To The World's Strongest Game Four: Early Imperial Romans vs Late Achaemenids

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My fourth and final game at this year’s To The World’s Strongest torunament was against Pete and his Late Achaemenid Persians.

With two losses and one win under their cingula, the Romans were looking for a big win to get at least somewhere near the top ten when the scores were all added up.

Neither side were in the mood for much mucking around, and advanced towards each other at a rapid rate of knots, determined to get stuck in as soon as possible.

Things started off very well indeed, with the large infantry unti you can see on the right of the Persian line being routed by the two legionary units in front of it.

That had been worth a lot of victory medals to the Persians: IIRC it was deep, had a standard, and the general had gone down with the unit so six medals flew my way. Things were going well!

The action then moved to the centre, with massed Persian horse charging my veteran legionaries...

…and getting punished for their presumption!

I was now ten victory medals to zero ahead, needing only two (or it might have been four) more coins to finish the Persians off.

Unfortunately, things then started to go wrong, so horribly wrong!

On the right flank, a unit of Persian guard cavalry plus some lesser horse managed to take out a couple of legionary units (the ones that had beaten the expensive deep unit earlier) due to some foolishness with the cards.

This then enabled the same cavalry to slip around behind my line and hit the disordered centre of my line in the rear, breaking the unit there.

I reached for the coins to give my opponent the two he needed due to the lost unit and found, to my horror, that these were my last two coins. I had lost the game!

But hang on, I hear you cry, you’ve only lost three two-coin units and a two-coin general: how can this be?

Well, the fighting had been fierce, and my Romans had been rallying in between the action…and I had handed over four - yes, four - coins as the ‘penalty’ for a successful rally on an even card. So going into that final rear charge, I had effectively lost ten coins (two two-coin units, a general and four rally=penalty coins) then lost another two, making twelve in all.

From being ten coins up, I had lost the game!

Now I have never liked the coin-for-an-even-card-on-a-successful-rally penalty rule, and now I don’t like it even more! I may have to move to Wales!

But well done to Pete for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: an excellent example of why you should never give up playing TTS, and how spotting and taking advantage of an opportunity is the key to success. It was a great game to play, even if the result was somewhat of a nasty surprise!

Aftermath

It had been a most enjoyable tournament, despite the fact that my Romans, so successful on other occasions, didn’t rise to the challenge. With three losses and one win, I finished 19th out of 32: not as bad as I had thought it was going to be.

Thanks to Si et al. for organising and hosting, and to all my opponents on the day. Great fun, and I highly recommend a bit of TTS tournament play for anyone who enjoys the game.

To The World's Strongest Game Three: Early Imperial Romans vs Pergamene

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My third outing at this year’s world’s was against Dillon’s Pergamene: a core of infantry and cavalry supported by lots (minimum eight units) of light infantry.

My plan was simple. Hold his cavalry and lights in place on each wing (legionaries to do the job on the left, my cavalry to do the job on the right) whilst advancing forward strongly to crush the inferior Pergamene infantry in the centre.

The action began on the right wing with the Pergamene cavalry coming forward to engage my equites. I chanced a charge with my contariorum lancers and immediately became disordered (which just goes to show that if you have a plan you should stick with it for at least the first turn!) but otherwise the threat of my veteran horse did the trick and seemed to hold up the enemy advance.

Elsewhere on the field, the other Pergamene cavalry command had hung back (Dillon drawing an Ace for his first group move), so I took the opportunity to move my main line forward, English at Agincourt style, to put him under a bit of pressure.

The Pergamene line on the left and centre came forward and the first main clash took place.

This went very much to my advantage, with the legionaries on the far left disposing of an enemy squadron of horse and the veteran legionaries in the centre routing one of the Pergamene army’s three formed infantry units. Four coins up was good, even if one cohort of legionaries had become disordered.

Now contact had been made, it was time to start using the Roman mincing machine to cut through the enemy line. Here’s a tryptych of pictures that show this phase of the game, left to right:

The Pergamene right flank then collapsed spectacularly, with the only units left to them there being a few light infantry that I had to continually send off the board.

Although everything was going well on the left, the action there had tied up a lot of my troops (four of my five heavy infantry units). This meant that the centre was being held by the veteran legionaries (well known for collapsing at the first sight of blood!) and the right by my horse (outnumbered and outclasssed).

The centre proved annoyingly sticky: two veteran legionaries versus one enemy infatry unit supported by a couple of light unts should have been a foregone conclusion…but wasn’t.

And the right was now looking distinctly dodgy:

Fortunately, the initiative then fell to me and, using a little bit of luck, I was able to finish off the Pergamene by firstly taking one of their camps with a rather sweet “10” drawn for a move…

…followed by another ‘10’ to drive a unit of lights plus officer off the table for three coins and the victory!

So a 14-4 victory in game three: all I needed now was aother big victory in game four to get somewhere near the top ten!

To The World's Strongest Game Two: Early Imperial Romans vs Komenonon Byzantines

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After the disaster that was game one, I was looking forward to the chance for redemption in game two. My opponent was Nigel and his Komenonon Byzantines, who I’d fought at Warfare last year, although that was using the Venetians. Let’s see how the Romans would do…

I was facing cavalry on either flank, but was not that concerned about my left: my camp was protected by Impassable ground and defended by elite Lanciarii light infantry, meaning I felt safe to concentrate my veteran cavalry on the right, aiming to overwhelm the enemy horse and, again, loop round to take the rest of his army in the rear. All my infantry needed to do was to hold the centre against the Varangian Guard and all would be good.

I therefore advanced my centre and right forward strongly whilst holding back my left.

My cavalry did indeed “do the business”, with the Equites Alares smashing through on the far right wing and looping around into the rear of the rest of the enemy horse. all was proceeding to plan!

Nigel, however, realised what was about to happen and rapidly transferred his other cavalry command over to this wing, meaning that instead of being able to run riot in his infantry’s rear, my victorious cavalry had to fight more heavy cavalry coming in from the left.

Meanwhile, the Varangian guard had been heading straight for my line, determined to get into contact as soon as possible. That was okay by me: my legionaries were the equal of any infantry, and with the success of the cavalry, all I needed to do was to hold them for a couple of turns.

Unfortunately there was, again, something wrong with my infantry today, with every legionary or auxilia unit that came into contact with the enemy becoming disordered whether they were the attackers or not.

No matter, I had plenty of infantry ready to put the boot in, but some clever use of lights plus the fact that he had one unit of cavalry free to interfere, meant that Nigel was able to take the initiative in the centre.

Would my legionaries like to charge into either (a) the rear of the Varangians or (b) the cavalry threatening the flanks of their comrades?

No, they would not, thank you very much: far too much like hard work.

Worse, when the Byzantine cavalry charged the flank of my veteran legionaries, the “elite” Roman infantry broke and ran…and, like the last game, took the unit next to them with them as well!

Suddenly, from being in a commanding position well on the way to victory, the roles were reversed and I was looking at defeat!

The Varangians charged forward again, and another two legionary units dissolved. What was going on with my milites today?

And that was it: my last two medals gone as I went down to a narrow 11-12 defeat. I had only needed one more victory medal for the game to be mine, but the legionarirs just weren’t up for it.

Congratulations to Nigel for fighting his way back into the game: I think at one stage I was eight victory medals up!

As for my Romans…well, there were still two more game to go, so two more chances for them to redeem themselves or face consequences that could well involve the traditional punishment of decimation, but through the tender application of a large club hammer!

To The World's Strongest Game One: Early Imperial Romans vs Dacians

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Time for this years To The World’s Strongest tournament, once again in Blewbury, near Oxford. This was a superbly organised competition with thirty-two players competing: the largest tournament I’ve been in and, I think, the largest To The Strongest tournament ever.

My first game was my Early Imperial Romans against Andy’s Dacians, with their very nasty two-handed falx choppers. This was a repeat of the first game of the 2023 SELWG competition, and in fact the fourth time in the last two years that I have played Andy first game in a tournament!

Excuse the thumb!

My plan was to defeat Andy’s command on the left flank with my veteran cavalry, then loop around the take his infantry in the rear as the Roman “mincing machine” attacked them from the front. Unbeknownst to Andy, I also had an Equites Alares unit Flank Marching off table on the left: the arrival of which would hopefully come as a nasty shock!

The Dacians seemed to have the same idea as the Romans, but reversed: so as battle opened, both sides’ infanry lines hung back as the left (Romans)/rigth (Dacians) flanks advanced strongly forward.

As battle was joined there, I then sprang my flank march surprise: my Equites arriving on the flank of the Dacians’ Sarmatian allies. All was going to plan!

I didn’t have it all my own way, but as the situation on the flank resolved itself, I definitely had the upper hand and, although I wouldn’t be looping round onto the enemy’s infantry’s rear for some time, had built up an advantage in victory medals that would serve me in good stead for the main infantry combat.

Back to the centre, where my infantry were now closing with the enemy. Five units of legionaries, two veteran, plus a unit of auxilia, versus five Dacian warbands. Given the situation with the cavalry, all I needed was an exchange of units, one-for-one, to win the game, and I had an overlap with the auxilia.

Then disaster struck!

As the two lines came together, the first combat to be calculated was on the far right of my line. The auxilia were broken by the Dacian charge and fled the table. Okay: not good, but, as I said, a one-for-one would still be okay.

Unfortunately, the legionaries next to them were Disordered by the sight of the fleeing auxilia (failing to achieve at least one [5] on two cards drawn: only a 16% probability) and then broken by the Dacians hitting them.

Their rout led to the next unit of legionaries also being Disordered and, you guessed it, then being broken by the charging Dacians.

Almost unbelievably, this rout then led to the next unit of legionaries going Disordered and then being destroyed, taking an officer with them.

That’s one auxilia and three legionary units being destroyed in one charge, with only the veteran legionaries on the left of the line standing their ground!

Just to emphasise, that was four units and an officer gone in one turn: a loss of ten victory medals and the game!

It was only the cavalry unit I had destroyed on the left that gave me any points at all, with the score going 2-11 to Andy…my only consolation being that I now had plenty of time to watch the other round one games!

A fantastic win for the Dacians!

So an unprecedented disaster of epic proportions in my first game but , ho hum, on to the next!

To The World's Warm-Up Game Two

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With a careless loss in the first game, I wanted a chance for revenge, so Peter and I swapped sides, with me now taking the Norse Irish and Peter using my Early Imperial Romans.

As you can see, Peter skulked the Romans into one corner of the table, aiming to concentrate his force against only a proportion of my troops, aiming to beat them soundly before turning to crush the rest.

So I could see what Peter was trying to do: the question was, could I do anything about it!

Battle was joined almost immediately, and you can see that the left wing of my army is currently fighting air! His plan seems to be succeeding!

And given the Roman veteran cavalry were facing my weak right wing, my succeed very quickly indeed!

But I had more success in the centre, with Peter rather pleasingly falling foul of a common bête noire of mine: my cards and veteran legionaries proving fragile as eggs!

Meanwhile, my troops were still rushing over from the left: if I could get them into battle, then there was a good chance of a rare victory.

In they came from the left, and prepared to roll up the Roman line. An easy target was the already-disordered legionaries on the central hill. I had two units that could hit them from the sides, so I was confident they would go, hopefully leading to a cascade of disorders infecting the rest of the Latins!

Unfortunately, the first unit to attack (the bottom one in the picture above) failed to do anything, but I had the other, stronger unit still to go.

Peter, however, then pulled an interpretation of the rules that I had not come across before. I won’t bore you with the details (you can read the 50+ posts on the TTS Facebook group for that!) but suffice to say that Peter’s view was that unit A couldn’t charge the rear of unit B because enemy unit C was too close to let them do that as units D were blocking their path on their other side.

I was there very much to play a game not have an argument, and Peter was the host, so I reluctantly agreed with his way of doing things, therefore failing to break that pesky unit B.

What is the correct interpretation, I hear you ask? Well that’s still not 100% decided. The FB Group was split about 60:40 in my favour, with Simon Miller, the writer of the rules saying that I was 100% right and that unit A could charge unit B, but the To The World’s tournament was played Peter’s way, and I think everyone is waiting for the topic to be finally ruled on in a future Even Stronger rules update.

Anyhow, so back to the game. My units didn’t charge into the rear of the legionaries on the hill, which gave the Romans time to reorganise, react to the threat, and get their line back under control.

With his centre now stabilised, Peter was also then able to use his cavalry to finish off my weak right flank and, despite a last ditch attempt to take the Roman camp, my Norse-Irish surrendered their final victory medal and the game.

So a frustrating “so near and yet so far” loss for the Norse-Irish. Would I have won the game if the crucial rear charge had gone in? I think so…but as Peter was kind enough to remind me: “it’s only a game”!

To The World's Warm-Up Game One

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Always good to do a little preparation for a tournament, so the weekend before it was off to Peter’s house for a couple of warm=up games.

The first game was my Early Imperial Romans versus the Norse-Irish: loads of ‘em, and seemingly all carrying javelins!

The Early Imperial Roman army is tactically very flexible (in that the legionaries can make non-terrain difficult moves with no penalty) but strategically a bit of a one trick pony: get stuck in being the order of the day. I duly moved my line forward, pila and gladii at the ready!

Note my one bit of non-conformist thinking: my cavalry were not deployed on the left wing, but one command in from the left. Let’s see if that works…

My right flank advanced up to the rough ground across the centre of the battlefield, and awaited the barbarian onslaught. Those are my veteran legionaries on the right: they should do the business!

At this point I realised I had made a mistake. If you look at the picture above, you’ll see an empty square next to the right hand legionary unit: a square that just cries out for enemy troops to use it for getting past my line and threaten my flanks and rear.

I had intended to shift my entire line forward and diagonal during the advance to the centre, covering the gap, but had forgotten to do so. I blame Peter’s cunning placement of a mirror at the end of the battlefield. On reflection (see what I did there) I’m not sure why that should make a difference, but I’m sure that it was Peter’s fault not incompetence on my part.

To make matters worse, it was also now obvious that the Norse-Irish had spotted the gap as well, and were heading for it at a rapid rate of knots. Lucky my cavalry weren’t right the way over on the other wing: I could leave a couple of units to deal with the enemy horse, and use my equites to plug the gap.

Unfortunately you’ll also see in the picture above that one of my legionary units has turned to its right to follow the cavalry, and left its flank exposed to the enemy.

I’m not sure why I did this, and can’t remember if it was unlucky cards that left them there, but Peter and the Norse-Irish took full advantage…

They were also taking full advantage of my mistake at the other end of the line:

The Romans are, however, a resilient lot, and whilst I was not able to rescue the situation on the right entirely, I was able to make it a bit better!

Unfortunately (I seem to be using that word a lot) the hole in the centre of my line was not quite so easy to fix. The Norse-Irish poured through it, attacked my flanks, and soon the last of my victory medals was on its way to the other side of the table.

So a fairly horrible defeat in my first warm up game. Come back in a day or so, and we’ll look at game two…

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Four: Early Imperial Romans vs Later Romans (East)

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Onto the last of my games at this year’s Godentag Weslh Open event. Game one had been a loss, but glorious victories in games two and three had brought me right back into the running. My last game was to be against Si and his Later Romans (East), victory in which would see me somewhere around the third to sixth mark in the competition as a whole.

Incidentally, that would be three Roman armies I faced in four games, and all against opponents who I knew well or quite well. So much for entering competitions for a bit of variety in opponents!

As battle began, both sides advanced forward cautiously. Si then moved his veteran cataphracts up the flank to go just behind and to the right of the hill in front of the field on the left in the picture above. He then failed an activation to charge them, meaning my lancers could get the drop on them and charge in first.

You may notice an absence of my lancers in the picture below:

Yes, that’s right: my veteran lancers with general, hero, lance and all round goodness charged forward and missed both their attacks and the hero’s re-draw. Si then attacked back, hit my lancers twice, neither of which they saved: dead, along with the general! Four coins lost!

Well that was a good start!

I then made a tactical error (I blame the shock of losing the lancers!) and sent my veteran legionaries to counteract the advance of Si’s cavalry on the other wing. All that then happened was that my best troops spent the rest of the battle running after the equites, who merely retreated or evaded combat as required, Si dancing them effortlessly around my hapless infantry.

This was not good, but I still had my centre intact could achieve a 4:3 superiority there:

Meanwhile, Si was skillfully edging his light cavalry around my flanks…this did not bode well for the future!

Disaster then almost struck on the left: one of my veteran legionary units tried to keep up with the enemy cavalry one too many times and got disordered.

The cavalry then threatened a flank attack, but all I needed was an easy activation to get out of the situation, which I promptly failed. Luckily their commander was there to save the situation and get them moving…but it had been a close run thing!

Back to the right where my equites alares had managed to disorder some enemy auxilia with their javelins. Here was a chance to drive the auxilia from the field: all I needed was anything except…

A complicated series of cavalry manoeuvres then took place, ending up honours even (I lost an equites unit, Si lost his two light cavalry units) but with my horsemen in exactly the right position to charge his cataphracts on the flank.

I needed an 8+ to hit, no general available for a re-draw (he had been killed in the first action of the game), but managed to draw a nine. In my cavalry went…

Two misses: the cards weren’t with me at all!

Whilst this was going on, the centre had seen a big melee between each side’s legionaries and auxilia. Again, honours were even, but after the four coins I’d lost in the first turn, I could ill-afford a one-for-one exchange of units.

Back to the left, where my vets had been forced into orbis to avoid being overrun:

But the final moment of the game happened when the enemy cataphracts whom I had failed to damage with my flank attack turned and charged home on my equites.

The cavalry were disordered in the first round of combat, then KO’d as the cataphracts attacked again:

So a somewhat frustrating loss 27-186 which drove me down into 9th place overall.

Si, who hadn’t put a foot wrong all game, ended up in third place overall, the top and second places being taken by Peter Ryding and Steve Butler respectively.

My thanks to Ty who organised everything, and to all my opponents during the tournament. With 24 players, this was one of the largest I’d attended,

And, finally, for those of you who haven’t tried a TTS competition, I heartily encourage you to do so: four great games all played in a fun and generous spirit. Highly recommended.

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Three: Early Imperial Romans vs Hundred Years War English

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With one win and one loss under my belt, I really needed another big win to give me any chance of placing near the top of the table.

My opponent for game three was John and his Hundred Years War English: longbows, longbows and more longbows!

I hate facing longbow armies: they shoot a lot and a long way…which means if you’re using a mostly infantry army like my Romans that you just have to bite the bullet and advnace through the hail of arrows and get stuck in.

As you can see in the picture, above, John had assumed a defensive posture, with almost a mini-fortress on his left wing and an unbroken line of archers facing the open ground in front of his line. Tricky!

My plan was to have my cavalry cover the ground on my right (i.e. opposite his mini fortress which, whilst being very strong, also tied up a lot of his best troops) and then advance forward to just out of longbow range to see if I could temp John forward. Even if I narrowed the gap to two squares rather than three, that was one turn of being shot at avoided.

This all went to plan, and John saw my legionaries standing there just out of range, resisted for a turn, and then cracked and sent his line forward one square i.e. putting his archers in range but closing the gap between us to two squares. Now was my moment to charge forward and stab his bowmen into mincemeat!

Apparently not! Failed activations in my two main legionary commands meant that the message didn’t get through…which meant that the arrows were about to fly! That’s three Aces drawn in a row by the way: which I reckon only happens 0.07% of the time or one in 1,428 draws. Ouch!

Somehow, however, the Romans got through the storm, and closed to contact with only one cohort disordered and hanging back to reform.

My cavalry, meanwhile, were still “in reserve” waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

That moment came when it turned out that these longbowmen were harder to kill than I thought they would be.

With my legionaries hitting on ‘6’ versus the longbowmen’s ‘8’, and saving better as well, I thought the fight in the centre would be a bit of a foregone conclusion once the Roman Mincing Machine had got into the action.

Regretably not, and the first round of combat led to a single disorder on each side. I therefore moved one equites alares unit up to reinforce the right hand side of my line, where necessity meant my infantry suffered a two-on-one overlap, not to charge the enemy behind their stakes, but to block their attack and throw javelins at them.

I needed something on the enemy line to give, and my opportunity came by way of my Strategem card: for some reason, known only to those involved, one unit of enemy archers suddenly about faced right in front of a cohort of legionaries. Now’s your chance Maitlandius, up Guards and at ‘em!

It was now only a matter of time in the centre but, meanwhile, a crisis had presented itslef on the far left.

The English household Knights had moved forward and engaged the cohort of legionaries that I had stationd there to bottle the dismounted tin cans up. Foolishly I thought a steady unit of veteran infantry supported by horse archers would be able to hold the Knights back but, no, the legionaries were disordered in the first charge, and then had to condust a fighting retreat backwards towards the rear of the table.

Fortunately I had my cavalry reserve and, led by the cavalry commander, they shot right across the table and intervened before the legionaries could be overwhelmed by the tender mercies of both the dismounted Knights andyet another unit of longbowmen.

Naturally my veteran lancers (equites contarium) couldn’t do things the easy way: despite having every advantage they ended up disordering themselves when charging, with their lances, against men carrying nothing more deadly than long bits of wood and daggers!

Things were getting quite serious down in that corner: that was seven victory coins I had at risk, and that’s a lot when you start with only eleven! I could now easily lose this battle before I’d finished chopping through his main line of archers!

Fortunately my faith in the legions was not misplaced, and before I could lose the game on the left, my heavy infantry finally finished off his main line.

Phew! That was close!

It had been terrific game whose scoreline (164-73 in my favour) didn’t really reflect how close I’d come to losing.

Now on to the fourth and last game of the day…

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Two: Early Imperial Romans vs Middle Imperial Romans

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Battered after my loss to Mark’s Middle Imperial Romans (Eastern variety) I bounced straight into fighting Colin’s Middle Imperial Romans (Western variety). That’s an awful lot of Romans in only two games!

This is a picture taken just after I had made my first move. My plan was to defeat his cavalry with my superior horse, giving Colin a headache on his left flank, then temp his line forward so that I can get my light cavalry (you can just see a horse’s head by the trees, far left) around his right flank to either take his large and undefended camp or just generally harrass the rear of his veteran legionaries.

You can see that I wasn’t mucking around in this encounter: my line has advanced towards his and, in an exciting and perhaps foolhardy rush of blood to the head, my equites have charged straight into contact!

Unfortunately I had failed to consider Fortuna’s baleful influence, and the glorious charge of my lancers achieved a big fat zero as all three of my attacks (I had a hero present) missed by a zillion miles!

I was also now vulnerable to Colin’s infantry trying to swamp my cavalry column, but managed to at least counter that threat…but my plan for the right flank was definitely now in tatters!

Meanwhile, in the centre of the field, the two battle lines had drawn together, although I had initially refused my left flank in order to allow my light horsement to get past the advancing enemy legionaries.

The lights were now threatening the enemy camp, forcing Colin to take one of his infantry units out of the main line to protect against them, and in a perfect position to flank charge the unit of enemy legionaries on the far right of Colin’s line.

The light horse, however, were not keen!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, the confused situation with the cavalry had sorted itself out with a series of clashes that left my lancers withdrawing to recover, Colin’s cavalry doing the same, and one unit of Equites Alares finding themselves alone and facing the deserted enemy camp.

Unfortunately, much like the lights on the left, the cavalry just wouldn’t move into the camp: failing the necessary activation on two consecutive turns before being forced to withdraw as Colin threatened them with infantry taken, again, from his main line. How frustrating, particularly as there were nine coins on offer if I’d taken all three enemy camps: enough to finish the game!

Now, however, my luck seemed to turn. My veteran infantry forced the enemy veteran infantry back, assisted by the flank attacks of the lights who had finally decided/been bribed/threatened/all of the above to attack, and my regular infantry, much to everyone’s surprise, had also been successful.

I was on the cusp of a glorious victory, but we were almost out of time. If I didn’t finish the enemy Romans off in my next activation, I would have to settle for a winnign draw rather than an outright victory.

Fortunately things fell my way: the enemy infantry were sent reeling back, and an opportunity to hit some cavalry in their flank after they had killed one of my units proved final, with my Romans taking the day with a glorious 191-18 victory.

That had been a great way to recover from my loss in the first game. Now I had to do it all again in my third clash…

TTS AAR: Godentag Game One: Early Imperial Romans vs Middle Imperial Romans

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I’m just back from another excellent Godentag (Welsh Open) To The Strongest tournament held, as ever, at Firestorm Games in Cardiff.

I cannot recomend these tournaments enough: a whole day of super-friendly wargaming at an excellent venue, lunch included!

I travelled to Wales on the Friday, stopping off at a very windy Uffington Castle and White Horse en route as I hadn’t been there for many years, and enjoying a very convivial evening of beer, wine, curry and conversation with Peter, Tim and Si starting at the City Arms and ending at The Spice Quarter, highly recommended.

I was thus refereshed and ready for my first game on Saturday morning: my opponent being Mark Freeth and his Middle Imperial Romans.

view from behind the early imperial lines

We were tied on scouting points, so when I drew a ‘9’ for the scouting itself, I was fairly confident of winning, only to see Mark promptly draw a ‘10’.

This was unfortunately a harbinger of what was to come, especially as I then realised that I had perhaps not constructed a very good army list as I think I was the only player with his troops grouped into three as opposed to four commands: it seemed that I had sacrificed manoeuvrability to max out on strength!

The game began with Mark advancing his horse on the wings, so I sent out my veteran legionaries on the left, and my veteran equites on the right to deal with them. On the left, my General there had a narrow escape when it looked as if he had been killed in the very first clash, being saved only by the Patroculus strategum card that I had drawn before the game.

A narrow escape for the man in purple

Mark, bit between his teeth, then assaulted my main line with a couple of units of is legionaries, but the fall of the cards meant that both his units arrived right in front of mine but without being able to charge me.

This meant that I could get the drop on his troops: attacking first and with a three vs two advantage.

Unfortunately not. Fortuna had, as all too often, decided to kick me firmly in the fork and delivered the first pair of Aces of my game…meaning my men just stood there and looked at the enemy rather than dishing out a good shoe-ing!

ace…ace

Worse, his attack next turn smashed the legionaries aside, leaving the way to my camp open!

surely a flank charge will KO the enemy threatening my camp!

Meanwhile, the rest of the battlefield looked like this:

overview

In the foreground are my camps with, as described above, his legionaries in combat with what was left of my ‘standard’ legionary command. I wouldn’t even get to flank charge the unit that has burst through my line: more aces for activation!

On the right at the back, I had managed to destroy one of his cavalry units with one of mine, and get the drop and disorder another two of his units. Unfortunately, try as I might, I just couldn’t get through the two disordered units, and even became disordered myself as a result of a poorly drawn card or two.

On the right in the foreground, my other two cavalry units are locked in combat with more of his horse, but I couldn’t win this fight either, despite a two on one advantage. I had managed to see off his light cavalry, but they were merely off table rather than destroyed, and I knew they would return as soon as they were able to do so.

Just left of centre, two of my veteran legionary units are in melee with more enemy infantry. Again I had the advantage on paper, but lost the fight. I couldn’t draw a hit or a save to, er, save my life.

Finally, on the left, my other veteran legionaries were battling two enemy horse units for control of that flank, but, as you can see in the picture below, were rapidly becoming overwhelmed despite the help of my equites sagittarii horse archers who, having achieved the enemy’s flank, seemingly dropped their weapons and assaulted their foe with, as the saying goes, mango slices!

this is not looking good!

Back to the right flank, and I was still trying to kill his cavalry, along with his light horse who had made their way back onto the field.

just die will you!

All the disorders inflicted on me now came back to haunt me with a vengeance. In rapid succession, I lost two veteran legionary units, the auxilia on the hill in front of my camp (although, to be fair, they had withstood three charges whilst disordered), and the cavalry at the other end of the table.

I had one coin left, which I then promptly threw away, thinking to retreat the legionaries on the other hill in front of my camp, rally them and then return. Yes, they retreated. Yes, they rallied. No, they didn’t manage to get back on the hill despite having an officer present. This let enemy infantry slip into my camp and take my last remaining medal: a silly mistake on which to end the game!

A careless mistake on my part ends the game

This had been a very frustrating game: the cards refusing to let me hit or save anything. Even Mark, as he celebrated his 168-35 total victory, agreed that luck had not been on my side.

Not a very good start, but there were still three games to go, so all was still to play for…!

TTS AAR: Venetians versus Early Imperial Romans

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Friend Neil expressed an interest in getting a Roman army for To The Strongest, but wanted to test one out first. I could oblige and so, for the first time, my Venetians faced my Romans across the tabletop.

As Neil also quite fancied having a go at a competition or two, I marked out a standard competition table size on my somewhat larger set-up, and off we went. Neil would us my Early Imperial Romans, I would use my trusty Venetian Condotta army.

The Venetians, thanks to their light troops, won the scouting, so watched as the Romans deployed with their cavalry on the right, surely ripe for wiping out with my superior Knights!

Regrettably not!

Very early on in the game, my right hand command of Knights was soundly defeated by the inferior Roman horse: an event that effectively set the scene for the battle as a whole.

No matter: I had more Knights on the left, and had sent them forward to try and get behind the Roman flank.

This sort of worked, but the extreme manoeuvrability of the Romans meant that their Praetorians could quickly move back to block that flank, leaving my elite troops to merely keep the Praetorians and the rest of the veteran Legionaries from interfering in the main clash in the centre.

And so on to the centre, where the game would be decided.

The two lines came together in quite a disjointed way. I partially refused my left, hoping to temp his Romans forward to be flank charged by my Knights, but Neil was too canny to fall for that and all that it meant was that half my spearmen sat watching as their colleagues were defeated elsewhere on the field.

On the right of the centre, my Alabardiers proved as solid as usual, defeating the Roman cavalry who charged them. The Alabardiers then retreated to a nearby hill where they would eventually be assailed on all sides by fresh Roman troops.

The battle now broke down into a series of individual clashes that the Roman got the better of, leaving things very disjointed as we entered the end phase.

Disaster then struck on the left, where Neil had finally realised that my two units of Knights were tying up his main infantry strike force, and moved forward to attack and defeat my ‘Broken Lances’.

It was now only a matter of going through the motions as the Roman battle line, the mincing machine, came forward. With half my Knights routed and the other half stymied by disorder or poor positioning, I had nothing that could standard up to the remorseless gladii and the game was Neil’s!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans versus Anglo-Normans

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A second run out for my Romans in the same weekend, this time against Peter playing Anglo-Normans.

The Romans won the scouting, achieving a rather nice right flank overlap in the deployment that followed.

My strategy was simple: hammer down the right hand side of the field, then curl round to take the AN’s in their left flank.

I had the plan, I had the men: what could possibly go wrong?

Things began well, with my advance in the centre moving forward strongly.

In response, Peter’s plan was to hold his left flank with a deep unit of Fyrd forming orbis on a convenient hill, whilst the rest of his men defeated the veteran legionaries in front of them. If he could then use his heavy Norman cavalry to outflank my line on the left, then so much the better.

Let’s look at my out-flanking manoeuvre first.

Although the initial advance into an outflanking position had gone well, I just couldn’t quite get into actual combat before Peter had time to stabilise his line.

The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that the unit of Auxilia with the blue shields refused to charge the orbis on the hill three times in a row, despite having an officer present, meaning that the whole infantry command there was effectively moribund, meaning that I had to send in the cavalry before the enemy infantry line was properly softened up.

Despite this, the situation on the right ended up generally positive…but a far cry from the sweeping victory I needed to win the game before anything could go wrong on the left.

Meanwhile, on the left, Peter had advanced forward strongly, intending to beat me there with his knights and foot knights before I had a chance to win on the right.

Although I managed to use the terrain to anchor my veteran legionaries in place, a small but significant gap in my line allowed a unit Norman Knights, accompanied by some Lights, to sneak through and threaten my flanks.

This was a bit of a problem but, meanwhile, there was some very good news from the flank: a unit of eastern auxiliary light horse archers managed to shoot down a unit of veteran Norman knights - and it’s not often that that happens!

The Equites Sagittarii would go on to almost taking out another unit of Norman Knights with their bows, only failing because they ran out of ammo, having used every arrow in the camp as well!

More good news in that a good run of the cards allowed me to stabilise the situation on that flank. I was still outnumbered, but had formed a rough defensive circle as I waited for the game to be won on the right!

Unfortunately my luck then visciously rebounded, with a couple of Aces at critical moments effectively losing me the battle, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious. Firstly, the Legionaries in the centre of the picture above failed to make an easy turn to take two Norman units in the flank. Secondly, a unit of veteran Legionaries failed to activate when in the midst of fighting more Norman knights. To put that in perspective, the two Aces appear like that only 1% of the time!

Then I made a bad tactical error…or at least a tactical error as far as the To The Strongest rules are concerned.

Worried about the disordered Legionaries in the right-hand picture, above, I retreated them back into a square containing another unit of Legionaries, but facing the other way: the idea being that the Romans would fight bravely back-to-back. What I hadn’t realised was that the way that the Zone of Control rules work meant that if Peter was able to get a unit onto the flank of the back-to-backers, the back-to-backers would then be effectively pinned in place unable to rotate to face their aggressors.

I had never encountered this situation before, and it was a bit of a hard lesson to learn, as my Legionaries had to just sit there and be hit in the flank, unable to fight back, until one of the units died!

It’s a quirk in the rules, to be sure, but not one that breaks To The Strongest (I could argue it’s “realism” either way if I needed to!) but is something to be aware of and watch out for. As I said: a hard lesson to learn!

Meanwhile, back on the right flank, my winning situation had been reversed by the fact that my failures on the left had freed up a couple of units of Norman Knights to use their internal lines to rescue the situation: as you can see in the picture below, I went from an “about to take the two Anglo-Norman camps” situation to a “hit in the flank and rear” situation!

All was not lost, however, as high casualties on both sides meant that the game could still be mine. All I really needed was for my infantry on the right to finish off the Fyrd that were in orbis. The Fyrd had already been disordered, and I had two strong units ready to attack them. Surely the Fyrd would now die or, if that attack failed, there were some disordered Knights to kill instead.

All was looking good as I prepared to start my turn…

The bad news continued as we resolved the back-to-back situation, leading to a debate about whther I was actually just unlucky or, given that I had had some luck in the game, just unlucky at the wrong times in a game: is an Ace just an Ace, or is it an ACE!

And unfortunately I didn’t get another chance, as on Peter’s subsequent turn he managed to break one more of my units sending my troops reeling into retreat.

A roller coaster of game that both sides could easily have won. I was glad that I’d learnt about the back-to-back quirk in the rules: something to watch out for in future games.

So my losing streak continues: five games of To The Strongest in a row now. Hopefully this means that I’ll have got all the losses out of my system before the Wales tournament in a week’s time!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans vs Medieval Irish

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Time for a bit of training before the first tournament of the year: a friendly game involving my Early imperial Romans taking on Peter’s Medieval Irish.

The Romans leave their box for the first time in twelve months

Outscouting me, Peter had tried his usual trick of weighting his troops on the side of the table (my left) opposite to where my command of veteran legionaries had deployed: the idea being that he would win the battle on my left without the vets having had the chance to properly take part in the game.

To counter this cunning tactic, I refused my left flank cavalry command and began moving the veteran legionaries over to the left as fast as they could march. This left my right flank open and, sure enough, Peter had light cavalry on the way there to exploit the gap.

The situation was compounded by a lucky shot from Irish light bowmen that took out my Equites Sagittarrii light horse, leaving that flank even more vulnerable!

I wasn’t too worried on my left, as even my standard legionaries are a pretty tough bunch, with the Roman cavalry all being veterans as well.

This was good, as battle there was joined very quickly, with both sides rapidly being drawn into a grinding melee.

Meanwhile, on my right, I had been forced to deploy to contain the Irish lights and the troops Peter had moved up to support them.

This, of course, meant that he had achieved exactly what he had set out to do, although not as successfully as he migth have hoped as, on the far right (picture bottom left in the gallery above) it had taken him abiut 20 points of lights to occupy 20 points of legionaries/auxiliaries.

Meanwhile, back on the left, the grinding melee had not gone my way. We both thought that this was to do with Peter having had the cards when he needed them (i.e. luck) as on paper the two sides were evenly matched with five decent fighting units apiece. Whatever the reason, I had decidedly lost the fight there and was on the point of being wiped out!

The game ended when, on the right/centre of the field, the Irish lights finally slipped through my cordon of legionaries and auxiliaries and managed to take one of my camps. A rather ignominious 4-11 defeat for the Romans!

Some valuable lessons re-learned after the Christmas break: and not just “don’t play Peter if you want to win”!

I understand that Irish armies are this year’s “thing”, and one can see why given how they performed in this game. We Romans are, however, a resilient lot, so it’s just a matter of time before even the Irish will be conjugating their Latin just like the Gauls, Germans, Spaniards etc!

TTS AAR: Two the Strongest Game One: Teutonic Knights & Lithuanians vs Principate Romans & Armenians

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The ‘Two the Strongest’ Doubles tournament for To The Strongest had it’s second outing a couple of weekends ago.

As Peter had returned from his self-imposed sabbatical from competition playing, I made sure to enlist him as my partner for the event. After the thrashing he gave me (and others) at this year’s Warfare event, it was very much a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them”!

After much discussion, Peter decided that we would take the powerful but perhaps risky combination of heavily armoured Teutonic Knights (my bit) and dancing horse-archer Lithuanians (Peter’s command).

The plan (hatched over Peter’s various and mandatory training sessions) was for the Lithuanians to keep one half of the opposition occupied with two thirds of their force, whilst I borrowed the other third, combining it with my own troops to smash my way through the other half of the enemy before turning to hit the remaining foe in the flank. I don’t remember much about what was said, but there were chalkboards and diagrams, plans of action, timetables, many military acronyms, homework, and much army-appropriate talk of schwerepunkt and kesselschlact and the like!

We even brought along this very portable helmet: ideal for the post-match conversations with forest fans (who lost 3-0 BTW)

The event itself would take place at Kingdom Games in north London, only a few minutes away from Arsenal’s Emirates stadium…very convenient, as it meant we (veteran Later Knights) could share the streets with the 60,298 fans (raw Mobs, and, yes, I looked up the attendance figures: there’s a lot of work goes into these AARs!) leaving the ground as we struggled back to where my car was parked (75% premium on cost as it was match day but, like the Murphys, I’m not bitter) pushing the immense amount of display boards and scenery that Peter had brought along to accompany the soldiers we would use. They fitted into two easily portable Really Useful containers rather than the six foot high tower of boxes that were actually on the trolley we pushed over the uneven pavements to the venue.

Anyhoo, moving swiftly on, our first game was against other-Rob and Will’s combination of Principate Romans and Armenians. We won the scouting so lined up with my Teutonics versus the Armenians, whist Peter attempted to delay the Romans.

The Armenians deployed right up against their Roman allies in a very narrow fashion, so my first move saw half my knights heading rapidly towards the Armenian left flank. If I could get around the side, then rolling up his line should be easy.

This very much proved to be the case, and before long I was in a great position to threaten the Armenian flank whilst also keeping the deadly Armenian lancers (yellow lances) at bay.

Around this point Peter began pointing out that there was quite a bit of Armenian light cavalry out on my flank, and that I should be careful they didn’t slip through to threaten my camps, but my Teutonic Knights were not concerned: we’d left some peasants in place to guard the camps and the foot sergeants were somewhere around as well. What mattered was smashing the enemy from the field, not making sure the cooking pots were safe!

And smash them from the field they did…

…and pretty soon the Armenians had been disposed of and I could head over to the other side of the battlefield to see what was going on there.

To be fair, Peter did seem to have done very well against the Romans: turning all the legionaries and their cavalry into stuck-full-of-arrows hedgehogs. They just needed a bit of Teutonic Knight goodness to finish them off!

So a good start to the day with a 39-0 victory.

Now it’s always good to fact check my reports, so here’s the view from the left hand side of the table…

Peter’s Report

At last year’s excellent Two the Strongest tournament Rob and I learnt that to maximise points to win the tournament you had to obliterate BOTH enemy armies in every battle. And in the limited time available the best way to achieve that was to focus our combined resources on blitzing one army first and then quickly switch both of our armies onto the remaining one with a big flank attack sweeping in from where our first enemy had been smashed.

So before this tournament we agreed a strategy that I would donate the best 25% of my army to Rob, to give overwhelming superiority to his side of the battle. And I would then act as a speed bump to the army I was facing to stop it supporting Rob’s opponent. I would further reduce my punch by holding a tactical reserve ready to respond to any cunning plan that the enemy came up with.

To allow this to work we chose a knight heavy Teutonic army for Rob supported by light cavalry Lithuanian allies for me.

We also had a playbook that defined in more detail how we would operate together and individually, with critical timings as to what we each had to achieve by when.

For example, Rob couldn’t sit back with his significantly boosted army and play a typical advance with confidence. Instead he needed to aggressively pin the enemy from the front whilst rapidly outflanking the rest and smashing into its side with repeated flank and Lance bonuses. All this to pulverise that army by the end of turn 3! This was critical becasue he then needed to sweep across his half of the battlefield and smash into the flank of the enemy that I was holding up. Anything later and we wouldn’t have time to blitz both armies in the limited time.

So that was the plan.

Our first opponents were a tough Roman Principate army with very resilient ( and beautifully painted) legionaries, auxilia and veteran cavalry. Plus a Palmyran allies army with scary cataphracts, lance cavalry, hordes of light cavalry with bow and heavily defended camps which we would never be able to take.

I volunteered to dance around the Romans whilst Rob took my veteran knights to outnumber the Palmyran cataphracts and chase away the hordes, and then swing in on the flank of what was left.

Given the Romans lack of missiles my light cavalry could get right up close to the heavy infantry and pepper them with an annoying drizzle of arrows. But the Romans are super resilient with their big shields and this only caused minor damage that was quickly rallied off. But it did slow them down. The speed bump was working! Only half of my army was holding up the entire Roman force!

Meanwhile on Rob’s half of the battlefield my veteran knights, backed up with light cavalry shooting overhead, successfully took on a unit of cataphracts. Rob pinned the other cataphracts with his Polish knights whilst getting his veteran Teutonic knights around the flank ready to flank charge the rest of the Palmyrans.

The plan seemed to be working. But then two of the Palmyran light cavalry cunningly worked their way through the wood on the far edge of the battlefield weaving past a unit of spear armed brudders and light cavalry and threatening the unfortified double camp that had only one raw light infantry unit to defend it.

Oh no! That was potentially seven victory points at risk and the whole plan could go wrong!

Thank goodness for our uncommitted reserve on my side of the battlefield! It consisted of three light cavalry with a general so was as mobile as you could possibly want. So I moved each in turn and then double moved whichever unit had the lowest card. The first unit drew a 10, that wasn’t going to work! The next drew a 2, and the third one drew a 4 so I then moved the 2 again but it drew a 9 - clearly they had blown their horses too early! So I had to leave that unit behind and I then refocuussed on the unit that had drawn a 4. I drew a 5, then a 9! By now I had marched across 9 boxes but still needed another box to ZOC (zone of control) the Palmyran lights to stop them taking the camp. I still had my general redraw ability. I could do it! So I then drew an ace! No problem. I had my general redraw! Can I do it? And I drew another ace! Oh no how frustrating! Still I had covered a lot of ground so just be thankful for the previous cards I had drawn!

However because we had won the scouting (the Lithuanians alone brought ten scouting points!) we chose the first command to move, and so instead of Rob going first, which was our playbook norm to allow him to get his knights in first each round, we agreed that my reserve Command went first. My light cavalry charged into the flank of the enemy light cavalry still stuck in the wood so at a big disadvantage! They tried but failed to evade! But then I drew more aces and caused no damage! But atleast I had ZOC’d the blighters and saved any risk to the camp!

Meanwhile, my veteran knights supported by light cavalry bows behind, beat the cataphracts and eventually, despite some bad cards, Rob’s veteran knights smashed into the flank of the Palmyrans and swept the rest of the army away.

However this had taken four turns not three, which meant we were a whole turn behind schedule!

Fortunately back on my side of the battlefield a combination of sustained shooting from my dancing light cavalry and a couple of flank attacks (each delivering three cards!) had killed one unit and a general.

As soon as the Teutons turned up on the flank, and the Romans turned to face them my annoying lights turned into killers that charged into their flanks with their lances wounding them so that the Teutons simply rode down what was left to take the final victory medals and secure the double victory we had sought! All achieved without losing a single victory medal!

Thanks to Nate’s tournament design - strategy, tactics, teamwork and even reserves had all played their part!

We had had a mix of good and bad lack, as you always do, but overall the plan had worked. So next, on to our second battle - where it didn’t!

I hope these insights encourage YOU to attend this superb event next year!

TTS AAR: Welsh Open, Game 2: Venetians vs Later (Eastern) Romans

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My second game at this year’s Welsh Open To The Strongest tournament was against William and his Later (Eastern) Romans.

William’s army was truly massive: 16 victory medals worth versus the mere 12 that I was fielding. The only downside was that many of his troops were raw but, being Auxilia, they still had an averagely decent save.

The terrain was quite heavy (the flat grey patches in the pictures are actually woods) and infantry get a lot of advantage defending against mounted, so I decided to dismount two of my Later Knights units to give me a bit of flexibility in attack.

The action began on my left, with the Roman cavalry advancing quickly towards my lines. As luck would have it, that’s where I’d put one of my dismounted knights…which just goes to show what can happen when you try to be too clever!

No matter: the Roman horse pushed a couple of my light cavalry units back but left themselves in a position where I could charge them from the flank with the foot knights. Should be no problem: I had an officer with the knights, so all I needed for success was anything except a couple of Aces in a row…

Meanwhile the two lines had come together in the centre and on the right as two separate clashes.

On the right, my mounted Knights charged home and had initial success, disordering two of the enemy Auxilia units and leaving them ripe for destruction. unfortunately, his men then turned on their personal forcefields: William spectacularly saving against every attack I could throw at them. I distinctly remember four flank charges going in against disordered Auxilia with no result!

Equally anoyingly, my dismounted knights could see a way through to his three undefended camps, and were the boys to take the nine victory medals that they represented, but just couldn’t get the cards/freedom to do so.

The Aces were also still coming thick and fast!

If you look at the photo above, you’ll see two of them on the table: one (on the far side) stopping my light cavalry from taking his camps (the nine points eluding me again); the other preventing a unit of Later Knights from rallying for the third or fourth time in a row.

By now I had actually killed his cavalry, meaning that the dismounted knights that had disposed of them could head back into the centre to help out the pike- and spearmen, who were under some pressure from advancing Romans. You’ll also see, in the photo below, that on the right I have withdrawn to regroup, although I did kill two to three of his units before doing so.

Things finally turned my way. The unit in front of the pikemen (about to be hit in the flank by dismounted knights) charged forward already disordered. Unfortunately for them, the cards fell my way, and they managed only to impale themselves on the pikes facing them, taking them and their general off the table.

Almost unbelievably, this turned out to be the straw that broke the Roman camel’s back: the four victory medals gained being enough for me to win the game 16-5, despite the fact that it had seemed to me as if I was on the back foot throughout.

Or it might have been that the Knights then crashed into the Bowmen behind the unfortunate infantry, and it was those two victory medals that won me the day. To be honest, I can’t remember which it was!

It had been a thrilling battle: the epitomy of a small number of elites versus a huge number of less than veteran troops. William’s troops’ ability to save against my attacks was truly legendary, and I seriously thought I was going to be swamped at any moment.

Two games in and two wins: good going so far…

Not an AAR: Romans versus Indians

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As the title says, not a full battle report, but just some pictures of a “noodling game” that friend Peter and I played recently to test out the effect of the new rallying rule.

Early Imperial Romans versus Classical Indians, with the Romans facing a penalty for successfully rallying and the Indians maxing out their longbows and veteran, escorted elephants.

Two the Strongest Tournament: Game Three

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I’m still working my way through a backlog of battle reports that seems to have built up over the last couple of months.

Today features the third and final game at the Two the Strongest doubles tournament organised by the London Wargaming Guild back in November. My partner, Peter, and I had won our first two games and woulkd now face Tim and Matt playing Normans and 100YW French respectively.

The game would be fought across quite an unusual set-up representing a famous battle from history. Apologies, but I can’t remeber which one…but there were a lot of hills on the flanks!

The Romans

The French

For this battle, Peter and I reversed our roles: I would go forward against the Normans whilst Peter hung back against the 100YW French.

My cavalry (Equites Alares and Equites Contarium) duly swung out to the right and advanced forward at speed. They soon met the enemy coming the other way and, much to my delight, almost immediately knocked one Norman unit off the table and sent another to the retreat.

My Roman cavalry have tken some stick this year for their performance on the tabletop, but I must confess that they didn’t put a foot (hoof?) wrong this game: a fitting redemption in the last tournament game of the season.

Meanwhile, my legionaries had also advanced towards the enemy line and pinned them in place as planned. I needed to get a move on, however, as I could see that Peter’s troops were under some pressure from a horde of Late Knights!

My troops began to wheel to their left, ready to roll up the enemy line but, before they could do any significant damage, my cavalry inflicted another loss on the Normans, including killing their commander in chief. This was too much for these early Frenchies to take, and they fled the field, leaving their later compatriots to fight on alone.

The game was a bit of a foregone conclusion from then on, as Peter’s troops were still resisting, leading to an eventual 15-6 victory for the Romans.

Points were totted up and it turned out the Peter and I had actually won the day!

A very good way to end the season, with my first tournament win, and huge thanks to all the Guilders for organising an excellent competition that I shall certainly enter again next year.

If you look at the picture to the right, you will see I am clutching a box of Perry Plastics as a prize (along with the rather marvellous “playing card” trophy). This box turned out to be the naissance of my new 28mm army for 2024, although which later medieval army I will actually paint up is still in doubt at time of writing, along with whether I can actually get it finished in time for the Welsh Open at the end of January!

Two the Strongest Tournament: Game Two

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Peter and I’s second game at the inaugural Two the Strongest Doubles tournament organised by the London Guild of Wargames was against Tom and Nathanial, each fielding a Wars of the Roses army: lots of longbows, billmen and knights!

Our plan was very much the same as in the first game of the tournament. My solid legionaries would hold the bulk of the enemy in place whilst Peter’s lighter cavalry got around the enemy flank and rolled them up. As our opponents wavered at the sight of their flank collapsing, in would go my Roman mincing machine to finish them off.

Much to our surprise, the first stages of the game saw everything going to the plan: Peter’s men got around the right flank of Tom’s troops and started knocking units off the table, then turning to head into the centre. Meanwhile, I advanced cautiously forward, wary of a storm of longbow fire.

Nathaniel also took a cautious approach so, for a time, all the action was on one side. Here’s a montage of these first evolutions:

Then I’m afarid our opponents made what must be considered a fateful mistake.

Concerned about their right flank, they turned some of their units in the centre to the right, intending to take Peter’s legionaries, now heavily engaged with the right side of the enemy line, in the flank. This, of course, left them open to a rapid advance from my troops into their now-exposed left sides, knocking a couple off the table and certainly preventing them intervening to the right as Tom had planned.

At this point Tom’s half of their army collapsed, leading to all his remaining troops being removed from the board and leaving Nathaniel to face the might of the Empire alone!

Now severely outnumbered and already in a poor tactical situation, it was only a matter of time before Nathaniel’s troops were overwhelmed. It also didn’t help that his artillery now showed an alarming propensity to draw Aces!

So in all a fairly convincing 16-0 victory for the Romans, leaving us in a good position overall as we faced the final game of the day.

Two the Strongest Tournament: Game One

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This November just gone, those stalwart men of the London Wargaming Guild put on the first To The Strongest Doubles tournament at the 7 Dials Club in Covent Garden.

The concept was simple: teams of two players, with each player fielding 100 points of army. The armies did not have to be connected but it would obviously be better if they were.

Originally the idea had been for each team to be one experienced player and one less experienced if not novice player, but this requirement was softened in the run-up to the tournament…although personally and, as it turned out somewhat hypocritically, I think enforcing this would actually be an excellent idea for the future.

I say “somewhat hypocritically” because my partner was none other than Peter R., many times champion of many tournaments, which would presumably have made me the novice player!

Our first game was against Sid and Rob: the former also fielding Early Imperial Romans, the latter fielding Polybian Romans.

Our plan was simple: I would pin Sid’s EIR’s in place, whilst Peter lapped around the Polybian left flank. As it happens, our strategy was the same-but-opposite from that adopted by Sid and Rob: Rob would pin Peter’s troops whilst Sid wrapped around my right flank!

The two lines quickly came together, and immediately the flanking generals on each side began to do their thing.

Below left you can see my legionaries holding Sid’s in place whilst below right you can see Sid’s horse and lights attempting to turn my flank:

Fortunately I was able to turn my cavalry to face this threat and, with the Auxilia in Orbis (i.e. fighting to all sides) was able to keep Sid at bay.

Unfortunately for other Rob, Peter is a past master at outflanking, and Rob’s Polybian Romans were soon in a great deal of trouble: their cavalry driven from the field by an endless series of flank attacks from our light troop, leaving his infantry to fall in turn as our cavalry turned on them as Peter’s legions moved into contact.

With his camp falling to some Numidian light horse, Rob was soon forced to remove all his troops from the table, leaving Peter’s men free to come to my aid.

Fighting two opponents at once is never much fun and, despite valiant efforts, Sid’s men were soon reeling from the field as well, leaving us victors 18 points to 9.

TTS @ Warfare: Game Four: EIR versus Tang Chinese

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My fourth and final game at this year’s To The Strongest competition at Warfare was my Early Imperial Romans against Peter Ryding’s Tang Chinese.

Peter is a wily opponent and an expert of using a force that is a mixture of light cavalry, heavy cavalry and solid infantry…and the one thing I didn’t want to happen was him to get his Chinese around the end of my line and outflank my Romans.

As the battle began, Peter immediately went for my flanks with his light cavalry. I didn’t think I’d have a problem on the right: I’d kept that flank strong, intending to deal with the lights then use my superior drilled mobility to curl in and attack his infantry in the centre.

Likewise, on the left, all I would have to do is to move the rear left hand unit of cavalry (with the red cloaks) out to the side and I was sorted.

Unfortunately the poor cards that had been dogging me all day reared their ugly head again, and things did not go according to plan.

On the right, I shot down one of his light horse units almost immediately, and closed with the other to drive it back.

All well and good…but then my central infantry, which I had been intending to get back to the left to engage his main force, just refused to move. Where was my superior drilled mobility? It was buried in Aces!

Oh, and if you look, Peter is making it even more difficult to close with his troops by refusing that flank and presenting me with an oblique line to attack…meaning my men would have even further to go before being able to get stuck in. Clever, very clever!

Worse, the aforementioned red cloaked cavalry on my left had also refused to move as planned, leaving that flank horribly exposed. Peter, never one to miss an opportunity, took full advantage, and soon that flank was completely buggered!

I mean, look at them just sitting there! They obviously haven’t moved since their original deployment when only the smallest movement of one square would have stopped the Tang lights in their tracks.

Now there are those of you who are reading this who are saying “oh look, there’s Rob again complaining about his luck as opposed to admitting he’s playing badly”.

Yes, point taken: you play the cards you’re dealt and all that, and Peter has made no mistakes in executing a very cunning plan…but take a look at the photo below to show what happened as I moved in on his camp: something that could potentially have gained me enough coins to turn the battle my way.

Three Aces are showing…and what’s even more amusing is that for this game that wasn’t even the worst cards that I drew!

Anyway, suffice to say that I didn’t get into the enemy camp or in amongst his infantry before the flank attacks on my left took their toll and the Romans gave way and fled the field, giving Peter a colossal and well-deserved victory.

Results

One colossal loss, one massive victory, and two losing draws gave me a seventh place in the overall competition: a bit of a disappointment to say the least!

But no matter: there was still the Doubles competition at the Seven Dials Club in Covent Garden to come.

My partner?

Peter, of course!

The reports on that tournament will follow in due course…