Lots of entries today and from a wider selection of people than normal: must be all the summer holidays work coming in!
Do look at the individual galleries, accessed through the nav bar, above, but here’s a taster to wet your whistle (correct spelling!):
A good visit to the Colours show yesterday. Very crowded in the morning, but had largely emptied out by the time I left at two-ish.
A big fantasy game from the show. They obviously knew the way in!
Interesting journey there: I’ve been many times before, so went my usual route, only to find that that entrance to the racecourse was closed, with no way through to the correct entrance just the other side of a traffic barrier. It was really a case of so near, yet so far! I then spent the next twenty minutes driving around the nearby industrial estate trying to find my way in…and all the time I could see the racecourse, and the stand where the show was held, but just couldn’t work out how to get there! Eventually ended up looping onto the end of a convoy of obvious wargamers following someone who did actually know the way in, but that’s still twenty minutes of my life I’m not getting back LOL.
My irritation immediately disappeared, however, when I remembered that there was no entrance fee this year, so one could just swan in and out as required. Jolly good show already!
Colours followed its usual format. The ground floor (the betting hall) was packed full of traders, and ws the usual scrum to get through. Slight need for more deodorant from some people as well, particularly in one corner away from the doors, but that could just be my still-unusual, post-COVID sense of smell kicking in. I bought some bases and tufts, but nothing major: just the things you get irritated having to pay postage and packing for.
I did fail to immediately buy a giant crab for £14 from Disain Studios only to find that they had sold out when I eventually decided that I had to have it, so I remain crab-less. I have no need of a giant crab, I hasten to add, nor any expectation of needing one anytime soon, but it was calling its siren song to me, so I will probably end up getting one at another show. Or I could go to their website to get the link for this post…no, must resist…at least until I see it in the flesh (the shell? the resin?) again!
I couldn’t find the crab on their website (am I destined never to get crabs?!) so here’s a shot of a large ancients game from the show
Next floor up was combination of demo games, trade stands and places to eat and drink. Catering was the usual snacks and sandwiches (can we go back to Ascot again please: the food there was lovely!) and this was the floor where the Lardies had set up shop with games of Chain of Command and Strength & Honour.
The CoC set up was part of the legendary TFL Arnhem triptych some of which I had seen at Operation Market Larden, and looked even better than before. Can’t wait to see all three in place in the near future.
Then onto the top floor: demo games and the Bring & Buy. This latter didn’t have anything I wanted, but at least had a sizeable frontage that meant not too much barging around to see what was what.
Roundway Down
Lovely For King & Parliament demo game was up here as well: featuring the Roundway Down scenario. Also good to finally meet Simon and Andrew face to face.
So that was Colours for another year. As I said, a good show, and loads of people to say hello to and chat to.
Time for a game of To The Strongest: I would take the Akkadians (the new, ‘slim-line’ version from the latest army lists) and Kavan would use a Classical Indian army of the Republican variety.
My plan was to act almost purely defensively: luring the Indians forward onto the tips of my spears. My only offensive move would be to send my heavy chariots forward on the left to try and get around the Indian right flank.
Everything went almost to plan, as the Indian javelinmen, chariots, elephants and cavalry hurled themselves forward without the first on the list even bothering with their extra longbows. To cut a long story short, they impaled themselves on the Akkadian line, and the game was won pretty easily.
Chronological pictures of the game appear below, but it’s worth mentioning why I said “almost” above. My heavy chariots did indeed thunder forward on the left most impressively, but then ran into bother facing a couple of raw units of Indian javelinmen. I sent some Household Infantry to help, and they got into trouble as well!
Unbelievably, the only thing that saved the day was the unit of Nim skirmishers in the rough ground (the unit with the die with ‘1’ on it in the picture above) who not only resisted every attempt of the Indian javelinmen to evict them from said rough ground, but went on to use their javelins to wipe them out as well!
Their success held my left flank together and allowed me to win the battle in the centre and on the right.
So a relatively workmanlike victory for the Akkadians. Here are the pics:
One thing to note: figures for both sides come from the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed Z ranges: highly recommended.
After the Cossacks got so badly hammered last time out against a Muscovite army, it was time to reinforce them with some Transylvanians: the Cossacks would provide the war wagons and foot, the Transylvanians some fairly decent cavalry.
The Muscovites were, again, mostly Sons of Boyars or Reiter cavalry supported by two small brigades of infantry.
View from behind the Muscovite line
Muscovites
Transylvanians & Cossacks
Muscovite Reiters
Elite Transylvanian Cavalry
As the battle began, both sides advanced forward smartly, with the terrain meaning that the game divided into three sectors: my left flank, the centre and my right flank.
On my left, some scummy looking Border Guards had appeared in front of me: the perfect target for the Transylvanians!
Apparently not, as rather than running over them like a badly dressed speedbump, my horsemen got impaled on their pikes. This flank then turned into an uneasy stalemate as horse and foot units milled around charging each other with little effect. The battle would be decided elsewhere!
On my right flank, I had some Transylvanian Enlisted Light Cavalry supported by two Haiduk units sheltering in the woods.
The plan was to send the light cavalry forward to soften up the three units of Reiters coming towards me so that the Haiduks could wipe them out from safe amongst the trees.
This did not work: the light horse were swept away almost immediately, and then the Haiduks were charged from the flanks and front and, despite the bonuses for being in cover, were swept away as well. The final unit of Haiduks did hold out for some turns, but eventually succumbed, leaving my centre now vulnerable to flank attacks.
Meanwhile in the centre, the main body of Muscovite Reiters steamed towards my line: a mixed line of raw Moloitsy short-pike-and-shot and tabor war wagons.
My tabor fired valiantly away with both their light guns and musketry, but because I only had two of them rather than my usual four, I couldn’t get the concentrated fire I needed to halt the enemy Reiters heading towards me.
The Moloitsy were charged and gave way, leaving the tabor as islands of resistance amongst a swirling sea of Muscovite horsemen.
By this stage, I was also getting very short of victory medals…
As my right wing collapsed, the loss of one unit too many caused my army as a whole to collapse: the Muscovites had won the day!
This wasn’t a hammering, I hasten to add: the Muscovites had been losing units as well, but it the Cossacks and Transylvanians who crumbled first!
Another great game, through, even if the Muscovites are currently proving unstoppable!
Here’s a few shots of a lovely looking game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum put on by Whisperin’ Al and taken from his excellent blog, The Wargame Shed.
Click on the pic below to see all:
Time to get my new Muscovites onto the tabletop and into action, with their opponents being the Zaphorogian Cossacks. Russians verses Ukrainians: who would have thought!
I played the Cossacks, daughter #1’s boyfriend, Kavan, played the Muscovites. The rules used were For King & Parliament with the Eastern Front adaptations taken from the Tales from a Wargaming Shed website.
This turned out to be a fast and furious battle with what seemed like an endless wave of Muscovite horse crashing onto the Cossack tabor and infantry.
Here a gallery of the set up so that you can see the two sides:
The battle opened with a brigade of Muscovite Reiters thundering forward on the Cossack right flank, held by a brigade of Moloitsy and Registered Cossacks. The cards were with Kavan, with a couple of consecutive “10’s” ensuring that he actually charged home on his first turn!
The rapid charge had, however, obviously exhausted his cavalrymen, as they bounced backwards from the Cossack infantry, losing one squadron in the process.
The Muscovites also advanced another brigade of Reiters on my left flank, but not as fast, so I sent my Tartar allies out to deal with them whilst I advanced the tabor forward and prepared to deploy.
I almost came a cropper at this point, as his Reiters were once again quick off the mark, and hit one of my tabor wagons before it had a chance to deploy. Fortunately, I managed to survive the charge, but there was definitely now a weak point in my line!
Even worse, my Tatar Nobles (the best troops I had) had obviously been bribed by the Muscovites, as they left the table, along with some of their horse archers, without achieving anything!
I was now in quite serious danger of being outflanked on the left!
Fortunately I had a reserve brigade of infantry that I could deploy to face this threat, and the battle became a series of Muscovite assault on a fortress of Cossack tabor. Again and again, the Reiters and elite National Cavalry charged home, and again and again the Cossack line held.
My artillery was overrun, two of the tabor wagons were overrun, my Registered Cossacks on the right were wavering, but still we held, and the relentless assaults were costing the Muscovites dearly.
Kavan also wasn’t helped by a run of bad cards, including what you can see in the last picture, above: an absolute dead-cert winning flank charge on the reserve unit holding my left flank foiled by a couple of Aces drawn in a row.
This gave me the chance to get the last remaining unit of Tatars in on his flank and, finally, the Muscovites had had enough and retreated. A very narrow escape for the Cossacks!
It had been a terrific game, with everything coming right down to the wire. I had lost half my army, but had just managed to hold on long enough to get the win. Roll on the next game!
Great write up of a game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum from the keyboards of Dan Albrecht and Shane Waley.
Dan used a modified version of the third scenario from the All American scenario pack, along with a modified version of IABSM using Derek Hodge’s command card activation system.
Click on the pic below to see all:
Just time to squeeze in a quick Painting Challenge update before we hit September.
Lots of entries this time around, so do visit the individual galleries. Here’s a taster to wet your whistle:
Interestingly, I’ve just realised that I’ve been using the phrase “whet your whistle” almost every time we have a Painting Challenge update…and spelling/using it incorrectly each time. It’s “whet your appetite” as in “sharpen your appetite” but “wet your whistle” as in “have a drink”.
So I now need to go back and change every Painting Challenge update to “whet your appetite”…or not bother as a reminder to myself not to get it wrong again!
Whilst researching for my English Civil War armies, I came across the blog Tales from a Wargaming Shed. It’s author, Tim, had some rules and army lists for using For King & Parliament to fight pike and shot battles in 17th Century Eastern Europe as opposed to just the UK’s green and pleasant land.
Muscovites versus Cossacks, from a recent game
This, combined with the comprehensive miniatures for the theatre available from Wargamer.pl, inspired me to start a collection of Zaphorogian Cossacks to face friend Bevan’s Polish Lithuanians and then, as my collection expanded to include Muscovites, Transylvanians and others, to build on Tim’s work and the information provided in the By Fire & Sword rules by Wargamer.pl, to create more detailed army lists for For King & Parliament for the theatre.
On this new page on this blog, therefore, you will find pdfs of the army lists I have created so far. These are, I hasten to say again, hugely based on Tim’s work and the information provided in the By Fire & Sword rules by Wargamer.pl. All I have done is build upon their work, adding information taken from other sources (for example, the Steven’s Balagan blog) to put together enough information to get as many different eastern front '“pike and shot” armies as possible on the tabletop. Any mistakes are my own, and I welcome corrections or suggestions (send to admin@vislardica.com).
Earlier this year, at the Lardy Games Day Operation Market Lardon, I played in a very enjoyable game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum run by Phil and Jenny.
The game involved elements of 2. SS Panzer-Division Das Reich and 9. SS Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen attempting to recapture the town of Rauray in Normandy from the 1st Battalion Tyneside Scottish. Noddy and I played the British against some very skilful German opposition.
The game had actually been playtested several times, and here’s an AAR from one of those playtests from the excellent Bleaseworld blog.
Click on the picture, below, to see all:
I recently bought a whole load of painted figures for use with my Zaphorogian Cossacks: there was a complete Muscovite army, large numbers of Transylvanians, and a smattering of Ottomans as well.
The only problem was that they were all based for the miniatures’ parent rule system By Fire and Sword: so although I wouldn’t have any problems adapting the units to FK&P/Eastern Front version, it did mean that I would be moving figures on lots of bases around the field rather than my usual large element bases.
I did think about re-basing, but the bases that the figures came on were far too well done to be casually destroyed…and re-basing figures is always a tedious and sometimes risky business. I needed another solution.
Step forward Warbases: that excellent company from north of the border who specialise in bases of all sorts. They already supply the custom bases I use for IABSM infantry squads, the larger bases I use for TTS deep units, and the standard movement trays I use for my Vikings, so I investigated what they could do.
I wanted movement trays of two different types (one for foot, one for horse) but with a narrower lip than usual so they wouldn’t end up being too prominent on the battlefield.
One quick e-mail to Warbases describing what I wanted and they were happy to provide. Okay so I had to stick the extra thin lip on myself, but that was hardly a hardship!
Here are the results: multi-based infantry, horse and artillery units now beautifully and conveniently trayed-up and ready for the tabletop. Once again: well done Warbases!
A couple of weeks ago it was over to Benson to play in a huge re-fight of the Napoleonic battle of Heilsberg.
From Wikipedia:
On 24 May 1807, the Siege of Danzig ended when Prussian General Friedrich Adolf, Count von Kalckreuth capitulated to French Marshal François Joseph Lefebvre. This gave Napoleon the opportunity to engage the Russian forces led by Levin August von Bennigsen. On 2 June, before Napoleon could act, Bennigsen ordered his columns to converge on Marshal Michel Ney's exposed VI Corps. Outnumbered by 63,000 to 17,000, Ney fought a rear guard action at the Battle of Guttstadt-Deppen on 5 and 6 June. Though he lost his baggage train, two guns, and 2,042 men, Ney managed to escape to the southwest over the Pasłęka (Passarge) River with the bulk of his soldiers.
Within two days, Napoleon had ordered his 190,000-man army to close in on the 100,000 Russians and 15,000 Prussians. Aware of their approach, Bennigsen ordered his troops to fall back on Lidzbark Warmiński ("Heilsberg" in German). The Russian army took up strong defensive positions around the town, which stood on the Łyna (Alle) River. The French army, under Marshals Murat and Lannes, attacked on 10 June. Bennigsen repelled several attacks, resulting in huge French casualties, but had to withdraw towards Friedland the following day. Four days later, the decisive Battle of Friedland occurred, ending the War of the Fourth Coalition with the passing of the Treaty of Tilsit.
And about the battle itself:
The French cavalry under Joachim Murat was selected to lead the frontal attack, but Napoleon did not arrive on the field in person until Murat had already led a disastrous charge. Marshal Mortier and Marshal Davout advanced on the Königsberg side. Soult and Lannes, leading separate cavalry units, and Ney, with the infantry, moved forwards on both sides of the River Łyna. These smaller units proved ineffective, especially when Prussian reinforcements arrived, sent by Anton Wilhelm von L'Estocq at Bennigsen's request. Lannes made an unsuccessful attack which cost the French 3,000 casualties. On the Russian side, Bennigsen was suffering from fever and had difficulty remaining in command.
On 11 June, the substantial casualties on both sides and the success of the Russian defence gave Bennigsen and Napoleon little choice but to call an undocumented truce to end hostilities. The French had lost an estimated 12,000 men. The truce was focused primarily on the recovery of wounded soldiers. The battle ended with medics and soldiers from both sides helping the wounded and retrieving the dead. When Napoleon entered the deserted Russian positions the following day, he found that all except the wounded had been evacuated overnight.
I would play Murat, commander of the French cavalry, with Anon and Mark leading the French infantry. The Russians would be played by Edward and John. We also had two referees (and the architects behind the game): Bevan on the French side and Dave on the Russian side. The rules used were Age of Eagles.
The French cavalry corps, with me as Murat commanding, arrive on the edge of the table. Our objective is the town that you can just see top right.
I knew that historically Murat had just thundered forward and charged up the slope at the waiting Russians. I also knew that that hadn’t worked, so my aim (and orders from our Napoleon) was to head to the left and try and get through the gap in the ridge past the trees with the house in front of them.
I duly headed off in that direction as fast as I could, but my troops quickly got a bit strung out. The Lights were okay, but the Heavies were having none of this fast-moving malarky!
Meanwhile, the Russians pulled back so all their troops were on the ridge and our infantry started to arrive on table.
The Russians were waiting for me with two strong (well, large) units of Cossacks and a battery of guns, so rather than recklessly trying to force the gap with the Lights, I waited until my Heavies actually deigned to arrive.
Meanwhile, the Russians were receiving reinforcements.
Time to earn my spurs! I brought the Heavies up along with my Horse Artillery and thundered through the gap, with the enemy Cossacks counter-charging my advancing cavalry.
I didn’t smash the Cossacks from the table - their large sotnias absorbing a lot of the impetus from my smaller but much better quality units - but definitely pushed them back, allowing me to start to pour through the gap.
Meanwhile, the French infantry was advancing forwards as fast as possible, and fighting had broken out around the village on the Russian left. This benighted place would change hands several times before finally falling to the French.
The Russian reinforcements were still streaming towards the fighting!
As the French infantry continued to pour forward, I kept the pressure up on the Cossacks and the regular cavalry that had begun to arrive to reinforce them.
By now, battle was becoming general across the whole of the front of the ridge.
On my side of the table, my cavalry were now definitely starting to push the Russian horse backwards, even with their reinforcements, and were starting to push forward onto the ridge itself: the flank of the Russian infantry beckoned, and I even managed to overrun a Russian artillery piece in its redoubt.
The French infantry were also getting well stuck in, and the Russians were gradually being pushed back all along their line.
This was not an easy fight, I hasten to add. French casualties were mounting up, and the action was a see-saw backwards and forwards rather than a steady advance from the French. My cavalry were facing a lot of fresh Russian regular horse and I was having to attack in surges: charge and get disordered, hopefully survive enemy actions, re-order and charge in again…but the enemy were definitely starting to crumble under our relentless assault!
What finally broke the Russian horse were a series of flank charges: my smaller units being much more manoeuvrable than his massive columns.
With my cavalry now dominant on the left side of the ridge, and my horse artillery on the way, and the Russian infantry in the centre starting to crumble, it was looking deadly serious for the Russians.
The clock was ticking, however, and we had to end the game there having fought 16 of the 23 turns that the scenario allowed.
So, who had won?
Well the French were definitely winning, and had secured two of their four objectives: the river line in front of the ridge and the ridge itself. They had also inflicted 41% casualties on the Russians whilst taking approximately half that themselves. Admittedly they technically only had seven turns to secure the riverline behind the ridge (that would have been very, very do-able) but taking the town, with its infantry defenders would have been very tough to do indeed within that time limit.
In the end, the referees ruled that extreme Russian casualties would have meant that their army abandoned both the field and the town, giving victory to the French. Huzzah!
It is, however, only fair to mention that the Russians disagreed vehemently with this interpretation of the result: claiming that they would have quite happily holed up in the town and waited for nightfall and the technical end of the action, giving them the victory despite their enormous casualties and loss of 75% of their objectives. I leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide who was right!
I was quite relieved to have done better than my historical counterpart, and was pleased with the way I had forced the Russian right flank.
The Age of Eagles rules give a good, fast-moving game, although I find the fact that you’re always rolling one die for a test or combat rather than two makes things uncomfortably random: there’s no normal distribution with just one die, and the fact that it’s a D10 gives you a nine point variance in result…it’s just that bit too random for me.
My thanks to all involved, but especially to Dave and Bevan who organised and ran the game. Perhaps a last word from one of the Russian commanders…
Really good to see some of you on Saturday, and big thanks for such a fun day and battle. The Russian right flank (which was weakly defended) took a pounding from some very skillfully handled French cavalry…but I think if we'd strengthened the flank from the start, the French infantry would have cleared the central high ground even quicker than they did. Even though we lost, I really enjoyed playing the Russians…an excellent defence over such a long period.
Michael Curtis ran two games of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum at Britcon this year, ably helped by Phil and Jenny Turner.
This was a truly superb looking game: click on the picture below to see lots of photographs…and to be inspired!
It’s heatwave after heatwave at the moment, so Mark Luther attempts to cool us all down with a great game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum set in Hungary, 1945.
This was just a quickie scenario setup that wasn't based on a specific historical battle, but was inspired by the German actions to relieve Budapest in early 1945. Mark also wanted to get his Tiger IIs on the board.
Click on the picture below to see all:
As Rob had not only come a long way but also beaten me fairly quickly playing The Attack on Marlowe scenario, it seemed only meet and right to have another game…and being logical chaps, we set up the table for the second scenario from Marlowe the Maidenhythe scenario pack: Widbrooke Common.
Scene from behind the Parliamentarian lines
It’s the Royalists on the attack: advancing against the Parliamentarians across the eponymous common. Although Rob had played the Cavaliers in the first game, we got switched around somehow, and now I would take the loyalists into battle against the Roundheads.
The Royalists wasted no time, and marched forward smartly towards the traitors opposite them. One slight worry was that a lot of my infantry were Untried (the yellow markers in the picture below) meaning that the first time they encountered anything battle-ly (were shot at, wanted to shoot, were charged etc) they would have to check their morale
Slightly to the left of centre, the two cavalry lines clashed, with honours really falling to the Roundheads: their bigger ‘Dutch’ units surviving the initial charges of my smaller ‘Swedish’ squadrons and then bashing me up in the melee that followed.
In the event, both sides cavalry effectively cancelled each other out, especially as one of my infantry units was able to turn and blast a Roundhead horse unit in the flank. The battle would end with each sides’ surviving cavalry manoeuvering for advantage in the open ground on my left wing.
Which meant that the battle would be decided in the centre and on my right.
As you can just about see in the picture above, the first thing that I did was to dispose of the Roundhead artillery with my small unit of Cuirassiers. A bit risky, but the cards were with me and the guns were silenced for no loss.
The Cuirassiers then went on to threaten the Roundhead rear, eventually destroying the unit of commanded shot that formed the Parliamentarian reserve.
You can also see, in the picture on the right, that my infantry have moved forward and begun to push back his main line. Here’s a couple of great shots of them going into action:
What isn’t shown in the pictures above, and the reason that victory was eventually mine, is that on the right flank my horse had moved forward and outflanked two Parliamentarian infantry units that were trying to evict a Royalist Forlorn Hope from a small farm building.
Here’s a shot from earlier in the game: the Forlorn Hope would keep the Roundhead infantry distracted for long enough for my horse to turn left and hit them in the flank…which meant that when I broke the infantry in the centre, Rob ran out of Victory Medals and I had won!
It had been a great game, fairly tight right until the end. The initial Roundhead success with the cavalry hadn’t turned into more mainly because his horse pursued my retreating horse for too long, which gave me a chance to re-group what I had left and at least keep him occupied while my infantry moved forward.
The Cuirassiers were, despite their small size, the stars of the game: punching a hole in the enemy line and then disordering the main Roundhead line by violently removing their reserves behind them.
Another great game of FK&P!
Well maybe a few days too early, but there were a lot of entries piling up, so I thought I’d better clear them before things became unmanageable!
Please do heck out the individual galleries, but here are some highlights:
6mm Battle Damaged Church from Mr Luther
New friend Rob came up for a couple of games of For King & Parliament, a system he was considering but hadn’t played before, so where better to start than the first game from my Marlowe to Maidenhythe scenario pack.
Without going into the detail of why and what for, the Royalists are attacking a Parliamentarian force “dug in” on the approaches to Marlowe. Rob would play the Royalist, I took the Parliamentarians.
Royalists on the left, Roundheads on the right
Here’s a pictorial account of the game:
So a win for the Royalists, and for Rob in his first game.
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.
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!
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
If you need to contact me, you can do so at:
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