Spain vs Carthage 235BC.29.7.12.

This should have been a good game,however, the way things worked out it was a bit of an anti-climax!We picked sides and Graham was in charge of the confederation of Spanish tribes,whilst Paul and I were in charge of the Carthaginians.
To be fair to Graham,he is not really an Ancients "buff",so the tactics and capabilities of the Carthaginians (especially the Numidian light cavalry) were a bit of a surprise to him,and after the first couple of opening moves the game was already lost!!
Below is the scenario,just to set the scene,based on fact, the Carthaginians did invade Spain in 235/6 BC. This is the general overview of the table with the Spanish tribes on the left and the Carthaginians on the right.Because the Spanish were a disparate group of tribes we decided that they must throw a Random movement dice, for each faction for each move,this proved to be a deciding factor,and upset Graham's battle plan.

The photo below shows the disposition of the Carthaginians at the start of the game,my command is the centre and right flank ,and Paul took the left flank,with the dreaded Numidian light cav. lurking on the far left.

This shot shows Graham's centre and left flank,consisting of a mixture of skirmishers,light inf.and heavy inf. and cavalry.

The shot below is of the Spanish right flank,this "surged" forward in the first move,against our heavy cav.and a good melee developed on our side of the stream,Paul's Numidians drove the Spanish archers,who had been left unsupported,away, which left the whole of the Spanish army "up in the air" and gave Paul free rein to cause havoc in their flank and rear!

The photo below shows what happened when we put in a concerted attack along the whole front,with Graham bravely trying to form some sort of line or defensive position,however being "squashed" between heavy cav.and heavy inf. with light troops darting in and out with the elephants as support,caused a total collapse of the Spanish army,and the game was finished!!

Here is anothe view of the "collapse" with the Elephants imposing themselves on the hapless Spanish infantry.

In retrospect,I suppose I should have picked the sides,with either Paul or I in charge of the large Spanish army,however experience is a good thing and I'm sure Graham will have learnt from this game.

I hope to be playing Dave on Wednesday,so roll on.......

Ancients game 26.7.12. vs Paul.

Last night's game involved a Macedonian army against an Indian army,Paul was the Macedonian commander and I was the Indian commander.The woods on my far left flank were impassable,whilst on the right flank they were open and would allow any troops to pass through.
The game started with Paul sending his heavy companion cav. forward against my lighter cav.in the centre, Paul kept his phalanx stationary,whilst I moved my considerable Elephant force forward.
Below is a general overview of the battle field before the game started. This shot shows the Heavy companion cav, of the Macedonian army, in wedge formation,they crashed into my lighter types,but I held for a while,until after about 4 rounds of melee,Paul was successful.

This photo is of the wife,sitting in her temple,thinking of jobs for me to do!! with cavalry milling about in the background.

This shows the Indian centre,complete with 12 elephants,and another 6 on the right flank,the main line of elephants proved not very useful,and mainly ran about spoiling my formations,however one unit did manage to wreck a phalanx,so not all doom and gloom!!

This is Paul's centre before the game started,his light troops are just going into the woods,up against my lights,I did alot better in the woods than I did on the plain.

THis shot shows the cavalry melee in full swing,we both kept feeding squadrons into the melee until everything was involved,a great sight,but better training and leadership won the day for the Macedonians.

My heavy infantry decide to take on the disrupted phalanx units (the elephants caused the disruption) however they proved to be more than a match for me,and my whole line broke!!

This photo shows the fight in the forest,with my elephants and light troops getting the better of Paul's troops,he called it a tactical withdrawal!!

Paul's phalanx units reforming,with not an Indian unit in sight,in fact the end of the game,which was fought with alot of "gusto",both sides,it has to be said,did well overall,but the Macedonians ruled the centre if not the flanks and were declared the winners.Roll on Sunday.

18th century game 25.7.12. vs Dave.

Last night Dave came round for a small Marlburian game;it was basically a French baggage train being stopped by a Spanish army appearing on its left flank.This turned ou to be a good game,which Dave won eventually,after the usual firefights and cavalry melees,which did swing both ways,resulting in morale tests and units "retiring" off the board.Dave put in a "spirited" attack on my centre,and I gave him,initially, a bloody nose on my right flank with a good old cavalry battle.(I commanded the French and baggage train,whilst Dave commanded the Spanish)

The shot above shows my feeble attempt at an outflanking move,by one inf. regiment,which resulted init having to beat a hasty retreat! The photo above shows the firefight on my left flank.

Here is the same photo!! I don't know why...........

The above shot shows my cavalry about to put in a charge against Dave's well placed cavalry.

As you can see the centre of the line was ablaze with musketry!!This is where the most damage was done,and once my right hand regiment gave way,the rest of the line followed.This was a good game,we hope to see more of Dave now that he's on his hollies (2 weeks of sun sea booze and wargaming,but not necessarily in that order!!)

Roll on tonight when I'm playing Paul,it will be an ancients game,Macedonians vs Indians,a full report will follow.

The last frontier,Ancients game 22.7.12.

Last night's game could only be described as "cracking",a quite simple scenario saw a frontier fort, manned by Romans, being "assailed" by Gauls and Germans,who had burning waggons with them!
Paul was the Gallic commander (8 warbands,2 cav.units,2 waggons) and Graham was the German commander (7 warbands,1 archer unit and 2 waggons) I was the fort commander and had 10 cohorts,1 unit cav. and 2 catapults.
below is the general overview of the board, with the Barbarians moving towards the stream,once over the stream they had to throw a "random movement dice" for each unit,the Germans threw well, the Gauls did not!!

This is the view from the Gallic and German perspective,it looks quite daunting. This is the view from the Roman perspective,they look safe and cosy behind their wooden walls don't they? It was soon to be hot and uncomfortable !!

This shot shows Graham's Germans attacking their nominated section of the wall with the burning waggon just about to do its dirty work against a section of wall.

This photo shows my ill-timed "sally" from the fort with cavalry and infantry,they unfortunately "bumped into" a mass of Gauls, and had to beat a hasty retreat,being chased right back into the fort,this melee lasted until the end of the game,and was one of the highlights (or low lights if you were Roman!!)

The walls have been burnt down in this shot and the Germans are assaulting in vast numbers,where are the Gauls ??

The Gauls have arrived at last,they took the "scenic " route to the fort obviously!!However with ladders and ,eventually, burning waggons,they made themselves a real threat to my weakened cohorts.

Pressure on the Romans fighting at the gate,Germans sweeping onto my flank,I just might be in a spot of bother here!

The Gauls eventually using their burning waggon,it was held up for a while by the dice deciding that it was too dangerous to approach the walls.

The final piece of the action,Germans capturing my hill and catapults,the fight still continuing at the gate,and a column of Romans "going home" in the foreground!!

This is it, the end.Barbarians victorious,Rome defeated,ah well roll on next week.

As a post script to this blog I thought I would let you see how I am getting on "basing" and finishing off the figures I bought at auction (see previous blog)

Getting there,I had to put shields and spears on both these units.
The photo below shows the majority of the units I am going to incorporate into my armies,on their bases, and flocked.Hopefully I will try and get these figures onto the board as soon as possible.

Auction of Wargames figs.18.7.12.

On Tuesday I paid my regular visit to our local Auction House,to see if there was anything I might fancy (weapons,medals etc.) Imagine my surprise then at walking into a Wargamers paradise !!
There were literally thousands of plastic kits,toys,trains,books and paints,but best of all Wargames figures!!These were apparently all one man's collection over many years,and unfortunately he had died and his wife asked the Auctioneers to sell them on her behalf.There was alot of media attention (newspapers and T.V.) so I was not very hopeful of getting in a successful bid for lot number 265,which was an enormous amount of ancient figs,some painted but the majority not.
The photo below shows how the lot was presented on the viewing day. I was successful with my bid,against some opposition,of £110 for the lot.
below is the lot at home,consisting of,185 beautifully painted inf. figs.350 unpainted inf figs,53 cavalry figs.6Elephants,4 Ballista,4 pack horses,thousands of shields and weapons and pack upon pack of shield transfers.When I finished sorting the lot out I was "over the moon" with my purchase,and immediately started putting the figures into bags and types.
the shot below shows the "sorting " just getting started.

Another shot of the sorting process,as you can see all of the unpainted figs were in their original packaging,mainly Foundry, AA and Navigator,and were Carthaginian and Macedonian,with a few Romans.

I had to include this photo to show the Beautiful shields that this man has painted,he was obviously highly talented,I couldn't believe that these were all hand painted!

This is my attempt to get the units organised,I have managed to put spears on the units that didn't have them,and put shields on as well,and in fact I have tried in my own way to finish the units which he started but didn 't finish.I will incorporate them into my armies rather than sell them on.

This is another shot of the collection,which I will make into an army later on in the year.

English Civil War game 15.7.12.

English Civil War games are colourful and exciting affairs,this game proved to be no exception.I suppose really it was just an excuse for a massive cavalry battle,as you will see as you trawl through the photographs.I wanted to try a couple of things during last night's game,namely that the first two moves were purely for artillery fire!! No cav. or inf. could move,to simulate an initial bombardment,befor the troops got to work,and secondly,Random movement dice were to be thrown for each unit,on every move,to simulate the "fragile" command structure of the Civil War armies.These two experiments were ,I think, very successful.
The first photo shows the overall view of the table,with the Royalist cav.in the immediate foreground,facing the Parliamentarian cav.on the opposite hill,with the Inf.stretching to the far side of the board.

This is the Parliamentarian cav.(8 units) before the game started,quite impressive! Equally impressive are the 7 units of Royalist cav. facing them,led by Prince Rupert, of course.

This is the gun signalling the start of the battle,but doing very little damage!

This shot shows that the infantry did actually take part,a mass firefight in the centre and far flanks.

This shot shows the cav. on both sides moving to contact,with the random movement dice,this phase took a while to achieve,with disgruntled shouts from both Paul (royalists) and Graham (parliament) ABOVE....
The photo below shows the cav. about to engage,this was a spectacular sight.

Mas cavalry melee in progress,the melee swung both ways,but eventually,Graham,who is usually very unlucky with cavalry,won the day and the Royalist cav. were forced to retire!!

In the centre,the poor infantry were slowly slogging it out by firefights and "push of pike",again the result was in the balance for a long time,but as usual, I was beaten!( I was in charge of the Parliamentarian infantry and our left flank.

Push of pike (don't tell him your name pike!!)

Graham pondering,Paul making a point,and I'm behind the camera wondering how Paul's cuirassiers have got behind my infantry, and are now threatening my whole centre!!!

This shot shows the successful Parliamentarian cav. pushing over the stream and heralding the end of the game.

I suppose I had to include this shot of my Infantry being "hammered" by Paul's inf.

This game was alittle different,because we used the random movement dice,and the artillery was used as it was in history.We all enjoyed the game,especially the cavalry battle, and will probably have more Civil War games in the future.

Roll on Thursday!