TFL Painting Challenge: First August Update

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The last couple of weeks have seen plenty of entries into the Painting Challenge.

First up is Sapper, with some rather nice French Napoleonics:

Next up is Mr Cooper, with a huge “catch-up” entry from the last couple of months. Here’s a selection of what he’s sent in:

Mark Luther has sent in some more 6mm aeroplanes. Here’s a niche offering: former FAA Hampdens flown in as convoy escorts that were left for the Soviets. I remember these from the RAF books my father had from before WW2!

Jonathan Davenport has been painting up the 64th (2nd Staffordshire) Regiment, along with a few outriders and plenty of guns:

Good to see that other people’s painting tabels look like mine!

Next is another big entry from Andrew Helliwell: a combination of figures and terrain. Plenty more to see in Andrew’s gallery, accessible from the NavBar at the top of the page.

Finally, here’s Mr Douglas and Mr Burt’s entries: Mervyn with some native North Americans, and Steve with some Italieri tank obstacles.

Do make sure you get to the individual galleries as well: lots of inspiration to feed off!

IABSM AAR: New Player's First Game

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Richard T from the IABSM Facebook Group played his first game the other day, and here are a few photos of the battle.

Richard commented:

Our first game ! Pretty fun day was had. Think they tick all the boxes for me, really like the 'blinds' and the activation deck particularly. Command, control and communications are simple and smooth...wonderful. Early days still, but I have high hopes.

Lovely looking figures: I really like that style of painting.

Re-Basing the Egyptians

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I’ve been thinking about re-basing my New Kingdom Egyptians for some time.

Their old bases (dating back to 2001) are made of cardboard and are just starting to curl up slightly at the edges, and whilst the Vis Bellica element system will work with To The Strongest (anything works with TTS!) it isn’t absolutely ideal.

Once that decision had been made, it was time to get the figures off their old bases. This is always the most nerve-wracking part of the job: will the figures’ paint be affected by the re-basing process? how many figures will I break as I take them off the old bases etc.

I use the tried and tested “soak them overnight in water” method, placing the figures in the packaging you get with terrain tufts: ideal trays about half a centimetre deep.

I was abit worried about the chariots: the old glue points of two wheels, two horses, and the yoke across the horses’ backs complicating matetrs a bit. In the end, however, although a few chariot wheels did fall off, they were easily glued back on, and any damage to the back-cloths draped over the horses was also easy to fix once I had correctly matched the colours needed.

I decided to go with the official Big Red Bat bases for TTS, which arrived very quickly after I had ordered them. The chariots would, as they were light, go two to a base, giving me eight individual or four “massed lights” chariot bases. The close order infantry would go 24 to a base: neatly matching two Vis Bellica elements. The lights would neatly fit on a TTS light base: seven figures for the akirmishing archers and nine figures for the javelin-armed chariot runners.

Once the figures were glued in place, I covered each base with GW Armageddon Dunes, left it to dry for a couple of hours, then dry brushed with whatever the GW bone colour is called these days, finally neatening all the edges with GW Tallaren sand.

The fifteen standard bases, four light bases and eight command bases used up three pots of Armageddon Dunes with the only issue being that each pot dried to a slightly different colour. Not sure why that was, but it was probably down to the different ages of pot: I was digging deep into my new pot depository!

Once all the paint was dry, I dressed the bases with as many different coloured tufts as I could find, placing them all in random positions.

In all I re-based nineteen chariots, 200 infantry and one lion…taking two days to do so. Well worth it, particularly as I discovered that I really needed another command chariot and another infantry unit to ensure I had everything I’d need for a 150 point army: any excuse to buy more figures!

So the Egyptians are now ready to rock, and will deploy in four divisions: Amun, Re, Ptah and Set. Can’t wait to get them back on the table.

TTS AAR: To The Longest Game Three: Venetians versus WOTR Yorkist

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The afternoon game at the 2024 To The Longest event was a maga-game where everybody would fight at once. In effect, this meant eight games of To The Strongest played simultaneously, with movement of troops from one table to another allowed.

My opponent was Steve and his Wars of the Roses Yorkist army, with all its units based and painted to its historical equivalents. It was a very good looking army consisting of bows, billmen and knights: not a combination to be lightly dismissed. Terrain-wise. the left side of the battlefield was dominated by another ruined monastery, impassable to mounted troops. In addition, lunchtime rain meant that the ploughed fields that had been good going in the morning were now rough ground. The presence of the monastery determined my deployment: infantry on the left, with my Knights on the right.

The picture above was taken after the game had been going for couple of turns. On the left you’ll see Steve advancing some infantry through the monastery grounds and, on the far right, my Knights advancing forward in an attempt to turn the Yorkist left flank where, actually, the game had started quite well for me: one units of Knights managing to drive some Yorkist knights from the field.

All seemed to be going well until, that is, we each deployed our final commands (in To The Longest, you started with one command off table until the end of the first turn).

I put my final lot of Knights onto the table centre-right, where they could either re-inforce the centre or follow up on any success on the right, but Steve deployed a huge command of billmen and bowmen right opposite where my original Knights were trying to turn his flank, neatly plugging the gap at the end of his line.

The picture below shows my original Knights on the right retreating in the face of this mass of veteran infantry!

With an advance on the right now looking a tad dangerous, I switched my efforts to the left and centre.

In the centre, my newly-arrived Knights and some infantry managed to clear some light units out of the way and then punch a hole through the Yorkist line. This was good, and I now threatened the enemy camp, but there was a huge mass of Yorkist units (seven of them) on the right hand side of the table and it would not be good if they pivoted through 90 degrees and headed to their right.

I needed to keep them occupied to their front, so my main body of Knights retreated back just far enough to keep the enemy pinned in place whilst I frantically worked out how to win the game elsewhere.

On the left, my light handgunners had put themselves into pole position for the “men of the match” award by managing to drive back the enemy infantry trying to infiltrate my left through the monastery grounds. They, supported by the Lancieri (spear) and Pichierrii (pike) had actually driven the Yorkists back onto their own side of the table, even though the enemy had survived several flank attacks from the ‘gunners.

The pikemen, after their humiliation in the last game, were also on a roll, squeezing through the gap between woods and fields to drive an enemy unit from the field.

I really needed to finish the game now: my Knights were running out of retreating room on the right, and although I had cleared the enemy centre, his troops on the right were starting to do what I’d feared they might: move to their right to re-take the ground I’d taken in the middle of the field, knocking off my units there from the flank.

Taking the enemy camp would do nicely, and I had a unit of Knights in position to do that…but the camp was defended and I’d had some bad experiences in the past trying to take a fortified camp with mounted troops.

So that left the pikemen…who could take the camp with an easy move forward and then a difficult diagonal move into the undefended portion of the Yorkist camp.

I drew a card for the easy move: a “10”.

Well, they certainly were keen, but were now presumably puffing and blowing and not in the mood to go again. Or were they? Only another natural “10” would get them into the camp and win the game for the Venetians…

Lady Luck had, for a change, smiled on me and my pikemen marched neatly into the Yorkist camp costing Steve his last three coins. Victory was mine 14:5!

So a decent final game for the Venetians, although it didn’t stop the English winning the event overall.

A great day’s gaming: many thanks to Peter for organising, and to all the players, especially my three opponents.

TTS AAR: To The Longest: Game Two: Venetians versus 100YW English

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My second game at the inaugral To The Longest was also against an English Hundred Years War army: more longbowmen, more stakes and more dismounted knights!

Both John, my opponent, and I kept one command of mounted knights back from the initial deployment, with both sides then bringing them onto the field on the side of the table where the ruined monastry stood: the monastry being worth extra points at the end of the game to whoever held it by having units in orthagonal base to base contact with it.

Having learnt my lesson in sending my lights forward to die in a hail of longbow fire in the last game, I decided just to advance my fighting units forward, and get them stuck in as soon as I could.

This was a sensible tactic to adopt,,,until, that is, the cards decided to really mess with my plans!

First up, my pike advancing on the left had a great opportunity to run over some longbowmen, but didn’t:

The pikes then died, costing me three coins early in the game!

Next, a command of knights attempted to charge some enemy longbowmen safely ensconsed behind rows of stakes. This was a stupid thing to try to do anyway, but a couple of aces didn’t help:

The knights would spend the next few turns uselessly smashing away at the longbowmen with neither side able to damage the other!

I was still determined to get stuck in to his melee-weak massed longbows, particularly on the left side of the field…

…but those Aces kept coming thick and fast!

By this time I had had enough. I decided on a complete change of tactics and, unusually for me, play for a draw by retreating all my troops back to my side of the field, ceasing their Ace-ridden attempts to smash their way into John’s longbow-held position.

I therefore pulled back on both the left and centre, although I did keep possession of the monastry on the right.

Now this is where the game suddenly got interesting as John, with a sudden rush of blood to the head, decided to come after me.

Firstly, the dismounted knights guarding his camp left the safety of their fortifications and came a cropper against a unit of Lancieri and my Alabardiers, who executed a second quick 180 degree turn to re-engage the enemy once they were out in the open.

Second, a unit of veteran English longbowmen attempted to re-take the monastry position from my Later Knights, who promptly remembered why they were called Later Knights and ran them over without difficulty.

Back to the left flank, where enemy longbowmen had followed their dismounted knights out of the fortified camp only to also fall foul of the Alabardiers who, it must be said, were having a very good day indeed!

This left the English camp open…my Alabardiers walked into it…and suddenly John announced he was out of coins and I had won the battle!

Well that was quite a surprise!

With possession of the monastry, I had achieved a 14-8 victory over the invading English.

I’d like to say that my tactical retreat was indeed that: a carefully planned tactic to draw John out from his position…but it wasn’t. I was genuinely determined to retreat back to my side of the field and make him come to me if he wanted anything but a draw, and was then quite surprised that I managed to turn things around as I did.

I was lucky to kill the dismounted knights on the left so easily, and John was annoyed with himself for exposing his longbowmen on the right (he’d have been okay if he’d sent the knights behind them forward instead) but what a topsy-turvily fluid game!

On to the afternoon’s big bash…

TTS AAR: To The Longest: Game One: Venetians versus 100YW English

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Earlier this month I took part in the inaugral To The Longest event: a 28mm To The Strongest battle day featuring eight players aside fighting three linked games, two individual mano e mano games in the morning and one gigantic group game in the afternoon.

You can get some idea of the scale of the event by looking at the picture, opposite, that shows the table set up first thing in the morning before the game got started. As you can see, the battlefield stretched the entire length of the hall we were in, including passing through a relatively narrow partition…but more of that later.

The Hundred Years War was the theme of the day, with one side playing England, the other France. As I’m a bit short on 28mm armies, I was using my trusty, but in this case slightly anachronistic and geographically challenged, Venetians as a Late Italian Condotta army…well, it’s so hard to get work sometimes you just have to get on your bike, cross Europe and go looking for it!

My first game was against Dean, playing an English 100YW army that was the usual mixture of knights, billmen and longbowmen.

At this point it’s also worth noting that the weather was dry, and the ploughed fields still counted as good going.

My plan was to use my strong infantry command to take the walled field on my right. At the same time, my light cavalry would secure the small herd of sheep on the left (as this was the first in a series of linked games, you got extra points for securing supplies) whilst the Knights in the centre waited to see what happened.

Well, the good news was that my Stradiotti soon secured the sheep and herded them off the table to be consumed roasted with some mint sauce later on.

The less good news was that although my infantry command quickly reached the walled field on the other side of the table, they would spend the entire game bashing themselves against the troops within in, unable to make any real headway.

The battle would therefore be decided mainly in the centre of the field, where both sides moved their “heavies” into position for a fight.

My plan was working: with so much of Dean’s army concentrated on his wings, I effectively had five fighting units versus his three, giving me the advantage.

It would have been six versus three except for the fact that one unit of knights stubbornly refused to move away from the Italian camp (you can see them bottom left in the picture, above) wasting vast amounts of time and initiative as I tried to get them into the fray.

Worse, my other Knights were having one of their off days: failing to smite the enemy from the field with their initial charges.

The grinding combat in the centre gradually worked its way through, with honours ending up about even.

I lost a unit of Knights to English dismounted knights but had some Lancierii all ready to take advantage of where the victorious enemy knights ended up, but luck was on the side of the English and this pivotal moment to flank charge King Henry passed without result.

I had another chance to smash through the enemy line when some more of my Knights ended a unit of English billmen.

This could have meant the opportunity to roll the English up, but Dean cunningly withdrew his vulnerable units into a defensive position in the top left of the field, meaning that my Knights now faced nothing but a row of longbowmen rather than the flanks and rear of retreating billmen.

By this time my Venetians were also getting a little tired and emotional!

Dean had gradually been knocking off my light units which, whilst individually unimportant, collectively mounted up to a significant amount of coins.

Add to this King Henry’s unit turning and polishing off the Lancierii and I had lost too many to recover from. Excellent play from Dean meant a bad start to the day with a 6-14 defeat for the Venetians!

TFL Painting Challenge: Second July Update

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It’s been raining all day today…so a good excuse to spend a bit of time updating this year’s Painting Challenge.

Today we have entries from:

Mr Slade with a large entry of Romans and Pirates

Andrew Helliwell with a few units of WOTR types and plenty of terrain (and in multiple scales)

Then, to round up, we have entries from Mr Luther (huge numbers of little ‘planes), Mr Burt (some 20mm WW2 kit) and Mervyn (Morlocks!):

Make sure you check out everyone’s gallery, as there’s a lot more of their work in them.

Apparently it’s going to be raining all weekend, so take my advice and pick up those brushes and start painting!

Deli for the Ottomans

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I’m still building my 15mm 17th Century Ottoman army: the Sipahis and Janisseries are done, not it’s just a matter of adding some of the more irregular troops.

About as irregular as you can get, the Deli are technically a light cavalry unit consisting of fanatical warriors and known as The Mad. They would dress themselves and their mounts in animal skins, decorating everything with feathers, fur or hide.

Altough my Sipahis are painted using traditional acrylics, I went back to Contrast paints for these mainly because Contrast really suits the depiction of fur and feathers.

When you get these (mine are from By Fire & Sword, some of the last of the v1 models before the v2 ranges are released hopefully later this year) you get a packet of stiff wire lances which come with a lot of little metal balls.

I puzzled over what these were for before managing to find a picture of the models from the BF&S website that showed them in place: they fit on the lance and rest just on top of the hand holding it as, I suppose, a sort of hilt. Might have been nice to have that on the box somewhere as I almost discarded them in ignorance.

For some reason, I also found the flag and epnnants difficult to do this time. Usually I’m fine with them, but the flag is a second attempt after I ruined the first one, and you can see that some of the pennants suffer from the dreaded “edges don’t match white edges”! They still make the unit really pop though, so worth doing.

The Deli were certainly light cavalry, but you don’t give horsemen a lance and call them fanatic and mad unless you expect them to charge people. As most rules don’t allow lights to charge formed units, I’ve therefore classed the Deli as fanatical formed cavalry, but might have to review my decision in light of the various whinges I have heard about this. I think I might add the option of fielding them as light or standard: people can then make their own minds up!

So just a few light cavalry units to go now, although to tell the truth I have many units of lights in my other armies that would pass as Ottoman lights. They were, after all, largely the same peoples…but it’s just I like a full roster for each of my armies rather than operating some kind of central pool. Any excuse to buy more minis!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Other Side of the Hill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phew! Pretty similar if you ask me!

Q13: Chuhuac Raxa Light Assault ship

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The latest release* for the Chuhuac (space dinosaurs with guns) from Loud Ninja Games (available through Alternative Armies) involves something that many ranges of sci-fi figures ignore: air support.

*When I say “latest release”, these have been available for some time: I just haven’t got around to painting them!

First off the painting table is the Raxa Light Attack Ship that can be assembled either landed or in flight…so I bought two so that I could field one of each.

The picture on the right shows the landed version, with its wings folded up. The kit comes in four main parts: the fuselage - the head and two wings - plus two legs and a cornucopia of weaponry that can be attached to various hard points on the craft.

It’s pretty easy to put together: the head slides onto the fuselage easily, the wings will just about balance upright and, believe it or not, the ship will balance on its two ‘chicken legs’ without too much difficulty.

To get the legs even, so that the ship didn’t list to one side, I popped a drop of PVA and superglue into each of the slots the legs fit in to, put the legs in to the slots and, whilst the PVA and superglue were still hardening, gently stood the model up as I wanted whilst still holding it’s weight. Once I was happy that the legs were even, I then made sure the legs were at least partially dried in place (i.e. wouldn’t move if tilted the ship) then found a way to balance the ship mostly upright without the legs touching the floor.

Note that the transparent base didn’t come with the kit: I had that in the bits box.

The flying model was not too difficult to build either, although there’s no clear guide as to what angle to seat the wings: you have to work out the sweet spot where the wing tilts down sufficiently without coming out of its fuselage slot.

I sprayed each model with a military green undercoat, then washed them with GW Agrax Earthshade, then carefully drybrushed a very slightly lighter military green from front to back. I then painted the legs black with a steel dry-brush, the jet outlets in a dark red with the black soot-stains on the nearby fuselage, then added some bright yellow and blue ‘markings’ where the relief work on the model suggested I should.

I use my usual 12” flight stand, but with a very solid rare earth maginet to hold the Raxa in place. I love the pteradactyl-look of the craft in flight!

Here are some more shots, including the official ones from the Alternative Armies website:

A very nice model that will prove very useful on the tabletop either as a combat piece (flying), an objective (landed) or both. Recommended.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TFL Painting Update: First July update

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Here’s a handful of entries to the Painting Challenge to set you up for July…

First up, we have Mr Slade, with some more terrain and the start of his next 28mm army:

Then we have our other most prolific painter, Mr Helliwell, with more medieval and WOTR types:

Chris Kay has a mix of old and new: an M54 truck and some Roman cavalry:

Stumpy adds to his ACW collection, with a Union artillery battery in 28mm:

and last but certainly not least, Steve Burt has been building terrain:

Some lovely work there, and plenty of time to get your entries in. There’ll be another July update in a couple of weeks, so pick up thsoe brushes and get to work!

TTS AAR: To The Smallest Game 2: Timurids vs Sassanid Persians

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My second game at this year’s inaugral To The Smallest 15mm event for To The Strongest was against Si’s Sassanid Persians.

The terrain was a representation of the battle of Cannae, including a stream splitting off part of the left hand side of the battlefield, with it being compulsory that at least one of your camps be placed on the other side of the stream i.e. on the smaller part of the battlefield.

With both sides being largely mounted, each side headed towards the other at a rate of knots: lancers in the middle, light cavalry out on the wings. On what I will call ‘the strip’, the Timurids had their Afghan javelinmen keeping some Sassanid light cavalry at bay.

Unfortunately, I miscalculated (or Si perfectly calculated!) the schwerpunkt moment, with the result that rather than initiating all the charges to contact, it was my Timurids who were on the receiving end of every charge, giving the Sassanids that key first hit advantage.

The results were not pretty! Although the Sassanids tok damage, it was the Timurid heavy cavalry that suffered the most, with the battlefield after the initial clash looking surprisingly empty of still-fighting units of either side!

At this point I was forced to commit my reserves: the kharash driven slaves heading into action in an attempt to shore up my left flank.

With my line steadied, things began to improve for the Timurids.

I even had some success in the centre, where a unit of lancers broke through the enemy line and pursued some Sassanid heavy horse towards the Persian camp.

But in the end the casualties that I had taken at the initial clash came back to haunt me. Although I had pulled things back until we were even on casualties, it was all over when a unit of Sassanid light cavalry broke through my diminished line and took my camp and therefore my last three medals.

So a 10-13 defeat for the Timurids, which made two games played and two losses.

Surely things could only get better in game three…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things were not looking good!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q13: Barad join the Ursid

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Regular visitors will know that one of the sci-fi armies that I use for Quadrant 13 is the Ursids: effectively bears-in-space-with-guns!

I have Stan Johanson’s Lesser Ursids and Khurasan’s Greater Ursids already, so it was really only going to be a matter of time before I added Trilaterum’s Barad as well.

Let’s start with a size comparison:

L to R: Barad - Greater Ursid - Lesser Ursid - Human

As you can see, the Barad tower over even the Greater Ursids, and make the hapless Mexican Juarista infantryman on the end seem absolutely teeny-tiny in comparison. An example of either significant scale creep or another example of humans being the shortest species in the known universe!

So the models are big, but don’t let that put you off: they are also exquisite and full of character. Here’s a whole platoon of the little beauties:

Barad “Den Infantry” Platoon

I very much like the oriental look of the Barad: samurai armour and a type of kasa which is what I think the straw farmer’s hat is called in Japan (rather than the more elaborate jingasa).

Besides their standard assault rifle, the Barad also carry a Tri-Barrel infantry support weapon that is fielded both as part of an infantry squad and in separate support teams.

The Tri-Barrel: when a BFG is just not big enough

Now I’m not a great believer in co-incidence, but those familiar with the Stan Johanson Lesser Ursids will know that they use circular disc-like hover platforms to get about…and so do the Trilaterum Barad.

I don’t know if this is indeed a happy accident, deliberate, or perhaps even an homage, but it’s great for the consistency of my total Ursid force.

Here’s a squad of Barad Air Cavalry on their grav discs:

The basing is all provided when you buy the pack: much appreciated

Very tasty!

Some sci-fi manufacturers would leave it there, annoying those of us who want to field a company-sized force that would need the odd support weapon as well.

Step up the Barad Artillery: really large canon mounted on a grav disc:

You’ll note another happy co-incidence: Khurasan’s Greater Ursids nearly all sport sun glasses and, as you can see in the pictures above, many of the Barad do as well.

It’s a nice touch, and means adding a little chrome to the Ursid army list is easy: Ursids of all shapes and sizes have eyes that are senstive to bright light.

So there you have Trilaterum’s Barad, now part of my Ursid force and ready to take to the field.

Highly recommended, even if they are absolutely huge!

If you go down to the woods today…

TTS AAR: Classical Indians versus Burgundian Ordnance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q13 Army Lists Updated

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It’s been ages since I updated my sample army lists for Quadrant 13, the sci-fi version of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum.

Since the last update, I’ve added loads of figures to my collection, so have updated the lists accordingly.

In this update, we have:

  • Trilaterum’s Reavers added to the serpentine Astagar

  • Stats for the Ikwen plus all the new flyers added to the mini-dinosaur Chuhuac list

  • Clear Horizon’s Hura added as a new list: infantry from Clear Hoizons supported by some of Brigade’s excellent vehicles

  • The Invaders added as a catch-all “little green man” list using infantry from Khurasan plus all those tripods I bought for All Quiet on the Martian Front.

  • The marine Pelagic Dominate army gets stats for the Laminids and Mozzians

  • Those dogs of war, the Protolene Khanate, add the Raug from Khurasan and the Garrhul from Dark Star to their roster

  • I’ve added some Dark Star vehicles to the Tah-Sig

  • And finally, the Barad from Trilaterum have been added to the Ursids

So a fairly major update there for you all to enjoy:

Q13 Army Lists

TFL Painting Challenge: Second June Update

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I’m happy to say that there are already enough entries in to justify a second Painting Challenge update in June…so let’s have one!

First up is, I think, probably our largest single entry ever: Sapper has been, as he puts it, beavering away on a 28mm Napoleonic Russian army, earning himself a massive 1,300 points in one photograph:

An impressive achievement.

Next up is Mr Davenport, with a cracking mixture of ECW, WW2 and AWI figures: very nice indeed:

Carole has also been busy: a selection of 28mm character figures mostly from the excellent Bad Squiddo plus a handful of 15mm WW2 tanks:

Meanwhile, Mervyn has been painting dinosaurs:

It wouldn’t be a Painting Challenge update without something from Mr Helliwell…and as usual he’s actually sent in quite a lot of somethings for us to enjoy. This time it’s a mixture of Reconquista figures and terrain, just some of which are shown below:

And, finally, Steve Burt has the rest of the 02 Hundred Hours figures finished:

Plenty of inspiring work there, so pick up your brushes and let’s see if we can justofy a third June entry!

FK&P AAR: Mundaydean Lane

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Friend Rob and I are working our way through the Siege of Norchester campaign pack for For King & Parliament. This was the seventh scenario of the twelve presented in the pack, and I went into it a mere two Victory Coins behind Rob.

Mundaydean Lane is a “catch the pigeon” scenario where the Royalists have to escort a coach carrying a VIP passenger off their opposite table’s edge.

Note the ROyalist coach half up the right hand edge of the table

The left-to-right hedges on the table neatly divided the field into three separate areas, each of which ended up being fought as almost a separate battle.

Cavalry Clash on the Left

On the left hand side of the battlefield, the Parliamentarian Borders Horse, mounted on their flea-ridden nags, clashed with a brigade of Royalist Swedish horse.

Unbelievably, rather than being ridden right over, the Borders Horse held their own, and the two sides just about cancelled each other out.

In the end, one unit of Borders Horse pursued a broken Royalist unit almost into a position where they might turn and threaten the Cavalier rear - where the target coach was lurking - but the Royalists had a small unit of horse held back just for this eventuality.

Here’s a chronological gallery of the action on the left:

Cavalry Clash on the Right

The geography also sectioned off a cavalry clash on tghe right hand side of the field. Here a brigade of Parliamentarian Dutch horse squared off against a brigade of Royalist Swedish horse: this would be the brute force of the Roundheads versus the more agile Cavaliers.

The Parliamentarians took the initiative and headed straight for the enemy: their aim being to dash them from the field before curving to the left to chase down the “pigeon”.

Unfortunately, the initial clash did not go well for the Parliamentarian “Puritan Horse”, and they soon found themselves well on the back foot (hoof?) in a brutal, close-quarters melee.

Nothing went right for them…even including an attempt to pull back from the central fight resulting in an Ace being drawn.

The Royalists duly punched through the middle of the Parliamentarian line and soon it became obvious that the Cavaliers had won that wing. Things were not looking good!

The Centre

In the centre of the field, the Royalist infantry proved initially reluctant to move forward: particularly the brigade to the (Royalist) left.

This allowed the Parliamentarians to get forward and form a firm battle line well up towards the enemy lines. The Roundheads even had time to get their Border Reivers into a position where they could use the wooded terrain to their advantage.

In theory, on the left hand side of the infantry fight, I should have been able to get an advantage: my troops overlapping the enemy. Unfortunately, however, the veteran Royalist foot were having none of that, and I soon found myself under some pressure there.

Likewise, when the two lines did clash, despite a wild Highland Charge from the Reivers, I just couldn’t seem to tip the balance in my favour: things just weren’t working for me today!

My infantry began to give way and soon my last victory medal departed and the day was to the Royalists.

Conclusion

Well that had been a thumping defeat for the Roundheads. Having started the day only two medals behind in the campaign as a whole, I was now twelve behind overall!

Lots of work to do in the last five games of Norchester, something to reflect on as my troops sat watching the “pigeon” sail through their lines!