A Quick Three Huts

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A recent purchase left me in possession of three resin huts from the Wargamer Company, so I thought I’d better get some paint on them before they even got to the lead mountain.

These are painted with Contrast paints…and here I’ll tell you a little secret to getting the thatch and wood looking like it does: paint them upside down. No, not standing on your head, but paint the thatch upside down so that a down stroke takes the paint towards the top of the roof. It doesn’t change much, but it just makes sure that the paint runs into all the horizontal crevices without you having to go back and check them all again.

The Aggaros Dunes colour I used for the thatch is too light, I know, but provides a contrast with the Wyldwood used for the walls. The walls of the hut in the middle I did by stippling i.e. getting some Bleached Bone on an old brush and just jabbing it up and down. You can’t really see it in the pic, above, but it works really well at giving an uneven finish.

TTS AAR: Sassanids Win Three Out Of Three

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So with Bevan having defeated me twice in quick succession, it was my turn to take the Persians and his to take the Gauls.

Having watched the master at work, I knew that the best tactics were just to get forward as fast as possible, get my horse archers shooting quickety-quick, and charge home with the heavies as soon as I got the opportunity!

The terrain forced the action into three separate channels: the left past the woods, the centre, and the right past the woods.

On the left, two of my heavy units backed up by the elephants faced the Gauls’ three main cavalry units. The heavies quickly chewed through the more likely armed Celts, but the elephants had to divert to protect the rear from a marauding Gallic warband. These Gauls weren’t up to much snuff, however, and the elephants quick sent them packing.

On the other flank, I used another unit of heavies and some horse archers to quickly dispatch his final unit of horse: things weren’t going too badly at all!

Regular readers will know that usually when I say that, it presages an immediate reversal of fortunes and a catastrophic defeat…but not this time.

The two centres clashed, and I scored an immediate success as a unit of veteran clibanarii smashed an enemy warband off the table!

My line wasn’t (unfortunately!) a solid wall of heavy cavalry, so Bevan pushed forward hard at the sections held only by horse archers. These naturally danced backwards, which was fine except for the fact that it meant that the Gallic warbands concerned now had a chance of taking my camps.

One of the good things about having a cavalry army, however, is its ability to move rapidly around the table, including to head backwards to head off travel.

As one of my heavy units headed for the Gallic camp, another headed straight into the rear of one of the warbands threatening my camps. The hit was, as you might imagine, devastating: the warband shattered and I had won the game!

So one game back for me, making the day two for Bevan and one for me…but three-to-nothing for the Sassanids.

This must make them one of the best armies under the To The Strongest system, at least where the battlefield is fairly open. Must be time to re-base the Sassanid infantry as well then!

TTS AAR: Gauls vs Sassanids - the Re-Match

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Having been sliced and diced in under and hour in our first game, the Gauls had plenty of time for a re-match against the Sassanids. Bevan and I played the same sides again: me taking the brave and heroic Celtic underdogs again, him taking the Persians.

Both sides set up in a fairly similar fashion as last time, although the Gauls did split their cavalry between the two wings rather than concentrating on just the one.

As the game opened, once again the Sassanids shot forward rapidly, effectively clearing half the battlefield before the poor Celts had even had time to finish their croissants.

Out in front were the two wings of each army, and the first action was therefore clashes on the left and right.

On the left, two units of Celtic horse (the third had hung back for some reason) faced a unit of Sassanid Clibanarii and, led by a Boudicca type in her chariot, smashed the first unit from the field. They then went on to engage a second unit behind and quickly disordered them too. Yes they disordered themselves in the process, but things were certainly looking promising on the left!

On the right, I also achieved what I saw as an advantage: another cavalry unit and some Gaeseti fanatics effectively got the drop on another lot of clibanarii, getting a two-on-one advantage, and although some horse archers had slipped through my line, things looked promising here too.

Meanwhile, in the centre, my main group of warbands had hit the enemy line (a combination of horse archers and heavies) and pushed it back. Okay, the horse archers were evading away rather than being broken, but his camps were soon in sight, and they were worth a lot of victory medals!

Although I had taken some casualties, I was on the cusp of victory: all I had to do was survive the next, Sassanid, turn, and I would presumably finish off one or two enemy units, take his camps, and therefore win the game.

As you may already have been guessing, the salient part of that last paragraph was “all I had to do”!

Although Boudicca survived another round of combat, my infantry units heading for the Sassanid flanks were now hit in the flanks by those horse archers that had danced away from their advance. I wasn’t too bothered: deep warbands can soak up a lot of damage…but not, unfortunately, enough!

One was dashed from the field, the other disordered, effectively curtailing its advance next turn.

On the right, where my horse supported by infantry had been mullering his clibanarii, the fortunes of war suddenly turned against me. I went from two undamaged units facing a disordered enemy heavy cavalry unit to a lone, disordered warband facing two enemy units!

Finally, and to add insult to injury, that lone unit of horse archers that had slipped through my lines managed to get into my camp and ravage my Gallic baggage. That cost me three victory coins and the game!

I had, however, actually come quite close to winning the game, and had certainly lasted longer than last time!

Even better, next game it was my turn to run the Sassanids!

TFL Painting Challenge: A First August Update

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Just a quick update to keep on top of things.

Entries today from Lloyd, Ralph, Mervyn, Stumpy, Carole and Mr Luther. Do visit the individual galleries, but here’s a taster:

TTS AAR: Gauls versus Sassanids

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Having re-based all my Sassanids, I couldn’t wait to get them onto the tabletop…and fortunately friend Bevan was available to help me do so.

The real question was who to pitch them against: the Sassanids are one of the most successful armies under the To The Strongest system: the combination of horse archers and chunky lancers giving everyone except a similar army real problems. I eventually decided upon the Gauls as suitable opponents: lots of big warbands that could soak up damage, not as fragile as the Ancient Brits, and with some decent cavalry of their own. Chuck in some Gaeseti fanatics, and on paper it looked like it might be a good match.

On paper.

Despite the fact that I had re-based the Sassanids, I elected to take the Gauls first time round. Outscouted, I decided to put all my cavalry on one wing: probably a mistake as that allowed Bevan to get his elephants opposite my horse…and if there’s one thing Gallic horse don’t like, it’s the look and smell of nellies!

The Sassanids opened proceedings by sprinting up the battlefield towards my line. Most unusually, the elephants shot out in front of the already fast-moving Sassanid line and stomped into the forest that I had thought I might use to protect my flank.

This looked like a good opportunity to me, so I sent a unit of Gaeseti fanatics into the woods to root the pachyderms out. Surely this was a couple of points I could secure before the rest of his line arrived.

Apparently not.

The elephants proved their worth and soon my fanatics were reeling backwards, with my CinC falling heroically in the melee!

Also on the left flank, the first charge of the Gallic cavalry versus the Sassanid cataphracts had taken place. Despite having the initiative, my horse had failed to dent the armoured horsemen at all, and another of my generals died!

Worse, some enemy Clibanarii were working their way down the flank and needed to be dealt with before they got into my rear!

Meanwhile, on the right flank, I had taken possession of the hill in front of my line. My thinking was that I could soak up a bit of horse archer fire, rallying if necessary, and then be uphill when the enemy lancers went in.

This didn’t really work either, as the Sassanid horse archers were having a very good day, and soon my two warbands looked like pincushions…and, you guessed it, I lost a third general!

So thirty minutes into the game, the situation looked like this:

The Gauls look pretty solid, but that’s an illusion. Next turn, the Gaeseti got mullered by the elephants, the lead cavalry unit got smashed off the table by the cataphracts (foreground action in the pic above), and I also lost the unit of cavalry next to the fanatics and one of the warbands on the hill. That, plus the three officers, was it: I was out of victory medals and out of the game!

Horrendous: Bevan had expertly sliced and diced the Gauls and served them for Sassanid tea!

FK&P AAR: Swedish vs Moghuls

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With the Moghuls having defeated the Cossacks in short order (see previous post) there was time to have another game. This time I thought that I would wheel out the Swedes: not sure quite how the contemporary but not contemporaneous Swedes and Moghuls would ever encounter each other…but then that’s the great joy of wargaming!

I was a bit more confident of victory this time: the Swedish army has a good mix of pike-armed infantry and decent Reiter horse: surely this would be enough to put the upstart easterners in their place!

The Swedes

The Moghuls

I drew up my Swedes in entirely the traditional manner: two brigades of infantry in the centre, a brigade of cavalry on each wing. My plan was to advance in a line and just get stuck in as soon as possible: my pike should be able to defeat his largely musket- or sword-armed infantry through reach alone!

The Moghul plan was to sweep his wings forward using weight of numbers to win the cavalry battle there, then curl in to take my main line in the flanks just as his main line hit them from the front.

His cavalry duly swept forward, with my cavalry advancing to meet them.

Left flank

Right flank

As the cavalry on both sides began their fight for dominance on the wings, the Swedes marched their infantry forward in the centre.

On the left wing, my cavalry were initially successful, and had a great opportunity to charge his main horse units in the rear by swinging around the small wood top left in the left hand picture above. Unfortunately, I drew a “10” for my first movement card, so got into the perfect position to launch the charge but just couldn’t actually charge before the way into the enemy cavalry’s rear was blocked by Moghul elephants.

Meanwhile, on my right wing, the cavalry clash had proved inconclusive. Both sides had lost multiple units, and things ended up with his cavalry technically ready to do more, but positionally unable to do so before the main battle lines clashed.

With the cavalry actions on the wings proving inconclusive, it was obvious that the battle would be decided in the centre. The two lines moved into contact and a grinding melee began.

As with most grinding melees, it was 50/50 who would win: the advantage I had from my pikes countered by the Moghuls slightly outnumbering me.

To cut a long story short, after a long series of to-and-fro clashes, I lost. At the end of the battle, the Moghuls had only three victory medals left, so if I’d broken one of his foot units before he broke one of mine, then I would have won.

All that was left in the centre of battlefield!

A great game, with the Swedes proving decidedly harder for the Moghuls to beat than the Cossacks!

Here’s a chronological, pictorial history of the battle:

FK&P AAR: Cossacks versus Moghuls

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Friend Bevan has recently acquired a 17th Century Moghul army, so naturally we had to get it onto the tabletop as quickly as possible.

The Moghuls’ first opponents would be my Zaphorogian Cossacks, and we’d use the “eastern front” version of For King & Parliament (in turn the ECW version of To The Strongest) that we have built up based on some core rule variants that you can find on the Tales from a Wargaming Shed blog.

The Moghuls

The Cossacks

My plan was to anchor my left flank on a patch of impassable ground, placing my artillery behind it so that they couldn’t be charged from the front (you can see this in the picture, above right). The left flank would be held by one foot brigade consisting of a sotnia of Registered Cossacks and two sotnias of Moloitsy.

Stretching out to the right from this point were the tabor war wagons, able to hold the centre of the field with sheer weight of fire. To their right were a second infantry brigade (same as the first one) and then, on the far right wing, the stars of the last battle, a brigade of Tatars: one squadron of noble lancer types, two clumps of horse archers.

The plan was, as I said, to anchor my left and centre, win on the right, and then sweep in and take his centre, battered from the fire of the tabor, from the flank.

Bevan’s plan, on the other hand, was to stay well clear of the killing field in the centre in front of my tabor, and advance strongly on the flanks. Hopefully his men there would win, and he’d decide what to do after that. Seems like quite a good plan to me!

The battle opened with the Cossacks being extremely reluctant to move forward at all. I managed to get the left wing into place, but only one tabor war wagon did what it was supposed to do. On my right wing, although the Cossack infantry were well up for a fight, the Tatars were not interested at all. This was slightly worrying: were my allies not quite so allied as I had thought? Had the Moghuls paid them off with more coin than I could afford?

The Moghuls trundled forward towards me.

Rather than spell out each phase of the battle in turn, let me give you an overview of what happened. In essence, Bevan’s plan worked perfectly.

On my left flank, my infantry, who should have been able to give a good account of themselves, especially as they were supported by the artillery and one end of the tabor line, crumbled under the weight of the Moghul attacks. One moment i had a left wing, the next I didn’t.

It was even worse of the right wing. The Tatars, the battle winners of my last two games, just refused to engage at all, and when they were attacked, just melted away. Definitely some dodgy politicking or bribery going on in the background!

Once my flanks were broken and driven it, Bevan’s Moghuls curled in on my flanks and the last of my victory medals soon disappeared. My tabor had hardly got to fight at all.

A nicely executed plan by the Moghuls and a well deserved victory. Here’s a chronological pictorial account of the game:

TFL Painting Challenge: Another July Update

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I’ve got a couple of AAR to write up, but thought I’d better do a quick painting challenge update first.

Entries from Lloyd, Matt, Andrew, Stumpy, Mervyn and Sapper today. Do visit the individual galleries to see the full range of what people have painted, but here’s a taster to whet the whistle:

Deja Vu!

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My last post involved re-based four heavy cavalry style bases for my Sassanids and a new unit of Classicial Indian Javelinmen.

Guess what? This post does too…but they are different cavalry and different Indians.

These are the Sassanid Clibanarii or Savaran: the next one down from the Cataphracts we saw last post. Again, four units. It’s actually that I’ve got too many cataphracts rather than too many clibanarii!

Incidentally, someone asked me the best way to get figures off existing bases.

Well, there’s no easy way to do it.

One way is to anticipate having the problem and to spray the bases with an undercoat before you mount the figures on them. That way, if you do ever come to need to re-base, the glue has bonded with the paint rather than fully with the base, so the figures are comparatively easy to pop off, even if superglue is your chosen adhesive.

Leaving that aside, however, I have found the best way to get figures off bases is to soak the bases in water for a few hours before making the attempt. I use half of one of the plastic blisters you get tufts in i.e. a plastic tray that is long and shallow.

Put the base to be de-nuded of figures in there and trickle water into the half-blister until the water just comes over the top of the base. Leave for at least four hours. Then use a sharp screwdriver (not a Philips head!) to find the edge of each figure’s base and slide it in with a chisel-like action. Never try to pull the figure off the base: you’ll just break it off at the legs or bend it well out of shape. The figure should be popped from the base, not pulled.

Touch wood and all that, but I’ve just re-based 80 cavalry that were superglued onto either MDF or metal bases and not lost a single one.

And here’s another unit of Classical Indian javelinmen. Just one more unit to go and then I'll have painted all the Indians in the lead mountain.

Cataphracts Re-Based and some more Classical Indians

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The re-basing of my Sassanids continues: this time with the cataphracts.

Re-basing is a horrible job. There’s the danger of destroying a paint-job or even a figure as you take them off the old bases. Then there’s the tedium of gluing the figures to the new base, adding the basing material, dry-brushing and flock…and after all that you haven’t actually added any more figures to the collection.

On the other hand, you have schroffed up figures that you might never have used again. Although I love playing a cataphract/horse-archer army, I had unconsciously avoided doing so as I didn’t like the basing.

All that has now changed, and my Sassanids will once again be taking the field in the very near future…once I’ve re-based the elephants, infantry etc of course!

So, in the end, well worth the effort.

More Indians

Regular readers will know that I want to buy myself a Norman army with the new CAD designed range from Museum Miniatures.

Well, why haven’t you, I hear you cry?

Unfortunately my rule this year is that I can’t buy any new figures until I have painted an equivalent number from the lead mountain.

Stupid rule, I know, but said mountain was getting a bit out of control!

So here are another 19 Classical Indian javelinmen, also from the Museum Miniatures CAD designed range.

Coming back to an army after you’ve “finished” it is always difficult. You have to remember how you painted and based the previous units in the army. This blog helps, as I tend to note down the colours used when I’m displaying newly-painted figures, and I keep a spreadsheet with the details on it as well. Highly recommended thing to do, by the way.

So, with the French infantry I’ve recently painted, that’s now 83 figures removed from the lead mountain. Another couple of units of Indians, one more of French, and I think I’m ready to give the bank balance a hammering on the Normans!

Horse Archers Re-Based

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Now that I’m playing a lot of To The Strongest and the eastern Europe variant of For King & Parliament I thought it time to pull my finger out and re-base some of my ancients armies to suit.

I love the big elements that TTS encourages with its grid system, so have taken the first plunge with a load of generic horse archers. I didn’t like the way they were based, so this is a good opportunity to refresh and refurbish them and get them back onto the tabletop on a more regular basis.

How to base them though? I need them to act as a number of different nationalities: Parthians (desert scrub terrain), Sassanids (ditto); Steppes-nomads of various types (grass) and so on.

In the end, I plumped for a simple green flock with the odd bush and flower base. That will work with most of my existing armies and is about as neutral a scheme as one can get.

I went with bases of eight horse-archers each: perhaps it looks a little crowded, but I wanted to give the impression of a dense swarm of bowmen rather than a few individuals. It also suits the eastern Europe variant of FK&P where light cavalry can actually initiate melee combat and, perhaps, the new massed lights rules for TTS.

So now I have two brigades of three horse archer units each, plus command and a hero. I think I’ll re-base my generic cataphracts and clibanarii next…

TFL Painting Challenge: July Update

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Lots of entries today into this year’s Painting Challenge.

A few points to note:

  • Mervyn has changed cameras, so his pics are looking good

  • Neil’s adventurers brought out a wave of nostalgia in me. I’m sure I had that cleric as one of the very first D&D figures and characters I ever had. Tolass the Holy if I remember correctly. I must see if I can find him again, although I don’t remember him being painted as well as Neil’s!

  • I’ve changed the way I present the Scorecard. It should make it easier (and faster) to update on an ongoing basis. The numbers are the same: it’s just the format that’s changed!

Check out the individual galleries, but here’s a selection to whet your whistle:

AAR TTS: Trialing the Massed Light Rule

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Bevan and I manged to squeeze in a quick game of To The Strongest last week. Choice of sides was up to me, so I decided to test out the new-ish massed lights rule (where two light units can join forces and keep most of the characteristics of a light unit but be a bit tougher in combat) by fielding my New Kingdom Egyptians. Against them Bevan would take the newly slimline Akkadians: their deep spear units being reduced to normal size under the latest incarnation of the army lists.

I deployed my infantry in the centre, with two strong chariot-based units on either wing. My plan was to use my superior missile fire to weaken his troops and then either smash his weakened centre with my foot, or have my chariots harass his flanks…and it almost worked!

On my left, Pharoah himself led his veteran chariots forward. They shot loads of arrows at the enemy but failed to make any impression: there was obviously something wrong with their bow strings that day!

They then spent the rest of the battle being slowly pushed back or, in one case, sandwiched i.e. keeping the enemy’s right wing occupied, but not much else.

My right wing, however, did exactly what it was supposed to do. Quickly disposing of some light infantry, one unit of chariots swept around the flank of an enemy spear unit and drove it from the table. The other chariot unit skirmished with another enemy spear unit until it was sufficiently wounded, and then charged in and finished it off.

Great success, but the fact that I was hitting only on an “8” (light units remember) meant that it had taken more time than I had anticipated to achieve what I had done. One unit of chariots was also now quite a long way from the action, although the other was in a position to strike a commanding blow by taking the enemy’s camp.

Unfortunately, the cards failed me at the last minute and I ended up one square short (photo: right, above). The other chariot unit, or perhaps a unit of light infantry, also missed charging into the rear of an enemy spear unit in the centre by a similar margin. I would win the next turn, but could my centre hold out long enough for me to do so.

The simple answer was “no”. The Akkadian spear and axe units in the centre had been grinding forward and my mixed force of archers and spearmen just could not hold them. On Bevan’s next initiative he manged to break enough of my units to win the game just as I was poised to do the same to him!

So another great game of TTS. Looking at that last turn, I had four chances to take Victory Medals, two of which I needed to make happen in order to win the game. In the event, none of the four came off: by such slim margins are the fortunes of war decided!

AAR TTS: Classical Indians vs Alexandrian Macedonians: The Big One!

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The final game of our To The Strongest battle day was a double-sized game with two players and 260 points per side. Si and I would take the Classical Indians again, Peter and Cayden would take the Alexandrian Macedonians.

One slight twist was that the results of the last four games were applied on top of the existing TTS points system to further balance the armies…and as the Macedonians had won three of the day’s four encounters so far, they had their Victory Medals (lose them all and you lost the game) reduced by a third.

Si and I decided to try the same plan that had almost worked in an earlier game: our left flank (under me) would hang back and try and hold the enemy’s main attack with the Companions and Phalanx whilst our right flank (under Si) advanced quickly, brushed aside the lights in front of it, and curled around to hit the phalanx etc in the side.

That was the plan…but unfortunately it didn’t work. Although the left flank did some heroic work holding up the Companions (the new rules about Javelinmen in rough terrain being very useful), the various Macedonian Phalanxes proved pretty unstoppable in the left centre, and our troops on the right just couldn’t get into play fast enough.

So there you have it: despite even points and a bias on the Victory Medals, the Indians still lost, Over the course of the day, that made four out of five Macedonians victories: I guess there’s a reason Alexander conquered the known world!

TFL Painting Challenge: Final June Update

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Half way through the year and people are really getting into their stride now.

Today we have some very large entries showcasing some excellent work. Below is just a selection: please do visit the galleries to see all.

I haven’t had time to update the Scorecard yet: I shall do so asap!

AAR TTS: Alexandrian Macedonians vs Classical Indians

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For the second encounter of the three-game marathon organised by Peter, I would take the Alexandrian Macedonians into battle against the Classical Indians.

My opponent set up in a tight formation in the centre of the battlefield hoping, presumably to pepper me with arrows before we made contact. His right wing looked very strong, with his heavy chariots and some elephants facing off against my Companions, but his left wing…well it looked a big “hanging” to me!

I therefore placed my three units of horse archers way out on my right: their aim would be to swoop round and attack his left wing from the flank and rear.

Once the game had begun, I advanced in echelon: holding back my left whilst my horse archers sprinted for the other end of the table. My pike blocks moved forward as fast as they could and, admittedly, I got a bit lucky here: the phalangites trotted forward faster than expected and almost immediately threatened his front.

After that good start, the battle unfolded almost exactly to plan. The horse archers swept around his left flank and rear just as the two phalanx units hit his front, and his left flank crumbled.

I then brought forward my Companions to prevent his quality troops on the right from intervening, and then it was just a matter of letting things take their course. In the end I won a victory 12:2 i.e. I only lost a couple of light units.