More Epic Scots - the Cavalry and Small Guns

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Having used all the musket-bearing men from the handful of ECW Warlord Epic Scots Covenanter sprues that I had acquired, it was time to see what I could do with the rest of them.

I didn’t want any more pike-only units, so that left some Scots cavalry, Scots lancers, and a few pieces of what I’d call small artillery: frame guns and falconets.

As there weren’t enough cavalry to make up a single decent sized unit of either pistoliers or lancers, I decided to build a small unit of each: the new For King & Parliament Celtic Fringe books have plenty of small cavalry units in them, so these would be ideal.

Now I like the Warlord Epic Scots infantry: the right size (or near as damn it!) to match my 15mm collection, nicely sculpted with plenty of detail, and I found the “strips” approach ideal for massed ranks of musketeers.

The Scots cavalry however are unfortunately another matter: the cavalry on these sprues are badly sculpted to the point where I almost just discarded them and bought replacements from another manufacturer.

Or let me be more specific: the horses are fine, in fact are nicely done, but their riders are terrible.

Both lancers and pistoliers have very poor detail to the body and faces (much less detail than on the infantry) and, worse, each has this blob area of plastic with no detail at all where the front of the figure meets the horse…a poorly detailed coat can be compensated for with a cunning paint job, a blob area of plastic has either to be carved into shape or just ignored.

On top of the above, the lancers carry not lances but (presumably in keeping with the Scottish theme) cabers: enormous logs that have to be painted to show a useable lance or risk being seen as objects of derision.

I forgot to take any pictures of the figures before painting them (well, I didn’t think I would need to) but my fellow blogger from the Keep Your Powder Dry website (excellent site, highly recommended) has posted this one, above, that shows what I mean.

He does, however, go on to say that the figures look good from the side (which I agree with) and that these are an improvement on other Warlord Epic cavalry…which makes me glad I haven’t got any!

Being tight as the proverbial badger’s backside, however, and not wanting to spend any money on alternatives, I persevered, and produced one small unit each of lancers and pistoliers. They’ll “do” at the three foot range, but won’t be featuring in any close-ups!

To end on a positive note, the artillerymen, on the other hand, are great.

They have all the detail of the pike or musketeers strips, but as individuals. They were very easy to paint up, and their falconets (the one on the left in the picture above) and frame guns (the other two) are great.

So a mixed bag from the Warlord Epic Scots Covenanter range. Loving the infantry and artillery, not loving the cavalry.

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!

TFL Painting Challenge: Early May Update

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The Challenge continues, and a vertiable cornucopia of entries in this time around…so let’s waste no more time and jump right in.

First up is the usual huge entry from Nick Cooper: all fantasy 28mm figures apart from three 54mm plastic Saracens that he claims to have painted “for a friend”…

Continuing the fantasy theme here we have a couple of large dragons from Ralph Plowman. These I have classified as 28mm aircraft: they have wings, don’t they!

Next up is the prolific Mr Helliwell, with a combination of 15mm Napoleonics and 28mm medievals:

After a long period of producing terrain, Carole has switched back to painting figures. Here we see some Back of Beyond infantry and archeologists, with a few Mexican Intervention types thrown in:

Stumpy has been painting and re-basing at speed this month. Here are some lovely Sarmation cataphracts along with some spear- and bow-armed infantry and a few Egyptian policemen to boot!

Finally here are entries from Mr Uther and Mervyn. Mark’s are the seaplanes, whilst Mervyn has been building Koreans houses and laying tracks:

Keep those entries coming in!

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!

FK&P AAR: Dick's Tower

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Regular visitors will know that friend Rob and I are working our way through my The Siege of Norchester campaign book for For King & Parliament. We have completed five of the twelve scenarios so far, with a run of poor results leaving my Parliamentarians six victory medals behind overall.

Game six involves a Roundhead assualt on a section of the walls of Norchester that have been breached by Titan and the other siege guns: a section of the walls incorporating the so-called Dick’s Tower, a ruined tower where one of the King Richard’s was once supposed to have stayed.

As you’ll see in the picture, below, the Royalists are both defending the breach and have troops outside the walls…

View from behind the Parliamentarian lines after their initial move

My cunning plan was to use a couple of units to bottle up the enemy behind the walls whilst using the majority of my force to overwhelm, if only by sheer weight of numbers, his men outside, then turn back to the walls and use my again presumably superior numbers to defeat his troops there too. Think Napoleon at Austerlitz!

To his credit, however, Rob told me what he thought my plan was almost as soon as I started moving, so perhaps I should have said “obvious” instead of “cunning” when describing my plan!

Here’s a shot from behind the Royalist lines:

The Graveyard bottom left is just where we stored the casualty markers!

First action was on my left, where Rob rapidly advanced his cavalry in an attempt to keep my troops there from heading right to execute the first phase of my plan.

Two squadrons of Royalist Swedish horse hit the standard pike block on my far left, and although one squadron was destroyed, the other still threatened and my pikemen were on their last legs, meaning that my commander in chief had to move my reserve Dutch horse into a position where they could intervene if necessary.

My damaged battalia fell back and began to rally as the two cavalry squadrons met. Although Rob’s Swedish horse had the advantage of the counter-charge, the sheer weight of my Dutch horse coming down off the hill was eneough to eventually break them, and that side of the field was mine…but it had delayed the execution of my plan even if doing so cost Rob two squadrons of horse.

Roundhead commander staying out of the action: you can’t afford to lose your Commanding General in FK&P!

Meanwhile Rob had also moved his troops out from behind the breeched section of the walls surrounding the tower and started a rolling firefight with my three battalia of infantry there.

This firefight would continue for a couple of turns with neither side getting an advantage, although as Rob’s shot-heavy battalia would in due course be able to “double-shot” my men for longer than my standard battalia, I knew I needed to get stuck in on the right as soon as possible.

And so on to the right hand side of the field, where both sides advanced towards the muddy stream bed as quickly as they could: Rob’s men to block me from getting across, my men to get over the stream bed in order to deploy my superior numbers.

Although I did get over the stream bed first, a quick march from Rob’s infantry left two of my battalia isolated on the wrong side of the obstacle, but that situation was soon remedied, somewhat helped by the fall of the cards (FK&P has a playing card-based activation system).

Then it was just a matter of using my greater numbers to chew through the enemy facing me on the right flank. This I eventually achieved, then curling round to head back into the centre towards the rest of the Royalist foot.

By now I had won enough victory medals off the Royalists to win a standard game, but for this encounter there were actually three more victory medals in Dick’s Tower itself, so whilst the Royalists held the tower, they could keep on fighting…and did!

Things had been fairly even in the centre so far, with each side losing a battalia. A foolish charge by the blue-coated battalia against troops behind un-breached walls cost me the Colonel of the unit, but things were about to change dramatically as my infantry poured in from the right flank. My Dutch horse were also now threatening from the left.

Assailed from three sides at once the last remaining Royalists eventually gave way, leaving the tower and the last three victory medals in my hands.

A victory for the Parliamentarians which, once we’d totted up the points, brought me to within two victory medals of the Royalist running total. It’s now on to Mundaydean Lane to see if I can narrow the gap even further!

Q13: Mozzian Jezsnailis!

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Like many wargamers, I am a sucker for anything shiny…which is why it is always a bad idea for me to have anything to do with Khurasan Miniatures, surely the very embodiment of shine!

In addition to a very large and varied collection of historical ranges, Khurasan also have a substantial catalogue of 15mm sci-fi figures. One such is a range of “black powder sci-fi” figures based on the history of the planet that eventually spawned the Garn (think T-Rex with guns).

Latest addition to that range are the Mozzians: snail-men, complete with shells, with muskets. Here’s some of the historical blurb taken from the Khurasan website:

The oldest race on Torosus were the Mozzians, living in the rainforests, jungles, and, in other regions, in great cave cities, typically not venturing out because they required a damp environment to thrive. The Mozzians were slow but physically large and immensely strong, and were well protected by their vestigial shells, into which they were able to contract their entire body, as long as they stripped off all of their gear (much to the surprise of their vertebrate foes, who couldn't conceive how they were able to disappear into a shell so relatively small).

I can’t paint quite as well as the chap who did the above, so my Mozzians are a bit more basic, but I’m very happy with the result I achieved:

I thnik that I will add these to the roster of the Pelagic Dominate (another Khurasan range) where they will nicely complement the Kharkarines, Myzontids and Orcas.

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.

TFL Painting Challenge: Second April Update

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A second April update to keep on top of all the entries coming in.

First up, Mr Helliwell, who switches his attention back to 15mm Napoelonics with a large multi-unit entry of which the following are just some examples:

Carole is still producing vast amounts of terrain: a combination of ruins, buildings, fencings and plantings!

In amongst some more elephants, Mr Slade has re-based a significant dark age force. For those who don’t knwo, you can claim re-basing in the Challenge: you just score half points.

Excitingly this week, we have a new entrant to the Challenge: Des Darkin starts his quest for points with some 20mm WW2 troops. welcome Des: I’m sure that many more will follow.

Finally, a quick round up of the other entries received this week. Here we have John Emmett’s V1 rocket launcher; Mervyn’s Romans and the start of a massive fleet from Mr Burt.

Keep them coming!

REMINDER

Due to the fact that I have changed my domain hosting away from Yahoo to Squarespace, I have lost the admin@vislardica.com e-mail address. Silly me for not anticipating this and letting you all know! From now on, can we use vislardica@gmail.com please.

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!

Last of the Venetians?

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As I’m now using the Venetians Abroad list rather than the Later Italian Condotteri (Venice) list for my latest To The Strongest army, I found myself in need of some extra Spearman units.

Regular visitors will know that I have gradually added these in over the last couple of months, with only the one to go: the raw, militia Lancieri dredged from the depths of the dankest, darkest canal!

I wanted something different for these boys: I like to be able to identify my units without markers (yes, I know I usually have Meeples everywhere! - but that’s to help you, not me) so decided to really make the militia stand out.

Here’s a regular Lancieri unit:

Very serious looking chaps.

And here are the militia:

No flag, no armour, only the back rank are properly equipped - the rest have had to grab whatever’s left in the armoury - and, best of all, the man in charge is not the usual officer but a chef:

This is a cracking figure that I sourced from Kingdom Games: Drunk Cook DnD Dungeons and Dragons Miniature - Epic Miniatures 28mm. I am loving the chicken!

So now my Venetians are complete, although I realise that this phrase is utterly meaningless to a true wargamer!

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.

Salute 51 (2024)

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I almost didn’t go to Salute this year - last year’s dismal 50th anniversary show really put me off - but, in the end I decided to make the trek to Excel one more time…and was really glad that I did so.

Salute this year was a really buzzing event. When I arrived at around noon, the show was packed with people, and it stayed that way for much longer than last year. Then, by 2pm, the place was almost deserted: this year it didn’t start emptying out until at least three.

Yes the hall was still dark, and the floor unforgiving, but, as I said, the show had a real buzz to it: something that has been missing recently. As there weren’t as many other shows on at Excel (a shame not to have the usual dichotomy of the Marathon check in!) the catering was easy to access as well: no need to queue at all.

On top of that, there was so much more to see this year, with crowds of people actually playing games, practising their painting or basing, or even mdf building. I would say that the demonstration/participation games at this year’s show were some of the best I have seen, well worth the ticket price alone.

The Lard Zone was in full swing: the huge Stalingrad game in the pictures below was Chain of Command, and there was Strength and Honour on show as well. Funny to think that the Lardies, always traditionally thought of as disruptors, are now fully mainstream!

Also good to see the huge For King & Parliament game based on my Siege of Norchester scenario pack. The last two pictures in the gallery below show a little of it but can’t really properly demonstrate its scale. Well done to Simon for putting it on, and the game won a prize as well.

Another reason to go to Salute is, of course, the shopping, and there was the usual cornucopia of things on offer. Not too many bargains but lots of new ranges on show, particularly in the fantasy space. I only actually bought something from Essex (whose stand ressembled Mr Ben’s shop in its simplicity and throwback to a bygone age in amongst all the flashier outlets) but could have seriously spend the childrens’ inheritance had I been on a buying spree.

So welcome back, Salute, as one of the premium events of the year! Here are a few photos of some of the games:

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!

TFL Painting Challenge: First April Update

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I can see that the recent Easter weekend had many of you painting hard, so it must be time for the first April update to this year’s 10th Anniversary TFL Painting Challenge.

First up this time round is Mr Helliwell, with another large submission of 28mm WOTR figures:

Matt Slade is still painting his Classical Indians: here’s a couple of generals on elephants and two shots of the rather lovely camp he’s done:

Next up, Carole continues her quest to work her way through vast amounts of Mantic 28mm sci-fi scenery. Eight pieces submitted this update, here are four of them (you can see the rest in her gallery, acceissible vis the NavBar, above):

And to finish here are entries from Sapper (WOTR is 28mm), Mervyn (ACW in 15mm), Mr Burt (Napoleonic Hussars in 28mm) and a welcome return from Mr Luther (6mm railroad elements):

Keep them coming!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

NEW EMAIL ADDRESS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Due to the fact that I have changed my domain hosting away from Yahoo to Squarespace, I have lost the admin@vislardica.com e-mail address. Silly me for not anticipating this and letting you all know! From now on, can we use vislardica@gmail.com please.

Painting Epic Scots

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Friend John kindly gave me a couple of those Warlord Epic Scots Covenantor free sprues that came with Wargames Illustrated a few months ago, so it was time to get them painted and onto the table.

First up was a large unit of Commanded Shot. I decided to give them a natty pair of red trousers: not very dour but I fancied a change from Hodden Grey. The command figures came from Eureka: a bit taller than the Epic’s, but then you want some big men in charge!

As before, the epic slugs painted up very easily and were actually quite fun to do. In fact, it took me so little time to finish this lot that I went straight into painting a second batch, this time with more traditionally coloured trews!

The flags, by the way, come from Maverick Models. They are a simple Cross of St Andrew custom printed for me by Steve, the proprietor. The cloth effect makes them very simple to use (much easier than paper flags) and they end up looking very good indeed.

With two large units of Commanded Shot completed in record time, I could spare the effort to use some of the single figures on the sprues to produce three bases of Attached Shot: something to give my artillery a little better chance of survival on the battlefield.

These were obviously just like painting standard 15mm figures…they are nicely posed and I particularly like the chap priming his pan (front left on the right hand base).

Finally, although not Scots, or Epic 15mm scale, I also had a chance to paint up another Spear unit for my 28mm Venetians. These are Perry plastics and, as usual, a slight pain to build compensated for by the variety and realism of the poses that can be generated, and the ease with which they paint up.

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!

Timurid Camps

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The Ancients rules that I use, To The Strongest, require an army to have at least one camp of some sort: something that gives you extra victory medals, and gives your opponent somethingt o aim for.

Up until now, I’ve used generic trays with some kind of marker in them to indicate it’s a camp: a single hut or the like…but nothing very fancy.

Recently, however, I’ve been admiring the beautiful camps that people have been using in the TTS competitions I’ve been attending, so I thought it was perhaps time to up my game a bit.

Here, then, are the first of my specific (as opposed to generic) camps: three bases for my 15mm Timurid army.

The two yurts are from Baueda, with the pile of skulls in the middle something I bought from Etsy. They are each mounted on a 10cmx10cm base from Warbases.

I’m now going to buy a whole load more 10x10 bases from Warbases and repeat the process for some of my other Ancients armies.

Here’s the middle camp with a Timurid command figure.

FK&P AAR: Plumleigh Common

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Those of you who have been following Rob and I’s play through of the Siege of Norchester campaign will know that so far my Parliamentarian have not been doing very well: I’m currently ten victory medals behind overall, so really needed a decent win at Plumleigh Common to put me back on track.

In this scenario, the Cavaliers are trying another assault on the Roundhead siege lines, but this time the Parliamentarians are ready for them, resulting in an all out battle.

The picture above shows the view from behind the Parliamentarian lines, with Norchester itself being top left. My plan was to advance my Borders Horse on the far right around the flank of the enclosed fields, block any advance of enemy infantry out of the enclosures, and strongly advance in the centre and win the battle there.

The Battle of the Enclosures

The first part of my plan was to drive the enemy horse back on the far right flank. Although our forces numbered the same, my troops were mounted on nags rather than the sleek chargers of the oppositiom, so I knew I needed to win quickly or have my cavalry blown for the rest of the game.

The Royalists helped my cause by attacking piecemeal, and soon I had the advantage:

Unfortunately that didn’t last, and the situation devolved into a back and forwards encounter that neither side seemed likely to win until Rob sent some infantry in to reinforce his cavalry.

This gave him a temporary advantage and, for the moment it looked as if that flank would be lost to me.

Back in the Centre

Meanwhile, back in the centre, I had advanced quickly forward. On the right side, I had no wish to advance against the Royalist infantry safe behind the hedges of the enclosure, so was happy just to block their exit. In the centre centre, I advanced forward quickly in order to gain the initiative. Both sides avoided moving troops into the ground between Norchester and my works: too swept by artillery to be safe!

Battle was soon joined, and a general melee broke out:

All was going well until a squadron of Royalist cavalry threatened the left flank of my line. Fortunately I had a unit of the Puritan Horse there against just such a move, so charged the enemy horse downhill, confident of victory.

Unbelievably, Rob’s cavalry made four saves against the attacks on them, meaning my men swept downhill and literally bounced off the enemy. To add insult to injury, the Royalist cavalry then counter-charged and sent my men fleeing from the field!

Luckily I had reinforcements I could move to protect the flank…well, to be honest, it was a battalia of infantry that had got stuck, unused, behind the main battleline, so it was good to actually have something useful for them to do!

The fighting in the centre was now intense, and I had already had to recyle one of my Scots Battalia: it was all going to be down to whose troops could last the longest.

My left flank was also looking problematic, and even moving some of the pioneers out of the siege works to help didn’t make a huge difference. In the scenario, pioneers are represented by Highlanders: very much a one-shot weapon and useless against the cavalry they were facing!

Endgame

The main line finally shattered in both directions at once: with one of my Puritan Horse units fleeing the field whilst another broke through. At the same time, the Pioneers distracted a squadron of enemy cavalry so much that they were pinned in place, unable to take advantage of their position.

It was still neck and neck but, suddenly, gloriously, my cavalry on the right wing, long forgotten about, decided to intervene and win the day.

Freed from the cavalry melee by the intervention of one of my Borders infantry battalia, who head soundly beaten the enemy infantry that had kept my horse pinned in place, the Scottish lancers crashed into the flank of an already disordered enemy infantry battlaia and smashed them from the field.

This, combined with all the losses taken by each side so far, and the fact that two of the Royalist cavalry squadrons left the field in pursuit, reduced Rob’s pile of victory medals to zero, giving me the victory.

It had been carnage on both sides: checking my pile of coins I saw that I had gained a four-medal victory, so combined we had lost 28 victory medals between us: the equivalent of around nine units or a third of the units depoloyed at the start of the game.

So, after five games, the Parliamentarians now trail by only six victory medals overall, and it’s on to Dick’s Tower for the next encounter!