TTS AAR: Warfare Game Four: Venetians Abroad versus Timurids

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My fourth and final game of To The Strongest at the 2025 Warfare tournament was against Peter and his Timurids.

This was one of those frustrating games when I could see exactly what was going to happen…and it did!

Unsurpringly, the Timurids won the scouting, forcing me to deploy in a line to protect my flanks whilst they, as you can see in the picture above, could concentrate their efforts on one side of the battlefield.

With the first move advantage as well, that meant that Peter could get his light cavalry down my right flank before I had a chance to move to counter the manoeuvre: very frustrating and next time we meet under similar circumstances, I think I will ignore his set up and deploy in a block on one side of the field as well, and see what happens!

The first couple of turns were spent with me rushing my troops on the left over to the right, and the Timurids thundering forward, especially down my right flank.

The fighting on the centre-right got intense very quickly as I tried to stop Peter overwhelming my troops there before my reinforcements could arrive from the left.

I lost my veteran later knights and army standard, but managed to take out a unit of Timurid heavy cavalry in return, but by this stage the Timurids had managed to properly get around my right flank and the writing was on the wall!

Meanwhile, although some of the troops from my left had made it over to the centre to bolster my defence there, far too many of them were forced into action to deal with the threat from Peter’s “throwaway” troops: flaming camels, kharash driven slaves etc.

I did manage to get some mounted light crossbowmen out and around Peter’s right flank, but this was too little too late, and eventually my last coins went as the Timurids managed to get some light cavalry into one of my camps.

I rather miserable 2-12 loss to finish off my 2025 competition season, with a 9th place achieved overall at Warfare.

Still, a great day overall, with some goodies bought for future armies, plenty of great chats with people and, of course, fun games of TTS as well. On to 2026 now!

TTS AAR: Warfare Game Three: Venetians Abroad versus Later Romans

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My third game at this year’s To The Strongest tournament at Warfare was against Si and his Later Romans.

This was not an encounter I was particularly looking forward to: not because Si isn’t a nice chap, quite the opposite, but because, as he was happy to remind me, although I’d beaten him a few times in friendlies, I’d never beaten him in competition, with these Later Romans often proving my Nemesis!

Looking at the table after deployment, I decided that, as with the last game, my plan had to be to take the fight to the enemy.

Two reasons for this: the first was that the Romans had deployed an isolated command of two legionary and one light units on the right who looked ripe for overwhelming with a combination of Knights and lights of my own; and second that I had to make sure that under no circumstances could I allow his veteran cavalry facing my left, including some lights that had proved very pesky in the past, through to threaten my flanks and rear.

As the game began, I therefore attempted to advance forward strongly on each wing: successfully on the left, less so on the right.

To continue the story of the right flank, I did indeed eventually engage and overwhelm the two enemy legionary units there with my Knights and lights, but the resilience of the Romans meant that even though I eventually knocked out both units, I effectively tied up just about the same amount of points to do so. Plenty of coins in due course: but a lot of time and some of my best troops used to get them!

Back to the rest of the table, where the wide gap I had left between my advancing-quickly left flank and my advancing-slowly centre had given Si an opportunity to shift troops from his centre to threaten the right flank of my left flank force (if you see what I mean!).

This was quite a crisis, only just averted my managing to get my centre forward to ZOC the Romans’ ally-cataphracts.

I then withdrew the Knights on the left flank, pulling them back two squares: something that seemed to surprise Si, presumably because he felt that two units of Knights were sufficient to take on anything he had there, and that I was therefore ceding ground unnecessarily.

Well, yes, technically perhaps so…but I had good reasons for doing so.

Firstly, I knew that I currently had an advantage in the centre and on the right, so I wanted to win those battles, reaping as many coins as possible to set me up nicely for a climactic fight on the left from a position of power.

Secondly, Si is a canny player, and I was a bit overexposed on the left (hence the cataphract crisis), with three of my units facing six of his. I’ve been caught by that before: seemingly winning the battle to suddenly find one of my flanks collapsing and losing the game before I quite realised what was going on!

Finally, I was ceding ground for time - time for my right to wipe out the legionaries there and perhaps get back into the centre to smash the Romans from the right (didn’t happen, as we’ve seen above) - and forcing the situation where, for a short time at any rate, six of his units faced empty air whilst my withdrawing Knights would hopefully contribute to the fight in the centre.

And boy, was I right to do so!

Si slammed his right-centre (facing my left) forward, and I was soon facing a major assault across my left-centre that I only managed to withstand with the help of the Knights from the left that, had I not withdrawn them, would have been stuck embroiled with Si’s veteran light cavalry somewhere up on the far left side of the table.

Luckily, by this stage, my right flank force had eventually beaten the legionaries they had chased back to the Roman baseline, giving me six coins (two units, one general) and bringing me to the edge of victory.

I must confess that I can’t remember what gave me the final coins I needed to win, but I must have broken one more of Si’s units which, combined with coins from Si successfully rallying on an even card (the boot, or rather caligulae, were on the other feet in this game: one of the reasons for my defeat in our last encounter was me losing four coins to rallying…Si lost at least two the same way this game) and the odd light killed gave me the victory.

And, when it came down to it, it was a good victory: 12-2 in my favour but, as you can see from the photos above, it was actually much more of a close-run thing than the result would suggest…at the end here I am effectively fighting with my back against the wall, enough units already disordered that my whole position could have collapsed at any moment.

So an epic game (at least from my point of view!) and one that set me right back into the running for a decent placing in the tournament as a whole.

TTS AAR: Warfare Game Two: Venetians versus Thematic Byzantines

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My second game at this year’s Warfare tournament was against Nick and his Thematic Byzantines.

Chatting before we began, Nick mentioned that although he himself was a novice at To The Strongest (this being only his eighth ever game of TTS) his figures were about forty years old and veterans of many a tabletop encounter dating back to the days of WRG 5th or 6th. This made me wish that I’d been using my Early Imperials, also about forty years old, and reflect on all the changes there have been to this hobby of ours since I first started playing as a child, particularly as the Venetians are multi-part plastics less than three years old.

Anyhow, on to the game…

Quite unusually, I won the scouting, so decided to take the fight to the Byzantines, advancing forward strongly right across the battlefield.

My plan was to use my Knights, supported by infantry, to overwhelm the Byzantine cavalry on the left and right whilst avoiding the scutatoi in the centre.

On the right, my initial charge was the usual mix of positive and negative: one unit of Knights doing its job and disordering the enemy, the other getting disordered themselves and needing to be pulled back to recover. What was slightly different about this game, though, was the fact that I had brought my infantry right up with the Knights, so the foot could intervene and make up for the faltering unit of Knights.

On the left, the Knights did exactly what they were supposed to do: smashing a Byzantine cavalry unit from the table and giving me the opportunity to get my lights around behind the Byzantine line.

With the right flank locked into a combat that seemed to be going nowhere, I decided to now focus on the left, where my initial success was beginning to overstretch the Byzantine line, leaving a gap that I could perhaps exploit.

I had a “spare” unit of Knights on the left which I then sent back into the centre, right into the gap that I mentioned above. This worked very nicely, as I had also brought up my crossbow-armed infantry and was peppering the skutatoi with bolts.

With the skutatoi pinned in place, my Knights were able to turn onto their flank: setting the scene for what promised to be a very painful episode for the Byzantine infantry.

Before that could happen, however, the Byzantine right suddenly gave way, leaving the Venetians victorius!

So a 12-2 win that neatly cancelled out my 2-12 loss in the first round. On to game three…

TTS AAR: Warfare Game One: Venetians Abroad versus Parthians

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My first game at this year’s Warfare To The Strongest tournament was against Tim’s Parthians.

The action began on the right flank, when two units of my Knights advanced forward to take on a couple of Parthian Cataphracts. Mixed results for this initial clash, with one disorder inflicted and one disorder received despite having the first charge advantage.

I then made a devastatingly stupid decision to ignore “Trevor’s Rule” and decided to try and activate some mounted crossbowmen for a cheeky shot before the main action.

I was duly punished by the cards for my temerity but, in my defence, if the ballistieri had managed to knock out the disordered cataphracts, my veteran Knights would have been able to intervene to help the disordered Later Knights to their left, and there’s only a 10% chance of an Ace appearing…

But a post match analysis does show this to be an incredibly stupid thing to do and, no lie, this probably lost me the game, as you just can’t afford to make a mistake like this against a player of Tim’s calibre: on his next turn he finished off the Later Knights with a unit led by a general (no similar error on his part!), which meant all I could do was try and retreat my veteran Knights before they also were annihilated…

Okay, so that one was down to the cards…but it was still my initial error that caused the situation to arise in the first place!

Meanwhile, on the left hand side of the battlefield, more of my Knights had advanced against similar numbers of enemy cataphracts. Unfortunately, one of those units was a camelry unit that, try as I might, I just couldn’t shift from the field: the smell of these curious beasts making the steeds my Knights rode reluctant to close to melee properly.

I did eventually gain some advantage here, but only by committing my Alabardiers unit in support, and not to a battle-winning degree.

Which meant, of course, that things would be finally decided in the centre.

Here, the defeat of my Knights on the right had freed up a couple of Parthian heavy horse units to attack my Crossbowmen: hardly the best unit to withstand charging cavalry, especially when pulling an Ace to activate the turn before!

Withstand the charge they did, however, and I was even able to slide a unit of spearmen sideways to protect them from future depredations: slightly gamey, I know, but allowed within the rules.

More enemy Cataphracts were on the way in, however, and I was still drawing Aces to activate any defensive shooting!

The Venetians weren’t beaten yet, however, and managed to not only defend their camps against the furious Parthian frontal assault, but even drive their cavalry backwards.

The Venetians might even have knocked a couple of enemy units off the table as well…but the cards intervened again…

Now those of you who have been paying attention will remember that I said that my decision to lead with the mounted crossbowmen on the right, drawing an Ace for activation and thus ending my turn instead of having a possible replay if I had opened the batting with the general-led Knights, had lost me the game…well that moment was now upon us and the chickens firmly came home to roost as unopposed Parthian horse, heavy and light, swarmed down the right flank and hit my camps - the camps that had just repelled a frontal assault - in the flank.

The militia spearmen there just didn’t have the time to turn to face this new threat and, despite the barbed wire (okay, fortifications) protecting them, gave way, costing me five victory medals and the game!

A great performance from Tim and the Parthians, a less than stellar piece of decision-making on my part, and I was the loser 2 points to 12!

So let that be a salutory lesson for all you TTS players out there: obey Trevor’s Rule and always lead with your general’s unit!

TTS AAR: Darius' Revenge

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Neil was keen to have another go at a massive Macedonians vs Persians game using his 2mm blocks: Darius wanted his revenge and had reconfigured his army list accordingly!

Macedonians advance forward quickly, keen to get to grips with the enemy

As always when playing the Macedonians, my plan was for Alex and the Companions to punch through the enemy cavalry on one flank, and then turn and hit the rest of the Persian army in the flank as it was pinned in place by my advancing infantry.

Alexander and the Companions prepare to make their move

In our last game, Alex and Co. had done exactly that, but only in the nick of time as they had had to chew through deep units of Persian cavalry. This time I therefore positioned Alex opposite the smaller but better quality units of enemy horse, thinking that they wouldn’t take so long to win and break free.

The first part of the plan worked: Alexander and Co. charged forward and drove the enemy cavalry back…but unfortunately it still took a long time to actually break them (well, they were better quality) and, worse, the fighting moved away to the left: further from where Alexander would be needed to smash into the back of the enemy infantry.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, each sides’ poorer quality cavalry had closed to contact. This didn’t go too well for the out-numbered Macedonian ally-cavalry, and they were slowly driven backwards towards their baseline.

And in the centre, the Macedonian infantry grind forward…but much too slowly, especially as the Persian foot retreat backwards to avoid contact!

Persians pull back to avoid contact with the pikemen and ally-hoplites

So, to summarise the situation to date: on the left, Alexander and Co. have won the cavalry battle there but been drawn off further from the centre; on the right, the Persian cavalry are winning nd have pushed the Macedonian’s Ally-Cavalry back; and in the centre, the Macedonian infantry have advanced towards the retreating Persian infantry but not yet made significant contact.

What does this all mean?

Well, a gap had now opened up on the right of the advancing Macedonian infantry and the Persians, vastly superior in terms of overall numbers, were able to send their scythed chariots and mercenary/traitorous Hoplites into the space offered and assault the flank of main Macedonian infantry line.

Uh-oh!

With Alexander and Co. effectively out of the picture, it now became a race to see whether the Macedonian infantry could destroy the Persians in front of them, including taking the Persian camp, which which would then give them enough victory medals to win the game, before being mullered by the Persian flank charges coming in from the front!

Two units of Macedonian Ally-Hoplites had burst through the Persian line in front of their camp, and now needed to assault the place in order to win the game:

Unfortunately, Tyche was not with the Macedonians that day and, try as they might, the Ally-Hoplites just couldn’t get into the Persian camp…which meant that the Persians coming in from the right were able to overwhelm the right end of the Macedonian line doing enough damage to mean the Macedonians had to retreat, sarissas between their legs!

So a very close run thing, but a revenge win for the Persians, setting the scene for the deciding battle, to be held in a few weeks time!

TTS AAR: Practising for 2TS

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The end of the year sees the annual Two The Strongest (2TS) double tournament for To The Strongest.

As friend Peter and I have entered this year competition (going for out hat trick!) we thought we’d better have a bit of a practice, choosing a couple of armies from Peter’s collection: one was one of the later Roman/Bysantine armies, the other was a cataphract/horse-archer army, with Tibetans proxieing in.

I would take the Roman-Byzantine types, Peter the Tibetan types. Each side consisted of two allied armies, each of 100 points.

Unsurprisingly, Peter’s cataphract-types (I’ll call them Tibetans from now on) won the scouting, forcing me to deploy in a long line in order not to be outflanked on either side. This gave Peter the opportunity to try and use one of his favourite tactics (one that I have adopted myself) which is to try and concentrate all your force on one half of an enemy army at a time.

Accordingly, once the game had begun, the enemy facing my right flank turned to their right and sped over to the other side of the table, leaving a lot of my troops apparently facing air! I had, however, been ready for this and, using the Romans’ famed mobility, soon had most of my right hand troops facing left and ‘marching to the sound of the guns’.

The action began with a decent bit of fighting from the Romans: one legionary unit threw its pila like javelins against an enemy heavy cavalry unit, disordering it then moving in with the gladius (or perhaps by now the spatha) to finish them off. This left the legionaries surrounded on three sides, so they sent promptly marched backwards to resume their original position. Now that’s how Romans ought to fight all the time!

By this time, my Romans from the right were beginning to arrive to reinforce my left, and the fighting there became intense.

Fighting of this intensity couldn’t last long and, sure enough, some veteran Roman cavalry managed to destroy the proxie-Tibetans on the far left which, combined with my success elsewhere, took the last victory medals from Peter’s right-hand army. Under the rules of 2TS, this meant that the whole of that army then dispersed, leaving me master of that side of the field.

Well…almost. If you look at the second picture in the gallery below (top right of the four) you’ll see that there are still some Tibetan troops on that side of the field. Peter had managed to find a gap in my line to sneak them through and, in consequence, was able to charge them into the rear of my victorious cavalry (the unit with the ‘ten of spades’ behind it).

This was enough to break them, taking my last victory medal away, so I then lost all my remaining troops from my left hand army leaving, as you can see in the final picture (bottom, left) a very empty left hand side of the table.

A couple of things to note at this point.

Firstly, my Romans had effectively beaten ¾ of the Tibetans with only ½ of their force: a decent achievement especially against such a seasoned player as Peter.

Secondly, because Peter was using proxie figures from several collections mashed together and hadn’t had the time to mark them up properly, when he moved his left hand army to the right, the various commands got very intermingled…to the extent that for this phase of the battle neither of us were sure which of his units belonged to which command, having to guess what belonged where…which is why you’ll see the Tibetan bases now carrying coloured meeples in that final picture: the meeples marking which command each base was from. That meant that although we’re pretty sure we got it right, it’s entirely possible that the units that took my left-hand army off the table should actually have disappeared when his right hand army dispersed…

Anyhoo, on with the action…which took place between the remnants of each sides’ right hand armies.

Both Peter and I had left cavalry on the right hand side of the table, with the Tibetans having an advantage as they had hordes of lights versus much smaller numbers of Roman heavies, and a very open table in which to deploy them.

Unfortunately my luck also turned at this point, and a valiant attempt to take one of the enemy camps and so finish the game in my favour, ended up with my cavalry taking unexpectedly severe damage from the Tibetan lights so losing me my last victory medals on that side just before my infantry could intervene.

So an overall defeat, but a close run thing…and good practice for 2TS for its new date in January.

TTS AAR: Massive Macedonian Mash-Up

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Friend Neil was very keen to get all his 2mm Macedonian and Persian figures onto the tabletop, so we put together a massive 240-points-a-side game of To The Strongest and prepared for war!

I would take the part of Alexander (gloriously handsome God-King: it was made for me) and Neil would play Darius (“everywhere I go, I hear men laugh at your armies and whisper your generals’ names like excuses”).

The Macedonians won the scouting and carefully deployed with their Companions on the right (a bit of historical accuracy always goes a long way), the rest of their cavalry on the left, and all their heavy infantry lined up in the centre. As I had the advantage of seeing where the Persians deployed before I had to commit, I made sure that my mercenary Hoplites were facing the Persian rabble, with the Macedonian pike lining up against the traitorous mercenary Hoplites fighting for Darius: a TTS version of rock-paper-scissors as Hoplites should beat Mobs and Pike should beat Hoplites. I also used the Take The High Ground stratagem to push my mercenary Hoplites forward two squares: I wanted to get in amongst those Mobs as soon as I could.

a big battle

The Macedonians opened proceedings: intending to advance into contact with the enemy as soon as possible. Poor activation cards, however, meant that the advance was not quite as speedy as I’d hoped.

In return, the Persians largely hung back: the only exception being a strong advance on their right (i.e. opposite my weaker cavalry wing) obviously intending to overwhelm me there before swinging round my left flank.

The two wings were where the first fighting broke out. On my left wing, the superior Persian cavalry sent a hail of arrows my way, taking out two light units, and then advanced to contact with some Greek cavalry who were rapidly regretting their decision to accompany Alexander on his travels.

Meanwhile the Companions on the right had charged home and were slowly chewing their way through the deep Persian cavalry they faced. Average cards meant that rather than smashing them from the field at first contact, the Macedonian horse knocked the enemy backwards, but then got bogged down finishing the job!

Meanwhile the Macedonian infantry were still trudging forward towards the traitor-Hoplites and Tribal Levies in front of them.

It seemed to take an awfully long time to actually get into melee, particularly as the aforementioned traitor-Hoplites, rather than standing fast to be skewered, retreated back to the edge of the table, unwilling to go toe-to-toe with my sarissas.

Message from Alexander to the pike: will you hurry up please!

Worse, my ally-Hoplites, who had managed to get into the contact with the enemy Mobs, were getting the worse of the melee that followed: the Tribal Levies dishing out Disorder markers like there was no tomorrow. Perhaps it was because, given Darius’ nature, they knew that if they lost there would be no tomorrow, whether they survived the battle or not!

Oh come on: they are only mobs!

So that’s the left flank lost; the pike left of centre still striving to make a proper impact; the Hoplites centre-right not winning; and the Companions on the right stuck chewing through dense masses of horseflesh.

Not exactly where I wanted things to be at this stage of the battle!

What I was most nervous of was the left flank: Neil had at least two spare light cavalry units that could sweep around and either go for my camp or, more likely, crash into the back of my pikemen…and I’d be in even more trouble (or rather Trouble, with a capital T) if his veteran horse with Darius at their heads could dispose of the levy Greek cavalry they were currently fighting.

On top of that, he had managed to get some cavalry onto the flank of one block of pike who had ‘bravely been volunteered’ to act as a roadblock to the advancing enemy horse.

The Persians right: two spare light cavalry units (top leftish), elite cavalry attacking Greek levies (bottom centre), and flanking the pikeman road block (centre, slight right)

It was therefore with some relief that I realised that the potentially-flanking light cavalry seemed paralysed into inactivity, and the actually-flanking cavalry failed to contact the left-hand pike unit in the side, allowing the pikemen to turn and present them with a wall of spikes!

Even better, the raw Levy Greek Cavalry found some grit from somewhere and managed to (a) kill Darius himself and (b) disorder the Persian elite horse: for once a bit of luck going my way.

LOL

With the left now safe for the moment, it was time to win the battle elsewhere…and my thoughts, along with those of every Macedonian infantryman, were: where are the bl*@dy Companions?

Well they were finally here: on the right, behind the Persian lines, exactly where they were supposed to be.

Having disposed of the deep horse in front of them, the Companions, Alexander at their head, executed a neat left pivot and moved to first threaten, then smash from the field the Persian Mobs that had been causing the Hoplites so much trouble.

And done!

That was the last of the Persians coins gone, but it had not been an easy battle for the Macedonians: look at the pile of my lost victory medals next to the Persian camp in the picture above: had the Companions not finally got their act together, or if Neil had got his right flank moving as I feared, then things could have been very different indeed.

But they did and he didn’t, so a win for the MaccyD’s: although I have now been challenged to a re-match, so we shall have to see how that goes…

TTS AAR: Hittites versus Timurid

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Plenty of time for another game, so as friend Rob wanted another go with the Timurids, I re-packed the victorious Fanatic Berbers and broke out the Hittites…I wanted to get my new unit of archers and the Gasgan chariots onto the tabletop for the first time.

In order to avoid getting shot to death by all the Timurid mounted archers, my plan was to weight the right flank with my fighting chariots, then win there as I held back my centre and left before turning the successful chariots to take the rest of the Timurids in the flank and rear. Simples!

The battle began with a disaster of epic proportions. Rob used the This Way Effendi stratagem card to drive the Gasgan chariots, a general and a unit of Syrian light chariots back one square and therefore off the table.

No problem, I thought, I’ll just get them back on, needing a 4+, but of course I drew an Ace. Now drawing an Ace when re-entering the table means you lose the units in question, so that meant I was five coins down before we’d even properly started the game!

Since then, however, there has been a discussion on the To The Strongest Facebook group, and it seems that the consensus of opinion is that as the This Way Effendi card affects your troops before they have actually entered the table (it’s all about being led the wrong way before arriving at the battlefield) so the Ace-lose-the-units rule doesn’t actually apply.

That makes sense, and will doubtless be clarified in a later edition of Even Stronger amendments…but it was too late for this game so we went on with the game with the Hittites being down half a command and a third of their coins!

The rest of my plan then unfolded as, er, planned, with the Hittite chariots winning on the right hand side of the field.

Meanwhile, the somewhat reduced Hittites on the left and in the centre were fighting hard to survive until the right hand force could turn and roll up the Timurids.

This proved quite tough, but we did get one moment of success when a unit of Hittite spearmen managed to flank charge and destroy some of the Timurid heavy cavalry.

It was now time for the Hittite chariots on the right and crash into the left flank of the Timurid line…but although I managed the turn okay, I then found myself confronted with obstacles to my path in the form of a unit of Khadesh, a unit of escorted elephants, and rough ground, plus lights in the enemy camp ready to assault the flank of any chariots passing by!

Meanwhile, every Timurid on the other side of the field was closing in on the Hittite camp!

In the end, of course, I just couldn’t get my chariots through the obstacles in time to prevent the Timurids taking my camp, my last three coins and the victory.

Oh, how I missed having the command that had been led astray at the beginning of the game!

But it had been a great game of TTS played in the bet possible spirits, and I have taken a note to check the Facebook group for information on the interpretation of new Even Stronger rules before playing rather than after!

Oh look, the missing gasgan chariots have finally arrived…

IABSM AAR: Kamenewo at The Other Partisan 2025

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Here are two sets of pictures showing 1st Corps’ I Ain’t Been Shot Mum demonstration game at this year’s The Other Partisan show.

Beautifully presented, it’s a stunning simulation of the battle of Kamenewo, October 1941, where Soviet T-34s halted the Germans’ advance on Moscow.

Click on the photo below: highly recommended.

TTS AAR: Fanatic Berber versus Timurid

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Time for another session of To The Strongest against friend Rob. He wanted to use the Timurids, and I chose to get some of my new Arab figures onto the table with a Fanatic Berber army.

I lost the deployment and, as you’ll see in the left-hand picture below, set up with my Arab cavalry (supported by some mercenary Christian knights) on the right, my infantry in the centre, and a weak left flank comprising only of a horde of Berber light horse.

The Timurids deployed weak on their right (which suited me just fine), their infantry to the right of centre, and their main striking force on the left.

First off, I used the This Way Effendi strategem to push Rob’s left back a square, meaning that the heavy cavalry you can see on the right of the right-hand picture below started the game off-table, and Rob was very lucky not to lose them altogether as the first card he drew to activate the lights in that same command was an Ace: had he chosen to try and get his heavies on table before activating the lights, the Ace would have been theirs and they would never have returned!

The refusal of his left hand command to advance meant that Rob couldn’t really take advantage of the initiative winning the scouting had given him, meaning that my Arabs could advance off their start positions before the Timurids could dominate the centre of the table, meaning that I could dictate a strong advance with my right whilst refusing my weak left.

The Timurids, however, quickly got their act together, and soon the right hand axis of the battlefield was crowded with units all desperately trying to break through the enemy line and outflank.

I felt this initial clash went quite well for the Berbers, as I managed to clear away some of the Timurid horse-archers, and although one unit of Arab cavalry was pushed back, disordered, the Black Guard managed to move across to protect them whilst the mercenary Christian Knights broke through and thundered down the right hand side of the table.

Meanwhile, on the left, a combination of infantry bowfire and the javelins of the Berber light horse had driven off more Timurid horse-archers and, as the Timurid heavies hadn’t really moved forward at all, meant that that flank was still nicely secure.

Things seemed to be going rather well for the Berbers. I was something like five coins ahead from killing horse-archers, the left was safe, I was very strong in the centre as the Timurids hadn’t attacked there yet, and the right looked good too.

All this was, however, an illusion.

Yes, I had killed some horse-archers, but the Timurids had lots of them so losing a few wasn’t really a concern, especially as their fresh, veteran heavy cavalry armed with lance, bow, kitchen sink etc now moved forward and attacked my right with a vengeance…even having enough troops to send some back to deal with the now-isolated mercenary Christian knights.

The fighting was fierce, and soon I found myself pushed back into a defensive formation as the Timurid horse (both heavy and more lights…where on earth do they get them from!) started to stream around my flank.

I obviously needed to do something fast, so threw caution to the wind and sent the Berber light horse forward on the left (if they could get past the Timurid heavies there then they could wreak havoc from behind the enemy battle line) and the infantry forward in the centre.

Interestingly, the Timurid centre was held by a couple of units of Kharash slave-driven infantry: raw mobs with three hits each. Killing them wouldn’t give me any victory medals, but I couldn’t apply my superior strength in infantry to kill units that would give me victory medals until I’d dealt with the Kharash: a pain as I now needed to win the game (by taking victory medals) before my right collapsed.

The Berber light horse did a superb job: sneaking past the Timurid heavies on the left and doing what they do best and assault enemy units from the flanks and rear. The Berber infantry did well as well: the combination of the two driving Timurid units from the field.

And not before time, as the Timurids had now managed to get around my right flank, and managed to get some horse-archers (yes, more of them) through to attack my camps. Fortunately Lady Luck chose that moment to intervene on the side of the Arabs, but I really needed to win the game quickly now or I would risk snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

I’d battered the Timurids down to their last victory medal. One more push and they were done. Luckily, a unit of Black Guard was in just the right spot to charge a bunch of Timurid horse-archers (God knows where they came from: I thought I’d killed them all by now). The charge sent them sprinting off the table, netting me the final medal and the win.

That had been a very close run thing.

It had been a real surprise when, in the middle of the game, I suddenly realised that my apparently superior position was an illusion as I’d been spending a lot of time and effort doing not much at all and suddenly had four units of veteran heavy lancers backed up by horse-archers hitting my now-weakened right. If my Berber light cavalry on the left hadn’t managed to sneak past the Timurids guarding the other flank, and my infantry hadn’t proved so steady, and my camp had fallen…well, it wouldn’t have been the Berbers celebrating the win!

A great game really showcasing why I love To The Strongest so much.

IABSM AAR: Sealion at Bridlington

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Another spectacular I Ain’t Been Shot Mum after action report from Mercian Miniatures taken from the IABSM Facebook Group and featuring miniatures from 1st Corps.

This game in an Operation Sealion encounter at what started off as Bridlington but then became a generic British seasside town. The set up is truly inspirational and well worth a look.

Click on the picture below to see all:

TTS AAR: Colours Game Three: Early Imperial Romans versus Scots/Irish

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My third and final game at the Colours tournament this year was against Rob’s Scots/Irish: a huge army of barbarian infantry that just about stretched in one unbroken line from one end of the table to the other!

I lost the scouting, but still entertained a small of hope of being able to use my superior cavalry to get around an enemy flank, but that hope died a death once the Scots/Irish had made their first move: charging forward determined to overwhelm the Romans through sheer weight of numbers.

Although they don’t necessarily look it, all the scots/irish units were deep

At this point in the day, neither Rob nor I were much interested in tactics: and it wasn’t long before the two battle lines came together with a mighty crash, literally lining up unit-on-unit from one side of the table to the other.

It soon became obvious that the Romans were in the fight of their lives: the Scots/Irish were taking hit after hit but, having three lives each, just staying on the table to inflict damage of their own, especially as some of them were fanatics so ignored any penalties from disorder.

That unbroken line of melee rapidly fragmented as successful units on either side pushed forward against retreating opposition, and soon the game consisted of a series of vicious little fights that neither side could afford to lose: getting a unit free to start hitting the flanks of the enemy line would be a game winner for either side.

On the left, although one unit of Roman cavalry broke through the Scots/Irish line, their colleagues were forced to retreat in order to rally, and the situation became very dicey indeed!

Meanwhile, in the centre and centre/right, the Romans, although inflicting terrible casualties on the Scots/Irish, were pushed right back until they were literally fighting from inside the wall of their castrum (or rather castra as I had three camps - thank you, Mr Mackenzie, for making sure I never forgot how to decline bellum!).

It was now a matter of whether the Romans could take the last few Scots/Irish coins before collapsing themselves.

Fortunately, a unit of veteran Legionaries knew their duty, and cut down a final unit of Scots/Irish fanatics, giving me Rob’s last three coins and victory.

It had been a short, sharp and brutal clash that the Romans only managed to win because of the quality of their troops. For once I managed to rally the units I needed to rally without losing too many coins to the rally-on-evens rule…but even with that, if I hadn’t had a fortified camp to fall back on, it could easily have been a very different story indeed.

A great game, though: very exciting and with Rob and I enjoying every moment!

So that had been the inaugral To The Strongest tournament at Colours. With two losses and one win under my belt I think I came 5th or 6th, so better than expected but still pretty unfortunate coming off the back of my win at Britcon.

The Romans will now slip back into their retirement as I continue my quest for a new 28mm tournament army - in between, of course, adding to my main 15mm collection!

TTS AAR: Colours Game Two: Early Imperial Romans versus Samnites

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My second game at this year’s inaugral To The Strongest tournament at the Colours wargaming show was against Sid’s beautifully presented Samnite army.

This would be an interesting encounter: my men were generally better than Sid’s, man for man, but there were more of the Samnites. All I needed to do was to watch my flanks and get all my troops into the battle in one go, and then hopefully watch the Roman mincing machine go to work.

The game began with the Roman cavalry advancing forwards strongly on the left. In retrospect I can see that Sid played this brilliantly: luring my horsemen forwards into the narrow pass between two steep hills and then hitting them with a unit of Lights played from the Ambush strategem card.

I fell right into this trap, with the result that I never really managed to take advantage of the mobility of the veteran Roman cavalry, and ended up tied up in a stalemate that favoured the Samnites for the rest of the game.

On the right flank, a command of Legionaries advanced confidently towards the Samnites, sureof both their superiority and that they had another command of Legionaries to back them up.

Unfortunately, both these confidences were misplaced. These were veteran Samnite troops they were facing and, due to pulling an Ace for a group move three times in succession, the Legionaries that were supposed to be supporting them stayed languishing at the rear of the field, presumably polishing their armour or suchlike.

The advancing legionaries got themselves into a bit of trouble, hit from front and flanks, and it was only with some difficulty that the situation was at least partly rescued.

I was now in a bit of trouble. My cavalry were tied up on the left, my infantry on the right were under some pressure and needed reinforcing…which meant that a large hole was rapidly developing in the centre of my position i.e. right in front of my camps.

Now Sid is a man who is never one to let a large hole remain unfilled, and the Samnites poured into the gap. I had the Praetorian veteran legionaries positioned there to stop the tide, but they were obviously outnumbered and were hit from all sides. This might not have been too much of a problem, as the Praetorians are saving on a very decent 5+, but the cards decided they’d had enough of this game and I was hit twice and failed the save twice…losing the Praetorians (2 coins), their General (2 coins) and the army standard (1 coin) for a total of five very painful coins!

My Lanciarii moved across to intervene, but Horatius was unfortunately not present that day, and before long Sid had taken my camp and the game: a classic “draw the enemy troops off to the flanks then punch straight through the middle” ploy that had worked immaculately.

A beautifully engineered victory for Sid, admittedly helped by some poor activation cards on my part early in the game, but the cards weren’t responsible for me tying up my cavalry on the left! Yes, the Praetorians were unlucky to go down so soon, but the writing was very firmly on the wall by then.

Two games in and two defeats: things were not looking good for the Romans so far!

Back to this game and here’s Sid’s version of events: fortunately close enough to mine to avoid accusations of propaganda rather than reportage!

After the narrow escape of the first game against my nemesis, quality cavalry with lance, the next game was going to be less stressful. I would be facing a familiar opponent in both ways. The Samnites against the old enemy Rome and me against Robert Avery.

It seems that in most tournaments we are inevitably drawn to each other, almost like a gaming version of Tinder. Until BRITCON, I was Rob’s kryptonite and no matter what he did, it always went wrong for him. At BRITCON he managed to break that streak. That time I unfairly blamed my defeat on the fact I forgot to use my stratagem, but to be fair to Rob he played a blinder.

Spookily enough, the stratagems played a massive part in this game.

Being an Ancients only tournament, Rob was reduced to dragging out his Principate Romans, the figures were from his school days, so from the silver age of the hobby and contemporaneous with Donald Featherstone. Most of Rob’s gaming has recently been with his Venetians so we were both using armies we hadn’t fielded in years.

The terrain fell not as I wanted, but the massive hills on my flanks disappeared, leaving only a few steep hills scattered about; not a great start. Rob had some quality cavalry and certainly more than me, even a lance armed unit. However, there was a single hill on my far right and just inside my half of the table. I drew the AMBUSH strategy so thought I could hide a LI unit from my cavalry command there. The plan was to put my cavalry on that right flank but hold back to draw him into the ambush. My elite Linen legion troops would be on my left and my camp and raw command also on my left. I had one of my two strong commands in the centre looking to go where any gaps appeared.

Rob had a quality but expensive command, so I hoped to hold his cavalry with the ambush. On my left push hard to draw his troops that way, then hopefully gaps would appear in the centre to enable me to slip units into his large triple camp. The Romans, unlike the Venetians Rob usually used had no crossbows or any other long ranged troops to make a killing zone near the camp and limit my movements. If he held his camp in strength, then I might overwhelm the troops outside his camp. I’m not saying it was a good plan, but it was an actual plan.

Rob deployed more or less as expected with his cavalry on his left and a lot of legions stretched across the table, although there was a gap to his right. His veteran legions were in his centre, with that horrible 5+ save. His camp had a single LI unit, so it looks like he was coming for me.

The game started well with my left advancing and my right holding back. Rob pushed his left forward but his centre command of elite legions did the double ace and stalled. In fact that command stalled for the first three turns much to Robs chagrin and my uncharitable amusement. This gave my left the chance to push forward and I managed to disorder some of his right flank legion and threaten to encircle them. His Praetorians (with the army standard) did push forward in the centre, but their support lagged behind, somewhat isolating them.

Meanwhile on my right the plan actually succeeded, Rob pushed forward against my rubbish cavalry to be surprised by the LI ambush appearing on their flank. My other javelin LI managed to disorder his cavalry closest to the centre. Which means that when one of my javelin units charged them, they bottled it and evaded. This game of ‘catch me, catch me’ went on all game taking both units out of the battle. This was fine by me, as I limited his cavalry threat and opened up a gap between his left and centre.

On my left, although I disordered his legions they managed to fall back to rally and avoid encirclement. To make things worse, I lost my general charging a disordered Roman unit. But I did take out a legion. The threat here meant that Rob was forced to commit his centre command of veteran legions to support his right flank.

All this manoeuvring did mean that I had managed to create gaps between both flanks and the centre with only the Praetorians left to hold the line. If you look at picture number 8, you can see the isolated Praetorians who were forced to turn to stop my units doing a camp run. This unfortunately meant their flank was exposed to one of my units with both a general and a hero. This unit managed to double hit the Praetorians who failed both saves of 5+ losing Rob the points for the unit, the general and the army standard, 6 coins in one fell swoop. This also removed the last obstacle between the hordes of Samnite raw javelinmen and that large juicy camp. It was terrible luck for Rob but that’s what makes TTS so dramatic, anything could happen. It happens to me and makes the game even more exciting for it. In all fairness there were so many units breaking into the centre, it was just a matter of time.

A great game and the ‘quantity has a quality of its own’ aspect of this army worked well for me. Infantry struggle to kill quickly and elite infantry armies can struggle to win frontally before they are flanked and infiltrated.

The yokes were again set up and the Romans forced to pass below them, but not Rob as he has a bad back.

All set up for the final game against the organiser Rob Hilary using an off the wall Nubian army.

TTS AAR: Colours Game One: Early Imperial Romans vs Late Romans

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This year saw the inaugral to The Strongest competition at the Colours wargames show at Newbury Racecourse. Well done to Mr Hilary for organising!

Amazing what you can generate with AI these days!

As the competition was Ancients lists only, I had to rest my Venetians and bring my Early Imperial Romans out of retirement. This army consists of figures that a friend of mine, Fred, painted when we were still at school together, so are well over 40 years old; and figures inherited when a SOGS friend of mine, Trevor, sadly passed away.

Coincidentally, my first opponent on the day was Si, another SOGS member and a regular foe. As Si is always keen to point out, although I’ve beaten him plenty of times, I’ve never actually beaten him in competition: so it was obviously time to put that right!

The view from behind the Late Romans lines at the start of the game

Both sides advanced their infantry on the left and centre forward strongly at the beginning of the game, but on the right the cards decided that I would refuse my cavalry despite their veteran status.

I managed to get a tactical advantage in the first clash - having a few 2:1 melees - but my troops were having a bit of an off day and apart from one push back on the far left, all that happened was that I lost a general!

Once my cavalry did get involved, however, the resultant melee went my way. The problem, now, was how to take advantage given that it had happened a long way away from the main action.

That, incidentally, was not going very well, with the enemy Romans managing to lap around my left flank. This meant that I had to retreat my line to rally and reorganise, unfortunately giving up three coins to the “lose a coin if you rally on an even number rule”…those three coins representing 25% of my total coinage!

My cavalry pushed forward, with some of them then turning left to successfully take the Roman line in the flank, but that initial success was then tempered by the difficulties in getting across the crowded battlefield to attack the rest of the enemy.

I had definitely “won” on the right, and was pushing back into the centre and left, but by this time I had lost another general, so out of my starting thirteen coins I had now lost all but two: four to losing units (acceptable given that I had killed more of his troops) but then seven to the two generals I had lost (annoying) and the three I lost rallying (utterly unacceptable!).

Only having two coins left leaves you very vulnerable and, sure enough, although I stopped Si winning the game by getting his infantry into my camp, and was in a superior tactical position, I only had to lose one more unit to lose the game, which I did and therefore did!

A very frustrating 69-140 loss and leaves Si’s 100% record against me in competition intact!

It was a game that I could so easily have won had I been able to continue: the seven coins lost to the death of the two generals and rallying really hitting me hard. But well done to Si for playing a great game: I might have had some tactical advantages at some stages of the game, but he never let me turn them into a win!

Next up was Sid and his Samnites…

IABSM AAR: Up From Sword Beach

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Here’s a quick After Action Report from Mark Luther. This was a 6mm I Ain't Been Shot Mum game played at GigaBites Cafe in September 2025.

This was a fictitious scenario that was based on some units of the 21st Panzer Division moving closer to the Sword Beach landing area than they did historically on June 6th.

Click on the picture to see all.

TTS AAR: Britcon Game Three: Venice Abroad versus Later Carthaginians

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My final game of day one of this year’s Britcon To The Strongest tournament was against Howard and his Later Carthaginians.

I’d faced these lads before, and they have always been a tough nut to crack, especially with Howard’s propensity to put loads of steep hills onto the tabletop and then hide his light infantry on them: very difficult to winkle out!

I lost the scouting again, so set up in a tight formation weighted towards my left flank, but a slow Carthaginian start gave me the time to readjust for their deployment and establish a more central position as the game began. My plan was to defeat the Carthaginians on the left with most of my army, before turning right to finish off the remainder.

The action duly began on my left flank, where I had rapidly advanced my Knights in an attempt to knock out the Carthaginian and Numidian cavalty there before heading into the centre behind the enemy line.

My first charges were very successful: knocking the Numidians and a unit of cavalry off the table. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to exploit this initial success, and the Carthaginians were able to bring across reinforcements and stabilise the situation.

This pattern then repeated itself as again my Knights successfully charged forward only to fail to finish the job and let the Carthaginians back into the game…so much so that it looked as if I was about to lose that flank entirely.

Fortunately I managed to bring some reinforcements of my own across and, by the end of the game, the left flank was very much in a tied position, both sides too exhausted to do much more than glare at each other!

Note that that initial unit of veteran Carthaginian legionaries was still standing, as were my Knights on that side: some units prove just impossible to kill!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, fearsome amounts of Carthaginians were heading towards my lone command there.

Very quickly, the Carthagians managed to get their cavalry right down onto my baseline, and I now faced the classic problem of trying to defend both front and flank at the same time.

The Venetian Knights are, however, very tough (when, that is, they remember not to put on their cardboard armour!) and that initial flanking position was defended successfully and all seemed to be stabilised on the right, especially as the main body of Carthaginian infantry (nasty veteran javelinmen types) hung back in relative safety on the steep hills that scattered that side of the table.

This couldn’t last for long and, as Howard realised that his right wasn’t going to win the battle on its own, he send the infantry forward, and the situation on my left suddenly got a whole lot more critical.

Althoug helped by a bit of bad luck on Howard’s part, my troops on the right soon found themselves pushed right back to my camp and under extreme potentially game-losing pressure!

All was not lost, however: fighting from behind the walls of my fortified camps (the rather infamous barbed wire!) gives you a major advantage, and my camps remained inviolate.

Both sides were now on their last legs, but the cards were smiling on me for a change and, as both Howard and I ruefully checked how many coins we each had left, my veteran Later Knights (with two heroes from the Tonight We Dine In Hell card I’d played earlier) swung into action and, with a cry of “Venice Forever, whilst they keep paying my wages” they charged forward against the two units of Carthaginian cavalry in front of them.

It’s the Knights on the right that you need to be looking at!

It was, quite frankly, glorious: with both enemy units being dashed from the table along with their accompanying general to give me victory!

These ones!

Well that had been a very close run thing!

If the Knights hadn’t charged when they did, and if my cards hadn’t been good and Howard’s bad, then I doubt that I could have held my camp for that much longer. But they did, and they were, so the game was mine - just!

All my games with Howard were good, but this was particularly so, and a great way of finishing day one of the tournament.

Figures packed away, we headed out to sample the delights of Leicester’s nightlife…

TTS AAR: Britcon Game Two: Venice Abroad versus Imperial Macedonian

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My second game at this year’s Britcon tournament was against Adrian’s Imperial Macedonians: not the ideal army for me to face as I didn’t have much that could beat the pikes head-on, and those Companion cavalry are very nasty!

As is now becoming usual, I lost the scouting, so set up traditionally with my knights on the wings and my infantry in the centre.

Looking at the Macedonian deployment, it looked very weighted towards my left flank, so I determined to refuse my troops there and try and hit the left end of his line (i.e. on my right) as hard and fast as possible, hoping to get around the side of his Pike and Hoplites before they connected with my Spearmen in the centre.

That meant wending my way Knights through the rough ground in front of my right whilst I kept his Companions (already in wedge formation) at bay in the centre.

The cards really helped me out here, as Adrian’s men advanced forward then stopped dead, letting me take the initiative. The Companions also failed to make any real headway against the Venetian Spearmen they had charged, allowing the infantry to retreat back to the comparative safety of the hill in front of their camp.

This let my Knights on the right charge home secure in the knowledge that the line behind them was secure, sending some veteran Macedonian infantry fleeing from the field before turning to face the enemy flank.

It has to be said that Adrian was suffering from the same sort of luck that I usually enjoy: he couldn’t pull an activation or save card to, er, save his life!

Back to the action…in the centre, the Macedonian Pike had finally got moving again, only to be disordered by handgun fire from my Armati di schioppo and then double-disordered as the Alabardieri (halberdiers) joined in the fun.

Meanwhile, on my left, my other Knights had calmly been waiting for the right moment to get stuck into the battle. This came as the Macedonian right flank finally got its act together and advanced forward.

Before the Macedonian right could properly make their presence felt, however, a series of good activation cards for me and poor saves for Adrian saw the Macedonian left flank collapse: large amounts of coins lost as the Venetian Knights and Alabardiers really got stuck in to the cavalry and pikemen in front of them.

The end came quickly after that. My outflanking Knights chased the last bit of Macedonian cavalry across the field before riding them down as they turned to fight and, at the same time, more Knights finished off some Hoplites from the flank, despite being disordered themselves.

It had been a glorious victory for the Venetians: I had only lost two coins (both units of mounted light crossbowmen) so scored a great 14-2 win. As mentioned above, however, Adrian suffered from the most appalling luck throughout the game, so I’m not sure that much of my triumph was down to superior tactics or suchlike on my part!

On to game three…