IABSM AAR: Race to Brussels

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At Operation Market Larden 9 last Saturday, my morning game was a superb Race for Brussels game put on by Phil and Jenny.

The Dynamic Duo had playtested the game a few days before, and Steve Blease has written a lovely After Action Report that you can read by clicking on the picture below:

But how did you do at the game, I hear you ask?

Rest assured, I’ll be writing a full report concerning my execrable performance when I have time to do so but, put it this way, it was definitely an “interview without coffee” for my company commander when he limped back to base!

Siculo-Normans

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Or troops from the Norman Kingdom of Sicily.

As the look and fighting style of the Siculo-Normans was heavily influenced by nearby Arabic territories, I wanted to used different manufacturers to the rest of my Normans (all from Museum Miniatures’ excellent CAD-designed range). Looking around the Internet, Khurasan and Baueda (available in the UK via Magister Militum) seemed the best best, so off my orders went.

First up, some of the Khurasan figures and, of them, first finished were the light cavalry.

I must confess that I am not quite sure what to say about these. I generally love Khurasan’s figures, and must have well over a thousand of them from various ranges. These come from their Norman range and whilst they look great, with very animate and all-action sculpts, the actual execution of the figures was less than what I expected.

The horses are beautifully animated, but arrived all crushed down on their bases. Straightening them took an age, and they are very fragile as well. I came very close to snapping them right off the base several times.

Same with the Siculo-Norman infantry. Every spear was not just bent but positively twisted, taking a lot of time to sort. Worse, the bases had either been sculpted badly or been carelessly clipped from the sprue: one corner was turned up slightly and thus every figure (all thirty!) needed the bases flattened and filed much more than I’ve ever encountered previously before they would stand up. A right pain!

So good and bad things to say. It won’t stop me buying Khurasan’s stuff in the future, but I will be cautious about this range.

FK&P AAR: Transylvanian Double Act

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I recently spent a bit of time properly marking up my 17th Century “eastern front” Transylvanian and Muscovite armies: by “marking up” I mean putting identifiers on each unit that allows me to remember which are which! That done, it was time to get them onto the tabletop.

The Transylvanians were a bit of a mish-mash. Their core Household troops (heavies and lights) were supported some more light cavalry and two brigades of infantry, one of foreign Commanded Shot and one of Szekley Pike & Shot (represented by Scots!).

The Muscovites were similar: a core National Cavalry and foreign Reiters supported by a brigade of Tartar horse-archer allies, with two brigades of foot, one Cossack, one Soldat (foreign-trained foot).

Game One

Our first game was very short. My opponent, Kavan, had forgotten how important it is in For King & Parliament not to lose your commanding general (as valuable as a couple of camps in To The Strongest) and blithely sent his CinC forward with the first wave of attackers.

The Transylvanian Household Cavalry were, however, having an exceptional day: their first charge smashed the squadron of enemy cavalry led by the Muscovite CinC from the field (meaning that Kavan lost about half his Victory Coins in one go) and then charging again to KO a second unit as well.

Combined with losses elsewhere on the field, this was enough to break the Muscovite morale and send them fleeing back to “the first throne” in some disarray!

Game Two

As the first game had been so quick, we decided to re-set the sides and play again, but this time with the Muscovite CinC safely at the back of his troops rather than leading from the front!

Two key differences in this game. Firstly, the Transylvanian infantry had to fight for possession of the small town on their right flank; and secondly the Transylvanian Household Cavalry didn’t achieve the same success on their initial charges as last time.

This meant that the heavier Muscovite cavalry had time to drive back the Transylvanian light horse, particularly on the Transylvanian left wing, and then curl around to threaten that entire flank.

A combination of steady foot and charging horse put the town into Muscovite hands and that, plus the combination of lost light units and the usual battlefield attrition in the centre, meant that the Transylvanians were gradually ground down and, after a series of reverses in the centre, were forced to retreat.

Aftermath

Two great games of For King & Parliament/Eastern Front Edition and honours even with one win for each side.

Success for the Transylvanians has to come from understanding how to make the significant numbers of light horse work. I didn’t manage it in either game really (the first game was the Household cavalry’s show!) so something to work on for next time!

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans Hammered!

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With Viking and Norman armies now complete, I thought I’d have a look at what else this meant I could field. The most obvious mash-up was an Anglo-Norman army i.e. an English army from after William the B’s victory at Hastings.

This seemed to me to be quite a good combination: you have the the mobile power of Norman knights, the endurance and ferocity of the Viking foot (well, Anglo-Saxons…but the fyrd is a fyrd as they say!), and some lights in support.

With that decided, it was time to pick an opponent. Looking at the list of units that have been painted but haven’t been on the tabletop yet, it was obvious that the Assyrians were up. Not an historical match up by any stretch of the imagination (well, perhaps a pre-emptive strike on what would be the site of the British museum?) but this is Ancients so we won’t worry about that too much! I would play the Anglo-Normans, Kavan would play the Assyrians.

I deployed in a conventional manner - infantry in the middle, cavalry on the wings, lights with missile weapons in front - but Kavan made the unusual choice to put all his heavy infantry on his left wing, with the heavy cavalry and heavier chariots in the centre and his lighter infantry on the left. He then proceeded to march his heavy infantry forward at a rapid pace, hanging back most of his other troops.

I must confess that this completely banjaxed me, and I spent the next phase of the battle trying to re-arrange my troops to match. Talk about surrendering the initiative to your enemy!

Kavan’s troops, of course, were not waiting for me to sort myself out: they were up and at me, taking full advantage of the confusion to sneak a unit of cavalry through the middle as I tried to face the twin threats approaching my flanks.

And this was just the start!

With cavalry now driving through the middle of my line, I couldn’t advance the infantry I’d moved to the right flank to counter his infantry, meaning that I tried to stop them with my knights. Kavan had anticipated this, however, and had hung a unit back to protect his flanks. So this effectively stalemated that side of the field, taking my best troops out of the battle.

Things were going no better on my left and in the centre, with Kavan cross-ruffing his heavy chariots between the two to both prevent me getting any sort of advantage on either and then, with a superb run of cards, even managing to rear charge a unit of heavy Norman spear that I was pulling back to try and defend my camps!

Even if my heavies did survive that initial impact, I was definitely now on the back foot, and it wasn’t long before they did give way, leaving the way clear for the Assyrian chariots to break through and finish the capture of my camps that the cavalry had begun.

That took care of the last of my victory medals, meaning that the Assyrians had won a glorious victory over my utterly-defeated Anglo-Normans.

A great game of To The Strongest, fought superbly by Kavan, who knocked me off balance with his initial deployment and never let me recover. A master class!

Digging into the Lead Mountain

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I was waiting for some new figures to arrive and had a bit of painting time to spare, so I thought I’d bite the bullet and clear some of my lead mountain.

Chosen were some 15mm American Civil War (ACW) infantry to add to an incomplete Confederate army. I’d last worked on the army well before the arrival of Contrast Paints, and hadn’t painted the figures very well, so this was very much a case of smashing out as many “wargames standard” figures as possible as quickly as possible.

The figures are from Essex Miniatures and, as with all Essex ranges, take the paint well even if they are a bit manikin-like sometimes. I painted 88 of the little blighters, in batches of ten, with each batch taking about two hours to do once all the prep work had been done. This is what Contrast Paint is made for!

Here’s a closer look:

TTS AAR: The One With The Mid-Game Earthquake!

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As our first Normans versus Vikings game hadn’t taken that long, Kavan and I decided to swap sides and play again. This was to be a very exciting game, but for all the wrong reasons!

Deployment was pretty quick. Having seen how the Normans were able to harry the somewhat dispersed Vikings in the last game, I was determined to keep my troops together to protect the flanks of each unit whilst giving maximum opportunities for mutual support. I put the huscarls, my best troops, in the centre hoping to punch through to his camps…and made sure I left my light javelinmen to protect my camps: no repeat of the last game here!

The Normans advanced towards me really quickly so, not wanting to have no room for tactical retreats and the like, I pushed forward as well. I also moved my light archers to the front determined to use every advantage I had despite the fact that missile fire had had almost no effect in the last game.

The initial clashes produced mixed results, and it looked as if we were in for a grinding clash determined not by subtle tactics but by blunt force!

Then disaster struck!

I have used the same fold-up tables for many years, and have never had a problem with them. This time, however, I must have neglected to lock the legs on one table properly, and as Kavan leant forward to position one of his units for the attack, the table underneath him collapsed!

Fortunately the rapid advance of the Normans means that almost all the figures were on my side of the battlefield i.e. on the other table, and it was only one set of legs that collapsed not both, so only a few units were affected and even those mostly by jostling rather than a long drop to the floor!

We were therefore able to put the battlefield back together fairly easily, and re-order all the jostled units with no damage done. Phew!

At this point in the game, the Normans were doing pretty well: pushing the Viking units back with a series of hard charges from their lance-armed heavy cavalry.

Now, however, the tide turned: the “earthquake” had obviously been the Allfather, or perhaps the Odinson, intervening!

My men rallied, and began knocking Norman units off the table one by one. Even my lights contributed: with an initial clash between the big boys often resulting in one disorder a side even a single, successful hit from Viking light archers meant an enemy unit cleared from the table (my “deep” units could take two disorders before breaking, the Normans only one).

My idea about mutual support proved useful, as several times warbands that had already dealt with the enemy horse in front of them were able to turn and intervene in another clash, as below:

Here, the intervening Vikings smashed the enemy they flank charged from the table, giving the unit under pressure time to rally off a disorder. Yes, they were then in a terrible position being flank charged in turn, but the Vikings are tough and can usually take one flank charge without breaking.

Fittingly, it was a light archer unit that polished off the last of the Norman victory medals:

A great game with a very narrow escape. I will make jolly sure the table legs are locked next time!

Mammoth Painting Challenge Update

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May has proved a very productive month for many of you, with a veritable cornucopia of entries into the 2023 TFL Painting Challenge.

This week we have entries from Mervyn, Sapper, Matt Slade, Carole, John, Mr Luther, Stumpy, Lloyd, Andrew and myself. Top scorer, as ever, is Mr Slade, who has already passed his last year’s total and is determined to break his previous record of 5,522 points, set in 2015.

It’s not a competition, however, but a personal challenge, so let’s all pick up those brushes and see whether we can equal Matt’s aim. I scored a personal best last year with 2,077 points, beating my previous best of 2,005 points, set in 2019, so am keen to make it two in a row.

Please do visit everyone’s individual galleries: there’s some great work there. You can access them through the NavBar, above. Meanwhile, here’s a taster from this round of entries:

Partisan Show

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I hadn’t been to the Partisan show in Newark in years, mainly because at about two and a half hours away it’s really just on the outside of how far I want to drive for a single day’s show. Indeed, the last time I went I was actually breaking a journey to Scotland, staying over in Newark in one of those happy coincidences that happen occasionally.

Anyhoo, to Partisan and Newark I went this year, and jolly pleased I was to have gone. The show was excellent: much better, even, then poor, tired, gloomy, old Salute. Firstly, the hall was light: you could actually see the demo games without the need for extra lighting. Secondly, there was a real buzz about the show, a certain je ne sais quoi that has been missing from the other shows I’ve been to this year. Finally the demo games were amazingly good, as you’ll see from the pictures below.

I could quibble about the catering or the slightly limited number of trade stands…but they would only be quibbles. Highly recommended, and I shall be diarising another visit next year.

TTS AAR: Normans Take The Field!

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As mentioned in my last post, with the last of the Milites finished it was time for the Normans to finally take the field with a game of To The Strongest versus Kavan playing the Vikings.

This would be quite an interesting battle as the Normans were mostly heavy cavalry and the Vikings were all infantry. My plan was to take advantage of my extra mobility and get around his flanks, as charging formed infantry with cavalry is rarely a good idea!

As the game began, both sides advanced forward strongly, with the battle rapidly dividing into three sectors: the left, the centre and the right.

In the centre, Viking huscarls (the units with the red Meeple) had sped forward and hit a line of Norman cavalry in the Norman half of the table. With three Norman units in play against just one Viking, I was fairly confident that I could win the first clash, but I had underestimated just how ‘hard’ the huscarls were: being a deep, veteran, shieldwall unit with extra two handed cutting weapons!

My first Norman cavalry unit just evaporated and, worse, the follow up huscarls, led by their overall commander and waving their ‘land-waster’ standard, hit my own overall commander’s unit and forced him to make the decision to run away as fast as possible! Oh, the shame!

A quick overview pic, with the Viking huscarls bursting through my centre!

Meanwhile, on the left flank, my plan had actually worked out rather well.

Three units of milites had faced up to a couple of the lesser-quality Viking bondi units supported by some lights, and used their superior mobility to get around the hairy infantry and into the Viking camp. Six glorious victory medals headed my way as my horsemen remembered their heritage and sacked and plundered the enemy camp for all its worth!

My Viking Longships haven’t arrived yet, so the Viking camp has a weird looking hut in it…and lots of Norman cavalry!

In the centre, however, the Vikings were about to do to me what I had done to them, with their commander’s huscarl unit crashing after my fleeing horse and then into the Norman camp and refusing to be shifted even by William himself!

Fortunately only one half of my camp was taken, but that still meant three victory coins to Kavan!

Casualties were now mounting on both sides, so it was obvious that the battle would be decided on the right where, up to now both sides had cautiously crept towards each other.

Somehow I had managed to get into a decent tactical position where I could get two of my cavalry units onto one of the bondi units but, as I have said before, these deep units are tough and the bondi survived long enough to pull back and get some support.

Not even the toughest Viking, however, can keep taking charges from the front and flank, and so it was here as well. The bondi unit broke and with that Kavan’s final victory medals were spent and the Vikings decided to retreat.

A great game and a very narrow victory for the Normans as I only had five coins left myself.

It was an interesting battle and one where I learnt that Norman cavalry definitely do not want to take on Viking huscarls or bondi units head on, even with lances: the only way is to get around their flanks or hit them two-on-one.

Last of the Norman Milites

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Here are the last of the Norman Milites figures: 15mm miniatures from Museum Miniatures’ CAD designed Z Range.

That’s eleven units of Norman cavalry (88 figures) I’ve painted since the first ones rolled off the production line in February, all of which were painted in ‘eights’ so with each horse and rider painted in a unique colour scheme.

These are lovely figures. I read a review somewhere else on the ‘net criticising them for not having enough depth of detail to take Contrast paints well, but that hasn’t been my experience. I highly recommend the Museum Z Range and now have Sumerians, Classical Indians, some Greeks, and now the Normans.

Must be time to get them onto the tabletop…

Campaign in Milton Keynes

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No, not my attempt to invade the most famous new town of them all but a visit to the annual Campaign wargames show held, would you believe it, in Milton Keynes.

Milton Keynes is only about an hour from me. I’ve actually been there before: once on a geography field trip when I was at school, and once for business about eight years ago.

Campaign is an unusual show in that it takes place in the middle of the MK Central shopping centre. Yes, right in the middle of a mall. As such, besides the usual wargaming folk, you have large numbers of members of the public exposed to our hobby…which is a good thing.

MK Central is the mall to end all malls: it is truly enormous with every chain you can think of in there. The show itself is small: it’s a handful of trade stands, a double fistful of demonstration games and, mostly, a venue for a variety of Ancients competitions.

I think the idea of the show is terrific: our hobby needs a constant supply of new blood to keep it fresh, so exposure from Campaign has got to be a good thing and I applaud the organisers for their efforts.

Here are some pictures from some of the competition games:

TTS AAR: A Day in the Desert

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Another series of mega-games of To The Strongest yesterday!

The premise is as follows:

  • two teams: one of three players, one of two players

  • New Kingdom Egyptians vs Neo-Assyrians

  • Four armies, two identical armies of each, each army is 300 points

  • In the morning, one team takes the Egyptians and the other the Assyrians for two simultaneous 300 point battles

  • In the afternoon, the teams swap armies for two more simultaneous battles

  • Finally one massive 1,200 point battle with each side bidding to play their preferred army by sacrificing victory medals

  • Add up all the points over the five battles and see which team wins

The big pyramid marks the centre of the 18 foot table. The temple at the far end is the end of the battlefield, but there’s a mirror behind it making things look even bigger!

Game One

My morning game involved me using a New Kingdom Egyptian army against Steve and Dillon playing the Neo-Assyrians.

I decided to mass my light chariots to give them a bit more staying power and at first this seemed to be working nicely. My charioteers charged forward and were soon loosing a hail of arrows on the Assyrians.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be something wrong with my bows that day, and I just couldn’t score a hit to save my life. The Assyrians then came forward in return and hammered me in melee. We didn’t finish the game (phew!) but at the final whistle I had lost 7:13 points.

Game Two

For the first afternoon game, I swapped sides and played the Assyrians versus Si taking the Egyptians.

This battle started really well for the Assyrians, going 5-0 up within the first few turns. Unfortunately my luck turned and the cards (it was a new deck as well) decided that they hated me!

It was a hard fought game that we did manage to fight to a conclusion: with me going down 15:21 points.

The Mega-Game

Fortunately my team partner, Peter, had done somewhat better than I had, and we went into the final mega-game only two points behind. We then sacrificed two more victory coins to make sure that we took the Assyrians: so four down in all.

We played this enormous battle as one game in two halves, meaning that there were a couple of times that the two halves got out of sync and one side or the other had to pause and wait for the other to catch up. Dillon, playing in the centre on the enemy side, had to fight Peter with some of his commands and me with what was left. Despite these small speedbumps, the game rattled on at a cracking pace, showing what a robust system To The Strongest is.

Not only was the game cracking, but also very close. We started off with me doing rather well, and Peter doing less well. Then I had a catastrophic turn when I shed victory coins like last year’s fashion (not sure where that metaphor came from!) but recovered to deal out the same treatment to my main opponent, Si, immediately afterwards.

Both Peter and I then continued to alternate good patches with bad patches, calling out our successes (and failures) to the other as they happened. Finally the last Egyptian victory medal was won, and it all came down to how many we had left.

We’d been keeping them in a little pot, and, at first, it looked as if we had hardly any left at all. This was, however, an illusion, as we’d been taking out the big medals as we went along leaving only the little ones behind. The final score was 42:31 to Peter and I, meaning that we had won the day overall.

All in all a great day’s gaming. My thanks to Peter for organising and hosting.

Siculo Norman Cavalry

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As previously mentioned, I’m building my 15mm Norman army out to include Anglo-Normans and Italo-Normans.

One key difference between Norman-Normans and Italo-Normans is the influence that the existing mix of Greeks, Arabs and Lombards had, and I wanted to reflect that in the different troop types/figures that I would field.

The To The Strongest list allows for up to four bases of Norman knights, two bases of Mercenary Knights and two bases of Communal Knights. I could field the Norman knights via my Norman-Norman milites, so just needed a couple of bases of different-looking figures for either the Mercs or the Communal types.

Step forward Baueda (available in the UK via Magister Militum) who actually do figures specifically for the Siculo-Normans…so here they are:

Nice looking figures, although they are distinctly smaller than the Museum Miniatures Z range that I am using for the Norman-Normans. They also all have upright lances in soft metal which, to my mind, just means lots of bent spears that continually need to be straightened.

I decided to hand paint the shields myself rather than use a decal as a base. Not a process I enjoyed, but I did get better at it as I went on. I should really have added Baueda Norman command figures as well, but I wasn’t thinking when I ordered the figures so have no command types and have had to hang the banners on standard lances rather than the extended version that banner-carriers have.

So that you have a direct comparison, here’s another base of standard Norman-Norman milites that I have finished. Only two more of them to do now!

Matching Assyrians

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As mentioned before on this blog, moving from one set of rules to another often involves certain tasks: the dread re-basing being the most common. Close on re-basing’s heels, however, is the need to add more troops to the army, either different troop types or just more figures.

My Assyrians for To The Strongest are a case in point. The collection I had needed a few extra figures for use with TTS, but that was with some single element bases combined into pairs of double element bases. That was fine, and I added a first wave of new figures that you’ll have seen showcased on this blog previously, but did mean that some of the double element pairs didn’t match. The second heavy infantry unit, for example, comprised one element of mixed Spears/Bowmen with one element of either Slingers or Archers. Not a problem on the tabletop, but it just didn’t quite sit right.

So I bit the bullet and ordered enough figures to match the mixed Spears/Bowmen base and set about attempting to paint the new figures to match.

The figures are Chariot Miniatures via Magister Militum - I seem to remember that I wanted a change from the Essex Miniatures that make up most of the army. Here’s the new element, painted and based, front and back:

But does it match the old element, I hear you cry? Not as easy as you might think, as I first painted the Assyrians in 2021, some twenty-two years ago and way before the introduction of the Contrast Paints I use these days.

Here are the two elements together:

The new base is on the right as you look at the picture above. It’s the one without the command figure with the different shield.

Not a bad match.

Obviously I can see every tiny difference, but to the average eye, particularly at the magic 3ft distance, they might as well be identical. Job done!

TFL Painting Challenge: Coronation Bank Holiday Special!

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Well not so much this bank holiday but the last one: as many of you seem to have spent an awful lot of time painting figures!

So, today, we have entries from:

  • Matt Slade with the usual vast numbers of Star Wars figures plus some Italian Wars infantry plus some What A Cowboy gunmen

  • Nick Cooper with a miscellanea of fantasy figures

  • Andrew Helliwell has more late medievals…and whose terrain storage cupboard must be overflowing by now

  • Stumpy with more Napoleonics and some Beau Geste types

  • A superb Bad Squiddo Squid from Ralph

  • Chris Kay also goes all What A Cowboy

  • Sapper does 15mm Goths in a big way

  • Mervyn has some 15mm Greeks and 28mm US Marines

Make sure you visit the individual galleries, but here’s a selection for you to feast your eyes on:

With another bank holiday this weekend, I’ll expect to see a similar amount of entries for next time!

Even More Normans!

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Not much gaming going on at the moment, so I had a chance to finish off some more Normans.

Off the painting table today are two units of light archers, the heroes, and the senior command stand consisting of William the B himself plus Bishop Odo (who you can’t see as he’s behind the flag).

These are more of the 15mm Museum Miniatures CAD designed Z Range, except for five of the Heroes who are from the Splintered Light Norman specials pack. I particularly like the chap at the back charging forward whilst swinging his sword.

I’ve also now ordered a ton of Sicilian and Italian style Norman spearmen from Baueda (via Magister Militum) and Khurasan, plus a few extra cavalry types to represent light cavalry and Sicilian style milites. Looks like I’m going to be painting Normans for some time!

Norman Archers

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Had a real push on finishing the Normans last weekend:

There are two units of Archers and two units of Light Crossbowmen. These are 15mm figures from Museum Miniatures lovely “Z” range of CAD designed minis. Highly recommended for anyone looking for Normans in that scale.

With these figures finished, I can now field Anglo-Normans if I add my Vikings to the roster as quasi-Anglo-Saxon types. I could also field a Norman-Norman army, but it would be a very infantry-heavy one: I’m going to need to paint up some more milites before I can field mostly-mounted Normans.

Salute 2023

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It’s April, so it must be time for the annual pilgrimage to Excel and Salute.

This year, rather than drive, I thought I’d try taking the new Elizabeth line. Going by train would previously have involved a change at Paddington onto the tube, another change at Aldgate onto the DLR and, all in all, be a right pain…but now I got on a train at Maidenhead and got off at Custom House only about an hour later. Extraordinary! And the return trip cost me less than it does to park at Excel all day, so money saved too.

Anyhow, on to the show: the hall in Excel was its usual gloomy self; no real queue to get in; pretty packed in the morning but emptied out after lunch. The best bit of the show, obviously was the Lard Zone, with some spectacular-looking demo games of What A Cowboy; IABSM; Chain of Command; Strength & Honour; and General d’Armee.

There were some great looking non-Lard demo games elsewhere as well, some of which I’ve photographed below. Forgive the variable quality: I was having camera troubles, so some are from my camera and some are from my mobile phone.

I wasn’t shopping for very much, so only bought a few odds and ends, but one thing that did strike me was how little there was on offer for a 15mm gamer such as myself. Essex were there, Forged in Battle were there, Battlefront/FoW “we now only do late war” kit was everywhere, but apart from those three, I don’t think there were any other 15mm manufacturers present. Certainly nothing spectacular and new to spend my money on, and I was ready, willing and able!

So a bit disappointing really, especially as this was supposed to be the 50th Anniversary Salute. Worth going, but very run of the mill :(