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!

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: To The Smallest Game 1: Timurids vs Classical Indians

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Earlier in June, I made the long journey to the excellent Firestorm Games in Cardiff for the inaugral To The Smallest competition i.e. a To The Strongest tournament played in 15mm.

This featured 160 point armies (15-20% larger than the usual 28mm tournament armies) played on a 10mm rather than a 15mm grid, giving everybody much more room to manouevre.

My problem was that all my existing armies were set up for a 15mm grid, so the only army that I could easily convert (i.e. no re-basing, just purpose built movement trays) were my Timurids. This wasn’t actually a problem: the Timurids conquered quite a bit of the world, so were bound to do well in competition!

My first game was up against Matt Slade’s Classical Indians on the Khadesh battlefield: so at least my horsemen would indeed have lots of room.

My plan was to keep his heavy chariot strikeforce busy with one of my cavalry commands whilst sweeping around his right flank with the other, attacking from front and sides to get the advantage.

As the game began, I therefore advanced strongly towards the Indians.

On the left, I quickly got in amongst it with one of his commands, although the elephants there caused my cavalry plenty of problems (in TTS, horse fight very badly against nellies); whilst on the right, I hung back and began peppering his charioteers with arrows, unfortunately to no effect.

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t break through on the right (fighting elephants with cavalry was one reason - I just couldn’t kill that elephant no matter what I threw at it) but Matt’s heavy chariots burst through my light cavalry screen and then my heavy cavalry as well.

Things were not looking good!

I needed to do something to break through on the left, so committed my reserves: the kharash units of driven-slaves. Here you see them moving up into action (bottom left).

The kharash c-rashed into the fight and, combined with some heavy cavalry, knocked an Indian infantry unit out of action. I was whittling his forces down on the left, but two units of elephants were still giving me problems.

Meanwhile, on the left, my troops had given up the ghost, leaving the way clear for his chariots to head for my now-undefended camps.

Which then promptly fell, giving Matt all the coins he could possibly need to win the game!

The score was a 9-14 loss for me, with Matt justly rewarded for his good play: his use of elephants to de-fang my heavy cavalry was excellent. I should have hung back and peppered the pachyderms with arrows instead of mixing it in melee!

Three games to go…and my Timurids had better pull their socks up!

TTS AAR: Classical Indians versus Burgundian Ordnance

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As our ECW game had finished quite quickly, friend Rob and I decided to extend our gaming session with a quick bout of To The Strongest.

It wasn’t exactly a historical match-up - Classical Indians with their javelinmen and chariots vs Burgundian Ordnance with their Later Knights - but at least both sides had plenty of longbows to hand!

[For those of you looking for the heavy chariots, I was actually using a Republican Classical Indian army using standard chariots.]

Both sides opened the game by sprinting towards each other, keen to get into contact.

The Burgundians had advanced a unit of mounted infantry onto the hill to the right of my line. It looked a bit isolated to me, so a good target for my chariots and cavalry.

This worked very nciely, with my two mounted units combining to overwhelm the Burgundian foot from front and flank.

Rob followed up with one of his Later Knights units, charging forward to engage my javelinmen whilst some mounted crossbowmen kept the victorious chariots busy.

One unit of Later Knights versus four units of javelinmen, so I was confident that I could do the same again: overwhelm an isolated unit. I even got the initiative and sent my brave infantry in against the Knights.

Now some of you will know that I often feel that the cards are, quite frankly, against me; and I am sure that some of you think I should stop being wet and just get on with things: after all, luck is always even…

Add in a series of unfortunate morale checks and it’s a case of now you see them, now you don’t:

So that was eight victory medals gone up in smoke, my only consolation being that his Knights tried the same trick on the last remaining unit of javelinmen and got sent flying.

Phew! I might have lost the flank, but at least it was safe and I had a unit of cavalry keen to visit the enemy camps!

Meanwhile the rest of my army had advanced into contact with the Burgundian centre and right wing.

I had high hopes here: my escorted elephants were rock hard (even if Rob did manage to avoid hitting them with cavalry (who get a huge penalty for the effects that the nellies have on horses)) and accompanied by the equally tough Maiden Guard.

I also had my left wing in action: managing to outflank another units of his Knights:

My central command did its job: two of Rob’s units destroyed for no loss:

Both the Indians and Burgundians were now down to very few medals indeed, which meant that the battle would go to the next side that knocked an enemy unit from the field.

Luckily, I had my chariots still around in the centre of the field, now faced by only a lone unit of Burgundian organ guns. These were swiftly swept from the table, which caused the enemy general sheltering behind them to go as well, giving me enough victory coins to win the day!

So a narrow victory for the Indians over a very tough opponent…not that there were many of my men left to celebrate!

Not an AAR: Romans versus Indians

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

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

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:

TTS AAR: Classical Indians versus Akkadians

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Having played Kavan using the Akkadians versus his Classical Indians, we decided to swap sides and play the game the other way round.

The Akkadians were outscouted, and set up in a long line of men holding sharp pointy sticks, placing their veteran battle carts on their left/my right. I matched their infantry with my own, but put all my chariots and cavalry on my left. My plan was to hold my infantry back, giving them as long as possible to shoot their longbows, whilst I outflanked and won the battle with my mounted troops on the left.

Initially, this actually worked very well indeed. On the left, my chariots and horse neatly swung out a bit and headed past the end of his line at a rapid rate of knots.

This allowed me to send one unit of chariots towards his camp, and the other into the flank of his right-hand infantry.

Surely this was the game sown up…but, no, the Gods laughed and shuffled the deck, and the lone Akkadian spear unit at the end of his line snapped round neatly and disposed of my (previously outflanking) chariots without much difficulty!

This was disappointing, but his camp was still about to fall:

Meanwhile, on my right, his battle carts and infantry had finally reached my line and were dashing themselves against it.

This was actually quite worrying as although my javelinmen can hold their own in hand to hand combat, my longbowmen have a tendency to crumble really quickly.

Fortunately, the Akkadians assaulted the longbowmen piecemeal, so my three units of archers could concentrate their fire and pincushion the most forward enemy unit each turn. This meant that they tended to hit my line disordered, which really evened things up.

Moreover, my javelinmen were up on a hill, and resolutely refused to give way no matter what. Here’s a pictorial account of events on that wing:

So the left wing was doing well, but hadn’t won the game for me; and my right wing was holding, but under pressure. I would now have to win the game in the centre, and that was where I had my elephants and the elite Maiden Guard.

In they went as fast as a charging pachyderm, and nothing could stand before them!

Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but with the cavalry on the left now free to assist, and the right wing just about won, the elephants did provide the coup de grace needed to take the last of Kavan’s victory medals.

A glorious victory for the Classical Indians!

TTS AAR: Akkadians versus Classical Indians

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Time for a game of To The Strongest: I would take the Akkadians (the new, ‘slim-line’ version from the latest army lists) and Kavan would use a Classical Indian army of the Republican variety.

My plan was to act almost purely defensively: luring the Indians forward onto the tips of my spears. My only offensive move would be to send my heavy chariots forward on the left to try and get around the Indian right flank.

Everything went almost to plan, as the Indian javelinmen, chariots, elephants and cavalry hurled themselves forward without the first on the list even bothering with their extra longbows. To cut a long story short, they impaled themselves on the Akkadian line, and the game was won pretty easily.

Chronological pictures of the game appear below, but it’s worth mentioning why I said “almost” above. My heavy chariots did indeed thunder forward on the left most impressively, but then ran into bother facing a couple of raw units of Indian javelinmen. I sent some Household Infantry to help, and they got into trouble as well!

Unbelievably, the only thing that saved the day was the unit of Nim skirmishers in the rough ground (the unit with the die with ‘1’ on it in the picture above) who not only resisted every attempt of the Indian javelinmen to evict them from said rough ground, but went on to use their javelins to wipe them out as well!

Their success held my left flank together and allowed me to win the battle in the centre and on the right.

So a relatively workmanlike victory for the Akkadians. Here are the pics:

One thing to note: figures for both sides come from the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed Z ranges: highly recommended.

Deja Vu!

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My last post involved re-based four heavy cavalry style bases for my Sassanids and a new unit of Classicial Indian Javelinmen.

Guess what? This post does too…but they are different cavalry and different Indians.

These are the Sassanid Clibanarii or Savaran: the next one down from the Cataphracts we saw last post. Again, four units. It’s actually that I’ve got too many cataphracts rather than too many clibanarii!

Incidentally, someone asked me the best way to get figures off existing bases.

Well, there’s no easy way to do it.

One way is to anticipate having the problem and to spray the bases with an undercoat before you mount the figures on them. That way, if you do ever come to need to re-base, the glue has bonded with the paint rather than fully with the base, so the figures are comparatively easy to pop off, even if superglue is your chosen adhesive.

Leaving that aside, however, I have found the best way to get figures off bases is to soak the bases in water for a few hours before making the attempt. I use half of one of the plastic blisters you get tufts in i.e. a plastic tray that is long and shallow.

Put the base to be de-nuded of figures in there and trickle water into the half-blister until the water just comes over the top of the base. Leave for at least four hours. Then use a sharp screwdriver (not a Philips head!) to find the edge of each figure’s base and slide it in with a chisel-like action. Never try to pull the figure off the base: you’ll just break it off at the legs or bend it well out of shape. The figure should be popped from the base, not pulled.

Touch wood and all that, but I’ve just re-based 80 cavalry that were superglued onto either MDF or metal bases and not lost a single one.

And here’s another unit of Classical Indian javelinmen. Just one more unit to go and then I'll have painted all the Indians in the lead mountain.

Cataphracts Re-Based and some more Classical Indians

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The re-basing of my Sassanids continues: this time with the cataphracts.

Re-basing is a horrible job. There’s the danger of destroying a paint-job or even a figure as you take them off the old bases. Then there’s the tedium of gluing the figures to the new base, adding the basing material, dry-brushing and flock…and after all that you haven’t actually added any more figures to the collection.

On the other hand, you have schroffed up figures that you might never have used again. Although I love playing a cataphract/horse-archer army, I had unconsciously avoided doing so as I didn’t like the basing.

All that has now changed, and my Sassanids will once again be taking the field in the very near future…once I’ve re-based the elephants, infantry etc of course!

So, in the end, well worth the effort.

More Indians

Regular readers will know that I want to buy myself a Norman army with the new CAD designed range from Museum Miniatures.

Well, why haven’t you, I hear you cry?

Unfortunately my rule this year is that I can’t buy any new figures until I have painted an equivalent number from the lead mountain.

Stupid rule, I know, but said mountain was getting a bit out of control!

So here are another 19 Classical Indian javelinmen, also from the Museum Miniatures CAD designed range.

Coming back to an army after you’ve “finished” it is always difficult. You have to remember how you painted and based the previous units in the army. This blog helps, as I tend to note down the colours used when I’m displaying newly-painted figures, and I keep a spreadsheet with the details on it as well. Highly recommended thing to do, by the way.

So, with the French infantry I’ve recently painted, that’s now 83 figures removed from the lead mountain. Another couple of units of Indians, one more of French, and I think I’m ready to give the bank balance a hammering on the Normans!

AAR TTS: Classical Indians vs Alexandrian Macedonians: The Big One!

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The final game of our To The Strongest battle day was a double-sized game with two players and 260 points per side. Si and I would take the Classical Indians again, Peter and Cayden would take the Alexandrian Macedonians.

One slight twist was that the results of the last four games were applied on top of the existing TTS points system to further balance the armies…and as the Macedonians had won three of the day’s four encounters so far, they had their Victory Medals (lose them all and you lost the game) reduced by a third.

Si and I decided to try the same plan that had almost worked in an earlier game: our left flank (under me) would hang back and try and hold the enemy’s main attack with the Companions and Phalanx whilst our right flank (under Si) advanced quickly, brushed aside the lights in front of it, and curled around to hit the phalanx etc in the side.

That was the plan…but unfortunately it didn’t work. Although the left flank did some heroic work holding up the Companions (the new rules about Javelinmen in rough terrain being very useful), the various Macedonian Phalanxes proved pretty unstoppable in the left centre, and our troops on the right just couldn’t get into play fast enough.

So there you have it: despite even points and a bias on the Victory Medals, the Indians still lost, Over the course of the day, that made four out of five Macedonians victories: I guess there’s a reason Alexander conquered the known world!

AAR TTS: Alexandrian Macedonians vs Classical Indians

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For the second encounter of the three-game marathon organised by Peter, I would take the Alexandrian Macedonians into battle against the Classical Indians.

My opponent set up in a tight formation in the centre of the battlefield hoping, presumably to pepper me with arrows before we made contact. His right wing looked very strong, with his heavy chariots and some elephants facing off against my Companions, but his left wing…well it looked a big “hanging” to me!

I therefore placed my three units of horse archers way out on my right: their aim would be to swoop round and attack his left wing from the flank and rear.

Once the game had begun, I advanced in echelon: holding back my left whilst my horse archers sprinted for the other end of the table. My pike blocks moved forward as fast as they could and, admittedly, I got a bit lucky here: the phalangites trotted forward faster than expected and almost immediately threatened his front.

After that good start, the battle unfolded almost exactly to plan. The horse archers swept around his left flank and rear just as the two phalanx units hit his front, and his left flank crumbled.

I then brought forward my Companions to prevent his quality troops on the right from intervening, and then it was just a matter of letting things take their course. In the end I won a victory 12:2 i.e. I only lost a couple of light units.

AAR TTS: Classical Indians vs Alexander's Macedonians

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Off to Peter’s house for a three game marathon with him, Si and Caydn. The idea was simple: two teams of two, individual battles in the morning, one giant game in the afternoon.

My first game, therefore, was to take the Classicial Indians into battle against Peter’s Macedonians.

I was out-scouted, so set up with my powerful escorted elephants on my left flank, standard infantry and normal elephants in the centre, and my chariots and cavalry on the right. Opposite my left flank were the dread Companions, in the centre the phalanx block, and on the right several units of light horse.

My plan was for the left flank and centre to hold the Macedonians at bay whilst my chariots and cavalry dealt with the light horse and then swung round to take his phalanx in the flank…and it so almost worked!

As the battle began, his Companions and Phalanx did indeed come forward. I held back my left and left-centre brigades, but was still engaged quite early on. My chariots and cavalry began dealing with the light horse opposite them, but were too slow to do so, and although my right-centre brigade did start turning the Phalanx’s flank, it just didn’t seem to be happening fast enough.

The strong Macedonian units facing my left and left-centre began chewing me up, and although I now had infantry in a good flanking position, my chariots and cavalry were still trying to mop up the last of his lights out on the right.

I did manage to take out one Phalanx, but ran out of medals on the left and in the centre before I could get everything I had on the right back and into his flank. Unfortunately my army crumbled before that could happen, and I lost the game 4:12.

We both agreed that if I’d managed to hold out on my left and centre for just one more turn, then things would have been very different (you can see my veteran heavy chariots posed to sweep his troops off the table in the picture bottom right of the gallery above) but it was not to be. A great game, though, and much closer than the result would suggest.

TTS AAR: Slim-Line Akkadians Take The Field!

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Amongst those of you who read my previous post (last Tuesday) about the changes to the To The Strongest army lists turning my Akkadian double-depth units into normal-depth Spearmen was friend Bevan. He suggested that the best thing to do was to immediately try out the new look “slim-line” Akkadians and proposed a battle.

This we duly arranged, fielding the Akka’s against a Classical Indian army. Figures for both sides came from the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed “Z” ranges, so looked very good indeed.

akkadians (left) versus classical indians (right)

The Akkadians boasted four brigades: a shock brigade of two units of battle carts (good in a straight line!) supported by a unit of lights; two foot brigades each of one “bodyguard” unit of Spearmen with extra bows and two normal Spearmen units; and then a reserve brigade of two raw, militia Spearmen units and two units of light archers.

The Classical Indians, on the other hand, had only three brigades. One consisted of a couple of units of veteran Heavy Chariots supported by a unit of crappy horse. The other two were built around a unit of escorted elephants: one had the veteran Maiden Guard (hard women all!) and two Longbowmen units, the other had three Longbowmen units.

The Game Itself

The two sides set up very differently. The Akkadians concentrated their battle carts on the left, opposite one of the Indian elephant brigades. The Indians concentrated their heavy chariots on the left (i.e. at the opposite end of the battlefield to the Akkadian battle carts) opposite the Akkadian reserves. Both sides deployed their main infantry bodies in the centre.

The game began with both sides moving forwards whilst maintaining their battle lines. On the Akkadian right, the reserve brigade refused the flank, leaving the Indian chariots with no-one to immediately charge.

the advance

The Indian longbowmen opened fire as soon as the Akkadians came into range. A storm of arrows headed their way, but there was something wrong with the Indian bows and the results of two rounds of longbow fire were one disordered Akkadian spear unit. Admittedly this unit then spent the rest of the game skulking in broken ground trying to rally, but the Akkadians had still got off lightly.

On the Indian right, one unit of elephants and the raw longbowmen headed forward, but the longbowmen hung back as the elephants surged towards the enemy…who wasn’t really there any more. Not liking the smell of the pachyderms (you don’t get too many elephants in Akkad) the battle carts had headed into the centre of the battlefield to join the main charge there, leaving some lights to keep the nellie’s occupied. The elephants would spend the rest of the game uselessly chasing the Akkadian skirmishers around that area.

elephants

The Akkadians initiated the main clash of the two battle lines, which rapidly turned into a disaster!

The Maiden Guard destroyed a unit of Spearmen, and either combat or longbow fire accounted for another…which happened to be the veteran unit carrying the Akkadian army standard and lost their accompanying general as well. That was seven coins (out of 13) down in one hit!

Losing generals seemed to be the theme of the game. Out of the seven generals who arrived on the battlefield at the start of the game, five were killed!

Losing to a bunch of ladies!

All was not lost, however, as the Akkadians settled down and got stuck in.

One Akkadian spear unit (the one out front in the first picture in this post) burst through the Indian line, destroying some longbowmen in the process, and managed to take the enemy camp, a significant loss of coins for the Indians.

The Akkadian reserves moved forward and filled the hole caused by the losses suffered so far, preventing the Indian chariots from lapping around the flank.

Other Akkadian units also saw off enemy units, killing generals in the process.

Taking the camp

The reserves are committed to cover the right flank

The climax of the battle was now upon us: with each side having just one victory coin left i.e. the next kill would win the game…and with disordered units all round, and lights on the Akkadian side, there were plenty of opportunities for either side to win.

The initiative was with the Akkadians: no kills on their turn!

The Indians tried their best: no kills (phew!) but the Akkadians were wavering. If I didn’t pull off a win in my next turn, there was no way I was surviving another round of Indian attacks.

I went through all my obvious kill possibilities (my good morale units versus his disordered units, flank fire on the raw Indian cavalry etc) with no result. Oh dear: this was not looking good.

There was, however, one last thing to try. Veteran, but disordered, battle carts charging diagonally at the disordered Indian Maiden Guard.

The battle carts managed to make the difficult move into contact, but failed to hit the Guard. Oh no!

But what was this? Striding forward came an Akkadian hero (the chap under the blue parasol in the picture below) and smote the Maiden Guard with a cracking hit. Bevan and I held our breaths as his save card was turned: a five and therefore a fail. The Guard fled the field and I and the Akkadians had won the day!

As always, a cracking game of To The Strongest and a game that had gone down to the wire. The narrowest of victories for the new slim-line Akkadians!

TTS AAR: Akkad versus India

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Time for another game of To The Strongest: I would play the Akkadians, friend John would play the Classical Indians.

The Classical Indians were of the Republican variety: normal rather than heavy chariots (two units); loads of longbows (five units); a unit of Maiden Guard javelinwomen (questionable historically, but lovely figures, pun intended); two units of elephants escorted by light infantry (hard to kill); and two units of not very good cavalry.

My brave Akkadians consisted of a couple of units of battlecarts (four-wheeled proto-chariots drawn by equids: as manoeuvrable as that sounds); lots of citizen spearmen (five deep units); three units of regular soldiers (two carrying axes and one armed with bows); and four units of fairly scummy light infantry (two units of slingers, two units of archers).

My plan was simple. Battlecarts on the left would smash through the enemy cavalry then wheel round into the rear of the rest of the Indian army. The rest of my troops would advance steadily forward, spears to the front, weathering a storm of longbow fire but pinning his troops in place until the battlecarts arrived. What could possibly go wrong?

Opening Moves

Accidental advance in echelon

To answer the previous question: quite a lot actually. Firstly, my various brigades refused to advance together and I ended up moving forward in echelon.

Secondly, the enemy cavalry, which should have folded before the might of my battlecarts, proved stubbornly difficult to break: in fact, at one stage it looked as if it would be my battlecarts that were smashed from the field!

On my right, enemy chariots smashed into one of my spear units and drove it and its accompanying light infantry from the field. I should have been able to support the spear unit that broke with another brigade of troops, but they were at the back of the field stubbornly refusing to move forward.

Two against one: my “BLUE” spearmen are about to leave the field

That meant that John could advance his elephants in the middle of the field, attempting to defeat each of my brigades in turn.

two against one again: elephants and longbowmen combine against my “turquoise” spearmen

The game was definitely starting to look in the balance. Although I managed to hold the centre, with both sides taking a lot of casualties, my left wing battlecarts were bogged down in melee and on my right wing the Indian chariots threatened to run riot into the flanks of what remained of my centre.

All was not lost, however, as an extraordinary passage of play was about to occur in which the Akkadian Royal Household Axemen, previously stuck miles from the action as part of the brigade that had stubbornly refused to advance, finally got forward and set to work.

Facing two Indian chariots units, they destroyed both and killed the Indian general commanding them. They then resisted attack after attack from the elite Maiden Guard despite already being Disordered.

The Royal Household axemen: heroes of Akkad!

This success gave me time to reorganise my centre and to get things sorted on my left wing. The battlecarts were reinforced with some infantry and finally broke through the enemy cavalry and swung round, as planned, into the enemy rear.

With their centre hit from the rear and under pressure from a reinvigorated Akkadian army, along with the Royal Household Axemen who were still clamouring for more, the Indian army collapsed and fled the field. Victory was mine.

Aftermath

Well that had been a close run thing! At the moment when the battle was truly in the balance, a rather convenient run of luck with the cards on my part swung the day in my favour, and all centred around one unit.

the situation at the end of the battle

A great game!

More Bits and Pieces

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Whilst I’m still waiting to find inspiration for my next major project, I thought I’d finish up a few bits and pieces from the lead mountain.

First up are a couple of Gallant Gentlemen for my Scots Covenantor ECW army:

Wallace-sized. The real one, not the shorty Gibson effort.

These are 18mm figures from Blue Moon’s new Scottish ECW range, and lovely figures they are too.

I bought these as a test to see how well they fitted in with my existing collection as I still can’t get the hang of whether 18mm figures are actually large 15’s, small 20’s or a scale all of their own!

With these, however, there is no doubt: they are too big to fit in with the Hallmark (via Magister Militum), Peter Pig and Khurasan models that form the main part of my 15mm ECW forces.

That said, a couple of comparative giants as Gallant Gentlemen fit right in with the concept of the GG, so I am very happy to have these two fearsome warriors on board!

As I said: lovely figures, but 18mm, so highly recommended if you want to field an 18mm ECW Covenantor army, but not if you want to field one in 15mm.

Next up was another general for my Classical Indians:

May the Fourth be with you!

These are more figures from Museum Miniatures excellent CAD-designed “Z” range of Classical Indians.

I’m always being told that I should field four generals when playing To The Strongest at 130 points. Now, with these, I can…and I actually needed a more cavalry-orientated commander for the later Indian armies anyway: by the time you get into the ADs, chariot-mounted generals are so yesterday!

Finally, I’ve had these undercoated on my painting table for, like, forever (as Daughter #2 would say).

Thundercats are go!

These are more of Khurasan’s excellent Felids mounted on jetbikes. I already have a couple of squads worth, so can now field a platoon.

These new versions are painted with GW Contrast Paints, and it’s interesting to contrast them (did you see what I did there?) with how I painted their predecessors:

Both look really good, but the old-platoon were painted with the base coat/wash/highlight method (i.e. each figures was picked up three times per colour) whereas the new ones, with the Contrast Paints, are only one coat per colour i.e. each figures was picked up only once per colour.

You can decide which is better!

TTS AAR: No Revenge for the Indians

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Regular visitors will know that a couple of week’s ago, my Classical Indians were defeated by an 11-phalanx strong Hoplite Greek army played by friend Bevan. Now it was time to get my revenge with a re-fight of the same battle.

Opening stages: so far everything is going to plan!

Well that was the plan!

Unfortunately things didn’t go at all to plan, and I ended up getting beaten more comprehensively than at our last encounter. Once again my massed longbow fire just failed to break his deep units, often getting to the stage of double-disordering but then not managing the extra hit needed to break them, but this time my impact troops suffered from terrible cards just at the point of impact, when it mattered most.

Just before the two battle lines came together

Although the game, as always with To The Strongest, was great fun, my troops were then gradually ground down by the remorseless space invaders from Greece!

Here’s a few more pictures of the game:

Classical Indians vs the Greeks

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Restrictions lifted on Sunday, first face-to-face game on Tuesday!

My Classical Indians would face off against a Hoplite Greek army fielded by Bevan…and what a Hoplite Greek army it was: ten units of Hoplites and one of light infantry. The rules used were To The Strongest, a grid-based game, so with my table being twelve squares wide, Bevan could form a space-invader like line of hoplite units and just advance forward, spearpoints out!

So many hoplites that I had to draft in some Summerians as proxies!

On the other side of the battlefield, my Classical Indians consisted of five units of longbowmen as the softening-up element, with a hard core of two escorted elephant units and two heavy chariot units as the “finishers”. Reserves were provided by the Maiden Guard.

Maiden Guards, Elephants, Longbowmen

The Game

As predicted, the Greeks deployed in a largely straight line and spent the early stages of the battle manoeuvring around the patches of scrub and palm trees in order to keep their frontage solid as they came into longbow range.

opening stages

At one stage it did look as if the cards had opened up a couple of holes in the hoplite line and, given a little more lateral space and luck, I could perhaps have got one of my heavy chariot units through a gap and into his rear, but Bevan just managed to block my path on both occasions.

I really wanted to get through that gap!

Finally the Greeks (and pseudo-Greeks!) arrived into longbow range, and my men opened fire. I was determined not to end the game with a camp-full of spare ammunition, so shot for all I was worth.

The Greeks staggered slightly, but came on. There were so many enemy units in an unbroken line that I couldn’t concentrate my fire, so although I could disorder or even double-disorder half his unit, I couldn’t quite break any.

The View from the Other Side

It was time to commit my melee troops, so forward trundled the elephants and chariots, wherever possible aiming at already-disordered enemy units.

Helicopter Viewpoint

Unfortunately, things followed the same pattern again: I disordered or double-disordered the four units I hit, but couldn’t quite manage the break, apart from one raw hoplite unit that did flee the field…but this was soon, space-invader like, replaced by another.

Damage, of course, was being done to both sides, but my troops only had two hits each as opposed to his three. I lost a unit of elephants (to what looked like the Spartans, no less), evening things up again, and the battle became one enormous melee.

Bye bye Nellies!

My men (and maidens) resisted bravely for a couple of rounds, another unit of hoplites was destroyed by one of my chariot units, but the writing was on the wall: I hadn’t done enough damage in the missile-fire stages of the game to win the grinding melee that followed.

I started steadily losing units, victory coins and eventually, the battle itself.

Aftermath

The game was actually a lot closer than the above implies. At one stage, I did actually manage to break his line with some chariots and had two more of his hoplite units on double-disorder. Unfortunately, the chariots couldn’t turn and get into the enemy rear in time, and I just couldn’t get the extra hit I needed to break the spearmen. I did use up all my spare ammunition though!

So a close run thing despite the apparent disparity in sides. My Classical Indians will lick their wounds and have another go in a few week’s time!

The far chariot unit has broken through, but too late to alter the outcome of the battle

Indian Cavalry Ride Out!

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As mentioned in previous posts, I’m expanding my Classical Indians to embrace later Indian armies: the Graeco-Indians, Kushans and Indo-Scythians and so on.

A lot of the differences involve the decline of the chariot balanced by the ascent of the cavalryman leading, eventually, to the era of cataphract-like cavalry supported by lights.

Here then are a couple of units that allow me to begin to effect that change: two squadrons of Indian armoured horsemen:

As usual, these are the rather excellent Museum Miniatures CAD designed “Z” range of Classical Indians: very nice figures indeed. These were painted with a base coat of metallic paint washed with Agrax Earthshade and then highlighted. All non-metals are Contrast paints.

More Classical Indians

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Having painted enough Classical Indians to field a 130 point Monarchist army, it was time to start looking at what figures I needed to add in order to be able to field other armies from the Indian sub-continent.

First up was obviously to check that I could field the Republican variant of the classic Classical Indians. Hmmm…in order to do that, I needed to paint up another unit of horse.

These have sat, undercoated only, on my painting table for some time but, once I’d actually picked up a brush and got started, were actually quite fun to paint. It’s always that first brushstroke that’s the hardest!

These are more of the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed “Z Range”, and very lovely they are too. I particularly like the cataphract command figure in the middle: full of life and animation. Okay, so the guys with the swords don’t look too comfortable, but this is a Raw unit after all, and the spear-holding figures are nice.

Now on to see what I need to make my Classical Indians into Vedic or Tamil Indians, and then onto the Graeco-Indians after that!