TTS AAR: Crusades Game 1: Venice Abroad vs Mameluke Egyptians

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Earlier this month I travelled to Weston Super Mere for the Crusades event at the Games Bunker there: a tournament where only armies that could conceivably have fought in the Crusades could take part.

My Later Italian Condotteri Venetians therefore packed their suitcases and became a Venice Abroad army: largely the same but with no Later Knights and no Handgunners.

My first game was up against Don’s Mameluke Egyptians. I lost the scouting, so set up in a traditional infantry in the middle, cavalry on the wings formation, and watched vast amounts of enemy cavalry deploy in front of me. Looking at the pictures, I think Don only had one formed and one light infantry unit, with all the rest of his troops being mounted.

As I was fairly certain that my units were stronger than Don’s on a one-to-one basis - knights vs heavy cavalry, spearmen vs mounted - I determined to get stuck in as soon as possible whilst watching out for enemy light cavalry finding their way onto my flanks.

The Mamelukes opened the action, coming forward in what looked like piecemeal fashion, but was actually an attempt to weave their way through weak points in my line. It certainly looked like they had amanged this with a unit of light cavalry sneaking past me on the left, and a unit of heavy cavalry attempting to run over my raw crossbowmen on the right!

On the right flank, somehow the militia crossbowmen survived the charge of the heavy cavalry (they were helped by the spearman unit just to their left), with my Knights coming round the outside to engage two units of veteran heavy cavalry towards the Mameluke side of the table.

Back to the left flank, and the gap was plugged, with my infantry going forward, bouncing backwards slightly, and then being reinforced by Knights. I was determined to push through the opposition here and go on to take the Mameluke camp.

Back to the right again, and the Venetians were slowly but steadily pushing the Mamelukes back.

One unit of elite cavalry had already been broken by the Venetians Knights, and it wouldn’t be long before the other went as well.

There were now two clearly-defined battles taking place: one on the left and one on the right, with a big gap in the centre.

I had just about won the right hand flank, and only needed a little bit more to do the same on the left. Although the spearmen had got themselves in a bit of trouble from flank-charging light infantry, the Knights and Alabardiers had combined and soon the Mamelukes had lost another two units and the game.

So a good start to the Crusades with a 12-3 victory.

IABSM at The Other Partisan

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I didn’t get to The Other Partisan this year: real life getting in the way of wargaiming again!

A pity, as there look to have been many excellent games on display including those in the now usual Lard Zone.

Featured below are photographs from Michael Curtis from the I Ain’t Been Shot Mum Facebook Group of the superb 28mm Gold Beach, King Sector, 6th June 1944 game.

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans & Akkadians

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Time for another game of To The Strongest: my Anglo-Normans would take on friend Rob’s Akkadians, both sides using figures from Museum Miniatures excellent 15mm Z range of CAD designed miniatures.

The Anglo-Normans (half Normans, half Vikings!) won the scouting and advanced forward to take the centre of the battlefield.

The Akkadians responded with an advance of their own, and before long the two sides were ready for the first clashes:

On my left flank, I managed to get two units of Norman Knights deep behind Rob’s main line with only a couple of units of Akkadian spearmen to hold them off.

Unfortunately, although the Knights managed to get the advantage, they never really managed to exploit this to its full extent: failing to either finish off the remaining spearmen, take an enemy camp or even curl back to take the rest of the Akkadians in the rear. In the end, the sector became a side show for the main battle.

Just to the left of the central hill, the Anglo-Saxon contingent of the Anglo-Normans faced off against more Akkadian spearmen. I thought I had a decent advantage here: two deep warbands plus a couple of skirmishing bowmen versus two enemy spearmen units, but if you look closely in at the first picture in the gallery below, you can see another Akkadian unit lurking in the background. This unit turned out to be the Akkad City Guard, armed with great big axes.

The two lines clashed, and although one of the warbands burst through the enemy line and headed towards their other camp, the rest of the combat was, again, pretty much honours even, especially when the Akkadian axemen intervened.

Which left the main action to take place in the right-centre of the field.

Initially, things looked quite good: I pushed the enemy on the hill backwards and then got into a position where I could flank the units just to the right, with my cavalry preventing the Akkadian chariots from outflanking my line.

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t seem to take advantage of the situation, and the next thing I know it’s my infantry that are being flanked and, indeed, the whole of my troops on that side of the table were crumbling!

I’m still not quite sure how this happened!

At this point the battle was effectively lost, particularly as the Anglo-Saxon warband that had brokne through the enemy line had failed to take the enemy camp and was now surrounded on all sides and fighting for its life, with things being no better around my own camps.

A few moments later, that was all she wrote: the Anglo-Normans thoroughly trounced by the Akkadians: just goes to show that newer isn’t always better!

FK&P AAR: Laundry Day

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My play-through of the Siege of Norchester campaign for For King & Parliament is really hotting up. After the encounter at Happy Valley, where Rob’s Royalists were thoroughly trounced by my Parliamentarians, it was time for Scenario 9: Laundry Day.

As background, despite their defeat in the Valley, the Royalist relief force has managed to get through the Parliamentarian cordon and sneak (if you can sneak a multi-battalia army!) through to the rear of the Roundhead lines where, as luck would have it, it’s laundry day. The scenario pits a force of Cavaliers on the offensive against a line of Parliamentarian camps, the loss of each of which would cost the Roundheads valuable victory medals.

The Royalists had the initiative and, after a bit of manouevring to get over the hedge in front of their initial positions, started forward, rapidly followed by a similar advance from the Roundheads.

After an exchange of infantry fire on the central hill that left several men dead on each side, the first main clashes occured between the cavalry forces on the wings.

Honours were even on the left wing; but on the right wing the only veteran Parliamentarian squadron of Dutch horse charged, was counter-charged, and then dashed from the field by a squadron of Royalist Swedish horse. This was a very unpleasant start to the action for the Roundheads!

Meanwhile, the two infantry lines had closed in the centre, and an inconclusive firefight broke out followed by a couple of equally inconclusive melees: the Roundheads (a) notably failing to break a mob of Royalist followers, (b) failing to have any impact at all with a supposedly-devastating first charge by some Border Reivers (the Highlanders in the pictures below), and (c) being pushed back from the hill in the centre of the field.

Worse for the Rpundheads, they had now decisively lost the cavalry battle on the right wing, leaving the Royalists free to advance and capture one of their camps. This cost three vital victory medals that I could only replace if I could re-take the camp: something that was, and excuse the TTS in-joke, not on the cards!

My cavalry on the left wing weren’t, however, doing too badly, but my problem was getting them back into a position from where they could affect the rest of the field. Some of them were pursuing fleeing enemy off the table, others had only just rallied up from disorder.

But my time was almost up. With the medals I had lost so far, the Parliamentarian force was close to breaking. Okay, so the Royalists were a bit battered too, but they hadn’t lost a camp!

I attempted a counter-attack in the centre, and came close to breaking through…and managed to get my pursuing cavalry on the left turned around and heading back to the action…but just didn’t now have the staying power of the Royalists.

Rob and I swapped unit for unit losses, but the simple factof the matter was that I ran out of coins before he did.

Metaphorical taila between their equally metaphorical legs, the Roundheads snuck from the battlefield, leaving the victorious Royalists to reinforce beleaguered Norchester.

So from being several coins ahead over the campaign as a whole I was now down seven coins overall: proving that you can’t afford to lose your laundry if you want to take a city!

Three games to go, with an encounter at Ramshackle Road being next…

TTS AAR: Elephant Screen Part II

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With the Alexandrian Macedonians defeated twice by Peter’s Made-Up Ancient Indian army (designed to experiment with the relatively new Light Infantry - Elephant Screen troop type) it was time to give someone else a go: step forward my trusty Venetians.

I’d like, at this point, to laucnh into an exciting battle report where the initiative, luck and clever use of tactics swung first one way then the other, all culminating in a glorious Venetian victory by the narrowest of margins…but I can’t. The appalling cards that had been the downfall of the Macedonians followed me into this game with entirely predictable results:

Well that’s not entirely fair on Peter: having won the scouting, his skillful deployment meant that I was largely on the back foot from the start, with his army almost wholly threatening my right flank.

I had, however, managed to get my troops into a position to blunt if not fully counter his attack, but was then, as you can see, betrayed by the cards.

Okay, so the mounted ballesteri lights in the first picture might not have done much to the elephant they were trying to assault, but the Knights in the second picture were surely onto a chicken-dinner winner! And don’t talk to me about the Knights versus the chariots in the third picture: what you aren’t seeing is the rear charge that they had also failed to make in the previous turn!

Here’s a helicopter-view shot of early in the battle showing the way Peter had managed to get onto my right flank and effectively fight a third of my army with all of his:

But hopefully you can also see how I have managed to get my troops into a position where I have Knights ready to counter his cavalry and have manouevred to get a two:one advantage on his lead attacking unit (see close up picture, below) all brought to nothing by the cards!

So that was the end of our session: three defeats for me at the hands of the Made-Up Indians with their high numbers of Elephant Screen units.

Even though the Screeners didn’t make that much difference to the results in the end (my losses were down to Peter’s skillful play and the cards) I am still quite glad that they are made-up Indians and not one I expect to face in future!

Just off to tend to a small bonfire in the back garden, and anyone know where’s the best place to get some new sets of cards!

IABSM AAR: Action near Pestszentimre

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Here’s another great I Ain’t Been Shot Mum after action report from the keyboard and camera of Mark Luther.

Action from the Eastern Front as Hungarian assault gun batteries and grenadiers of Feldherrnhalle take on the Soviet 4th Guards Mechanised Brigade in April 1944.

This game was played at GigaBites Cafe in August 2024. Click on the picture below to see all:

TTS AAR: Elephant Screen Test

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Off to Peter’s house for a bit of training in the run up to this year’s Warfare tournament. My aim was just to have a few enjoyable games of To The Strongest, Peter’s aim was to thoroughly investigate the capabilities of the relatively new troop type Light Infantry, Elephant Screen (there’s a reason he wins a lot of tournaments!).

Peter had therefore constructed a mythical army consisting mostly of elephants, a good half of whom were included in the aforementioned light infantry screening units. We’ll call these the “Made Up Indians” or MUIs. I would fight our first battle with some Imperial Alexandrians: pike, Companions and lights.

I had lost the scouting - hardly surprising with all those light units on the other side of the table - and soon found myself watching a whole herd of pachyderms thundering towards me.

To translate the pictures into something useful, the elephants with red howdahs or cloths are ‘normal’ escorted Indian elephants, the others are the light infantry/elephant screening units.

Not wanting to get caught on my base line, I advanced forward, driving the lights backwards. This, however, left my relatively narrow frontage army vulnerable on the flanks: Peter taking full advantage by heading down towards my empty right flank with his cavalry and chariots, seeking to turn my flank and roll me up.

Note how my two units of cavalry , centre-bottom in the picture above - are faced by escorted elephants i.e. kept occupied whilst his flanking force curls around the rear. It’s easy to see this happening in hindsight and in the photos, not so easy to see it and prevent it on the tabletop!

The inevitable happened, and I found myself fully engaged from the front and hit in the right flank: things were not looking good!

The writing was now on the wall: my cavalry were forced to leave the table, and had real difficulty getting back on and, despite some success elsewhere, I was soon hamorraging victory medals and defeated!

The only good thing was that it was a fairly quick battle, leaving us time for a re-match…but that’s another story!

The Re-Match

With my defeat in the first game partly due to being outflanked, I decided on a change of tactics for Game 2: rather than set up in the centre of the field, I would huddle in one corner, ermging to cruch the MUIs once their dispositions had been revealed.

At this point it’s worth reminding regualr readers that sometimes Lady Luck is decidedly, shall we say, unkind to me. Well, today, she really went to town!

Rather than a full report, I invite the reader to count the number of Aces drawn in the pictures below:

And that’s just a selection! In the same game, Peter managed to have a unit of cavalry enter the table and then pull an 8, 9, 10 for activation cards to send a unit of my elite cavalry routing off the table. Sometimes, it’s just not worth setting out the figures!

TTS AAR: Britcon Game 5: Venetians vs Florentines

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My final game at Britcon this year was against another Italian Condotteri army: Nigel’s Florentines.

Although technically a different army to mine (an Early Italian Condotteri army versus my Later one, and from Florence as opposed to Venice), Nigel’s force was actually/obviously quite similar to mine, with the contemporaneous nature of the clash promising an interesting game.

As you can see in the picture below, we even deployed in a similar way!

The oppening phases of the game saw both sides plagued by a series of Aces, something I had (quite surprisingly!) managed to avoid in the tournament so far.

Nevertheless, the Venetian Knights advanced strongly on the left wing, and managed to get into a position where I could threaten to roll up the Florentine line, with the only thing standing in their way being a couple of units of enemy Lights…

…who were disposed of in short order:

My other command of Knights was also in the process of doing the same thing on the other side of the battlefield:

Back to the left flank, where my initial success was now being slightly stymied by a combination of a really annoying unit of enemy Knights that just wouldn’t die and my decks of cards who had obviously decided that I had been having far too easy up until now:

Despite this, however, the rest of my troops on that flank had started to knock Florentine units off the board, helped by the Venetian infantry who had now caught up and were eager to join in the fun.

Things were also still going well on the right flank apart, again, for one really annoying enemy unit: this time a bunch of Light Infantry with Melee Weapons: a relatively new troop type who had the temerity to charge my overall commander, with army standard, bodyguard knights etc, in the flank!

I remember this being a deeply frustrating phase of the game, where a couple of Florentine units on the wings distracted me so much that it kept me from properly enjoying the process of destroying his centre…but the writing was on the walls of Florence and soon Nigel’s last victory medal was mine for a 181-38 point victory.

With all five games now done, as organiser I totted up everyone’s points from all the games and discovered, a bit to my embarrassment, that I was actually the overall winner, and with a clean sweep of five victories out of five.

So a good result at what had beena cracking tournament overall. All the games were fought with a great spirit of friendly, competitive, fair play, with no arguments marring the event at all.

My thanks to all those who took part (especially my opponents), to all the organisers at BHGS, and to Derek, who was kind enough to do all the list checking. Make sure you keep 7-9th August 2025 clear for next year’s competition.

TTS AAR: Britcon Game 4: Venetians vs Thessalians

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My fourth game at Britcon was a re-match of the warm-up game I’d had on the Friday evening before the tournament started: my Venetians versus Adrian’s Thessalians.

The stakes this time around, however, were much higher: we were ranked one and two in the tournament so far, so whoever won this game would end up perfectly placed to take the title. It would be fair to say that I was a little nervous about this one: my Venetians had been hammered on the Friday night (as in soundly beaten not drunk as a lord!) and I couldn’t afford to let that happen again.

The Thessalians were another largely infantry army, and I’d beaten three of them already during the competition by sending my Knights around one or both flanks. Adrian, however, was far too canny to give me the opportunity to do that: his men were deployed to cover just about the entire width of the table, so no room around the sides!

His left flank, however, did look a bit weaker than his right and centre (where those nasty veteran Hoplites were waiting) so if I couldn’t go around a flank, I determined to punch through it using my larger command of Knights. First off, however, I had to deal with Adrian’s cavalry there, who were attempting to do to me what I’d done to others!

In the meantime, I kept my main line rigidly under control, just advancing far enough forward to give me a little retreating space should I need it.

Things continued to go well on my right: the Thessalian cavalry were disposed off (either routing or retreating off table) and, more importantly, two of my Knights units were now free to crash right the way through to the enemy base line.

Meanwhile battle had been joined in the centre, with the combination of Alabardiers and Picchieri proving more than a match for the Thessalian Hoplites, with the threat of a single unit of Knights enough to keep Adrian’s right wing forces at bay.

The Knights on the right finally properly broke through, with one unit heading for and taking the enemy camp (despite the best efforts of some pesky enemy light infantry) and the other crashing into the rear of the Thessalian reserve.

The game should have ended here in a Venetian victory but, unfortunately, I had made a mistake on my right flank: I had positioned my Knights and Lights there to keep the enemy light cavalry that had retreated off table from coming back onto the board, but forgot what they were there for and decided to “get my Lights back into the battle”. This let Adrian bring his light cavalry back onto the table, meaning that when his camp fell, he had one coin left rather than none.

How annoying!

The writing was, however, on the wall, and it was only a matter of time before I managed to get the extra coin I needed to win the game, but it was a pain in the backside and could have let Adrian back into the match.

Fortunately I managed to take the final coin needed before his Hoplites could relieve his camp: a 188-23 victory for the Venetians.

IABSM AAR: Somewhere in Normandy

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Here are some great pictures from a game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum played in 20mm by Mercian Miniatures, taken from the IABSM Facebook Group.

TTS AAR: Britcon Game 3: Venetians vs the Sea Peoples

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With the Zanj Revolt and Spartans already defeated, it was now time to face Howard’s beautifully painted Sea Peoples: another infantry-heavy army.

Having beaten two infantry armies by curling the Knights around one flank, I thought it would be rude not to go for a third win that way, so deployed much as I had done in the first two games.

The terrain was unfortunately quite heavy on either flank, with annoying woods all over the place, but all would be good if I could temp the Sea Peoples forward a bit into the more open centre of the table, where I could either get round the back of their line or just curl in on their flanks.

The sight of my line slowly advancing forward did indeed prove too much of a temptation for the SP’s and, even better, rather than attacking all at once, they dripped their warriors forward in a quasi-echelon formation meaning that the Venetian pichieri (pikemen) and alabardieri (billmen) could gang up on the lead unit and very quickly remove it from the board.

Even the mighty Goliath couldn’t stop the combination of pikemen and billmen

Meanwhile, I had made a bit of an error on my right flank.

The two units of Knights who were supposed to be keeping the enemy busy there had got themselves jammed up against the edge of the table and the piece of randomly-placed Impassable terrain and, faced by the SP’s elite chariots, had failed to punch through.

This left them horribly exposed to a flank attack, that duly went in, and my Knights disappeard off into the distance, bitterly complaining that their contracts stated that they delivered the flank attacks not the other way around!

My only consolation was that this little action had tied up quite a lot of the Sea Peoples’ force away from the main action, meaning that I could now try and follow Mr Riding’s principle of fighting the half of the SP’s army that was left elsewhere on the table with the two thirds of mine that faced them.

Back to the left, and my outflanking manoeuvre had been gloriously successful, which meant that I had managed to totally fragment the Sea Peoples’ main battle line.

This meant that my roving Knights could gang up on isolated warbands while my infantry ground inexorably forward.

Now hemorraging coins, it wasn’t long before the final Sea Peoples’ unit fell, leaving the Venetians masters of the field, with the coup de grace fittingly delivered from the left flank.

The only downside was that the loss of the Knights on the right had cost me more coins than I wanted, so the victory was a more modest 169-62 in my favour.

With three wins out of three so far, that left me in pole position at the end of day one. That meant that the next morning I would face Adrian’s Thessalians again - yes, the ones I had lost the warm-up game to just before the tournament began - with the winner then able to be fairly confident of victory overall.

Time for a curry - with only a modest amount of alcohol - and an early night!

TTS AAR: Britcon Game 2: Venetians vs the Spartans!

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My second game at the Britcon To The Strongest tournament this year was against Andy’s Spartans - another infantry-heavy army.

This was going to be a horrible army for my Venetians to fight: veteran Hoplite Spartiates backed up by more Hoplites, backed up by even more Hoplites. How’s a Knight supposed to charge into that lot and survive?

One advantage I had was that I would almost certainly outscout the red cloaks, and this did indeed prove the case. I therefore adopted the same tactics that I had used against the Zanj in game one, and came forward infantry in the center to pin his line in place, while my Knights probed for a flank to turn.

And either or both flanks would do!

But the thing about Hoplites is that they can more really well in one direction and not at all in the other: my problem is that I couldn’t remember which was which! Was it right good,/left bad or left good/right bad?

As it turned out, it was right good/left bad, so that Spartans slewed across the field in an attempt to stop me getting around their right flank. Unfortunately for the Greeks, my horsemen were faster than them, and soon my mounted crossbowmen and some of the Knights on the left were looking at Spartan backsides!

On top of that, I was also in a position to use more of my Knights on the right flank, although some Spartan allies there had turned to face my assualt.

On the left hand side, Andy’s problem was that his men couldn’t face in two directions at once: a problem made worse when the first flank charge from my mounted crossbowmen and some Knights killed the general in charge of the Spartiates. They would have to fight the rest of the battle without Leonidas!

Spartans are tough, though, and it was going to take me a bit of time to chew through them, even with the tactical advantages that I now had.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, my Knights and Lights had worked in perfect harmony (for once!) and cleared the Spartan allies from the field.

I would lose the Lights and one unit of Knights clearing more off the board here, so it was the left flank where the battle would be decided.

There I had by now dealt with one unit of Spartiates, and now threatened the rear of two more.

Andy was still unwilling to commit his men to frontal charges against my Knights facing forwards, presumably worried about the fact that if he charged me, although he would get the first strike, it was likely my Knights would survive that and then strike back twice with their lances, and strike back at Spartans who had given up all the advantages that formed spearmen get when receiving a mounted charge.

That meant that I had both the tactical positional advantage and the initiative, so could attack and defeat the Hoplite unit on the hill you can just see in the picture above with a combination of in-the-rear and in-the-front attacks. This removed a Zone of Control, allowing me to then start to roll up the rest of the Spartan line.

The loss of multiple deep units was also hurting Andy’s supply of victory medals, and it only really took one more unit of Spartiates, again beleaguered on two sides, breaking to finish the game. A victory at 177 points versus 54 points for the Venetians.

TTS AAR: Britcon Game 1: Venetians vs Zanj Revolt

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My first tournament game at Briton this year was against John’s Zanj Revolt army: hordes of fanatical warriors who would keep fighting at full capacity no matter how many times you disorder them. My troops were missing the canals 0f Venice already!

As the Zanj had no cavalry, I won the scouting, and was pleased to see the enemy drawn up in what looked like a defensive posture to me. The last thing I had wanted was to face an unbroken wall of foot units stretching right the way across the table, so the open flank on one side of the Zanj formation seemed like an opportunity to be exploited.

I duly advanced my infantry slightly forward in the centre (always give yourself a little retreat room just in case you need it) while sending the Knights cantering forward on the left flank.

The Zanj weren’t moving: obviously hoping to act as a rock on which the waves of my assault would break, so I took the time they had given me to get my troops just where I wanted them.

John’s refused right flank, however, didn’t give me what I really needed: a clear path, free of ZoCs, into the side of main Zanj body of troops. It was time to try and break things up a bit: time to send in my main line.

My initial advance to contact didn’t go too well: the Alabardiers and a unit of Knights being disordered, but a quick step backwards began to open things up a bit, certainly enough to deploy one unit of my outflanking force into position.

A lot of the Zanj were on the right hand side of the table, facing air…so they ganged up on the only unit of mine that they could reach: more Knights. For once, however, the Knights did what they were supposed to do, and punched through the warriors in front of them to escape the threat.

In the right hand picture above, you can also see how John’s echelon formation was keeping my outflanking force at bay…but all I needed was one chink in the Zanj armour and I was in!

That came as my re-ordered infantry pushed forward again, leaving a lane behind them for my flanking knights to cross the entire field and crash the side of the Zanj force on the ‘empty’ side of the table: as I said, they had been advancing forward so had got out of touch with the rest of their troops.

As the Zanj line fragmented, I was now able to gang up on their individual units. What this meant was that although the Zanj warriors and most of my men fought the same way, because the Zanj (as fanatics) saved very badly, I was able to inflict significantly more hits than I took, and even deep units can’t stand forever.

Zanj warriors began streaming from the field, leaving the Venetians with a 188-23 victory (we were using Peter’s Ewelme points system): a good start to the tournament proper.

A good win, but one that left me facing a tough opponent in round two: the Spartans!

TTS AAR: Britcon Warm-Up: Venetians vs Thessalians

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One of the high points of the To The Strongest calendar year has to be the Britcon tournament: with five games over two days, it is the marathon event on the competition circuit.

This year’s Britcon was going to be even busier for me than normal as I had stepped in to run the TTS event after the original organiser had had to pull out.

Tradition has it that any early birds who arrive on the Friday night can play a warm-up game with whoever else is there, so my Venetians therefore found themselves lining up opposite the Thessalians, ably commanded by Adrian, last year’s winner.

The Thessalians are quite intimidating: a command of veteran Hoplites ideal for defending against a cavalry charge, a command of meaty heavy cavalry, then all sorts of support troops including a couple of veteran Peltast and small Hoplite units. This was not going to be an easy warm up!

At this point I wasn’t sure what my plan was…but I did know that it didn’t involve letting a couple of units of enemy light cavalry sneak around my left flank almost as soon as the battle began!

Those pesky lights forced me to drop back the Knights I had on that flank, causing me to spend the first half of the game with one eye constantly on what was happening there. Definitely not good for the concentration!

Fortunately, as you can see in the right-hand picture, below, I did manage to contain Adrian’s troops there, even managing to also see off the Thessalian cavalry that had come forward in support.

Meanwhile, my Knights on the other side of the table were trying to get forward to turn the Thessalian left flank.

This, however, just wasn’t working for me, although I can’t remember why. All I do know is that my Knights there were somewhat roughly handled by some more pesky lights and the veteran Peltasts forming the end of Adrian’s main battle line, and that this allowed the Thessalian Hoplites to get into contact with my infantry.

The Knights on the right just couldn’t seem to get involved. One unit, the one with the general and army standard, languished disordered at the back of the board covered by a small unit of enemy veteran Hoplites. The other was still trying to chew their way through a unit of enemy veteran Peltasts. Not a very good performance from the Knights.

There was other fighting still going on over the rest of the battlefield, but by now my units were fighting as individual elements, not together as part of a line.

The end, as they say, was nigh…with the coup de grace being delivered as a hoard of Hoplites smashed their way into my camp, the Lights I had left there as guards proving no more than a speedbump for the Greeks, despite fighting from behind fortifications.

So a 4-13 loss for my warm-up game: not a very auspicious start to my campaign. Let’s hope the Venetians learnt some lessons for the tournament proper…!

TTS AAR: Burgundians versus Celts

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As is now our usual practice, Rob and I quickly cleared away the game of For King & Parliament that we had just finished and prepared for a quick ‘dessert’ of To The Strongest.

I was about to travel to Nottingham for the TTS competition at Britcon ‘24, so was quite keen to have a practice game against an infantry-heavy army. The closest equivalent in 15mm to the Venetians (Late Italian Condotta) that I would be using at Britcon were my Burgundian Ordnance troops, so I would use them whilst Rob took the Ancient Britons: plenty of infantry with enough mounted support from chariots to make them tricky to deal with.

view from the ancient british side of the table

Theer did seem to be an awful lot of troops facing my Burgundians but, as it turned out, that was nothing to what the Venetians would face in Nottingham, but more of that in future reports…

The Ancient Brits opened proceedings with a general advance forward, but a weird series of cards meant that their warbands were immediately strung out almost in an accidental echelon formation. The Burgundians kept their nerve and moved slightly forward in a solid line.

Digressing from the centre for a second, British chariots hurtled forward on my left, seeking to curl in behind my battle line.

I dispatched a squadron of knights to deal with the threat but, much to my surprise, although they held the chariots up the knights were eventually defeated.

Thankfully the chariots never managed to get moving again after the clash (presumably looting the bodies for steel weapons, armour, heads etc) so what was an awkward situation never developed into a crisis.

Back to the centre, and the lone Ancient British warband that Rob had pushed forward was soon dispatched by my line: three against one is never good odds!

Meanwhile, my mounted crossbowmen on the right had, through a bit of luck with activation cards, managed to charge the flank of the first wave of British chariots heading towards my camp.

This allowed me to send the knights covering that side of the field forward to engage another warband: once again allowing me to use my superior fighting power to hit an enemy unit whilst avoiding being overwhelmed by weight of numbers.

With two warbands and two chariots already lost, Rob was caught between a rock and a hard place. Either he jung back and let me use my longbows and then advance to finish off any pin-cushioned survivors, or he threw everything he had left forward in an attemtp to finally break my line.

Naturally he decided to throw everything forward, and an almighty melee broke out in the centre of the field.

Unfortunately, as I said above, the troops in my main battle line were either as good as or better than his on a unit-vs-unit basis, so it was only a matter of time before just one too many warbands broke and victory was mine!

It had been a great game, and really good practice for Britcon. Lessons learnt about facing a mostly infantry army included:

  • guard your flanks

  • always try to gang up on warbands that have got separated from the main body

  • use your lights in the enemy flanks

Now all I had to do was try remember them and then put them into practice!

Happy Valley...if you're a Roundhead!

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Friend Rob and I continued on our playthrough of the The Siege of Norchester campaign book for For King & Parliament with the Happy Valley scenario.

G0ing into the game, the Parliamentarians were way behind the Royalists in terms of overall victory medals to date, so this was a great chance to not only stop the Cavalier relief force from getting through to Norchester, but also to gain back some of the deficit.

The photo above shows the table at the start of the game. Although not very obvious, the road runs through the middle of the valley, with the terrain gradually rising up each side.

The Parliamentarians, with home field advantage, are drawn up in the traditional manner, but the Royalists have a problem: they start the game with their horse in the centre on the road (well, they insisted, and being the officers…) and their infantry (a lot of mobs raised from local supporters) largely on the wings.

Bpth sides began the game advancing their cavalry forward, with the Royalist horse heading sideways on their right to counter the threat of the Roundhead Dutch-style squadrons.

On the Parliamentarian left, two squadrons of horse thundered towards the lone enemy infantry unit blocking the way through to the Royalist rear.

That infantry unit would hold the enemy force off for the whole game, even sending one squadron reeling backwards to reform.

On the other wing, three squadrons of Roundhead horse faced three squadrons of Royalist horse: the Parliamentarians being more numerous but still operating in the somewhat obsolete Dutch style versus the more modern Swedish style of their opponents.

Despite their old-fashioned ways, the Parliamentarians smashed their way through the Royalist horse, crashing in to the unfortunate mobs behind, most of whom were soon regretting their decision to join the Norchester crusade!

Back to the centre, where the Parliamentarian infantry was rushing forward to catch up with the cavalry:

A general engagement soon broke out across the line:

Miraculously, one unit of Borders Horse, on their flea-bitten nags, survived a colossal charge by some Royalist horse, drawing four consecutive save cards when one more failure would have meant they fled the table.

Elsewhere in the centre, the opposing infantry were locked into a firefight, each side firing off huge amounts of ammunition hoping to break their foe.

Sheer weight of numbers now came into play, with the Parliamentarians able to deploy more regular soldiers into the fight in the centre: the Royalist mobs there effectively neutralised by the Roundhead horse.

Luck had also deserted the King’s men: if the Cavalier cavalry had broken through on the right, they could have rampaged in the Parliamentarian rear, but they just couldn’t get the final charge needed to clear their path.

With their left and centre lost, the Royalist relief force had no choice but to withdraw before the Parliamentarians combined to overwhelm the survivors. Norchester would not now be relieved!

This turned out to be a big victory for Ollie Cromwell’s men: putting me now two victory medals in front in the campaign overall.

Here are some more panoramic shots of the game:

TTS AAR: The Beardless King Strikes Again

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Having spent all that time and effort re-basing my New Kingdom Egyptians, I now wanted to get them onto the table.

No wargaming friends were available (you just can’t get the staff these days!) so I persuaded (i.e. bribed) daughter number two to put aside her computer games and face me over the tabletop. I would take the Egyptians, she elected to lead the Italo-Normans into battle.

The Italo-Normans deployed with their infantry and camp on their far right, lurking behind a couple of hills. Their knights, half of them Veterans, were in the centre of the table.

I deployed the Egyptians in the traditional way: a command of chariots on either flank with the massed infantry in the centre. My plan was, somewhat obviosuly, to sweep the chariots forward in an attempt to outflank the enemy whilst pelting them with bow-fire. Meanwhile my infantry would be a rock on which the Norman knights could dash themselves to pieces.

Well, as Mike Tyson famously said, everyone has a plan until you get a punch in the face!

I opened proceedings with, as per the plan, a major advance forward with the chariots. The cards favoured me on the right, with one command ending the turn in prime position.

The Normans responded by advancing their infantry forward onto the hills in front of their camp, sending a unit of Knights to handle my massed Light Chariots on their left wing, and an all out advance in the centre: the Beardless King saying later that her strategy was to attack, attach and then attack some more!

On the left hand side of the table, my other command of massed Light Chariots were somewhat surprised when the Norman infantry (deep Spearmen) came down off the hills and headed for them, murder in mind. Didn’t they know they are supposed to stay on their hill and get peppered with arrows until they break?

I duly retreated back before the advance, loosing arrow after arrow to not a huge effect: a pattern of activity that would be repeated until the end of the game. I would have to win elsewhere!

Meanwhile in the centre, the Normans were coming forward fast.

One unit of Knights hit the Shardana Royal Guard (the Sea Peoples types) and smashed them straight off the table!

The rest of the Knights closed with the main Egyptian infantry line.

On the right flank, the other chariots division had split their efforts. Half of them now faced the Knights that had defeated the Royal Guard, the other half (the ones down the other Norman side of the table) opened fire on the Knights that had been sent to contain them and, in due course, shot them down.

The victorious chariots then turned and headed back to the main action: let’s see how the Norman cavalry like a chariot charge in the rear!

Unfortunately, however, the Egyptian infantry line was in deep trouble and, before the chariots could intervene, just collapsed under the weight of the charges of the Norman Knights.

So that was it! The relentless charges of both the Norman knights in the centre and the Spearmen in the left had driven the New Kingdom Egyptians from the field.

The Beardless King, triumphant, slunk back to her screens!