Pass in Review

 Since my decision to drop first Warhammer Ancient Battles and then the Mede-Lydian campaign, my poor battered collection of ancients has again been tossed on stormy seas. I have a plan in mind but it doesn't exactly have places for all of the existing figures. So I am left again to sort through seeing what should be saved, what should be scrapped or re-homed. The goal as always is that the available display area must not be exceeded and that figures should get to be played with often enough to be worth keeping.

I had been starting to think about making room by disbanding and disbursing my Greek and Persian troops since they don't fit into current plans  and if all are fixed up, there are too many for my current table space. Unfortunately I hauled them out for a game last week and it occurred to me that I've finally painted up enough to play a game and with just a little work I can put aside a Greek & Persian Wars "game in a box". Questions remain. How big a box? Who gets to be re-based? Who has to go?

For now the remaining hoplites can serve on their 20mm frontage per figure bases but I intend to cram them back into 8 figures per 60mm wide element, 12 such elements to make the core of a Greek alliance army supported by some skirmishers and cavalry. The Persians will stay on the looser frontage but 3 deep for 9 figure elements. Perhaps 20 all told. That leaves a few stray Greeks, especially lighter troops, not to mention that I really should add some Spartans which would mean bumping yet more existing Hoplites. Some of the excess Persians are easily co-opted into the later 5 Kingdoms fictional setting but others, I'm just not  sure about. Then there are some stray Italians left over from a foray into Carthage and there is the small band of Hellenistic pikes and peltasts who were to form part of the 5 Kingdoms but who just look too Hellenistic.

So, nothing decided but here are some of the troops whose fate is being pondered.

 The miscellaneous Hoplite regiment composed of largely RAFM & Ral Partha figures and including a number of later hoplites, a mix of figures I like and others that I don't really..

Rospak Hoplites, in service since 1982. Veterans but getting a bit tired, they drop their shields and spears a lot.

More Rospaks, also veterans, these never got new spears, they still have the 6 foot long ones, about 1/2 of which are broken as happened in real life apparently but distressing when you start a battle that way.

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A "new" unit, only 4 years old. RAFM Seleucid  Arab levies recruited into my Persian army. Nothing wrong with them, I actually quite like them but which levies to keep? and is there a plausible place for them in the 5 Kingdoms where almost everyone else has pants and a tunic?

Another new unit, Rose Prestige Ethipeons. Lovely figures  and nothing says Persian levy like Ethiopeans with fire hardened sticks, so maybe.

 Thracians from Rospak, Ral Partha, RAFM and Corvus. One can always find a place for a few Thracian mercenaries. the question is how many and do I want/need a whole Thracian army as opposed to one unit of mercenaries. There's another score or more that need some sort of repair or just aren't based at the moment as well as archers, slingers and cavalry.

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RAFM multi-part Thureophorai. Too late for Graeco-Persian Wars so how Hellenistic do I want my forgotten outpost city? Or, do I want to add a few more Garrison S&S figures instead......?

 RAFM & Ral Partha pikes. I'm really not big on pike phalanxes, I just happened to have had them from an abandoned earlier project.

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and the real strays, cobbled together Italians and some late Greek cavalry.

Petite Platea

I may like playing fictional battles and teasers but for testing rules I like to run them by at least an occasional historical scenario as a benchmark. Since I had played a successful game using the ancients variant of the Square Brigadier and was considering just translating them into an improved Gathering of Hosts, it seemed like the right time for an historical game.  In this case it was the Grant version of Platea from the Ancient Wargame. This had three advantages for me. The first is that the groundwork was done, the second was that I was familiar with the original battle including two different English translations of Herotodus' account, and lastly I had already played it using the original Gathering of Hosts so had a game version to compare it to.  (and of course Megablitz Tim had recently brought it to mind.)

 The 1/2 scale gridded version of Platea, laid out, ready to go.That's 1/2 vs my original game, closer to 1/4 scale compared to Grant.

There are a few issues with Grant's scenario with regards to troop choices and deployment and one day I may do my own version, if I don't sell off my Greeks and Persians first, but it works well enough for my purposes. The questions were mainly would the rules allow the Greek and Persian armies to show their varying strengths and weaknesses and thus push them into historical tactics and  would it be enjoyable as a game. Since I was playing on a 30"x36" board, with each square holding 1 60mm wide base, I had to translate Grant's 6'x9' table and 20 to 48 man units into something smaller. To fill the board I used 2 units for each of his except for the extra-small helot units which I replaced with a single unit each.   Since Grant's book doesn't seem to be easily available I'll give a brief summary of the units as I fielded them. Persians: 4 Elite archers, 2 Spearmen, 6 Light Infantry skirmishers, 4 Horse archers, 2 Elite cavalry. Thebans: 2  Phalanx, 2 Light Cavalry.  Greeks: 4 Elite Phalanx, 6 phalanx, 2 skirmisher, 2 Poor skirmishers.

An archive shot of my original Platea refight on a 6x8 table with 12-24 man units in place of 20-48 man ones.

The first run through worked OK but there were some niggly issues with the special period rules and the board seemed very full. I also had to leave the Corinthians off board and promptly forget them! So I turned the board sideways and used 1 stand per Grant unit. I thought it might be too small but this actually gave me a better game which in turn meant food for thought.

Extra-petite Platea. The Athenians are under heavy pressure. The Persian and Phyrgian infantry are 

3 deep which is how I intend to base future units of spearmen. .

Its good to know that a small game works since its easier to transport two dozen stands than four dozen but I don't always need to transport the troops. I tweaked the special rules, reduced ranges and tried the full mini-game again. This time it worked as good as the mini-game. I was still concerned that it was too easy for a player to peel off part of the phalanx and us it independently but on further thought, every time the Greeks actually did this, the offending unit got surrounded and cut up so it may be possible but a bad idea which might actually have been the historical case..

   The Thebans defeat the Athenian left after a tough fight. 

The Persian plan was pretty simple, push light troops and cavalry  through the gaps and around the flanks, let the Thebans do the Hoplite thing, and let the Persians pepper the Spartans with arrows. The Greeks withstood the arrow storm and dealt with the flanking forces but were pretty much pinned doing this and bringing up reinforcements. As long as they survived though, strategically they were OK  , at least up to the point where the Thebans broke the Athenian left. In this they were ably assisted by their cavalry which had finally dealt with the archers and ridden around the Greek flank. Persian cavalry had also moved around the opposite flank and Pausanius led his bodyguard in a fierce rush which chased them off. Unfortunately he was hit by an arrow and went down at a time when the army couldn't afford to be frozen.

  The shield barrier is up and the real arrow storm is about to begin. That's the Greek general lying face down on the hill.

Unfortunately for the Greek Alliance, the remaining Athenians were too stubborn to fall back on the Corinthians and kept trying to regain the upper hand by themselves while also facing down the advancing Phrygians.

The Athenians could really have used a rally order at this point but Pausanius had just fallen and their turn was next.  

With the Athenians swept away and the arrow storm occasionally disordering even the Spartan phalanx, the omens turned favourable and the Spartans charged down into the Persian line. It was a tough fight but soon unit after unit of Persians broke. It was too little too late though, the entire Greek army had been dispersed and the Spartans were being surrounded by light infantry and cavalry while still facing the remaining Immortals. The Spartans could probably have retreated off the field and the invasion might have been halted for the moment but Mardonius would not have been contemplating retreat from Greece just yet.

The rules as played are available from my Battlegame of the Month blog. (I used the Five Kingdoms list with Spartans, Immortals and Heavy cavalry being Elite and only the Spartan skirmishers being poor. )
At this time I am not planning to have a grid on my main table once it is repainted so the Gathering of Hosts rules will remain conventional but I will be translating the combat and morale mechanisms from this to it and once done it will be  available on both blogs.

I had fun with these games but I think I've done Plataea enough for  now, although........twenty or so years ago, I did do an Anglo-Scots version ......... Hmmm.

Chronicle: The Battle for the Tower

CHRONICLES of the FIVE KINGDOMS

Late in the day, the battle hangs in the balance.

It came like a whisper on the wind and suddenly everyone in the market knew that there was a treasure in the old Tower on the Mound in the middle of the steppe. Not just any treasure mind but though none could say exactly what it was,  it was something no one who wished to be Master of the Five Kingdoms could do without. So it came to be that the men of Alexandria the Forgotten and the soldiers of Turan each found themselves trudging across the dusty Steppes, warily watching a growing dust cloud on the horizon. .

King Antiros of Alexandria the Forgotten has come in person at the head of a select force.

General Saromander inspects the Turanian Royal Guard.

It was late in the day when the armies arrived at the tower. There was no question of a truce. 

King Antiros deployed first, the lumbering phalanx deployed deep on the right with peltasts to guard their flanks. Those on the right spread  out as a skirmish line while opposite the tower they loosened their swords and prepared to storm the tower. To the left of the tower rode Cataphracts and Lancers with horse archers on the far flank. The King kept one squadron of lancers as a reserve.

General Saromander deployed his infantry in the center supported by a troop of elephants. The nimble slingers were sent ahead to take possession of the ruins on the hill. Horse Archers, heavy and Light guarded the left, the Royal Guard and more cavalry guarded the right.  

The infantry lines clash.

The first clash came in the center as the peltasts stormed the Tower and strove to drive the lightly armed slingers from their positions in the ruins. It was a David and Goliath struggle  (ed: that is a slight exaggeration to say the least) but it raged through half the day. Outside the walls the phalanz swept forward sweeping away the Hillmen skirmishing in front of the Turanian line. Then suddenly there was a loud trumpeting and forward came the Turanian elephant corps. Bracing themselves, the pikemen awaited the shock. 

Across the field, the King sent his cavalry forward. The Royal Guard, in a deep column, unleashed a volley of arrows then taking up their lances rode forward while the lighter Turanian cavalry sought to keep the enemy horse archers at bay. The shock of the charge was tremendous but neither side gave way. As the horsemen circled and hacked at each other, the King's lancers proved no match for the heavily armoured Turanian Guards and soon the remnants were fleeing back across the plain. . 

All along the line, the fighting spread, inthe ruins and across the field with first one side then the other gaining an advantage. The peltasts were unable to roust the slingers from the ruins and were slowly cut down but in the center, a lucky pike thrust struck a young elephant in the eye. Rearing back in pain, blinded with blood, it panicked and the confusion spread, suddenly the whole herd thundered off across the plain.

Undismayed, the Turanian infantry pushed forward into gaps in the phalanx and the Turanian moved forward to ride around the flank. Despite the loss of the elephants the battle was swinging towards the Turanians.

This was not the King's first battle though and he was not ready to give up the rize so close at hand. He pulled back his infantry and cataphracts, reformed the phalanx,  brought up his reserve of lancers and prepared for one last throw of the dice.

The King leads the final attack.

With Antiros at their head, the Alexandrian cavalry slammed into the Turanians sweeping away the first squadron of the Kings Guard and pursuing into the second while an arrow storm drove the lighter Turanian cavalry back in disorder. A company of spearmen on the hill, however, held despite terrible losses. 

With Sarumander at their head, the heavily armoured Turanian Royal Guard seemed more than a  match for their lightly armoured foe in melee while the Turanian infantry began to slip into the ranks of the Cataphracts, hamstringing horses and toppling the heavy riders, knocking them all to sixes. The Cataphracts, seemingly helpless, turned and fled or were cut down. The battle seemed lost but out of nowhere, the King's horse archers, tribal auxiliaries but veteran fighters, smashed into the flank of the Royal Guard which collapsed leaving Sarumander a prisoner. The Turanian army seemed paralyzed, unable to respond as the King led his cavalry forward into the Turanian infantry and suddenly the whole Turanian army was fleeing. 

As the sun set, Antiros and a few picked companions dismounted and entered the tower. An hour later the grim faced party re-emerged. What they found there was a secret they did not share.

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This battle was fought using the ancients module of the Square Brigadier which is essentially a small gridded version of Gathering of Hosts.See my Battle Game of the Month blog for more details and a free copy of the rules.

Last Hosting of the Year

The honour of Last Game this year goes to my 25mm Ancients this year. The close of one era and the opening, or reopening of an other, but more on that another day. As the Winter campaign begins, Queen Sharazhad of Marakanda herself has led the vanguard of her army out to meet the hosts of King Rossius the Unknown of Turan.  

The Turanian forces were comprised of a unit of cataphracts, two of lance and bow heavy cavalry and two of light cavalry, one of them being horse archers. There was also an elephant unit with its attached light infantry and 2 wing commanders. The Maracandians had the Royal Horse Guards, a unit of lancers and a unit of horse archers backed by two units of light archers, one of massed archers, one of spearmen and one of Hillmen. There was also a pair of war engines dragged along for reasons unknown and two commanders. The rules were the universal edition of Hearts of Tin which is essentially an amalgamation of Gathering of Hosts with Hearts of Tin. The debate over a new name such as Hosts of Tin is still sputtering.

The Turanians arrived early and had the mobility to deploy and seize the crossroad before the Queen's forces were all on the field of battle.   Rossius seemed in no great hurry to press the attack but was rather determined to draw the enemy in before striking.

The Queen's heart beat faster in this her 2nd battle but her veteran soldiers and commanders were not dismayed. She steeled her will and as the Turanian lancers spurred forward, she signalled for her own cavalry to attack.

As the Turanian cavalry charged, the sky was darkened by Maracandan arrows and despite their armour the Turanian Clibinari broke to the rear. The Cataphracts charged home but the Turanian archers wielded their axes to good effect and soon the Cataphracts were also galloping backwards just as the Marakanda cavalry swept through the enemy light infantry, pushing their panicked horses into the flank of the elephant line. On the other flank the Maracandan horse archers swarmed the flank of the advancing Turanians and in a flash Rossius whole army was galloping towards the safety of the hills.

 Sharazad could not help but feel that she and her troops had been blessed with great good luck when it was needed most and that one victory  was not the end of a campaign but only a beginning.

The Elephants are on the move

For those who don't follow my Game of the Month Blog, since the Gathering of Hosts and the Hearts of Tin rules are so closely aligned, I'm working on amalgamating them into a universal set with modules for different periods, for play with or without a grid, with either single figures or multi-figure elements with a variable scale. Sounds worse than it is or in other words, its not my first kick at this can. Actually, I only intend to do the modules I want to use but I'm ready for an Ancients test so the Three Kingdoms are at war again. The scenario is Crossroad from Grant's Programmed Scenarios.

To be continued.

Not another bridge!

The Scots charge over the bridge before too many English archers deploy.

As part of my exploration of the possible direction for my Ancient and Medieval games and of the options for evening games on an old card table in a corner of the Wreck room, I divided up the Medieval Scots that I had rebased for Impetus as well as what English I could scare up and set up a game this afternoon. Alas for the Scots when flipping through Asquith & Grant's Scenarios for All Ages (aka the Red Book), my eye fell on a game with 4 columns converging on a bridge. It wasn't until the Scots charged over the bridge that I got a sense of Deja Vue, my Scots having had to charge over a bridge in their last outing against Ron's English earlier this year. Oddly when I played through the Red Book in 2009 I also ended up playing. this with English vs Scots albeit in the 16thC. (Well damme! I forgot that the river was fordable away from the bridge!)

Briefly, the 2nd English column arrived early and the flanking Scots column ended up forming schiltron under a hail of arrows. A Scottish charge over the bridge eventually pushed the English back but suffered heavy casualties and when the flanking schiltron broke, it was all over.    

The Scots break.

The most important result of the test is that it has confirmed that this size of force in this period with this scale of shooting and movement will do quite nicely for Teasers on this size of table.

The existing bases don't precisely fit the square grid but they are close enough that they could be used as possible and the grid could always be ignored anyway and a ruler used at 1/2 or 2/3 scale. I'm not saying that 10mm figures wouldn't allow me more figure per base and thus "fit" the terrain better but I'd rather use what I have and would rather paint a few more 25's than start all over again. I didn't really want to paint up 200 or more English for bigger battles with the same tactical options but I haven't known quite what else to do. Anyway, this works for me so painting up and basing my English and Scots reinforcements will be moved up the priority list to provide some winter campaigning. Those figures on 3" and 80mm bases will serve but I want to go for 1.5" so that I can show units in march column and adapt to terrain.

I'll need to get going on more hills too. I'm not quite sure what to do about built up areas. Luckily a table suitable for street fighting isn't a huge issue for Medieval Anglo-Scottish  wars but a tower might be handy for some scenarios and I could do a town base or 2 with low perimeter wall and removable building to represent a small town.Might have to make it a bit over size to hold the occupants. Damn. Or maybe a town base with 2d row houses on either side of a road wide enough to hold a unit. It'll take some thought.

The next question is, do I want to look at adapting some of my Persian/Samarkand forces to play on the small table as well as the larger one. For now I think not and the Persian Host will stay upstairs. I may try it out though, just to see and just to keep it active. In particular, since many of the pikemen and other Greeks may be sent off to Botany Bay this winter, I have been thinking more about vague plans to use PA molds to produce some form of hill tribe army down the road. This would allow me to do some skirmishes in hilly terrain (once I make it). There's a limit to what I can get painted these days and to how many games I can play in the score of periods I dabble in so that might be best left for next winter.

Pass the Maple Syrup Please.

Nothing better for waffles.

I haven't been spending much time or mental energy on Ancients but did momentarily decide late in the summer  that I had been right originally  and maybe OS with big units on a big table with no grid was better than the way I had been heading towards 1 base units. No games followed this thought.

I did try to get something  going last weekend but ended up working on a small board with square grid for playing games down in the family room during the winter instead. Now of course I want an ancient or medieval game for the new, small, gridded board. Looking at my incomplete revised medieval armies and the still incomplete Iranian armies, I am reminded just how little painting I seem to do these days. This in turn reminds me how much fun I've had this year playing small games at Ron's. All of a sudden the big Ancient game starts to feel more nostalgic than realistic goal for the short term.

A Scots army at about 75% of full strength. The other 300% are still on their old bases.

There is too much non-gaming stuff going on for this to be a good time for sudden drastic action and or for a rewrite but luckily I kept the rules as grid-friendly as I could so no more than an appendix giving rules for moving on a square grid and translating multiples of 4" into areas.   Then, maybe as early as tomorrow I will put some medieval's on the new board and see how it goes.

The Scots in action earlier this year.