Bonus Round Greeks

I don't plan to go in for more than a couple of the themed bonus rounds but I did enter the first one as I had the perfect idea.

The second army I painted up was my Persian one and some of the first figures were Chariot Miniatures Hoplites so it seemed the perfect choice. Having bought a bunch of Persian cavalry and Greek hoplites mid last year second hand meant I hand the figures just waiting to be worked on.

I really had enough hoplites but having more means I have yet more options and I can always use them in other earlier period armies if we end up adding to the armies we have.

I was not really 100% switched on to painting the shields and the angle of the spear added to the problem so they are not the best I have done but they will be OK for what I need.

So a relatively quick paint that took me back a few decades. Not that it was that long since I painted up a unit of hoplites but it's the first Chariot ones in years! I still have enough figures for another three or four units, however they may or may not get painted in the challenge. 

As for the Persian cavalry, well two units are on the table with some paint on them so they will be hopefully finished for next weeks submission.

Parthian's At The Gates AAR

Got another Hail Caesar game in with Matt last week, we pushed the points up to 550 so both of us had a few more options this game. I went with two commanders (half) with activations of 8 opposed to the normal 7. Matt went with Camel Resupply for his horse archers, a very nasty ability giving his archers the opportunity to re-roll missed shots!

The large mass is my Persians whilst Matt has the more compact Parthian's. My plan was to storm ahead and try and pin Matt's troops against his table edge. This got off to a good start as I had good moves and stormed ahead.

Then Matt on his turn blundered and was forced to charge his horse archers into two of my Medium Cavalry units. Here we made the mistake of allowing one of his units support which lead him to win the first round of combat on my right though the second round went my way, pity I had become shaken and disordered by this point! The other melee saw me shatter his archers and Matt lost the first unit of the game.

Another angle showing I had gone heavy with the cavalry, four units of mediums on this flamk and five heavy on the other flank.

Matt did his usual flow round my flanks, this being my left flank, however it woke me up to the need to be wider than Matt, very much possible given the extra troops I had. Unfortunately I did not really come to grips with that till late in the game.

Back on the left with the red die showing I am disordered. I was to suffer so many disordered units I started to struggle to move forward.

Same right flank but the situation went from looking like I was going to defeat the flanking light cavalry division and swing into the next division and roll them up, instead due to disorder I was starting to look in trouble.

In the middle I had two units save their casualties but Matt having rolled a six I was disordered and unable to move. Extremely frustrating and shapes of things to come.

My turn to start throwing buckets of dice as my Levy Persian Bow went into action but could I roll a six? Well maybe next turn.

As Matt brought up his Cataphracts I prepared for the big clash. I am better allowing Matt to charge and stay stationary so as to count supports as I would loose my counter charge bonus as he has Contos (Lance) At lest the rear unit of his Cataphracts was taking missile loss and even disorder!

Back on the right flank the only real change was the amount of casualties I had collected, though I was temporary out of disorder.

Disorder stopped some of my Hoplites from charging forward whilst the ones able to move forward failed to even force the Parthian's to evade.

I moved my small units of bow and sling out of the way but another turn of no disorder or casualties, I await their charge and forget to fire them bows as I am charged!

I was able to break up the left flanks attack by forcing one Cataphract to retreat but Matt was confident of getting the other into melee whilst bowing me off the table.

My right flank is starting to crumble, two units of Medium cavalry have been broken and the two remaining are high on casualties and low on results.

I just needed a couple of good rolls and I could have caused an upset but a combination of being under disorder and failing the pre turn removal and my then failing to get the moves meant I could not remove screen and charge into the Cat's as they passed by.

Oh too many disorders to count! My frustration knew no bounds. I think the Parthian's can be one of the hardest armies to fight. However I think I have a possible answer I just did not work it well.

With so many of my units now both disordered and shaken we called it. A few rule mistakes and definite tactical errors made this one very one sided, though we had a good laugh. Our next game will feature Matt's Han Chinese so will be a very different flavour to these Parthian's though I will be seeing the Parthian's again no doubt.

Best Laid Plans and Roman's.

The end of the challenge always is a bit difficult for me. Last year I lost 4 days to Heroes ASL tournament and then my Birthday. This year I swapped the four days for just one (Mothers Day) but looks like that one day will spin out beyond as I have burnt my hand bad enough that I can't use it, at least for a few days but possibly longer de[pendant on how the blistering works out. So please read this post slowly as I can't type fast with one hand    ;-)

To go with the light horse I have also painted up a couple of  their heavier brethren. First up more Equites. These are really nice looking figures and again I wanted them to stand out quite a lot so went with a light blue cloak and a deeper blue shield.

These are armed with Light Spear and are Swordsmen so should be able to stand up to most of what they have to face.

Some of the few troops in the army that you can see any armour so needed a shot of it to show it off. I can add two more bases to make it a six base unit if desired.

The heavy hitters, Equities Catafractari, Lancers and Swordsmen what more could you wish for? Well the figures are armed with bow as well!

Again these can have an extra two bases which would make them expensive but so much more dangerous. The horses are a little bit chunky which obviously works with cataphracts. 

I was hoping to finish the Roman's off this week but that's looking unlikely at best, still I have enough figures painted to cross the 2K mark though getting them flagged is also looking a long shot but as I have loads of flags I may give it a whirl. 

Thracian Hell!!

I really turned on the jets last week trying to get a submission in and it was a big one. I painted up 62 Thracian peltasts, a mix of about 4-5 suppliers. I had another twelve figures painted up years ago that needed taking off their bases and mixing in with these. Tow of which already were battle damaged with loose arms. For now these two remain tossed to one side and are very likely to end up in the bin.

So 72 figures make up 24 bases, the maximum allowed in one of the Macedonian Field of Glory army lists. Will I use that many medium infantry with Heavy Weapons? Probably not, well not more than once. It would be the start of a new all Thracian army but I don't think I will go down that road as I would need literally hundreds of these figures.

I used 20 different colours for the base colour so the figures get a good variety between colours and poses. I am guessing I would use these as four units of six bases or three of six bases.

Every shield is also different in the 62 I painted though obviously many are similar in type, that with the face painted on them.

I could not help myself though and had to joke a little. My daughter loves the cat face above as I knew she would. So about thirty years after the Hoplite with the yellow smiley face I am at it again.

Thracian's can be very tough opponents so these should get a fair bit of play between them even if not all together. Most of my armies can make use of them so expect them making an appearance in the next game or two I get.

This year should see more wargaming not only than last year but more than the level I managed since coming back to the hobby nearly four years ago.

Indeed as well as Ancients we should get a lot of Napoleonic's as Lee has managed to build up armies for all the major Nations and is working his way through the minors. I am feeling the need for a few campaigns to focus us into getting games played.

15mm Ancients Field of Glory AAR

Seems I am starting to get more and more games in at the moment, no grumbles there then as it's an area of the hobby that I have not got as much of as I would like. Lee is in the same boat but worse so, the answer then was a game but what should we play?

15mm Flames of War, played once, now packed away for the time being so happy to pass that one over. I have just finished Hougoumont so a play test of the action to try and take this would be good as we need to make sure this action works for the big game but in the end decided to save that for next time as I want to have the surrounding terrain sorted as well.

Other considerations were Saga but Lee needs to get more figures finished, a gunfight but I need to get more buildings finished so we ended up going for 15mm Ancients. Lee was interested in Hail Caesar but with me having just had the one game decided to keep with FoG. Lee last played about 11 months ago and about six for me so rusty was our byword for the afternoon.

My Left Flank

We both went Macedonian, Lee the man himself whilst I went for Early Successor, so lots of pike would be on the table. Lee went for Hilly as we had not gone for this before so why not. He then slammed hills and other objects mostly in my set up area and only thought  of the implications afterwards. We also went 4 foot wide with 750 points, next time it will be 6 foot and more thought into terrain placement (we do not like the method used in the rules). I had a steep hill covering my left flank so sent some light archers to play nice and safe on the top. The two hills next to it were gentle so I loaded these with pike and my heavy bolt throwers. Two lance armed cavalry units were going to go through the gap before I closed the door with more pike. The centre was a real bottle neck as the woods made moving troops on that flank a pain. One unit each of camels light horse (both with bow) and Thracian medium infantry had to pass through the gap.

My Right Flank

My right had two light foot, one bow and the other javelin and light spears and a heavy Galatian foot unit went through the two woods. My camp was placed in such a way that I would have already lost if Lee got to it.

Lee's Right Flank

Lee positioned his Pike on his far flank these would be well placed to attack my pike but the village would make manoeuvring for both sides extremely tight. Two light foot were to link to the centre and be a bane of my cavalry.

Lee's Centre

Lee had his two cavalry units in single line, this would get the most out of them in impact but made them difficult to move. The impressive ground in the centre actually is just uneven so less of an obstacle as it looks.

Lee's Left Flank

Behind the cavalry came some medium infantry, such was the tightness that these did not get into the battle till the end and even then only as a target for my bows but then again I had units doing nothing as well. The second steep hill was occupied by Lee's bow armed light foot.

Contractual Pike Shot

I love my Pike, used them far less than I have had them used against me so was really happy to get them on the table. I have to say that I find the Early Successor Army to be a better choice than Alexander's but that could be just inexperience talking. Talking of which I had three new units on the table, the Galatians, the camels and the bolt throwers, this should be a big mistake given the usual way it works with new figures.

Slow Progress

Lee was slowly moving his pike on the flank, something I was much in favour of. Not that I was doing any better on my left as the foot slowly moved into position. I was doubly lucky as Lee was a little slow with his cavalry. If he had got them out of the bottle neck first he could have caused me a lot of problems. 

View along the line

My plan was to have the camels positioned so that they would support the infantry and their disordering effect would be used only against the enemy cavalry. Mostly this was to work as Lee brought all his three mounted units directly into this area allowing me a small advantage. I doubt the same mistake will be made again.

First casualty 

Lee sent his light horse into the centre void with the intent of using the javelins against my camels but my bolt thrower struck first dropping them a cohesion level and a base with a close range shot that rolled well. The unit was soon to be routed when I turned yet more fire on them.

Pike confrontation

My Archers poured arrow after arrow into the pike but as always failed to have any effect. I could not get them into the battle elsewhere so let them stay hoping for the luckiest shot going but of course it never came.

View for Lee

Lee pushes forward but it's slower going than ever as he has to thread the gap whilst my archers sit and watch. My cavalry had gone through the same area but both units lost a base to fire showing how dangerous it can be. Both also lost one level of cohesion but rallied it back.

Plonker runs away from lights

I was forced to run my cavalry away from the lights, not the way to impress the rest of the army. Of course when the same lights faced off against my Pike he had the same issues I had against his pikes.

Too tight to fight

The lack of space meant both of us were having to queue up to fight. A view of my position shows my cavalry just running into the area that was to be the main point of conflict.

Galatian Contact

It's a game of inches, well in this case a few millimetres as Lee charged my camels and rolled a 2 for his Variable Charge Distance losing an inch. He got blasted by my a bolt throwers light horse and the just missed bow armed camels. Then I charged the cavalry with my Galatians. We gave the advantage to the cavalry being lance armed but whilst Lee won the impact I won the melee round. At this point his cavalry should have retreated back a move but we missed that and they stayed in for the following turns.

Bow V Light Spear

I then pushed past the cavalry/infantry melee and sent my lights to take the steep hill from the defending small unit of Cretan bow. First though I would have to survive a couple of rounds of bow fire.

Galatian Victory

Lee's cavalry being four wide suddenly turned against him. He had two bases in overlap on one side allowing the artillery and camels to continue the barrage and costing Lee a base and a cohesion level. Th close combat was then brutal and he soon was down three bases for an auto break and these were his elite cavalry.

Pike Clash

Lee knowing he was losing in the centre left drove his pike against the hill before he could get an overlapping unit in position. He was taking on two blocks allowing me one overlap and the hill. However his troops were the better quality, which would win?

Flank Charge!

Back on my right I was able to pull off the not often seen interception of an enemy charge by infantry. Worse still it was against cavalry and straight into the flank with the auto drop of one cohesion. Even though I was only one base wide Lee was to roll poor against my impact and follow on melee being also routed though he did bring them out of the route soon after.

New Dice full of love

Nothing can help your attack when your opponent rolls like I did in the pike battle. Winning the melee after a inconclusive impact allowed me to bring in that overlap and now Lee started to loose cohesion bringing his dice down further adding to my advantage.

Going Down

Of course once the odds are against you it's only a matter of time unless you can get more troops into the fight. I was trying to cover this by moving my best pike onto the flank. Lee would have to face my best pike with a smaller unit that could not be supported whilst in danger of having their battered block rout through them. This is exactly what happened, my blocks were taking a base off Lee's block each round and Lee was dropping a cohesion each time and so suddenly had one disordered block about to be hit in the front and flank. Time to call it we thought. Shame about a couple of mistakes that could have changed the battle in Lee's favour and given how long it was since he played it was not surprising I had the better of the action.

Good then that both of us enjoyed the game still feel we can go forward with the rules and want to go at it again only lets not leave it so long eh?