TTS AAR: Chalgrove World's: Game One

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Yesterday it was off to Chalgrove for the 2023 To The Strongest World Championships. As always, I had my trusty Early Imperial Romans with me, and was fully ready to put the Latin mincing machine to work!

My first game was against Michael G’s Western Han Chinese. A beautiful 3D printed army with a couple of nasty looking heavy chariots, a load of crossbow-armed units and some vicious dagger-axemen as well.

As it happens, everything went my way. Michael’s heavy chariots were having an off day and left the field almost on first combat, and from then it was just a matter of my legionaries wading their way forward against a positive storm of crossbow bolts to get in amongst it with the Chinese infantry.

Here I did have a little luck: Michael and I reckoned that he had fired at least twenty crossbow volleys at my advancing men and scored only two disorders which I quickly rallied. As the Roman mincing machine swung into action, my cavalry punched through the gap where his heavy chariots had been and, after that, it was just a matter of time before the game was mine. A 12-0 victory to give me a good start to the day’s proceedings.

Although the Romans did win outright victory, it would only have taken a little more luck with the crossbows for Michael to put me into serious trouble. I’ve always wanted a Chinese army for my collection and, looking at Michael’s, even more so now!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans versus Hoplite Greeks

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Clearing out my computer’s memory, I came across these pictures from a game played earlier this year: a practice session for the autumn tournament season that pitched my Early Imperial Roman’s against friend Other Rob’s Hoplite Greeks.

As it was a few weeks ago, I don’t have a blow-by-blow account of the game for you, but I do remember that the large Greek phalanxes caused a few problems for the Romans, and it was only their ability to manoeuvre and to rally that got them the win.

Here’s a gallery of the action: hopefully the pictures will tell the story!

It’s all coming back to me now!

My plan was to have the Roman cavalry overwhelm the lesser quality Greek horse on my left then curl back into the centre to take the Greeks in the flank.

That didn’t happen: as per usual the Roman horse proved incapable of beating the moth-eaten rabble in front of them, so that flank remained effectively neutralised throughout the battle.

That meant that the Legions had to do the work and won the day by ganging up on the individual phalanxes and taking them from two sides at once. Oh, and the Equites Sagittarrii light horse took the enemy camp as well, which helped!

Britcon Day Two: Game Five & Results

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My final battle at Britcon was against Peter’s Ostrogoth army: another almost-all cavalry force that was bound to lap around my flanks!

Outscouted, my set up was defensive, but I managed to place enough terrain to protect the flanks of my camp, then put the cavalry on the left hoping to hold up his elite nobles for long enough for the Legions to quash any other resistance with a Space Invaders like march forward in a straight line.

The game really turned my way very early on when a couple of extremely unlucky cards meant that Peter and the Ostrogoths lost an elite unit and their senior general in the first proper cavalry clash on the left.

After that, it was a matter of pining his troops back against things they couldn’t evade through and heading for his camp with everything I had: a workmanlike victory 17:4,

So, on to the results. I had four victories and one defeat under my belt, but one of the victories was the 7:5 Carthaginian affair so in reality three victories, one draw and one defeat.

In the end, when everything was totted up, I came third, an improvement of one place on Ewelme. The full scores were:

Congratulations to Adrian on a well deserved victory, and huge thanks to Sid for organising it all.

I would recommend giving the Britcon tournament a go at least once: it’s great fun even if it is quite a test of endurance: it certainly knocked me out for the next few days!

I’d also recommend a trip to 4550 Miles to Delhi the Indian restaurant we (and, coincidentally the Lardies) all ended up in on the Saturday night: great food and atmosphere.

Britcon Day Two: Game Four

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This was probably my hardest game of the tournament: matched up against Howard’s beautifully painted Later Carthaginians.

This was an epic clash that lasted some 3½ hours and was the only game of mine that was stopped by the umpire rather than coming to its natural conclusion.

Rather than use the set terrain, we had used the rules in the book, allowing me to protect my wings with a couple of pieces of impassable rocks. That meant that I could tie up his three units of heavy cavalry with the Praetorians and Auxilia whilst the rest of my army went for the rest of his.

My plan was for one unit of Legionaries to take out his elephants centre-left, whilst my cavalry took out the rest of his cavalry centre-right and then got round behind and into his camp. Meanwhile, I would hold back his elite pseudo-Legionaries with the rest of my true Legionaries on the right.

As always, no plan survived first contact with the enemy: my Legionaries refused point blank to go after his elephants and my cavalry got blocked in the middle…Howard had some annoying light infantry positioned on steep hills that caused me a lot of grief.

One of the key moments of the game: the equites alares get back to block the carthaginian heavy cavalry

The battle started to sway Howard’s way but, for once, the Roman cavalry were superb. The Equites Alares effectively held the centre on their own, rushing backwards and forwards to force his advancing units to protect their flanks.

At the end of the game it was tied 5:5, but my cavalry, on their last turn, managed to flank charge one of Howard’s units knocking it from the board and thus giving me a 7:5 victory.

Britcon Day One: Game Three

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My third game at the Britcon 2023 To The Strongest tournament was against Simon and his Hapsburg Burgundians again. Regular readers will know that I fought a warm-up battle against Simon on the Friday night, losing badly!

This was a grinding game that could have gone either way. The enemy pike pressed forward relentlessly with the Legions conducting an epic fighting withdrawal as the Roman cavalry worked their way onto the HB’s flanks.

Unfortunately, my “roll up” mounted flank attack went in with only enough time for me to break one of Simon’s pike blocks before the legionaries finally gave way: a 5:17 loss.

What was frustrating was that my plan was sound and I came so close to rolling him up entirely…it just didn’t quite happen. If one more pilum had gone in, if my cavalry had got one more hit…if, if, if!

Still, at least I did better than in the first battle!

Britcon Day One: Game Two

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My second game at this year’s Britcon To The Strongest tournament was against Si’s Sassanid Persians. I was someone nervous about this one: Si is a very good player and the Sassanids are a nasty army for the Romans to fight. All that cavalry laps around the Legions’ flanks!

This game, however, went my way…but mainly because Si had the worst possible luck throughout the match: he failed every save he should have made and missed every hit that should have gone in!

As a result, my cavalry held up the Sassanid heavies on my left flank for long enough for my Legionaries to get to grips in the centre and, as my auxilia sagittarii defended my camp against his lights, ground forward pushing his other horsemen back until they had nowhere to evade to. I then took his camp and the game with a 15-0 victory.

So a great result for the Romans, but mainly because Fortuna was firmly on my side.

Britcon: Day One: Game One

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My first game of the tournament proper was against Andy’s Dacians. Co-incidentally, Andy was also the first person I played against at the European’s in Ewelme, so it was good to see him on the other side of the table again.

As per usual with the Romans, I got into trouble on both flanks, but somehow held on for long enough for the Legionaries to win the battle in the centre.

On my left flank, the cavalry achieved nothing except to hang on against multiple flank attacks: not good for veteran cavalry but a considerable improvement compared to their usual dire performances.

On the right, one unit of Legionaries held on against a series of vicious flank and rear attacks for three consecutive turns: laurel wreaths all round.

In the end the battle was decided by my equites sagittarii (horse archer Auxiliaries) who managed to charge some rather nasty cataphract types in the flank and took them out.

Result: a 13:6 victory, worth 17 points once the extra for winning all my opponent’s coins was added in.

Britcon: Day Minus One

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One of the five To The Strongest competitions that I am playing in this year is currently taking place at Britcon: the massive wargames competition event held in Nottingham each year.

As I’m quite a long way from Nottingham, I travelled up on the Friday i.e. yesterday. Horrible journey where a combination of a very busy M40 and a clogged M1 meant that the trip took me an hour longer than I expected, but I found the car park no problem and, almost even better, a cracking place to re-charge my car - I’m 40 miles short of being able to do the round trip in one charge: a bit too much to risk!

Check in to the accommodation was easy too, so kudos to BHGS for their superb organisation. Okay so the room is not what one is used to (it’s been a long time since I was a student!) but very pleasant once you get used to it. The shower is very good, so things could have been much worse!

Carrying a metal 28mm army from flat to venue proved challenging: my arms and fingers had just about reached their limit by the time the main hall sprang into view, but a quick cup of coffee soon revived me and I was able to have a wander and get my bearings.

The rest of TTS lot arrived soon after, and we decided to have a warm up game to get into the swing of things. My opponent was Simon Miller, author of the rules and all-round good egg, with his Burgundian Hapsburg army of mostly raw pikemen.

My Early Imperial Romans advanced in echelon, and got into the perfect position to flank charge his slowly advancing line…but then I suffered the most extraordinary bad luck for the rest of the game and got thrashed 0-13!

Now you may say “oh, the old "‘bad luck’ excuse, eh?” but even Mr Miller kept apologising not just for my card draws but also for his extraordinary good luck. Put it this way, during the game I had nine flank charges that resulted in no effect whatsoever: not even a single disorder!

All I could hope for was that this was not an omen for the competition itself, and that I had used up all my bad cards!

Here are some pics of the game:

TTS AAR: Romans versus Indians

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More practice for Britcon as friend Rob comes over for a couple of games of To The Strongest. The first game was my Early Imperial Romans (well, the Marian Romans proxying for them) versus Rob’s Classical Indians.

not a lot of romans…

but an awful lot of indians

My plan was simple: my veteran cavalry would sweep forward on my left wing and quickly dispose of his raw horse; meanwhile the Legion would advance forward into combat using their superior strength and flexibility to chew through his javelinmen and elephants; once the lines were fully committed, my cavalry would return and hit the enemy from the flank and rear or sack the enemy’s camp.

Unfortunately, my cavalry were having an off day and just couldn’t break the Indian horse: they spent the entire battle tied up way out on the left. That meant that the job of winning (as usual, some would say) was all down to the legionaries.

Fortunately they proved more than up for the task and, apart from the odd minor set back mainly down to the Auxilia, once the lines had closed and the Roman “mincing machine” had started up, there wasn’t a lot that could stop them.

The coup de grace came from one legionary unit breaking through the Indian line and sacking their camp, taking the last Indian victory medals in the process.

Here are some pics of the game:

Horse Archers in 28mm

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Regular visitors will know that I’m about to take part in the To The Strongest competition at Britcon this year, fielding a Roman army not in my usual 15mm scale but in 28mm, using an army borrowed from a friend.

The army is great: plenty of legionaries and auxilia etc, but a bit of playtesting revealed the need for some equites sagittarii auxiliary horse archers, of which I had none.

A quick trawl through eBay suggested that I’d need to pay vast some of money for painted models, and would be jolly lucky to be able to buy only the three that I needed. The solution was at hand, however: I could buy a single sprue of Victorix Arab horse archers for the princely sum of £9: a bargain even if I would have to build and paint the figures myself.

Building the figures was quite fun, although I did find it tricky to get the two sides of horse to fit together snugly: you’ll see the tan horse in the middle has quite a VNL (visible neck line!). The arms were also tricky: superglue wouldn’t set quickly enough so I used a mixture of PVA and superglue which did the trick nicely. Any puffing just looks like the seams of their coats are coming apart!

Painting them was easy: using Contrast paints on 28’s after 15’s is like slapping paint on a shed, and even the tack (my usual bugbear) wasn’t too bad to do. I hashed up the man in the middle’s jacket: my purple dots are not good at all…but don’t look too bad from a distance. I was, however, very happy with the faces.

So thumbs up for Victrix and multipart plastic cavalry. I won’t be switching from my beloved 15’s, but have no problems in giving these a Recommended rating!

Romans Take To The Field (x3)

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I needed to get some practice in for the To The Strongest tournament I’ve entered at Britcon this year, so friend Peter kindly invited me round for a gaming session where I would fight the Romans against whatever he fancied playing.

Given that my Early Imperial Romans are mostly infantry, it was no surprise to see a huge mass of cavalry waiting for me on the other side of Peter’s table. The first two games we played would be Mongols versus Romans, the last would be Normans versus Romans.

Game One: Mongols versus Early Imperial Romans

Being a mostly infantry army, I was comprehensively outscouted and ended up with my troops exactly where I didn’t want them. At least a fifth of my army was out-of-play until they moved in from the flank, and what cavalry I did have were faced by enough swarms of light horse archers to also keep them occupied for the whole game.

Outflanked on my left, my left flank collapsed, and I spent the entire game reacting to the threat from that side. The upshot was a massive 13-0 defeat for the Romans (including the death of the CinC) that boded ill for the rest of the day!

Game Two: Mongols versus Early Imperial Romans

Much to all’s amazement: I won the scouting and, as a result, began the game in a much better position than last time.

Despite this, my left flank collapsed again and I soon found myself 0-4 down in terms of medals. This time, however my better deployment meant that I could recover from this set-back, and in one glorious charge, a unit Roman Equites Alares dashed six victory coins of Mongols from the table, tearing a great big hole in the enemy centre.

Although I was by now running out of victory medals, knocking out another unit of Mongol Lancers and taking the enemy camp finished the job, although I did lose my CinC and part of my camp again. An 11-11 scoreline, but victory for the Romans.

Game Three: Normans versus Early Imperial Romans

Amazingly, I won the scouting again and, if I say so myself, deployed perfectly against the Norman threat.

I advanced forward confidently, only to have my cavalry charge forward with an advantage and get comprehensively stuffed. The worst that should have happened was an even-stevens tussle, but my horsemen just evaporated!

I might have been able to hold on and counter-ruck against an infantry army, but against a mobile mounted army I stood no chance. The rest of my Romans put up a brave fight, so it was no whitewash, but in the end a 6-13 defeat.

Conclusions

So what did I learn? Well, I shall be changing my list slightly just to give me a bit more flexibility, but the main lesson learnt was “don’t fight cavalry armies” which is not very helpful at all!

March to Hell 3D Prints

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A post on the Lead Adventure Forum reminded me that although I’d read about the March to Hell 3D printed miniatures from 3D Breed, I hadn’t actually seen any in the flesh and, as I needed an extra command figure for my Marian Romans, I thought I’d take a look and see what all the fuss was about.

You can get them in the UK from the Geek Villain website, which is well presented and easy to navigate. There are a lot of 15mm 3D prints available: the main WW2 forces, medieval Spanish and Moors, and then the usual suspects ancients-wise: Republican and Early Imperial Romans, Germans, Celts, Persians, Greeks, Macedonians and Carthaginians.

I decided to stay focussed (for once) and headed for the Roman section in search of enough figures for a command stand, and almost immediately came across a special model representing Scipio Africanus: both mounted and dismounted. Looked great in the pics, so I ordered them, and then browsed through and, as I still have plenty of Baueda legionaries in the lead mountain, a couple of the other specials: a medicus set, with a standing and kneeling doctor; and a legionary accompanied by a couple of wardogs!

Scipio and the wardogs were £3, the medicus set was £2.50.

A few days later, a box arrived from the Post Office. The box was about 10cm square and seemed to weigh almost nothing. Opening up, there was a vast amount of bubblewrap folded around the loose miniatures.

Okay, I can live with that - saves on the packaging, the environment and all that (and I’m sure the dustmen/neighbours etc think I’m a drug dealer with all the little plastic ziplock bags I throw away) - but how would that work for a larger order, or did they just loose pack them for this order because it was small and easy to work out which model was which?

The models themselves were beautifully crisp: little works of art. Every last bit of detail was present, with no mould lines, build lines or flash. Lovely.

One thing, though, as represented in the pictures above, they had no bases. They were literally just the same as the images. I’m not sure why I expected them to have bases, after all there are no bases in the pictures, but this did come as a bit of a surprise.

This also wasn’t a problem for the specials: rather than my usual lolly stick mounting for painting, I could glue them straight onto the bases I would be using as mini vignettes…but that did raise the question of what I would do if I was going to buy whole units to be mounted multiple figures per base. I would definitely have to think about that one.

Also, although the lack of bases wasn’t a problem for the infantry (they stood up on their own) it was a bit more a problem for the horse that one of the Scipios sits on. Yes, I did get three horses in my order (not sure why, as only one horse had Roman tack: one even had heads hanging from the breast strap) but none of them had all four feet on the ground. In the end, I mixed a little superglue and PVA together and glued the whole of two hooves to the base…but the horse still sways freely if you knock it. We will have to see how that stands up to battlefield usage.

So how do they paint up?

The quick answer is “beautifully”. I painted them with a black undercoat then with base-wash-highlight, and am very pleased with the results:

Apologies for my crude painting and even cruder photography. Ignore the signifier with the Scipios: he’s from another manufacturer.

So, you can see what they look like, but how do they compare with other figures size-wise.

Here’s a couple of group shots with a base of Baueda Marian Roman legionaries:

No problem with sizing: they match very well indeed.

In conclusion, I liked these and am very pleased with what I’ve got.

Plus points are size, beauty, price and, for the models I ordered, uniqueness and quirkiness.

The big minus point, however, is the lack of bases: I’m not sure how I would mount an infantry unit for painting, and the cavalry without bases is just plain difficult to deal with.

I will be scouring the other listings for more specials like the above and, as I sit here, am severely tempted to see how I get on with a unit of legionary cavalry…

A Few More Romans

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I’m waiting for newly-ordered figures to arrive at the moment and, as I felt like painting something, thought I’d dig into the lead mountain and see what I could find.

Back when I started a Marian Roman army in 15mm, I ordered enough figures to field my equivalent of two legions: ten two-base units, with each base holding 12 figures. I painted up the first legion, no problems, but stalled a bit with the second, only finishing one unit. The problem was that I didn’t need them (six bases of legionaries is quite enough for most To The Strongest Marian Roman armies) and I was, quite frankly, a bit sick of painting them!

Fast forward to now, however, and painting up another two bases worth (i.e. 24 figures) seemed like just the thing.

These are Baueda figures, bought through Magister Militum in the UK, and paint up very nicely indeed. Rather than use Contrast Paints, I went back to a black undercoat for these: seemed more suited all the chainmail.

I had, of course, forgotten how fiddly the Little Big Man Studio shield transfers were! They are great, I hasten to add, and really make the unit a unit, and are easier (for me) than painting every shield with the winged pattern shown, but it does mean cutting out forty-four individual half-shield decals, which was a very tedious affair indeed!

So seven out of ten Roman units finished. I wonder if it will be another few years before I do the next one!

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans Hammered!

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With Viking and Norman armies now complete, I thought I’d have a look at what else this meant I could field. The most obvious mash-up was an Anglo-Norman army i.e. an English army from after William the B’s victory at Hastings.

This seemed to me to be quite a good combination: you have the the mobile power of Norman knights, the endurance and ferocity of the Viking foot (well, Anglo-Saxons…but the fyrd is a fyrd as they say!), and some lights in support.

With that decided, it was time to pick an opponent. Looking at the list of units that have been painted but haven’t been on the tabletop yet, it was obvious that the Assyrians were up. Not an historical match up by any stretch of the imagination (well, perhaps a pre-emptive strike on what would be the site of the British museum?) but this is Ancients so we won’t worry about that too much! I would play the Anglo-Normans, Kavan would play the Assyrians.

I deployed in a conventional manner - infantry in the middle, cavalry on the wings, lights with missile weapons in front - but Kavan made the unusual choice to put all his heavy infantry on his left wing, with the heavy cavalry and heavier chariots in the centre and his lighter infantry on the left. He then proceeded to march his heavy infantry forward at a rapid pace, hanging back most of his other troops.

I must confess that this completely banjaxed me, and I spent the next phase of the battle trying to re-arrange my troops to match. Talk about surrendering the initiative to your enemy!

Kavan’s troops, of course, were not waiting for me to sort myself out: they were up and at me, taking full advantage of the confusion to sneak a unit of cavalry through the middle as I tried to face the twin threats approaching my flanks.

And this was just the start!

With cavalry now driving through the middle of my line, I couldn’t advance the infantry I’d moved to the right flank to counter his infantry, meaning that I tried to stop them with my knights. Kavan had anticipated this, however, and had hung a unit back to protect his flanks. So this effectively stalemated that side of the field, taking my best troops out of the battle.

Things were going no better on my left and in the centre, with Kavan cross-ruffing his heavy chariots between the two to both prevent me getting any sort of advantage on either and then, with a superb run of cards, even managing to rear charge a unit of heavy Norman spear that I was pulling back to try and defend my camps!

Even if my heavies did survive that initial impact, I was definitely now on the back foot, and it wasn’t long before they did give way, leaving the way clear for the Assyrian chariots to break through and finish the capture of my camps that the cavalry had begun.

That took care of the last of my victory medals, meaning that the Assyrians had won a glorious victory over my utterly-defeated Anglo-Normans.

A great game of To The Strongest, fought superbly by Kavan, who knocked me off balance with his initial deployment and never let me recover. A master class!

TTS AAR: The One With The Mid-Game Earthquake!

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As our first Normans versus Vikings game hadn’t taken that long, Kavan and I decided to swap sides and play again. This was to be a very exciting game, but for all the wrong reasons!

Deployment was pretty quick. Having seen how the Normans were able to harry the somewhat dispersed Vikings in the last game, I was determined to keep my troops together to protect the flanks of each unit whilst giving maximum opportunities for mutual support. I put the huscarls, my best troops, in the centre hoping to punch through to his camps…and made sure I left my light javelinmen to protect my camps: no repeat of the last game here!

The Normans advanced towards me really quickly so, not wanting to have no room for tactical retreats and the like, I pushed forward as well. I also moved my light archers to the front determined to use every advantage I had despite the fact that missile fire had had almost no effect in the last game.

The initial clashes produced mixed results, and it looked as if we were in for a grinding clash determined not by subtle tactics but by blunt force!

Then disaster struck!

I have used the same fold-up tables for many years, and have never had a problem with them. This time, however, I must have neglected to lock the legs on one table properly, and as Kavan leant forward to position one of his units for the attack, the table underneath him collapsed!

Fortunately the rapid advance of the Normans means that almost all the figures were on my side of the battlefield i.e. on the other table, and it was only one set of legs that collapsed not both, so only a few units were affected and even those mostly by jostling rather than a long drop to the floor!

We were therefore able to put the battlefield back together fairly easily, and re-order all the jostled units with no damage done. Phew!

At this point in the game, the Normans were doing pretty well: pushing the Viking units back with a series of hard charges from their lance-armed heavy cavalry.

Now, however, the tide turned: the “earthquake” had obviously been the Allfather, or perhaps the Odinson, intervening!

My men rallied, and began knocking Norman units off the table one by one. Even my lights contributed: with an initial clash between the big boys often resulting in one disorder a side even a single, successful hit from Viking light archers meant an enemy unit cleared from the table (my “deep” units could take two disorders before breaking, the Normans only one).

My idea about mutual support proved useful, as several times warbands that had already dealt with the enemy horse in front of them were able to turn and intervene in another clash, as below:

Here, the intervening Vikings smashed the enemy they flank charged from the table, giving the unit under pressure time to rally off a disorder. Yes, they were then in a terrible position being flank charged in turn, but the Vikings are tough and can usually take one flank charge without breaking.

Fittingly, it was a light archer unit that polished off the last of the Norman victory medals:

A great game with a very narrow escape. I will make jolly sure the table legs are locked next time!

TTS AAR: Normans Take The Field!

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As mentioned in my last post, with the last of the Milites finished it was time for the Normans to finally take the field with a game of To The Strongest versus Kavan playing the Vikings.

This would be quite an interesting battle as the Normans were mostly heavy cavalry and the Vikings were all infantry. My plan was to take advantage of my extra mobility and get around his flanks, as charging formed infantry with cavalry is rarely a good idea!

As the game began, both sides advanced forward strongly, with the battle rapidly dividing into three sectors: the left, the centre and the right.

In the centre, Viking huscarls (the units with the red Meeple) had sped forward and hit a line of Norman cavalry in the Norman half of the table. With three Norman units in play against just one Viking, I was fairly confident that I could win the first clash, but I had underestimated just how ‘hard’ the huscarls were: being a deep, veteran, shieldwall unit with extra two handed cutting weapons!

My first Norman cavalry unit just evaporated and, worse, the follow up huscarls, led by their overall commander and waving their ‘land-waster’ standard, hit my own overall commander’s unit and forced him to make the decision to run away as fast as possible! Oh, the shame!

A quick overview pic, with the Viking huscarls bursting through my centre!

Meanwhile, on the left flank, my plan had actually worked out rather well.

Three units of milites had faced up to a couple of the lesser-quality Viking bondi units supported by some lights, and used their superior mobility to get around the hairy infantry and into the Viking camp. Six glorious victory medals headed my way as my horsemen remembered their heritage and sacked and plundered the enemy camp for all its worth!

My Viking Longships haven’t arrived yet, so the Viking camp has a weird looking hut in it…and lots of Norman cavalry!

In the centre, however, the Vikings were about to do to me what I had done to them, with their commander’s huscarl unit crashing after my fleeing horse and then into the Norman camp and refusing to be shifted even by William himself!

Fortunately only one half of my camp was taken, but that still meant three victory coins to Kavan!

Casualties were now mounting on both sides, so it was obvious that the battle would be decided on the right where, up to now both sides had cautiously crept towards each other.

Somehow I had managed to get into a decent tactical position where I could get two of my cavalry units onto one of the bondi units but, as I have said before, these deep units are tough and the bondi survived long enough to pull back and get some support.

Not even the toughest Viking, however, can keep taking charges from the front and flank, and so it was here as well. The bondi unit broke and with that Kavan’s final victory medals were spent and the Vikings decided to retreat.

A great game and a very narrow victory for the Normans as I only had five coins left myself.

It was an interesting battle and one where I learnt that Norman cavalry definitely do not want to take on Viking huscarls or bondi units head on, even with lances: the only way is to get around their flanks or hit them two-on-one.

TTS AAR: A Day in the Desert

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Another series of mega-games of To The Strongest yesterday!

The premise is as follows:

  • two teams: one of three players, one of two players

  • New Kingdom Egyptians vs Neo-Assyrians

  • Four armies, two identical armies of each, each army is 300 points

  • In the morning, one team takes the Egyptians and the other the Assyrians for two simultaneous 300 point battles

  • In the afternoon, the teams swap armies for two more simultaneous battles

  • Finally one massive 1,200 point battle with each side bidding to play their preferred army by sacrificing victory medals

  • Add up all the points over the five battles and see which team wins

The big pyramid marks the centre of the 18 foot table. The temple at the far end is the end of the battlefield, but there’s a mirror behind it making things look even bigger!

Game One

My morning game involved me using a New Kingdom Egyptian army against Steve and Dillon playing the Neo-Assyrians.

I decided to mass my light chariots to give them a bit more staying power and at first this seemed to be working nicely. My charioteers charged forward and were soon loosing a hail of arrows on the Assyrians.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be something wrong with my bows that day, and I just couldn’t score a hit to save my life. The Assyrians then came forward in return and hammered me in melee. We didn’t finish the game (phew!) but at the final whistle I had lost 7:13 points.

Game Two

For the first afternoon game, I swapped sides and played the Assyrians versus Si taking the Egyptians.

This battle started really well for the Assyrians, going 5-0 up within the first few turns. Unfortunately my luck turned and the cards (it was a new deck as well) decided that they hated me!

It was a hard fought game that we did manage to fight to a conclusion: with me going down 15:21 points.

The Mega-Game

Fortunately my team partner, Peter, had done somewhat better than I had, and we went into the final mega-game only two points behind. We then sacrificed two more victory coins to make sure that we took the Assyrians: so four down in all.

We played this enormous battle as one game in two halves, meaning that there were a couple of times that the two halves got out of sync and one side or the other had to pause and wait for the other to catch up. Dillon, playing in the centre on the enemy side, had to fight Peter with some of his commands and me with what was left. Despite these small speedbumps, the game rattled on at a cracking pace, showing what a robust system To The Strongest is.

Not only was the game cracking, but also very close. We started off with me doing rather well, and Peter doing less well. Then I had a catastrophic turn when I shed victory coins like last year’s fashion (not sure where that metaphor came from!) but recovered to deal out the same treatment to my main opponent, Si, immediately afterwards.

Both Peter and I then continued to alternate good patches with bad patches, calling out our successes (and failures) to the other as they happened. Finally the last Egyptian victory medal was won, and it all came down to how many we had left.

We’d been keeping them in a little pot, and, at first, it looked as if we had hardly any left at all. This was, however, an illusion, as we’d been taking out the big medals as we went along leaving only the little ones behind. The final score was 42:31 to Peter and I, meaning that we had won the day overall.

All in all a great day’s gaming. My thanks to Peter for organising and hosting.

Romans and Normans

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Here’s a couple of bits of painting I’ve managed to complete.

First up, a unit of unarmoured milites for the Normans. Very much a question of one down and two to go on these: I’m writing this post instead of working on the next unit!

These are more from the Museum Miniatures CAD designed 15mm ‘Z’ Range, and very nice they are too. I went for the bright colours because these are wealthy individuals looking to look their best on the battlefield.

Next up was unit of Roman legionary engineers, which I will use as the Camp Servants that appear in the Marian Roman army list for To The Strongest that I work from.

These are 15mm Baueda figures ordered from Magister Militum. What I particularly like is that no two figures in a pack of eight are the same: that’s a decent variety for such a niche sculpt. I think I could have done a better job on the faces, though, and, for some reason, the Army Painter matt varnish has come up a bit glossy…but that will fade with time.

Right, better get back to those Normans…

TTS AAR: Sicilians versus the Tang!

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Yes, I know it’s not any sort of historical or even geographical match up, but this is Ancients/Medieval gaming so that’s convenionally allowed!

Nice

Anyhow, it was off to friend Peter’s house for a quick game of To The Strongest using his big figures. I would play the Italo-Normans as a try out for expanding the 15mm ‘pure’ Normans that I’m currently painting up into a Sicilian army; and Peter would play a nicely painted, bring-and-buy Tang Chinese army he’d had hidden away for years.

The armies were actually quite evenly matched. The Sicilians consisted of a core of Knights, some veteran, supported by spearmen, some with bows, and some lights. The Tang had a core of cavalry and cataphracts supported by, you guessed it, some spearmen and some lights, with his troops having extra crossbows rather than bows.

The Sicilians were outscouted and, I must confess, out deployed. On my left flank, all my cavalry faced all the Tang cavalry. In the centre, three quarters of my infantry faced his. But on the right flank, a good 25% of my infantry were facing empty space. Doh!

Time to make the Tang an offer they couldn’t refuse!

Comparing notes after the game, both Peter and I were convinced that we would win the cavalry clash that was almost certainly coming on my left wing: Peter because he had more lights supporting his heavies than I had, me because my cavalry were a bit better quality than his. We both duly advanced our horse forward as fast as possible.

It was in this first cavalry clash that it rapidly became apparent what sort of day I was going to have: I lost both my cavalry generals in rapid succession, drawing so many Aces that Peter actually asked me whether I wanted to check I had the right number in the deck!

I had disordered two of his units in the first clash, so was posed to sweep all before me, but have just lost both my cavalry generals: they should be behind the knights on the hill and those toi their left!

The writing was fairly much on the wall from that point onwards. My cavalry, all now out of command, were gradually beaten backwards, and although a bit of good luck could have given me an advantage, those Aces kept on coming.

The photo below shows one of the moments that could have turned the game: I have lights on the flank of some disordered cataphracts, they’ve drawn a ‘2’ to get into charge position (meaning that they have an 80% chance of going in) and what do I draw? Yes, you guessed it, another Ace!

Meanwhile, in the centre, my infantry weren’t doing much better. Although both my generals were currently still breathing (that would change: I lost one of them later on in the game), I hadn’t had any success in either getting my right wing into play or even getting my centre into any sort of effective action.

With my victory medal count rapidly diminishing as my cavalry gradually gave way, the only way for me to win was to defeat his infantry quickly, but Peter cannily kept pulling back so that I just couldn’t get to grips with them. Add in losing another general to the mix to effect my ability to spur my men forwards, and you can see that it just wasn’t going to happen.

Seeing I had only a couple of victory medals left, Peter now changed tactics: coming forward and targeting my light units with everything he had. Their departure proved the final straw for the Sicilians, and they fled the field!

A most enjoyable game despite my defeat and frustrating habit of drawing Aces, and I could console myself with the fact that this must mean that next game I won’t be drawing any Aces at all…as the laws of probability work like that, don’t they?

Don’t they?

Well, they will in my decks!

AAR: TTS European Championships

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Friend Peter had organised a new competition for To The Strongest - the European Championships - and wanted to know if I was interested in taking part. Now I don’t really do competition battles any more: ghastly memories of arguing over minutiae in WRG 6th or similar and ultra-competitive behaviour (usually from me!) souring the experience…and the TTS tournaments are all played in 28mm and my collection, as you all probably know, is exclusively 15mm.

I checked the diary, however, and it turned out that, unusually, I had a completely free day that Saturday, so I said to Peter that I would come along and help and, if needed, make up the numbers as a super-sub should an odd number of players turn up (assume the joke about expecting an even number of odd players to turn up!).

I duly arrived at Ewelme (you-elm apparently) Primary School early yesterday morning and enjoyed half an hour of peaceful reflection eating my breakfast sandwich in an idyllic rural setting until everyone else arrived. To be honest, it was worth the half hour travel time for that alone!

Peter was lending me a Burgundian Ordnance army, so handed me a box full of troops and then it was fingers crossed to see if I would get any games…but as it happened, even numbers were present. No matter: I was happy to time keep and generally help out, and there were some spectacular looking armies to admire, even if they all looked very big to me!

About 15 minutes in, however, one of the players was forced to up-sticks and head home to sort a family matter, so I quickly grabbed the Burg’s and settled down to fulfil my super-substitute role.

My opponent, Andy, was using Almoravids: a very nice looking set of Spanish Berber types, all of whom were already deployed and ready to rock. We agreed that keeping to the tournament schedule meant we couldn’t go through the usual scouting, terrain and deployment process, so I just slammed the Burgs onto the table in a long line and off we went.

I am about to sub in for John, on the right

It was a great battle. The very first javelin thrown by the Almoravids went straight through my CinC, Charles the Bold’s, visor and killed him instantly! I followed that up by managing to draw five Aces in seven cards and it looked as if a hideous defeat was about to follow…but the Burg’s are a resilient lot, and somehow managed to fight their way back to a 100:73 point victory. I do remember one set of Knights smashing the Black Guard from the table in one charge, and killing a couple of enemy generals, but not much more than that!

Then it was onto game two: fighting Michael and his Later Italian Condotta with Swiss Allies, or Venetians for short. This was another cracking game, involving my Knights coming up against some very menacing looking pike blocks. Star of the show was my little Organ Gun artillery unit, which held up the Swiss pike block for two or perhaps three turns as it marched relentlessly towards my camp. The crew of said gun even managed to do the Swiss some damage in the melee! This stout and quite frankly incredible defence allowed me to get some Knights onto the Swiss flank and, much to the shock of all concerned, send them fleeing for the rear. Much to my surprise, another win at 108:58 points.

At this point we broke for lunch and a tour of the school-church-alms house complex, all built by Alice Chaucer, thrice-married grand-daughter of Geoffrey, and the first female Knight of the Garter. Fascinating stuff that included a secret stair and the minstrels’ gallery where Henry VIII allegedly first, er, succeeded, shall we say, with Anne Boleyn.

Onto the afternoon session, and bad news for the super-sub. Another player had withdrawn from the tournament meaning that numbers were uneven again. I was all prepared to return to the bench when someone else, Mark to be exact, said that they would be happy to sit this game out to give me another go. This was gentlemanly behaviour in the extreme, so it was time to face Chris and his Later Swiss. More pikes!

This, third game was also excellent. The Burg’s were caught napping, out-scouted and then pinned back against the edge of the table by some extraordinarily fast marching from the Swiss (I still don’t know what they do with their pikes when acting as mounted infantry LOL). I was sure I was doomed, and told Chris the same, but he assured me that all was not lost…a bad mistake on his part as his prophesy began to come true. Still pinned against the edge of the table, a camp lost to the enemy, the Burg’s stuck their heels in and began to push back. A couple of enemy generals were dispatched (it was a bit of a theme for the day) and some non-pike units broken, but it was a combination of missile-fire to disorder then send in the Knights to punish, which finally broke a Swiss pike block sending loads of victory medals my way. If we’d played on, the game could still have gone either way, but I ended the winner with a score of 102:79 points.

At that point I returned to the substitutes’ bench and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours wandering around the games, admiring both the action and all the very lovely figures on display.

Time for the results and I was amazed to find that I had come fourth. This was obviously partly due to the bye I had received in the fourth round, but was very welcome news indeed. Even more surprising (doubtless particularly so to those who have gamed against me!) was that I was also voted Most Chivalrous Player of the day. Even my family were gob-smacked by that one!

So many thanks to Peter for organising a great day, and for everyone else there, particularly my three opponents Andy, Michael and Chris. I had a whale of a time and am now wondering from whom I can borrow an army for the next one!