FK&P AAR: Transylvanians vs Ottomans

/

With the help of friend Rob, I had finally managed to get my 17th Century Ottoman force ready for combat. t had been a long haul: the initial Janisseries painted by Rob, the cavalry painted by Matt Slade of Glenbrook Games, then the odds and sods needed to finally fill the force out finished by Rob and I. Their first outing would have friend Neil commanding them as they faced off against the Transylvanians commanded by Yours Truly.

I was a tad concerned about the prospects for the Transylvanians: my infantry were decidedly inferior to the Ottoman Janisseries, and unless I could get my light cavalry dancing around the field, the Turkish Sipahis were going to run right over my horse!

Accordingly, I placed my lights on the wings, sent my infantry into the small village just in front of my start position, and hoped for the best in the centre where my Household Cavalry were facing the Ottoman elite cavalry.

One advantage that I did have was that although Neil is a veteran wargamer and familar with To The StrongestI, this was his first game of For King & Parliament.

The game opened with me taking the fight to the enemy and advancing forward strongly across the whole front except where my Haiduks had occupied the village.

On the right flank, my superiority in light horse enabled me to get a unit around the side of the Ottoman main line, meaning that they could turn and assualt the Turks from front and side.

I also managed to do the same on the right hand side of the field, where my light cavalry effectively managed hold off the Ottoman light cavalry there and counter any Ottoman movement against my weak infantry.

Back to the right flank, where my lights had now effectively cleared the enemy cavalry away, and could think about heading into the center to help.

That left the centre, where my Household and Enlisted Cavalry faced up to the Ottoman Sipahis.

This looked quite serious, as the Sipahis are seriously good troops, but the success of my lights out on the right meant that Neil had to divert some of his cavalry to cover his flanks.

It was a brutal melee, with the Sipahis initially having the upper hand, but dealing with my lights on the right kept siphoning off both their attention and resources: first one squadron was sent left to shore things up, then another etc

All this meant that my Household and Enlisted cavalry were able to recover from the inital clash and then fight back hard. The Sipahis began to give way, with a trickle to the rear becoming a flood, and the battle was mine!

It had been a great game. The Transylvanians, for a change, managed to use their light horse with great success, totally blocking the left wing and allowing the centre to be won by draining Ottoman resource onto the right wing.

Even better, there was time for a re-match…but that’s another story!

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

/

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

/

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…

TFL Painting Challenge: Second January Update

/

And some returning entrants as well.

First up today we have Carole, who has participated in every single year of the Challenge so far, one of only seven people to do so. Her submission consists of pikemen, musketeers and a very creepy graveyard!

John Emmett also sends in his first entries of the year. It’s John’s seventh year of the Challenge, and his submission includes a mixture of WW2 Germans and various Napoleonic character pieces including Sergeant Hakeswill: boo, hiss!

The prolific Mr Helliwell sends in his second submission for the year: mostly Napoleonics this time. Andrew has only missed one year of the Challenge so far, and recorded 5,000 points in both the last two years: an impressive achievement. 6,000 this year perhaps?

Finally this update, we have Mervyn Douglas, one of the other people to have never missed a Challenge. His submission is some more figures for his American War of Independence collection.

So that’s it for this update: let’s get those brushes working as, unfortunately, the lead mountain won’t paint itself, no matter how hard we pray it might!

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

/

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…!

WW2 AAR: Undaunted Normandy

/

Friend Neil suggested we play a game I hadn’t encountered before: Undaunted Normandy.

Undaunted Normandy from Osprey

Published by Osprey, this is a board game where the playing surface is constructed of different tiles showing terrain that are put together in different combinations in order to represent different battlefields. Specially printed cards are then used to generate the force you will use, represented by counters on the tiles, with a significant part of the game being resource allocation. Dice are then used to determine movement and combat, with different squads (Recon, Rifle, MMG etc) having different attributes.

By adding 6mm figures and terrain, Neil had rather brilliantly converted the 2D printed tiles and counters into 3D pieces that looked more like a wargame than a board game:

From 2D to 3D: how gooD is that!

We played one of the starter scenarios involving the Germans counter-attacking an American advance. The mechanics are easy to pick up, and before long I was playing without really having to ask any questions.

As noted above, combat is determined by rolling dice, and as I have vast numbers of various-sided dice and couldn’t be bothered with passing things backwards and forwards between Neil and myself, I asked him what sort of dice were used and how many you needed. Four 8-sided dice, he replied: so off I went to my storage bucket of dice and found four eight-sided dice.

We began the game, and it was only after a few turns that I realised that it’s actually four 10-sided dice that are used in the game: it being quite hard to get a ‘10’ on an eight-sided dice when Neil said that that was what I needed to roll!

Most amusing, especially as I can now claim that that was the only reason I lost the game rather than the real reason that Neil outmanoeuvred me!

How many sides on those dice? Does the man have no shame!

I enjoyed the game: not something I would necessarily want to play all the time - my bent is for large, multi-figure, tabletop games - but I can see the appeal, and it does fit into a very small area. It’s the sort of game you could take on holiday, provided you could fit the stuff in the car!

There’s a much better review of the game here: https://www.wargamer.com/undaunted-normandy/review and I’d certainly recommend having a read and giving the game a go if you get the chance.

TTS AAR: Venetians versus Early Imperial Romans

/

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!

The Start of the Arab Conquest

/

My project for the new year is a 15mm Arab Conquest army based for To The Strongest.

I’m using the excellent Red Copper Miniatures 3D sculpts printed for me by Baueda, who I have found to be excellent quality, fairly priced, and with a single fee for postage and packing that works out to be very cost-effective provided you order in bulk).

First up are the Wariors that form the bulk of the army.

Here I wanted to be able to use the figures for both a 15mm grid (what I usually play on) and a 10mm grid (the size used for the one 15mm TTS competition), so settled on using the 7.5mm bases for For King & Parliament available from the BigRedBat shop and designed to slot together to allow different combinations of pike and shot battalia to be put together (FK&P6)

I painted the Red Copper figures in individual colour schemes, and then painted the Essex command figures (leader, standard, musician on each base) in the same single colour for each 15cm grid double unit, basing the command figures all together in the second of four rows of models on each base.

This gave the impression of random figures, but with a predominance of one colour on each base, making them easily identifiable. The right hand base of each double-unit had the trumpeter, the left hand base had a drummer.

Here are the individual units:

The flags are all from Wargames Designs, who have an extensive range of “Saracen” flags. Each design comes printed on good quality paper that you then cut out, fold into flag shapes, and then use PVA glue to fix in place. The flgas come with instructions for those who are still baffled!

I’ve used the flags to allow identification of different commands. Four of the double-base-units come with the left base having a green flag and the right base having black flag; two of the double-base-units come with both bases with a flashy red and white banner. This allows me, at double-base level, to field six units in two commands: perhaps two standard units and a veteran “flashy flag” unit per command; or, at base level, to field a black flag command, a green flag command and a flashy-flag command, each with four individual bases.

Overall, I’m very happy with these. The sculpts are gorgeous, they seem pretty hard-wearing, and I think the paint jobs and bases that I’ve managed are definitely a little above basic wargames standard.

Now on to the cavalry!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans versus Anglo-Normans

/

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!

First Painting Challenge Update for 2025

/

And the Challenge is back…and already firing on all cylinders!

In order of appearance in the Challenge inbox we have:

Mr Douglas kicks off his year with a couple of very nice 28mm WW2 building intended for use as objectives in 02 Hundred Hours:

Pipped at the post for a first delivery, but making up for it in mass alone is Mr Helliwell, with his first (and as per usual large) entry for the year. A mix of 15mm Napoleonics, terrain and 28mm Medievals, and all very nice!

Next up is Stumpy, with a couple of very lovely looking Matilda II: just about the only decent British early war tank!

So a great batch of entries in to start off this year’s proceedings. Let’s keep sending them in!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans vs Medieval Irish

/

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: Anglo-Normans versus Hittites

/

Time for the re-match: swapping sides so this time I would take the Anglo-Normans and Neil would play the Hittites.

As the game began, I made a bold move down the left flank: sending William the B, Bishop Odo and half my Milites thundering forward to curl round and take the Hittites in the rear.

The Hittites were obviously quick to react, threatening to flank my outflankers. No problem, I thought, it’s my turn and I’ll just move forward out of reach.

This was a bit annoying, to say the least, but the Norman knights are good troops, and I managed to extract them from the mess and even hurt the pesky Syrian light chariots who had tried to rear-end them in the process.

More chariot versus knights fighting followed, with disaster striking the Anglo-Normans as although we killed some more Hittite chariots, William the B was struck down in his prime.

This had serious consequences, as although Bishop Odo had broken through and was riding down the final unit of Hittite chariots on the left, being out-of-command meant that what would usually have been the best ‘pursuit’ card to draw ended up being a failure to move forward, and exposed the Bishop’s rear to more Hittite attacks.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the two infantry lines had come to together and a grinding melee developed.

The Hittites had more chariots, however, and they now burst round my right flank to threaten my camps, guarded only by light infantry - easy meat for the rampaging chariots.

Back to the centre, and the Norman and Anglo-Saxon infantry were gaining the advantage…and Bishop Odo was still alive and kicking!

The situation at the camp was critical (early losses meant that I couldn’t afford to lose it) so I threw everything I could into holding it against the Hittite chariot attack.

It was a close run thing, but eventually the situation was stabilised.

Meanwhile, the situation in the centre had taken an unusual turn, with the Hittite foot, at first looking as if they were going to be overwhelmed, managing to extricate themselves from the danger, leading to a situation that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before:

If you look closely, you will see that the Hittites have the advantage: they have managed to rush back chariots to gain the flank of one of my infantry units, and damage one of the Fyrd units almost to the point of destruction.

Both sides had been haemorrhaging victory medals at a rapid rate of knots, so as the melee resumed, it was a case of sudden death: whoever lost two units would lose the game.

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, it was the Hittites who drew the required blood first, with the Anglo-Normans carrying William the B’s body off with them as they retreated from the field!

So a narrow defeat for the Anglo-Normans, but a great game overall. Much excitement as the fortunes of war swung backwards and forwards, with many desperate moments for both sides!

Yet Another Russian Orthodox Church

/

It’s been a long time since I indulged my obsession with 15mm Russian Orthodox churches, but I was having a nose around the Terrains4Games website when I spotted one I didn’t have. It was included in a rather nice Eastern European set, but also available as an individual piece.

It’s quite an unusual model, in that it is taller than it is wider, and will certainly make a very striking model for the tabletop.

The church comes in four different parts: the main body, the roof, the cupola and then the crucifix for the top.

The only odd thing is that I now can’t find this church on the Terrains4Games website, nor can I find it by searching online. I’m almost certain it comes from Terrains4Games (I still have the box it came in) so I’m going to have to assume that they have changed their model, especially as there’s a completely different looking church now advertised on their website under the same code. Very curious, but I’ve ordered that one as well!

So let’s now add the above “mystery” church to the gallery:

So that’s fourteen 15mm Orthodox churches now in the collection…but searching for the origin of the mystery model, I have noticed several more now available…!

TTS AAR: Hittites versus Anglo-Normans

/

Time for another bout of To The Strongest with friend Neil. I would field the Hittites, Neil would play the Anglo-Normans.

The game began with my ally Syrian light chariots storming up one side of the battlefield to outflank the anglo-Norman line.

They got themselves into a perfect position, but then the cards decided to punish me for some former infraction meaning that the Syrians unexpectedly halted until the moment of advantage had passed!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, a massive melee had broken out between the Anglo-Norman cavalry and Fyrd and the Hittite infantry and chariots.

In the last photo, below, you can also see the Syrian light cavalry attemtpign to take the Anglo-Norman camp.

The mass melee caused carnage on both sides, leading to a battlefield almost denuded of troops.

But unfortunately it was the Anglo-Normans who recovered first, sending Norman Milites crashing through a unit of Hittite chariots led by a general. With that my last victory medlas were gone, along with the game!

A great game that could have gone either way at many points during the battle.

Somewhat annoying that my light chariots hadn’t managed to get properly stuck in on the flank, and that I lost the central melee clash in a way that left my troops vulnerable in the clearing up exercise that followed, but a good lesson in how powerful Norman Milites are!

Now to fight it again with the sides swapped over…

Hittite City Gates from Red Copper/Baueda

/

I needed a camp for my Hittites so thought I would follow what I’ve been doing so far and use the Red Copper STL of a Hittite City Gate that looked pretty good to me.

The only problm is that I wanted the camp to fit on a 10cm x 10cm base and the size of the full tower-gate-tower of the original was just over 15cm in width. No problem: those nice people at Baueda scaled and printed the components for me so that they fit beautifully onto one of my camp bases.

The individual pieces linked together well, with only a very slight bit of shaving to get a tight fit. Note that I left the rear end open to facilitate using the camp to store tokens etc during a game.

I painted the main towers and walls with a sponge (one of the sponges that protects figures in a blister pack will do the trick), then re-painted the stonework at the base of the walls in grey, washed with a Contrast grey, then highlighted with a lighter colour.

I did try drybrushing the walls in a light colour, but just couldn’t get the effect I wanted, so had to re-paint the test area again. On reflection, the un-drybrushed walls are a good contrast to the heavily drybrushed base.

I then painted the roofs and beams in a warm brown, and the window frames in what I would call a biblical blue.

All in all, I’m very happy with this kit: highly recommended.

Ottoman Command from Khurasan

Friend Rob was kind enough to paint some Ottoman command figures for me.

These are the Khurasan specials from their Ottoman range that I will use as officers and heroes.

Exquisite paint jobs!

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans versus Siamese (Thai)

/

After our recent Naphill game of FK&P, Rob and I had time for a quick To The Strongest. Rob had once again brought his new Siamese/Thai army (Khurasan figures) and I decided to use the Anglo-Normans against them (Museum Miniatures and Forged in Battle).

The Anglo-Normans won the scouting and, after deployment, I immediately saw an opportunity to outflank the Siamese line on the right hand side, sending two units of Milites forward and deep to acheive that very end.

This forced Rob to hang back his left wing…meaning that a strong advance with the rest of the right hand side of my line threatened his troops there, but with so many Thai units available, he was able to form a decent ‘corner’ that it would prove hard for me to exploit.

Threatened on his left, Rob attacked strongly in the centre, but the cards had other ideas, and a unit of veteran Spearmen evaporated under a countercharge from some Milites backed up by Fyrd.

This particular unit of Milites were led by Bishop Odo and a piece of the True Cross. They would go on to rampage up the centre of the table knocking Thai units off the table at a rapid rate of knots. At one stage, it looked as if they would win the battle on their own!

Back to my right flank, and Rob had very cleverly managed to use a piece of Impassable terrain to stop my cunning outflanking move from fully coming to fruition:

Where were the Thai elephants, you may ask? Why weren’t they causing havoc amongst the Norman horsemen?

Well, my deployment had deliberately avoided the nasty Nellies, and refusing my left flank made it even more difficult for Rob to get them into the action.

My advantage from outflanking on the right had definitely now disappeared. In fact, my isolated cavalry units there were coming under some pressure, being hit from front and sides themselves!

William the B had a narrow escape in the combat that followed, but was saved by one of his liege-men who threw himself in the way of an enemy spear.

And meanwhile Bishop Odo was still thundering, unstoppable, down the centre of the field…

This was all taking too long, as Rob had recovered from the difficulties he faced from the initial deployment and had managed to get quite a lot of cavalry around my left flank. The Thai elephants had also now managed to lumber into the fray.

Fortunately William the B, still alive after his close call, was available to dash back and shore up the left flank, leaving Bishop Odo and his rampaging knights the time to take one of the now-undefended enemy camps and Rob’s last three victory medals.

It had been a great game of TTS. My initial advantage on the right flank was countered by Rob’s cunning use of terrain; Rob’s recovery assault on my left flank had been mostly neutralised by me shifting troops rapidly from right to left; and it was left to Bishop Odo, True Cross in hand, to win the day!

TFL Painting Challenge: Last Entries and the 2024 Round-Up

/

A few of you wisely used your extra spare time over the holiday season to do some painting.

First up, as always, we have Mr Helliwell, with a big hill and a variety of medievals, some of which are shown here:

Next we have Mr Burt, who has repurposed a very old Superquick card church from the 1970s found in a battered state at the bottom of a storage box as a bombed or ruined model.

And finally we have Sapper, another regular, with three different entries all at different scales.

Finally we have Mr Scott, who makes his first and last contribution for the year with some 15mm Confederate infantry:

And here’s another last minute entry: Nick Cooper with his final submission of 2024:

Results

So those are the last entries for this year, let’s have a look at how we all did overall:

To start with the bad news, three people who participated last year dropped out this year, with one of the three being the sadly departed Mr Hodge, who’s presence will be sorely missed.

We did, however, have two new starters: Messrs Darkin and Davenport (well, he’s a returnee after a four year absence), both of whom managed very respectable scores of 696 and 776 respectively, giving them a solid target for next year.

The roll of honour (those who scored more than last year) comprised Messrs Bury, Cooper, Douglas, Emmett, Helliwell, Kay and Sapper, and Carole…most of whom not only surpassed but actually smashed their score from last year. Huge plaudits to Mr Helliwell and Sapper, who achieved scores of 5,085 and 4,705 respectively.

The hall of shame (those who scored less than last year) included Yours Truly. Mr Luther (let off due to illness), and Messrs Plowman, Scott, Slade and Stumpy. Let’s make sure 2025 reverses the situation!

Three participants - Nick Cooper, Andrew Helliwell and Sapper - recorded a personal best, which means that as we go into the 2025 Challenge, the historical scoreboard looks as below:

We’ll be going again in 2025, so let’s start those entries coming in as soon as possible.

Happy New Year everyone!

2024: A Year in Review

/

Well that’s another twelve months gone by, which means it must be time for my annual review of all things wargames.

Gaming

A spectacular year this year with 72 games played, more than any year since records began back in 1985. Every game was fully written up, which kept me very busy when I wasn’t gaming or painting.

The Timurids in Action at To The Smallest

Most of the games were competition games, as this year I made a real effort to play in as many To The Strongest tournaments as I could, which meant that 60 of the 72 tabeltop encounters were in the Ancients/Medieval category.

Playing through the Siege of Norchester scenario pack for For King & Parliament with friend Rob meant that the 17th century period came in next with nine games, with the 19th Century, WW2 and Sci-Fi games making up the rest.

Tournaments

I played in 10 events/tournaments this year, using my Ace-loving Venetians for all but one of them.

A real mixed bag of results, but I was very happy with the two first places:

Many thanks to all the organisers and my various opponents: all the games I had were played in the very best of spirits, with none of the unpleasantness I’ve sometimes seen at other events. I do remember laughing a lot when playing, always a good sign!

Luck is a funny old thing.

I know it’s easy to blame the cards (TTS is a playing card-driven system) but I think even the most uncharitable of my opponents would agree that the Aces do flow for me in competition, and it’s when they don’t I seem to do well i.e. it’s not that I get the good cards then, I just don’t get the bad ones!

That said, I think my two most memorable games involved a lot of luck going my way. Number one was snatching victory from the jaws of defeat against Matt and his Anglo-Normans at The Crusades at the Bunker in Weston-Super-Mere; and number two was the two Tens I drew to defeat Steve’s Yorkists atthe last moment at Peter’s To The Longest event.

But, as I said above, my thanks to all my opponents throughout the year. Just looking through the AARs has made me realise again how much I enjoyed all the competitions I enetered this year, and I would highly recommend the To The Strongest competition circuit to those who fancy a bit of “competitive gaming without numpties”.

Painting

Not a bad year for painting: no great shakes in terms of points in the Painting Challenge, but some significant projects finished.

The first part of the year was mostly taken up with finishing up all the units I needed for my main TTS tournament army, the Venetians. This included a favourite figure of mine: the chef heading up the city militia unit of Spearmen that I sometimes have to field:

Never complain about the food!

The middle part of the year was spent on a whole variety of projects: some Scots for the English Civil War period, some more Ottomans for the 17th Century, and an assortment of sci-fi figures from various manufacturers:

Finally, the latter part of the year was mostly spent on producing a new army: 15mm Hittites from the excellent STL sculpts by Red Copper Miniatures, which I had printed by Baueda in Italy.

These are very nice figures indeed: highly recommended to anyone wanting new chariot-era army.

Wargames Shows

One sacrifice I did have to make because of all the tournament gaming was to reduce the number of shows that I went to.

After last year’s cornucopia of events, all I managed this year was Roll Call, Britcon, Warfare, Colours and Salute, with the first three being because I was competition gaming there which obviously cut down on looking around.

Disappointingly, I also managed just one TFL Lard Day: Operation Market Larden X in Evesham, where I played a great game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum and also managed to try out Sid’s When The Last Sword Is Drawn (Banzai Bonkers) samurai skirmish game, this last highly recommended. It seems extraordinary that this event has been happening for ten years now, and I have been to every one.

Looking back at the pictures from the shows that I have been to, I still saw some very inspirational games: a good reason to try and up the number I go to in 2025.

Summary

So all in all, 2024 proved to be a packed and very good wargaming year.

As always, a big thank you to all my gaming chums and opponents whose good natures and dedication to the hobby have made the last twelve months so much fun.

And to all those who have read Vis Lardica throughout the year: thanks for your visits, likes and comments throughout 2024, and I look forward to seeing you all throughout 2025 as well. Incidentally, we passed the 500,000 page view mark in March, and that’s with not being on Blogger either. If you do own a blog of your own and like this site, please add VL to your list of recommended/favourite links: it seems a shame for all this content not to have a wider audience!

Here’s to doing it all again next year!

Cheers

R