction, Timur then executed a smart left turn and headed into the flanks of the Persian horse who had begun to beat back the kharash.

This was initially very successful, knocking a couple of light units from the field, but the Persian Savaran hit in the flank survived the impact and then, using one of theose rules that make you go “are you George Bernard?”, fell back two squares and then moved forward again to threaten Timur’s flank and the seven victory medals he represents!

Meanwhile, on the right, the Timurid cavalry had been doing stirling work removing Persian cavalry from the field:

By this time, the Persians were down to one victory medal, but the Timurids were damaged as well (all those units lots on the left flank) and, if the Persians got another turn and took out Timur, we were in danger of losing the game despite the fact that everything seemed to be going our way.

Worse, the Persian force that had defeated me on the left had swung round and were now heading rapidly back towards the centre. We really had to win now…but where to get that elusive last victory medal from?

Perhaps you remember the Timurid veteran cavalry that had fled to their camp?

Well they were still lurking in the camp…and some Sassanid light horse had strayed within range of their bows. I drew my first activation card and: Ace!

Okay, no matter, there’s a general present, so I can re-draw: this time a “2”.

A hail of arrows headed towards the enemy light and, unbelievably, scored a hit which the lights failed to save. Victory was ours again, but it had been a much closer game, finishing 13-7.

TTS AAR: Timurids vs Sassanid Persians

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This June sees the inaugral 15mm To The Strongest competition, “To The Smallest” at Firestorm Games in Cardiff. The competition will be played on a large 10mm grid: the idea being to give it a significantly different feel to a standard 28mm game played on a 12x8 grid.

Always best to have a practice at a new format, so Si, Steve, John, Bevan and I gathered together to give it a go. Our first game was to be Steve and I playing the Timurids versus the others playing the Sassanid Persians.

The Timurids ahd four commands, three cavalry and one infantry, which, for some reason, ended up on the far right of our line. I’m not sure why: any cunning plan that we had for what to do with them has since escaped me!

The centre of the Sassanid line comprised multiple units of cataphracts, so as the game began I sent the Timurid lance-armed heavy cavalry right at them: the idea being to fire our bows on the approach to disorder and then charge in to polish them off.

Unbelievably, this worked really well, and one unit of lancers punched straight through the Sassnanid line, cataphracts flying everywhere, and ended up in a great position to threaten the enemy camps.

Meanwhile on the left, two units of Timurid heavies and two units of Timurid lights faced off against an almost identical configuration of Sassanid horse, the only (but key) difference being that my units were in a single, tightly-bunched command rather than slightly spread out.

This meant that when things went wrong - my veteran heavies going unexpectedly disordered - I had the troops available to protect them as they withdrew to rally, with the protectors, another heavy cavalry unit, actually smashing the enemy cavalry from the field. With my veterans rallied and on their was back into the fight, the left wing was now looking good.

The key unit in the pictures above is the Timurid cavalry with the blue flag bottom left in the image on the left and almost exactly in the centre of the image on the right: they smashed the Sassanid Savaran cavalry off the table before they could charge the rear of my veterans, reversing what looked like it was going to be a reverse!

On the right, the infantry there had yet to achieve much of anything, although they were keeping a couple of enemy cavalry units occupied and therefore away from the action in the centre.

Meanwhile, the Timurids were pouring through the Sassanid centre.

And had totally polished off the Sassanids on the left:

Back to the centre, and my veteran heavies moved into the enemy camp, reducing the Sassanids to just one medal remaining. They weren’t totally beaten, however, and a nasty moment ensured when my CinC’s unit (i.e. veteran heavies with Brilliant General and Army Standard - worth seven coins) was almost smashed from the table, fortunately making a vital save just at the right time.

A moment later, a Sassanid light unit was either KO’d or forced to evade off the table and the game was ours for a 13-3 victory.

So a decent victory for the Timurids…although it has to be said that the cards were running for us throughout the game.

As for the 15mm/10cm squares experience: not much change for me, as I usually play on a 15cm grid on a much bigger area than a standard competition table, but the others found it a significant change to what they are used to. Roll on the To The Smallest competition!

TTS AAR: Venetians Abroad vs Later Crusader (Ewelme 24: Game Four)

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My final game at the 2024 Ewelme tournament was against Rob’s Later Crusader army. This was an army reasonably similar to mine: strong cavalry backed up by bog standard infantry, although my Knights were slightly better than his horse, and his infantry all had crossbows.

My plan was not especially subtle: use my superior cavalry to win the wings whilst my infantry held the centre, then curl in and roll the Crusaders up from both flanks. Accordingly, I advanced my two brigades of Knights and Lights rapidly towards the enemy.

On the left flank, it proved quite hard to get through his Crusader Knights. I lost a unit of “Broken Lances” shortly after the first clash and had to send some spearmen in for support.

Although things eventually began turning my way, it took all five of my units (two Knights, two Lights and the Spearmen) to get the advantage on his two units of Crusader Knights and some infantry. The battle was not going to be won on the left!

On the right, however, things went much better for the Venetians.

A rapid advance with some Knights and light horse actually worked brilliantly with, for once in the whole tournament, my ‘veteran Knights’ and ‘veteran Later Knights with Army Standard’ actually doing what they were supposed to do: smashing enemy units from the field with abandon whilst proving impervious to attacks from the flanks and rear.

In fact, it’s so unusual for my Later Knights and Knights to actually survive a combat despite their 4+ and 5+ saves respectively, that it’s worth another picture:

By now the Crusaders were beginning to fold, with both flanks under extreme pressure from my surviving Knights.

A final couple of Crusader units gave way, and the game was mine: a hard-fought win 183 points to 67 points (12-8 in terms of victory medals).

So that was the last game, and I had amassed one huge loss, one losing draw, one big win, and the win against the Crusaders, above.

The points were totted up and I had managed 5th place: a lot better than I had expected given my first two games.

It had been an excellent day’s play against three great opponents, and I cannot but recommend the To The Strongest competition circuit to all. Although there are competitions before then, the biggie this year is the two-day Britcon event (well, it’s three days if you count the Friday evening as well) with five games (six if you count Friday’s warm-up) over two days.

Entries are open now.

TTS AAR: Venetians Abroad vs Granadine (Ewelme 24: Game Three)

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My third game at this year’s Ewelme competition was against Steve’s Granadines: one of the Moorish dynasties established in Spain 1200-1500.

The great thing about fighting the Granadines was that Steve’s army was almost wholly comprised of shieldwall infantry, lights and missile troops: with only up to two units of Knights that might give my men pause for thought before getting stuck in i.e. provided I protected my flanks, I should be able to beat him on a pure unit-by-unit match up.

My tactics, therefore, would be simple: advance swiftly towards the enemy and engage his troops as soon as possible, just going for a quick win by bashing his lesser units off the table as fast as I could! I therefore determined to use my first turn to group move forward each of my three commands with no shilly-shallying around.

Naturally, however, the cards had different plans:

This was, however, only a temporary setback, and soon my men were right on top of the Moors, with Steve’s cards preventing him from countering my advance by also getting in on the ‘double Aces’ act:

After that, however, things went very much to plan: my Knights proved just about unstoppable, and my Alabadiers also showed how good they could be against standard infantry.

In the end my predictions about how the battle would go came true: wherever I could get my men stuck in, the enemy crumbled, so as long as I kept the initiative and forced Steve to respond to my attacks as opposed to being able to manoeuvre and launch any of his own, the game was mine.

The eventual result was a 192:17 victory (13 coins to 2 coins), with my only casualties being a couple of units of Lights.

So three games out of four done: one big loss countered by one big win, and a losing draw on the scoreboard: I needed a good result in game four to save the day!

TTS AAR: Venetians Abroad vs Later Swiss (Ewelme 24: Game Two)

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After losing so badly to Peter’s Later Tibetans in Game One, it was inevitable that my second game would also be a tough one…facing Dillon’s Later Swiss, to whom I’d lost my first game at the Roll Call competition.

At least I knew what to expect and, sure enough, the Swiss shot forward, determined to get their massive four-hit pike blocks into action as soon as possible.

My only chance was to somehow stem the tide of the Swiss advance and then manouevre around their flanks and rear: something I had failed to do last battle.

The opening moves were therefore very much me trying to get behind what terrain their was, block the Swiss advance as best I could, and get my Knights and Lights into the lanes between the advancing pike blocks.

Although stopping the pike blocks proved problematic, I was helped by Dillon’s cards and, as the game unfolded, looked to try and roll him up left to right.

I also managed to get my best unit (veteran Later Knights, Lance, Hero, General, Army Standard) through his lines, all ready to turn and crash into his men from behind when…

Well that was somewhat frustrating…especially as that proved to be the highpoint of the Venetian game!

The battle settled down into a series of grinding melees with neither side getting an advantage, except for the fact that the Swiss were gradually getting closer and closer to my camp.

At this point we unfortunately ran out of time, with my troops suffering a 42-105 losing draw (three medals vs eight medals) which, to look on the bright side, was better than they did against the Swiss last time!

Two games in and a big loss and a losing draw to my name: things were not looking good!

TTS AAR: Venetians Abroad vs Later Tibetans (Ewelme 24, Game One)

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This year’s Ewelme tournament was themed For England and St George: later armies from the Medieval lists and one of your generals had an extra hero who could be activated by crying that phrase or one more suited to your army.

My first game was against Peter’s Later Tibetans.

This was extremely amusing as in the run up to the draw for the first round games (televised by Peter and the team from SOGS) I had answered the question “what sort of army would you least like to face” with the slightly facetious “anything commanded by Peter”. Naturally Lady Luck was listening in and, sure enough, out came Peter’s chit swiftly followed by mine! It was going to be a long day!

The Tibetans, being nearly all on horseback, outscouted my holidaying Venetians, with the result that once again I found myself facing an army that was heavily weighted to one flank.

The Tibetan “Peace Mountain” can be seen top left!

I was absolutely determined not to be outflanked, so hung back my right whilst strongly advancing my left.

Unfortunately this made very little difference, and soon I was facing light horse and cataphracts threatening my right flank.

I pondered what to do for some time, then attempted to consolidate my position.

Unfortunately I left the smallest of chinks in my armour and, before I knew it, I had cataphracts pouring in from the right, smashing my units from the table faster than you can say nam myoho renge kyo!

Note that this meant that the yellow cataphracts had to successfully turn and move one forward (difficult move) then move diagonally and charge (another difficult move).

My centre then collapsed under the wright of more flank charges as the Tibetans poured in from the right, and nothing I tried to do seemed to work.

A rather ignominius defeat 17:192 points!

Superb play from Peter, poor play from me. I should have compressed my troops into one corner, formed a wall of spearmen, some in orbis, and used my Knights effectively rather than seeing them smashed from the table without even getting to use their lances.

Not a good start to the day!

TTS AAR: Venetians Abroad versus Catalan Company (Roll Call Game Four)

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My final game at Roll Call this year was against Dene’s Catalan Company: an army consisting of Almughavar javelinmen supported by cavalry, allied light horse and Greek archers.

The Catalans had outscouted my Venetians and came forward rapidly in a ragged line.

As both sides had their horse on the same side of the field, the first clash came on my right, where my Knights clashed with Dene’s. Both sides lost a unit but the advantage in positioning was slightly in my favour.

In the centre, more of my Knights punched through the horse in front of them, with the decision now being how to take on the enemy’s central command of formed infantry happily ensconced on a couple of hills.

Back on the right hand side of the field, my Knights finished clearing the enemy cavalry away, leaving them clear to advance but a long way from the rest of the action.

Unfortunately, however, things weren’t going so well on the other side of the table. My infantry had definitely come off worse in the initial clash, not helped by the fact that my Halbardiers just couldn’t get the cards they needed to activate let alone fight…although they did stand heroically solid when attacked on the flank (top middle in the second picture, below).

My camp was now exposed, however, with Dene quite happy to take one half whilst threatening the other: things were critical as that represented an awful lot of Victory Medals.

We were just about to start another turn - a turn in which Dene had a good chance of taking the game, despite the success of my Knights on the right - when time was called: all the manouevring early in the game had used up the clock!

A very narrow escape for the Venetians: a losing draw 7:9.

What was worse (for Dene) was that not finishing off my Venetians meant that I pipped him at the post for the third place position, with him finishing fourth only a few points behind me!

All in all, a great day’s gaming: well done to Tim for organising, and to all the other players in competing in the usual TTS good humour and sportsmanship.

As for my Venetians, they will now continue their journey Abroad with a trip to historic Ewelme and the “England and St George” competition there.

TTA AAR: Venetians Abroad versus Ayyubid Egyptian (Roll Call Game Three)

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My third game at Roll Call 2024 was against Andy’s Ayyubid Egyptians: another beautifully painted army.

Neither side was particularly interested in doing anything excapt having straight at the enemy, although I did make a point of maintaining my line as much as possible.

The game quickly split into two sectors: the centre/right and left.

On the centre/right, my Knights and Lights worked together to drive back his quality cavalry and infantry. As usual, half my Knights rode straight over their opposition without difficulty and half failed to achieve anything at all…but, generally, the action in this sector went in my favour.

On the left, however, my infantry didn’t do as well as I had hoped, and soon the Ayyubid’s were threatening my camp.

The game looked in the balance at this point but, fortunately, my troops on the right were now in a position to hammer their wavering opponents. They duly did so, and the collapse of the Ayyubid left gave me a 12-6 victory before Andy did to me on my left what I had just done to him on his left.

So a loss, two wins, and one more game to go!

TTS AAR: Venice Abroad vs Almoravid Berber (Roll Call Game Two)

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My second game at Medieval Mayhem at Roll Call this year was against Matt’s Almoravid Berbers.

This was a beautifully painted army consisting of a unit of Black Guard veteran cavalry, a unit of Mercenary Knights, some Shieldwall (including more veteran Black Guard types) and then lots of light horse with javelins.

As the Berbers won the scouting, you’ll see from the montage, below, that my Knights faced off against his cavalry and infantry, with my foot deployed slightly to the right and mainly facing the light horse. Methinks I might get outflanked on the right!

Both sides opened the game with an advance and, with a bit of help from the cards, I was lucky enough to be able to extend my line out to the right before the Berber light horse had a chance to lap around it. Okay, so I only had raw crossbowmen and light crossbowmen out there on the flank, but that was better than nothing at all.

My plan, for those interested in that sort of thing, was to hold his infantry and light horse in the centre and right respectively whilst my Knights and Later Knights punched through his cavalry on the left, took his camp, and then the rest of his line in the rear.

The action began on the right, when Matt’s light cavalry came forward to harrass my advancing infantry. Crossbow bolts headed their way and, much to Matt’s dismay, one of his units was shot off the table. The other made no impression on my infantry, who continued to advance remorselessly.

By this time battle had also been joined on the left, with the Christian mercenary caballeros being blasted from the table by my Knights in one glorious impact whilst my Later Knights attacked the mounted Black Guard.

Unlike the Knights, the Later Knights bounced off the Black Guard and ended up very vulnerable to a counter-attack.

Up to now the plan had worked perfectly, but the cards just wouldn’t let me get the rest of my Knights stuck in on the left. Instead an uneasy stalemate occurred with neither side able to make any headway against the other.

This meant that I had to bring up my infantry before my left was overwhelmed by troops moved to reinforce Matt’s right and, fortunately, my Alabardieri and Lancieri were on tip top form and proceeded to convincingly win the centre.

My Knights on the left still weren’t managing to make any headway…

…so it was up to the Alabardieri to force the last of the Berber light cavalry off the table and win the game.

So having lost the first game 5-12, a 12-5 victory in the second game put me back to even-stevens and all ready for game three.

TTS AAR: Venice Abroad vs Later Swiss (Roll Call Game One)

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My first game at this year’s Medieval Madness competition at Roll Call was against a very testing opponent: Dillon’s Later Swiss with their veteran, extra-deep and, in some cases, fanatical pike blocks!

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do against these beasts: stay away from the front and attack the flanks seemed to be the best course of action, but unfortunately the table we were on didn’t have a huge amount of terrain in place to slow the Swiss down.

Worse, the Swiss were also mounted infantry, so the game began with his pike blocks already one extra square towards me:

Dillon had outscouted, so took his turn first, with a very good run of cards getting the pike unit in front of my camp (the pike block top left in the picture, above) into contact immediately.

No matter, I had troops either side who could advance forward and swing into his flank. Then I pulled my first card of the game:

This was not good, to say the last, but no need to panic: the pike blocks on the other side of the field hadn’t got to me yet, so a decent run of cards there would help out:

Fortunately this was only a temporary set back, and my troops soon surrounded two of the Swiss pike blocks and began thumping at their flanks:

And meanwhile a unit of Knights had snuck through and taken half the Swiss camp:

This was all well and good, but the pike blocks in the centre were just refusing to die. Flank charge after flank charge, rear charge after rear charge, I just couldn’t get the four hits I needed to kill them, and the Swiss light infantry was doing a good job in distracting my men as well.

You can also see that the Swiss pike block facing my camp has chewed its way through one unit of Venetian Spearmen and is now right up against the camp itself: unfortunately defended only by some raw militia types.

This meant that both my camps soon fell, taking the last of my victory medals with them, for a 5-12 loss.

Not a very good start, but not a disaster, and three more games to go!

TTS AAR: Venetians Abroad vs Timurid

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A practice game for the forthcoming Medieval Mayhem competition at Roll Call saw my Venetians travelling Abroad to fight Peter’s Timurids. This was the first time I had used the Venetians using the Venice Abroad list rather than the Later Italian Condotteri list, so I was interested to see how they would do.

First up, the Venetians were outscouted (a distinct lack of canals on the Steppes!), with the result that the two battle lines ended up as below: both sides overlapping only in the middle of the field.

I suspected that Peter planned to lap around my left flank with his cavalry, so quickly moved my Knights across to face his horsemen. My infantry also began to move diagonally forward in order to get into th action as soon as possible.

I was aware that I ran the risk of “wasting” my troops in the centre of the field against scythed chariots and driven slaves - neither of which, if destroyed, would cost Peter any victory medals - but, as I said, this was a test game just to see what the army could do.

My plan, therefore, was to hold the left, or at least achieve like-for-like losses, whilst my centre chewed through the Timurid “disposables” and then pivot my line so we fought each other perpendicular to our start points.

As expected, Timurid light horse lapped around my left, but my Knights largely ignored their presence, getting stuck in to the enemy heavy cavalry as soon as they could.

All seemed to be going nicely to plan when fortune kicked me firmly in the fork!

If you look at the picture below, you will see three of my units of Knights in action. Two are engaged with the enemy heavies (one winning their encounter, the other even-stevens) whilst another (the one in the foreground) has got behind Timurid cataphracts and is presumably about to drive them from the field.

At this point, the unit of enemy light cavalry that you can see bottom right turned and attacked my Knights from the flank. No problem, I hear you cry, these are Knights, Later Knights at that, they laugh at the efforts of lights to inconvenience them.

Not so today. Two successful activations followed by a great (from the Timurid point of view) run of cards saw my Knights first disordered then sent fleeing from the field!

Leaving aside the activations, that’s two successful 30% chances to hit followed by two 40% chances of failing a save: or a 1.44% chance of the cards falling as they did.

The Timurids naturally took full advantage of the situation, and soon my Knights on the left were under attack from all sides.

Meanwhile, in the centre, my troops were having a hard time disposing of the Timurid ‘disposables’: they just wouldn’t die!

That changed very rapidly, however, when my veteran Later Knights, with General and Army Standard, intevened and, after a slight hiccup in round one of their attempt, swept both units of Driven Slaves from the field in two glorious charges. It was just a pity they weren’t worth any victory medals!

As one unit of my Knights on the left just refused to die, and I kept pushing the Timurid Light Cavalry off table, the overall situation was actually fairly even at this point: I held the right hand side of the field, Peter held the left and with only a slight advantage in terms of victory medals won.

Most of my troops were, however, now disordered, and before I could get my rallies in, the Timurid horse archers managed to do the damage they need to send one unit of my Spearmen from the table. That, combined with eventually losing the last unit of Knights on the left, was enough to lose me my final victory medal, so the game was Peter’s.


So a bit of a damp squib ending to what had been an absolutely cracking encounter. Some would say the battle was effectively over when I unexpectedly lost the Later Knights on the left, but the Venetians almost pulled it back despite that unlucky blow.

THis weekend, the Venetians continue their voyage Abroad with a trip to, of all places, Milton Keynes for Medieval Mayhem at Roll Call. There must be some canals there, surely!

TTS World Champioships 2024: Game 4: Venetians vs Tang Chinese

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My fourth and last game at World’s pitted my Venetians against another Tang Chinese army…and having lost rather badly against Peter’s Tang in Round 2, I was rather hoping to do a bit better against Roger’s Tang in Round 4!

As things hadn’t been going very well so far, I decided to throw caution to the wind and (a) field most of my Later Knights as dismounted and (b) just get stuck in as soon as possible. Tactics, schmactics and all that!

Accordingly, as soon as the whistle went, I sped forward: my foot Knights sprinting up the field towards the opposition:

The sharp-eyed amngst you will have noticed that Roger had sent some horsemen rushing forward towards my right flank, seeking to get behind my advancing Knights or to sack my camps.

Fortunately I had antipated such a move and left a small force to deal with these intruders and, with a little help from the cards, the two enemy horse units were soon destroyed and my flank secured.

Meanwhile, on the left, I had sent some Knights forward to see if they could work their way around Roger’s flank.

Unfortunately, although I did manage to kill a couple of enemy units, it took me some time to do so - winkling lights out of a wood proved more time-consuming than I had anticipated - and, at the end of the game, my troops here were only just starting to break through.

All of which meant that it was centre that would decide things.

My dismounted knights, spear and pike units stormed forward, intent on causing mayhem, but their earlier sprint up the field had obviously exhausted my knights who proved unable to break the enemy in front of them.

My pikemen, however, did much better: driving forward clearing all before them before turning in to threaten the enemy flank.

By this time, however, Time’s winged chariot had hurried near, and the clock had somewhat un-Marvellously run out, the last game of the day being a either a really long one with no time limit or, in this case, a somewhat truncated affair due to needing to end the day on time.

The result? A winning draw 7-3 for my Venetians: not the score I needed to resurrect my fortunes. This meant that, once the scores had been totted up, that I came 14th overall: very disappointing.

Still, it’s all about the playing, not the winning (he said through gritted teeth with his nose visibly lengthening as he did so) and they had been four great games against four worthy and sporting opponents. The day was also superbly organised, so thanks to all involved: Si, Mark, Bevan, Steve, John et al. I really would recommend this event to any TTS player.

Meanwhile, my troops slunk back to their canals for more training: duri ai banchi as we Venetians like to say!

TTS World Championships 2024: Game 3: Venetians vs Ancient British

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The story so far: one big win, one big defeat…so it was all to play for in game three of the 2024 To The Strongest World Championships.

This time, my Ventians would face Matt’s Ancient British, and lot’s of them there were too!

The Ancient British outcouted, and before I knew it, I had shed loads of barbarians coming right at me: chariots and cavalry on the wings, infantry in the centre.

There was nothing for it but to get straight back at them and see what happened!

The two lines came together with a mighty crash…

…but honours were fairly even. The Brit infantry were in deep units, but my Knights had better saves, so things pretty much cancelled themselves out.

Cue a grinding melee that swung backwards and forwards between us: before too long, most of Matt’s units were on two disorders and most of mine were on one, but my pikemen and spearmen were having a good day and were pushing forwards towards the British camps: it was all going to be down to who gave way first.

Then disaster struck: one of Matt’s warbands broke through my line and charged towards my camp.

No matter, I thought, I have light infantry handgunners behind fortifications, and whenever I have tried taking a fortified camp packed full of light infantry, I have failed again and again and again.

Not today, however.

With barely a pause to draw breath, the British warband smashed straight through the fortifications into the camp, killing my lights as they did so. Four coins down!

Next thing, the game ended due to time considerations, with the Venetians recording a 4-9 losing draw: actually the first time I have not had a clear “win/lose” result in a competition game.

It had been a great encounter with a tough opponent. Had we continued, I think Matt would have quickly taken the rest of my camp and therefore the game but, on the other hand, there was also a fair possibility that I could have caused a general collapse in his line first, which could just about have given me the win…but I guess we will never know.

Must be an excuse for a return match some time in the future!

TTS World Championships 2024: Game 2: Venetians vs Tang Chinese

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The consequence, or course, of having had such a good first game meant that in round two I was once again up against Peter - winner of many, many tournaments and a regular opponent - and his Tang Chinese.

To my shame, I must admit that I did have a minor temper tantrum at the news: but, in my defence, I was very tired after a very long week’s work, and who would want to face Peter in a tournament…charming chap that he is, he does have a tendancy to win!

Anyhoo, tantrum over, it was time to settle down to the game:

As you can see from the picture, above, things did not start off very well for me!

Peter’s Tang outscouted my Venetians, and a superb deployment on his part and some good cards to begin saw his light cavalry, soon to be followed by heavier cavalry, all over my right flank.

This move to the (his) left, also meant that a third of my army was effectively facing thin air: not a good situation.

Some good manouevring on my part, however, brought the left hand contingent of my heavy knights back into the action and, in fact, got them into a great position to flank charge some of his central units.

Unfortunately, my new specially-bought,Venice-backed playing cards chose that moment to wobble, and my flank charges and moves across the field failed to happen as I had planned: disaster!

This meant that rather than putting the battle on a more even footing with some locally good superior numbers and flank attack possibilities, Peter had the time to turn to face my troops coming at him from his right flank to block my advance there. He was effectively where I had been at the start of the battle on my right, but also in an echelon formation that further prevented me using my superior numbers to advantage.

Meanwhile, of course, he had already achieved superiority of numbers on my right flank, and was able to use them to bash me up there before I had the chance to do the same to him on his right. He was (as ever, some would say) one step ahead of me.

Now it was just a matter of time, and Peter was soon able to start to sending my troops fleeing from the field, meaning that I suffered a very bad 2-12 loss!

A superb example of how to wrong-foot your opponent from deployment, and although I was a trifle unlucky not to be able to at least partly rescue the situation in the middle part of the game, as we all know, a plan that depends on luck is not a plan at all!