Ancient Macedonian attrition - a thesis

Every other morning or so I have come down stairs to find a 28mm Macedonian phanangite pikeman on the floor. Sometimes by "find" I mean "stand on".

The Macedonians in question are part of an army in progress - I was bought a Warlord Games Successor Army pack for Christmas a year or two ago and having failed to paint it passed it to a friend (Fred) who did a reasonable job with the brush at a very reasonable rate. The models are now languishing in the loft in open boxes waiting to be based.

However some have started to appear in strange places, mostly on the stairs. After thorough investigation I have discovered the culprit - it is my four year old cat Poppy. Poppy is usually very gentle and we have had her since she was a kitten at the local kitten rescue centre. It appears every night she sneaks up to the loft, selects a pikeman from the open box, and carries him downstairs in her mouth to be left as a gift for me in the morning. I've had this sort of behaviour from other cats, but it usually involved small mice or voles taken from the fields rather than my Successor Infantry.

To be honest at the moment this isn't an issue. I do have several spare pikemen and most of the casualties will be repairable, but I couldn't work out why she was doing this. Then, this morning as I was tidying the latest casualty up, it came to me. Poppy must have some Persian heritage!

Problem solved! now all I need is a lid to go on the box to stop her whittling down the numbers of the hated Greeks :-)

However, I may have a bigger problem. This is Lili. Lili is now two years old and was adopted from a Polish lady after her cat had a litter and could not look after them all, which technically may mean she is Polish  - this may not bode well for my plans for a Blitzkrieg German Army for Chain of Command :0) 

 

Impetus 2 = Like a reunion of an old rock band

Last night me and five other old Impetus players sat around a table and watched \ assisted \ hindered as a game of Impetus 2 was played.

Quick digression. Impetus is a set of Ancient \ Medieval battle rules from Lorenzo Sartori that were released rather a long time ago and were my no 1 go to rules. They arrived and were adopted at about the same time as plastic 28mm ancients were becoming available and it was a match made in heaven. Actually Italy, as that's where Lorenzo hails from, but you get the message. Lorenzo managed to create a fluid and exciting game and over the years I collected rather a lot of armies and played many, many games, including lots of tournaments which were never that large but always friendly and interesting. Impetus was also a great antidote to the "Boutique" nature of modern wargaming - all those terribly throw away small scale skirmish systems which have become the norm in modern wargaming. To do an Impetus army is a long term project, quite possibly open ended one. It was good to have a commitment.

The problem was every year as more players joined, more army lists were added and the tournament scene grew, a new set of annual tournament amendments were needed. After five years or so the main rules were now wandering away from the original and a new edition was needed if just to tidy up. But Lorenzo took his time. Lots of time. As this was happening the flow of new players dried up - it was difficult to recruit new players with the pitch "you need this set of rules, and then modify them with this sheaf of printouts until v2 arrives", and many players have moved on or decided to wait for v2. He's been working on version 2 for about five years and when version 2 was finally released in January my enthusiasm was tempered with some reservations.

So back to last night. After a few shaky starts it started to feel good - rather good. The same smooth play, the core mechanics are solid but have been streamlined. There are some differences which may impact on the overall game, but it is all looking good. There are some changes needed in my armies - mainly the change to basing generals individually, and the old "Rolls of Destiny" have gone, replaced by a new card system which seems quite interesting. Anyway, I'm feeling the old juices flowing again.

So back around our table last night it was rather good. The vibe was something like I imagine a group of old musicians getting back together - including the same frictions and bloody annoying youngsters,  but after a while we found we were slipping into a good, familiar and comfortable  groove - it was all good.

So I'm now looking for some nice Thracian Commanders to paint up, and some light cavalry, and ..................

:-)

Building an Impetus Army - part 4, The Toys

Following in from the last couple of pieces, having selected your army and decided on the rough numbers it's time to actually buy some figures. This can be fraught, so here again are a couple of pointers.

Plastic or Metal?
In many ways we are living in a golden age because plastic 28mm historical figures are making some armies financially viable again. What is more, the availability of cheap plastic figures has imposed something of a cap on metal figure prices. This is good for the gamer in the short term but we may end up with less choice in the future. As a personal choice I prefer plastic over metal for a number of reasons. Firstly, the aforementioned price. Historical plastic figures tend to sell at roughly around half the price of metal ones. A second advantage is weight. Seems a bit of a strange thing to have to consider but humping around several hundred metal figures can be something of a chore. On the downside be prepared to stick more bits together in plastic rather than metal. There are a couple of excellent sources too - Victrix, Perry, Gripping Beast and Warlord Games are probably the leaders in plastic, but you should also look to smaller outfits such as FireForge, Agema and Conquest. One word on Warlord. Their Hoplites are reboxed "Immortal Miniatures" ranges, which were probably the very first Ancient figures in plastic. They're ok, but not a patch on Victrix. The same can usually be said about the reboxed Wargames Factory Persians and Hoplites available from Warlord, although they are damned useful and very flexible figures. Victrix are currently in the lead here as they have just released their first Cavalry sets with more to follow, including Elephants in 2017.

That's not to say you should ignore metal, but you do need to be careful if you are going down that route. Twenty years ago Essex miniatures ruled the roost, but today they are largely ignored due to their static poses and lack of variation. Out and out leaders in the UK are Perry & their old employer Foundry,both great sculpts and wide ranges. Old Glory in both the US and UK are however very much worth looking at (the US website has many more pics than the UK) and the quality ranges from "rough and ready" to "Foundryesque" but with the advantage of discount prices. Warlord also produce a good selection of metal figures that vary in style and proportion, a result of their "hoovering up" of smaller ranges such as Immortal and Bronze Age. Mention should also be made of more niche suppliers such as Footsore, Gripping Beast (Kings of the Dark Age), First Corps \ Kingmaker, Aventine and many others, some of who produce exquisite and complete ranges in their chosen specialised area.

So going back to the earlier post on Romans, where would I get them? There is a stand out range available in plastic from Warlord, with Victrix promising another later in the year. To recap I suggested the following number of units to make up a core Early Imperial Roman force:

4 Legions
3 Auxilia
2 Funditores (Skirmish slingers)
2 Equites Alares Medium Cavalry
2 Mauri Javelin armed Light Cavalry (Moorish fits the bill)

Numbers of figures per base is not fixed in Impetus - you are free to go with as few or as many as you feel looks good, as long as you and your opponent can differentiate. In this case Warlord produce a box of thirty Legionaries in plastic, which would allow you to build four bases each with six or more figures on each. That's not too shabby. Warlord also produce an Auxilia box set with 24 figures, again that is more than enough for three units of Auxilia. At this point if you can still find them the older Wargames Factory Numidian Skirmishers and Early Imperial Auxiliary Cavalry boxes would cover most of your other requirements, but if you cant get them Warlord will sell you suitable metal figures, an Imperial Roman Cavalry Regiment will get you 12 figures for £24 which is actually very good value, and will happily furnish you with two bases of cavalry you need plus a couple of spares. In fact comparing it to other stuff on their website I think they may have screwed the pricing up so maybe strike now before it changes?

Cheap Romans!

Similarly you need 4-6 light horse with Javelin, or two packs, but the "Regiment" deal works out cheaper plus some slingers (one pack - Balearic) and you probably should grab a Command set of your choice.

So £50 in plastic Legions and Auxilia, £24 Cavalry, £18 Light Horse, £8 Slingers and £4 for a general, so just over £100 and you are done. If you were to buy the same numbers in metal from Foundry they would be about 12 packs so £144 but they do a deal that would bring the price down to £120 - worth considering. Old Glory in the UK sell their figures in packs of 30 including command (10 for Cavalry) so you would need 5 sets - 2 infantry, 2 cavalry and some skirmishers - again about £130. First Corps also come in at around this price point. Check them out and go for the one that most tickles your fancy

One word about the best deal going - Warlords Imperial Roman Starter Army. You can still find these on ebay for £65 and they're excellent value - 100 Legionaries and 24 Auxilia. You can build your army and have enough spare to gift them to a friend!

Building an Impetus Army Part 3 - Ecce Romani

 or “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

The Early Imperial Roman Army is something of a classic. The hard core of the army are the Legionaries. These are the benchmark Heavy Infantry in Impetus, and they represent the Romans at their most basic, a simple and horribly efficient meat grinder. You feed the opposition in at the front and mincemeat comes out at the rear. You need to take a minimum of four units, and a theoretical maximum of twenty. At a basic cost of 28pts each they’re not cheap, and you can upgrade them to A class if you really want to push the point home.  The trick is to ensure you keep these efficient killers in fighting condition and get them into contact at the appropriate point. The rest of the army exists to funnel the opponent into the blades, or protect them from pesky things like cavalry and skirmishers. 

To do this you have two different supporting arms, both of which are worth getting. Firstly there is the Cavalry. Roman Cavalry is not very special. There is nothing wrong with them, it’s just that they’re a bit err, Meh. They can have some average medium cavalry, and a couple of javelin armed light horse. You don’t get enough of either to make them a main fighting arm, and the opposition are usually either better or more numerous, or both. That is in many ways fortunate in that it makes you concentrate on doing the main thing, staying uncommitted and keeping the opposition cavalry off the Legionaries until they’re in position to do their thing. 

The other troops you need are your light infantry. You get some Auxilia infantry, and a few skirmishers. The Auxilia are a bit of a puzzle in some ways, particularly to new players, as they look a little bit like weak Legion, and they don’t have a missile weapon unlike most other light infantry. They do have a high initial combat factor and also the handy ability to negate the Impetus bonus of warband. They’re also very good at clearing woods – something the Legionaries are pretty poor at, and you really should take at least a couple of units. You also need some skirmishers. These can harry opposition heavy infantry as the Legions move up, or screen the Legions from enemy missile troops.  

Proportionally I think you need enough Auxilia to intersperse them between your Legionaries, so 4 Legions will require 3 Auxilia, 5 Legions 4 Auxilia, That allows you to intersperse an Auxilia between each Legion if you are fighting Warband, or to mass them to fight enemy light troops in bad terrain or operate as a mass on a flank if your opponent does not. Half as many skirmishers as Legions is more than enough to act as a skirmish screen. Your Cavalry force needs to be large enough to hold it's own, or rather not get overrun too early, so one or two medium Cavalry and two light Cavalry are probably enough.

So where does that leave us?

4 Legions @ 28pts each = 112
3 Auxilia @ 23pts each = 69
2 Funditores (Skirmish slingers) @ 14pts each = 28
2 Equites Alares Medium Cavalry @ 23pts each = 46
2 Mauri Javelin armed Light Cavalry  @ 21pts each = 42

Total so far is 297, so plenty to play with if we are planning a 400 point Army.  Romans have an Average or Good Command Structure, for 12 or 20 points, and you will need some Generals too. How many Generals and how good they are is up to you, but at least two. There's a big debate to be had as to the merits of three smaller Commands over two larger ones, but the Romans seem to be able to make 2 work as long as you are careful with the cavalry, so you can split the cavalry into one Command and the Infantry into the other, which is a straight 60/40 split so within the list building constraints. The Romans don't rely on flamboyant or high risk tactics, so they don't really need high value Generals - two Fair, or even Poor Generals will manage, but you do probably need some help from The Gods so maximise on 3 Rolls of Destiny (re-rolls) at 5 pts each.

So here is the a suggested Roman Army based on the above ideas. It's solid, conventional, and efficient.

Average Command Rating
3 Rolls of Destiny

Commander in Chief (Poor)
4 Legions
3 Auxilia
2 Slingers
Total Break 20, Breaks on 10

Cavalry Command (Poor)
2 Medium Cavalry
2 Light Cavalry
Total Break 8 Breaks on 4

Army Break Total 28 Breaks on 14
Total points 344

Your opponent will only guarantee a win if he breaks the main Infantry Command, or the Cavalry and a chunk of the Legion. If you are cagey with your Cavalry he will find the latter hard to do, and if he breaks the Legion its Game Over anyway.

That leaves you 56 points to play with. The Romans get a lot of support options, and plenty of Allies too. The Allies are a bit risky as they have to deploy as a Command themselves, so at 400 points I would tend to avoid them. You could upgrade you Legions to Veteran for 11 points each. Veteram Legions are superb, but if you are fighting enemy Warband you will probably not be doing much other than walking steadily forward so the extra training and experience is probably wasted. Other options are to add a couple of Archer units, or maybe some Light Artillery.

Weaknesses - deep heavy infantry - here I mean good quality Hoplites or Pikes deployed as large units. In Impetus large units maintain their fighting power longer than normal ones, so Legions are in danger if fighting 1-1, however those Large Units are sacrificing width for fighting power, so can usually be outflanked and then surrounded - another good use for your Auxilia.

Charging cavalry can sometimes bowl the Legions over, but they are rare and will certainly be outnumbered.

So that's it - a possible Roman Army for Impetus - next, what to buy and where? 

Building an Impetus Army Part 2 - Which Army?

So picking your army.

I'm not going to say which you should pick - for reasons that will become quickly obvious, but rather give you some things to think about that may help you in your choice.

First - Period or Free?

Are you planning to play in a narrow historical period or take on all comers? Impetus will happily allow you to play armies from the Biblical Era to the end of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, and it will  allow you to use New Kingdom Egyptians against Medieval Burgundians if you so wish. That doesn't mean they are equal however, as armies from different periods will have wildly different fighting styles and capabilities, and unlike Fantasy or Sci Fi armies, they have those styles and capabilities for real world reasons which are mostly to do with their "regular" opponents. As a general rule the later armies are smaller and harder hitting, so if you are looking for "killer" armies Late Medieval ones may well fit the bill (pun), however the earlier periods are often far more interesting AND more fun to play. Again this is very much a question of your gaming group. If there are already a core of period armies it would be best to choose something that fits in, DO NOT PICK HUSSITES*.  There is a good core of "Classical" Period armies in my area, Greeks and Romans etc, so they are a great place to start.

Second - Competitive or Friendly?
Yes we are all friendly around here, but there is a little bit more to it than that. (If you are not a competition player please don't get put off competitions by what follows, just be aware.) The problem with competition formats is you need to play three games in a day, plus time for lunch, fags, cuppa's, a bit of shopping etc. It follows that you have usually about an hour and a half to three quarters to play each game, from opening the box to packing up. Also to "do well" in competitions you need to score well in all three rounds - narrow wins or draws do not help. That means winning competition armies must be direct and to the point - you can't spend too much time softening an opponent up, messing with ambushes, flanks etc or trying a lot of finesse, you just need an army to smash the opponent in the face and shock and awe him into oblivion. The ultimate competition army is of course Swiss Confederates, who are so single minded and aggressive it is hard to believe the same people gave us Cuckoo clocks and Toblerone. Getting hit by a Swiss army is something like getting hit by a truck. The other side of the coin is if you are playing friendlies or not that interested in being a top scoring competition player you can pick armies with more finesse or that take time to wear an opponent down. A good example of this phenomenon in action are my beloved Persians. They lack any real punch so usually do average to poor in competitions, in fact I've only ever came top once using then and that was a fluke. On the other hand they're a great army for club \ shop games where you can take a bit more time and enjoy the game more.

Lastly, and most importantly, do you feel a connection?
Eh? Ok what I mean here is that you need to feel some kind of connection to your army, know a bit about them, or at least find out a bit about them, learn why they fought in the way they did. Impetus armies are a major investment in time and effort, not to mention money, and if you are going to get to the end of that building stage and get the return in enjoyment it helps if you can identify with "The Lads". I'm not suggesting you dress up as Hannibal (you can if you want) but you will get more from the whole experience of building and playing with your army if you have an affinity, no matter how daft or indirect. All my armies are chosen because I feel something about them interests me. I like the  religious pigheadedness and modernity the Hussites represent, I like defending Richard III as the brave and savvy King not the panto villain Shakespeare turned him into, etc etc

* unless of course you are playing with armies from Late Medieval Europe in which case wheel them on, OR if you just take pleasure at watching 99% of opponents stare across the table at you in perplexed puzzlement. Hussites are almost unbeatable in competitions. They are also totally useless in competitions because they rely on your opponent smashing his army to pieces on the front of your wagons. As soon as they realise this you may as well call it a draw and pack up.

Next - a couple of examples of what armies to do, and possible what not to do

Building an Impetus Army - Just in case Santa got the note!

I've been asked a couple of times by the guys in the shop about playing Impetus and choosing your armies, so I thought this would make an interesting post topic (I hope you agree!). What follows is a list of things I think you should think about before you start.

1. Scale
OK I know this seems stupid but "some" people (looking at you Mark) seem to forget that you really need an opponent. Make sure whatever you are buying is in the same scale as the local gaming group, unless you are ploughing a lonely solo furrow, it really helps if your toys are the same scale as your likely opponent. In my area this means 28mm for preference. There are several advantages here. 28mm is easily available, and although the individual figure cost is higher than 15mm and 20mm, you will use fewer figures per unit, so 28mm also tends to be cheaper. Lastly , if you are of "a certain age" they're still big enough to see :-)

2. Cost
The next thing you need to have in your mind is budget. Historical wargaming is not expensive compared to the Fantasy \ Sci Fi stuff around at the moment, and if you are used to paying GW'esque prices this is probably not such a problem. That said do a little bit of a costing per figure to give you a rough idea, and if its looking too rich, maybe think again as if you cant hit the playing points level, you probably wont get to play.... As a general rule historical infantry are about £1-£1.50 each in metal, cavalry between £3-£5. Plastics are cheaper

3. Time
One thing non historical gamers sometimes are surprised by is the size of historical armies. There are a few that can be built at low figure counts, but most are going to be 100+ infantry and at least a couple of dozen cavalry. That can be a significant painting time commitment.  Impetus isn't a "boutique" game with a few figures and simple rules. Building an Impetus army is a much bigger and challenging project. Of course it is worth the effort, but it is a lot of effort and will take you months not weeks to complete.

So that's part 1. If you are still interested I will look at what you should think about when choosing an actual army.

Cheers!

And for completeness I suppose I should mention - Hussites and Derby

Given the earlier post about the Hussites I think it only fair to report on the result of the Impetus Competition and our trip to Derby for Derby World Wargames, which actually happens now in a large shed on Donnington Park. I should apologise for the pics - I'm rubbish with the camera on my phone and was really concentrating on other "stuff" for the most part to take coherent pics..

 The venue moved from the University to Donnington Park a couple of years ago and it is a bit of a mixed blessing. It certainly has more room, and everything is under one roof, but the noise level is high and the other facilities not that great. On the other hand the traders love the easy access and there is plenty of parking. It was as always well organised by the Derby Club, who have plenty of experience at this sort of thing so it runs like a Swiss watch.

The Impetus competition is a small and friendly affair - this year only eight players which put us rather embarrassingly less than the number playing WRG 6th.  It was an open format with the following armies present

Hussite, Chosun Korean, War of the Roses Lancastrian, Thracian, Italian Coalition, Parthian , Carthaginian and last but not least British & Welsh Kingdoms. 

My first round game was against the damned Italians. It was a close run thing, with the Hussites deploying badly and spending the first few turns getting their cavalry back inside the protection of the wagons, then trying a complicated wheeling to get out again. It wasn't quite shambolic but it took time - not helped by one of the generals having a crisis of confident and dropping from Poor to Incompetent. In spite of this I did succeed in turning the Italian flank and it was looking as though I may get a win but we ran out of time, resulting an a low scoring draw. As always the wagons did their thing and anchored the whole army.

Second game was against the Lancastrians. This time I decided to flank march my cavalry with the intention of falling on his exposed flank. This worked, but instead of arriving mid game when the opposition would be strung  out and disordered, they arrived on turn one to find the opposition waiting in their deployment zone. On they charged anyway, to be met by a resounding check all along the front - this shouldn't have happened, and the result was a third of my army was pinned in a corner outnumbered and too far away to be supported. In the end they broke, taking a significant proportion of the opposition with them. Both sides glared at each other, then offered a draw as he had no intention of trying his already battered army against the wall of wagons, and I couldn't launch a credible attack. Another low scoring draw :-(

Last game was against Parthians. This was a beautiful army but totally ill equipped to deal with Hussites. To be fair they did their best, attacking the Hussite cavalry that refused to move far from the  protecting fire from the wagons, `and in the end this was the deciding factor, leaving me with a win that looked a lot better on paper than in reality.

Overall I finished in a creditable second place, and a lot of fun was had. In my incompetence I seem not to have a good pic of armies before we started, however here are a couple of shots snapped between turns of the others.

Other stuff - spending was fairly limited - for reasons I bought some more Hussites (can't resist a Hussite)  and some Pig Iron miniatures Colony Militia, which hopefully will get converted into Serenity\Firefly Browncoats at a later date, plus some interesting fantasy character figures.

The demo games were of typically high standard and almost too many to mention, however mention must be made of the near legendary Sir Rich of Lard Island who was demo'ing Sharp Practice 2

and nearby was more SP2 - this time a Retreat From Moscow

and a final mention should go to the lads of Daruma who were showing off their SLA Industries :Cannibal Sector skirmish game. This looks very much like the one that got away, ie something I would really like to try but know I can't give enough time \ money to. Which is a genuine shame.

So that's my belated roundup of our trip to Derby!

Deja Vu - or I wrote this a few weeks ago and forgot to push the "Publish" button.

So it's Derby World Wargames next weekend, and that on Planet Renko usually means one thing - Impetus. Ok Impetus and beer. Impetus, beer, a curry...

Usually I have my army chosen and a fair few practice games under the belt before the big day - not so this time. This year we are stepping up to 400pts from 300 \ 350. I had originally planned to paint a new Thracian army up for Derby, but that particular bit of mo-jo leaked or was stolen after about half way. That left my Old Faithfull Early Achaemenid Persian, or Richard III, or Ancient British, or.....Hussite

The problem with the Persians is they are very old figures - some of them are from the QT Models range where you got to build the troops by selecting bodies, heads & weapons. All very Avant Garde in the 1980s but now they look rather sad. I have a big pile (a technical term meaning "enough") of Foundry Persians to replace them, but have not quite got around to painting them yet. A also need a camp making. This should be easy, and when completed will look like this

But better and made out of pink foam :-)

So having left it to late to rebuild Persepolis that leaves Richard III - aka Uncle Dicky  and his Yorkists. Problem here is that they are spectacularly unlucky, and not a great army to use - their tactic being to stand still and shoot a lot. All WotR armies are similar in that respect, and it makes for interesting games when they play each other but they are horribly one dimensional, and I didnt fancy that.

So Ancient British? Again I'm not feeling the urge. the Ancient Brits are the diametric opposite of the Yorkists - they charge across the table and win or die. Not a lot of command decisions there either, and open competitions like Derby tend to feature a lot of late Medieval armies with Knights - and they ride the Brits down in droves.

So the unloved child going to Derby is Hussites. I have a 300pt 28mm Hussite army based for Impetus. It looks quite nice, but it has all the on table charm of a car crash. I've decided to give it a go at 400pts to see if this step up improves it at all. I should add the Hussites are spectacularly good at what they do, which in Impetus competitions tends to be to act as a massive tripping hazard to competetive armies, particularly light horse armies, who may as well pack up and go home. This Hussite has seen off Mongols, Scythians, Numidians, Sassanids and Templars - mostly without breaking a sweat.

In case you are not au fait with middle European History, the Hussites were a religious group from Bohemia who fell out with the Church in about 1419 over such major issues as who should get the wine at Communion and which way the Priest faced. This all got out of hand to the point Joan of Arc threatened to lead a Crusade to put them right. The Holy Roman Empire thought it could handle this, and descended on them in a wave of heavily armoured knights. In almost all other circumstances this would have ended quickly with the Peasants ridden down and the wine being back as the sole prerogative of the priesthood. In this case they has a secret weapon - Jan Zizka. Zizka had lived the life of a fairly un-noteworthy soldier up to that point, but cometh the hour, cometh the Jan. He realised his army of peasants and townsfolk couldn't fight knights in the open, and couldn't stand a siege forever either. So he perfected a new form of warfare where his peasants fought from wagons that could be chained together to form a sort of mobile fortification. Each wagon was crewed by crossbowmen and handgunners, with some polearm equipped infantry just in case anyone got close. They also used numerous small cannons - another first as no-one thought they were of any use except in sieges.  The opposition didn't have a clue how to deal with this and so resorted to plan A - "Charge!!". This lead to a string of Hussite victories - in five years of constant war against just about everyone  Zizka never lost a battle, dying in 1424 of the plague. Hussites it is!      

Battle Report - Impetus Koreans vs Persians

I'm off to Vapnartak (York Wargames show) on the 7th Feb to play in the Impetus competition. This will be the first time we've played with the new 400 pt format so my usual opponent "Big Paul" suggested we get a bit of practice in, and it would also give him the chance to get his newly acquired Yi Dynasty Koreans on the table - and get the "new army first game auto loss" out of the way before the competition started. I decided to go with my old faithful Early Achaemenid Persians, but to use the extra 50 points the format gives to upgrade the Immortals to "A" class - never had the points to do that before so I thought it would be interesting :-)

Both armies had 2 commands, the Korean left being 2 units of VBU7 heavy cavalry supporting 4 units of VBU 3\1 Comp B light horse. The Korean C-in C was with his infantry, 2 deep units of B class foot backed by bowmen, plus a unit of rather scary "two sword wielders" and a secret weapon - a rocket launcher!

The Persians were similarly arrayed, two deep units of Immortals supported by two units of Sparabara on their left, with three Medium cavalry (5-2 Comp C) supporting four light horse (4-0 Comp B) facing the Korean cavalry on the right. This was an interesting face off - the Korean heavy cavalry were in theory superior to the Persian mediums, but the Persians had bows and an advantage in numbers. They also had a unit of Thracian Javelinmen bought in case there had been a need to scout any difficult terrain the cavalry could not get into.

Terrain turned out to be uneventful - some broken ground on the Persian left. Here is both armies after deployment

And a couple of pics of the Koreans - very nicely painted by Steve Irvin and based by Paul

 In comparison the Persian looked a bit boring

Turn 1 and the Persians won the initiative, but elected to stand on opportunity. The Koreans advanced a little, tempting the Persian Immortals into a bit of long range shooting which disordered some light horse but otherwise achieved nothing.

Turn 2 and the Persians pushed their light cavalry forward to try and capitalise on the Korean disorder, safely within the protection offered by the line of mediums behind them. More disorder in the Korean light cav, who were starting to look like they were coming unstuck against the slightly better factors of the Persians.

Meanwhile the Korean infantry also advanced

and deployed their secret weapon!

Which missed! The Persians responded with long range bowfire which achieved little other than a couple of disorders which were soon shook off.

Turn 3

Persians won the initiative (Ahura Mazda be Praised!) and their light cavalry pressed home their early advantage, wiping out a pair of Korean light cavalry. Paul realised the battle was swinging away from him so charged with his heavy cavalry. The Persian lights evaded but their supporting mediums declared a counter charge from Opportunity, meeting the Koreans head on. Their was a quick mellee which went in favour of the Koreans, but both sides had suffered losses and the Korean heavies had not managed to maintain contact with the Persians as they fell back, leaving them feeling rather exposed. Whoever won the initiative next would gain a big advantage.

After three equal initiatives the Persians finally won, and like a well oiled machine they started to take the now stranded Korean heavies apart with a combination of point blank bow fire and charges to the flanks. The Koreans broke, but not before a heroic charge threatened the Persian Cavalry commander who survived by the skin of his teeth.

On the other flank the Immortals decided to give an example of how dangerous A class troops can be, and threw themselves across the battlefield and into contact with a rather surprised Korean infantry command. The Koreans proved a tough opponent however and drove the Immortals back, at least initially!

With the flanks now threatened by the arrival of the Persian light horse it was clear to everyone that the game was up for the Korean infantry. The Immortals rallied and fired point blank into the still disordered Koreans before charging in. The Korean artillery was also overrun, breaking the army morale, but not before a brave charge from a surviving light horse unit rode the Thracians down.

The final positions as the Koreans broke

All in all an interesting battle, with both players looking thoughtful and thinking about tinkering with the lists a bit. I was rather impressed with the Koreans who could easily have won the cavalry fight if the initiative had gone their way and they had been able to press their heavy cavalry advantage before the Persians rallied.

Thanks again to Paul fpr the game and Hartlepool Wargames Club for the venue.

Cheers

Quick & Dirty - Dark Age Infantry

I was in something of a rush to get my forces ready for playing Dux Brit.  I bought a box of plastic Dark Age Warriors from Gripping Beast and decided to go all out for the quickest turnaround I could to get those peasant levy units ready - no corner was to be left uncut!

Firstly I assembled the 18 figures I needed, then stuck them to 1p pieces. Then I covered the bases with pva and a sand & talus mix. All done in our back yard with assistance from our new Tomcat Greebo

Once the pva dried I had the cunning plan of cutting another corner by undercoating in suitably drab colours. A quick search of my cupboard produced a tin of beige and a "British Tank" green, - I was dissapointed to discover I had used up all the German Dunkelgelb on a previous project. Anyway here are the results.

Part 2 will be the end result

When I first joined the wargames club - 28mm Ancients

When I first joined the wargames club back in the Second Sheet Metal Age, when God's Dog was still a puppy, White Dwarf was in single figures and all that, there was really only one big game, the one that showed you were a serious wargamer - 25mm Ancients using WRG 5th or 6th Edition.

The armies were big and quite expensive, but the biggest and most obvious sign that you played was the big metal cantilever toolbox universally used to haul your troops around - like this, but bigger.

When full of 25mm white metal figures these weighed a ton, and you had to seriously weigh up (literally in some cases) the desirability of adding that unit of Hoplites to the army with the possibility of getting a hernia. This was particularly the case at the Hartlepool club where the games rooms were on the top floor and only accessible by a series of about a hundred narrow stairs.

Things have changed now of course. The arrival of cheap plastic figures from Perrys, Gripping Beast,  Wargames Factory, Warlord Games, Conquest, Agema and Victrix have made 28mm (scale creep) ancients gaming both cheap and portable.

So yesterday we had a great time playing Impetus at Waugh Games - half a dozen like minded souls just having a good time doing ancients like the old days. We had six players and a good selection of armies - A Republican Roman, Early Imperial Roman, Ancient Brit, Carthaginian, Selucid, and Mongol (there's always one)! We were playing 350 points which is the current competition standard. One interesting point was just how small the two Roman armies were - probably because they both went for a lot of A class legionary units.

So here in no particular order is some pics I shot between moves

Selucids vs ABs

ABs lining up

"The important thing about a pike is the unpleasant stuff happens a long way away" Selucid Pikemen ready to roll

Meanwhile the ABs camp is full of the usual pre fight activity

Mongols vs Republican Romans

OK there are not many of us but we are A Class and rock hard - and also very pretty - Republican Romans

Early Imperials advance against Carthaginians

Hanibal and his lads get stuck in - this ended badly for the EIR Auxilia

Oh look, bloody Mongols outflanking AGAIN

Selucids bracing for impact

EIRs doing the grinding thing they do so well

Republicans bouncing Mongols (the suspicious Cav on the end is a proxy Mongol)

and now the Mongols are in the rear - AGAIN

Crunch

Sometimes having the longest stick is worth it

More bouncing Mongols

Selucids vs Republicans

EIRs and ABs

A road? Mongols try to get even farther onto the Carthaginian flank

EIRs grind towards the ABs

Selucid vs Republican Romans

EIRs vs ABs

EIR setup vs Carthaginians

Proper wargaming :-)

and here is an interesting thought - most of this was plastic, with the odd metal figure in there. You could probably buy a 350 point army using plastics for £60-£80. That's brilliant