Macedonians etc. vs Romans 27.2.13.

As I was feeling a bit better this morning,Brian and I decided we would have an Ancients game.
As a bit of a change we put Imperial Romans,c/w auxilliaries and Barbarian troops against a "hotch-pot" army of Macedonians,Thracians and Illyrians!!
Brian took the Romans and I took the Macedonians etc.

This first photo shows the overall set up of the table,Romans on the left,and Macedonians etc. on the right.

This is a shot of my central phalanx,which advanced in grand style towards the waiting Roman ranks.

This is the Roman centre,cohorts poised,ready to do battle against the mighty phalanx,if only I can persuade Brian to abandon his pila,I might stand a chance !!

Early moves,Brian and I both had the same plan,try to outflank with auxilliaries and Barbarians,and cavalry,hold in the centre,for as long as possible,and then sweep onto any exposed flank!! sounds simple,and it was,but with mixed fortunes along the way.

Brian's barbarians have charged my left flank,his cohorts are making headway in the centre,am I about to be undone ??

This is my right flank under pressure from a combination of arms!! This battle swung both ways for a while,and I thought I had won the flank,only to be charged by two cohorts,brought swiftly up to save the day for the Romans.

With a "flurry" of low dice scores,Brian managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,and I pushed him back along the whole of the centre,however,as we all know,the Romans are nothing if not persistent,and they fought back well.

This is a shot of my left flank,being pressurised by a bunch of hairy and wild Barbarians,whilst the Roman cavalry are putting my light cavalry to flight!!

My left flank is under pressure,my right flank is gone,and now the Roman cohorts are breaking through my centre !!

This is the final photo,with the Roman general (Brian) sending more and more troops into the fray,I had nothing left to stem the tide,and the Romans were declared the winners.
This was,once again, a great game,good tactics and battle plans,playing to the strengths of the troop types in our armies.

Roll on Thursday night,me against Paul,in a scenario devised by Brian,who will be referee.

Painting update

A strange thing happened on Sunday night,we didn't play,because I had to report sick !!

So instead of the usual game report,I will update you on my "project" of the French and Indian war. I have almost completed all of the figures,including canoes and crews,and took some photo's last week.

This is a "company" of Rangers,I am using 12 figures to a company and will have 8 companies in total.All the figures I have used are from Warrior Miniatures,except the canoes,that are from Irregular Miniatures,however I have had to use Warrior figs. for the crews as the Irregular crews are ridiculously small and way out of scale-ho hum !!

This is a "war Party" of ,again 12 figures,I have included a couple of "Courrer de Bois" ie. backwoodsmen in the war parties.
I painted the figures in my usual fast (crap!) way and then varnished them with a quick-drying Mahogany varnish to give them that "ruddy" glow,the Rangers were varnished using a Matt varnish.

This shows a "base" of Indians,I went to town a bit with the war paint,but followed colours from the excellent book "tomahawk and Musket"

A company of Rangers emerging from the woods,with a bit of activity going on in the background!!

Rangers paddling their own canoe.The canoe model is quite strange,in that it doesn't have a bottom to it,however I easily overcame this by cutting a small piece of card to fit.

Indians,also paddling their own canoe!! I have 3 Ranger canoes and 3 Indian canoes,I was tempted to get more,but I have been known to get carried away,and I don't want "fleet actions" on the Canadian Lakes !!

The Ranger figures come with 2 different  styles of headgear,Glengarry caps and Tams,here I have painted a whole company wearing Tams,but with the rest I have mixed the hats up.

Here I have shown a couple of War Parties attacking, a fine bunch of chaps !
I am looking forward to dreaming up some scenarios,including ambushes,raids on forts,settlements,and villages.

My inspiration comes from these two books,great text and great illustrations,I've got to get them on the board now.

Hopefully I'll be fit enough to wargame on Wednesday,Thursday and next Sunday.

Napoleonic peninsularr game,vs Brian 21.2.13.

Brian and I had an interesting game this morning,basically he was in command of a French force tasked with storming a convent,through a pass, and relieving it of its gold and religious relics. Defending the convent were a Spanish infantry regiment,backed up by a band of Guerrilos and a horse art. battery. Also,but unknown to Brian,the convent housed a regiment of British Rifles!! Coming onto the board was a force of British,to assist the convent defenders.

This is my force of British troops,including a rocket troop (why did I bother putting this infernal contraption on the board??)

The convent,and defenders,this was situated up a narrow pass,which was the only access,and proved to be quite difficult to the French.

This shows the "Princessa regiment,in a farmhouse guarding the approach to the pass,these troops were successful in keeping the French at bay for a while,then were driven away by Brian's Westphalian infantry!

This is the French starting point,they had Dragoons,Hussars,foot art. and horse art,and of course infantry.Brian had to attack the relieving force of British,and also capture the pass and convent,no mean task,but,cometh the hour,cometh the man!!

Battle is joined! Brian brought forward his Dragoons in grand style,and my horse artillery and light dragoons saw him off in grand style!!

Meanwhile back at the pass,a furious assault is being launched against my Guerrilos and artillery,as well as against the infantry in the farmhouse.

My Princessa regiment coping with the French attack,and actually driving the first "wave" back,however Brian was determined to take this farm,and sent more and more trops to the attack,and was eventually successful!

Action on my right flank,my infantry are advancing,but,on being threatened by cavalry,my rocket troop decided to "assist" I missed with the first shot,but was quietly confident that I could eventually hit,and drive away, Brian's cavalry.

Brian brought up his foot artillery,and shot my light dragoons,I then charged his guns,and,despite being cannistered,put his gunners to flight,hurrah,the flank has been saved (or has it?)

Oh dear!! the Princessa reg't has been defeated in melee, and is in the process of "leaving the building,very much like Elvis"

All hell is let loose on my right flank,I am being pressed everywhere,just behind the "rock" you can see my Spanish dragoons being Slaughtered,and my infantry forced into square,with Brian bringing up his Hussars,I am in trouble!!

My rocket troop is idealy placed to "smite" the enemy,all I need to throw,on the dice,is anything but a "9",as this will blow the bloody thing up !! As you can see from the photo,I threw "9" much to the amusement of Brian,who did not gloat (much!!)

Brian's troops have driven the Guerrilos back,and I have had to "expose" my riflemen,however,with no support able to reach me from the rest of the British contingent,I was forced to capitulate!!
Tremendous game,all action,from move number one to the last move,couldn't have asked for a better way to spend a Thursday morning,roll on Sunday,Brian has come up with a challenging scenario,so let me know in good time if you can make it (Graham,Richard, Dave and Paul)

Break through ! Marlburian Game 17.2.13.

I can describe last night's game in three words,Classic,Classic,Classic !!!
Because Dave and Graham were on "sick parade",it fell to the "musketeers" to play this game between us.

The scenario was that a French force (moi) was in a defensive position,consisting of two "hedged areas" linked by a farm house,the opposition,consisting of a Danish force (Brian) and a Dutch force (Paul),had to break through the defences to win the game.
Another title for this game could well have been, "If you Gloat,you'll be Smote !!" as you will see later.

The game lasted for 10 moves,and for the first 9 moves, I could do no wrong,fire-fights,melees and morale tests all went my way,I was giving Brian and Paul a good bashing to say the least.

This is move one,Brian has advanced with a brigade,been fired upon,took casualties,tested his morale,and two out of the three regiments had to "fall back".This operation was repeated on move two and three,I just couldn't lose!! At one point ( read this carefully Sally),Brian was rendered speechless!!

Paul is attacking my right flank here,he met with no more success than Brian,my dice throwing was "magnificent" nothing could break the will of my glorious troops.In this shot you can just see ,in the background,my cavalry taking on Paul's cavalry,a well placed "cannister" shot unsettled one of my squadrons,but I was confident that I would prevail!!

This shot shows Brian looking "dejected" as well he might,yet another attack has failed !!

This shows Brian's concerted attack,after a break for coffee and biscuits,a renewed and frightening aspect loomed above me,the sneaky devils had obviously hatched a plot,was I about to be undone??

My right flank again,cavalry being pounded by artillery and beaten by Paul's cavalry, an an infantry attack coming in.On the first round of melee up against the hedge,I was successful,but the Paul launched his Dutch Guards against me,and broke through the hedge,I was forced to reinforce the melee,and even threw my Brigadier into the fray ( regular readers will know that this is a mistake !!)

Even though Paul's Guards were beaten in the melee,he threw a "5" on the dice which allowed him to try and kill my Brigadier,and guess what -----He did !!
I was then forced to take a morale test on all units under his control,and ever single one of them failed their test and "retired" to the back of the board,leaving Paul's troops free to take the position!! Game over,and to hoots of laughter and derision,I was declared the loser! If you Gloat,you'll be Smote !!

This was a tremendous game,with lots of twists and turns,well done lads,I promise there'll be no more "Gloating" from now on.(yeah right!)

As discussed in the last blog,here is a shot of my new "project" figures,a company of "Roger's rangers" and a "war party" of indians. There will be 8 such companies and war parties when I am finished,plus canoes etc.
I have finished 6 so far,and the rest will be finished next week, I'm looking forward to getting them on the board,and playing some different games and scenarios.

Roll on Thursday,Brian and I will be playing through the day ( it's great being retired you know!)

Ancients game,14.2.13.

Last night ,the "three musketeers" ie Brian, Paul, and John (me!) played a fairly big Ancients game,pitting a Carthaginian army against an Imperial Roman army.
We had a good and exciting game,with Brian and I against Paul ( well, it was his legion after all!)

After a long and hard tussle,Paul won the game,but not before Brian had stormed into a village on Paul's right flank,and I slowly,but surely,moved the bulk of our army relentlessly forward,only to be met with a storm of Pila,which broke the back of my troops. Melee followed melee,Elephants rampaged about the place,units broke and ran,then were rallied,and shoved back into the fray-----what a game.The pictures below tell the story!!

This is the general set-up,Carthaginians on the left, with Romans on the right of the picture,and of course,the brothers Grim!!

Roman aux. inf. defending the village,not for long,eh Brian ??

Brian's Celts and Spaniards advance to attack the village.

My centre heavy inf. and elephants advance to sweep the Romans away,well, that was the plan!!
Didn't quite work out though!!

Village taken,job done!! hello,whats this? Romans coming around to attack the attackers!! that's not fair!

Brian's cavalry are not doing too well either,despite his commander and support troops,these cavalry decided to take off and head for a better army to fight for!

My spear armed troops have made contact with the Romans positioned on the far left hill,----they "bounced" off the Romans,of course!! Almost game over at this stage,however I had managed to win one melee,with my elephant,and actually penetrated Paul's lines.

Final shot,village re-captured,centre being pushed back,along with my right flank,and Paul is declared the winner-Bloody Romans,what have they ever done for us??


On a lighter note,Brian is becoming a most "prolific" painter,and his latest offering are these Plastic Marlburian figures,from his expanding Danish Corps.

A "cracking" paint job,glorious colours, and well based,keep 'em coming Brian !!

I have been working on a project over the last few weeks,which involves Roger's Rangers and Mohawk-type Indians,from the French and Indian wars, I will get some photo's taken next week,and hopefully we'll be ready to play our first game with them in a couple of weeks.

I actually ordered all of the figures from Warrior miniatures on the 21st Jan. and received them on the 23rd Jan. Great customer service,200 figures in 2 days!!

Roll on Sunday,probably a Marlburian game,involving a Danish contingent,no doubt !