Fly Me to the Moon

 With a Shapeways omniscale Battle Station in orbit:

The moon, planetoid or whatever is over 6 inches in diameter.

Link Updated: East Front Miniatures

 East Front Miniatures https://east-front-miniatures.com has taken over East Riding Miniatures, so I have updated the link in the bar on the left of the main screen. Tony from the previous company has now retired, so good luck Tony!

Something nice from the Society of Ancients

 Nothing for six months, and then two posts come along at once! This arrived in the mail today:

I wrote quite a long descriptive review of Tactica II for Slingshot and won a thing.

Saying hello: Jean-Pascal Tran

Hi, and thanks for following. This blog isn't very active at the moment, because my figure gaming life is pretty much moribund. When I moved to this part of England, I already knew of several games clubs, but as it happened, they weren't really good for me. Either too far away, or mostly Warhammer stuff. I am still painting, albeit in a rather desultory fashion, and I do occasionally manage a figure game, but all is few and far between. I will return to it properly at one point. Of course, the main issue is massive amounts of over-work, which means I have very little energy for anything else at the moment. But I shall return when the stars are right...

Stylised map of the roads of the Roman Empire

I haven't posted on here for quite a while. Real life is incredibly busy, especially at work, so I haven't been doing much in the way of historical figure gaming. However, I have come across this:

Even my painting time is limited, but every so often I'll post something relevant here as and when it comes...

A New Blog

I've just started a new blog for a new game. Well, an old game really, because I'm reviving my fantasy role-playing campaign for my kids. In case you haven't noticed, my activity on here has gone down of late, mainly because motivation is sadly lacking. The first post on the new blog explains why here. I'm hoping that a new chapter in my gaming life will help to keep me going with my ancients, at least in terms of painting. If I'm painting figures for the world of Elric, then it's just a small step to reaching for the ancient Germans as well...

Saying hello to Carl Packham

Hi Carl, thanks for looking in - and that's a great profile picture, by the way.

Paul

Saying hello to Tony Emery

Tony has quite a list of interesting blogs to follow - just click on his profile thumbnail to find them. Thanks for joining, Tony!

Great idea for pre-battle manoeuvres

Do have a look at this:

http://stracmark.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/idea-for-future-wargame.html

Mark has posted this on his blog, which I am now following. It's a neat way to represent those times, especially in a campaign, where multiple forces need to try to arrive on the field at the same time. It could also be a really good way to simulate things like Mongol envelopments and so on - the possibilities are endless.

Persian against Other Persians

Gordon sent me piccies and a short report of a Persian civil war that took place in Glasgow a couple of months ago. Time to put them on here:

2000 pts is a lot of Persians. I had 90 colonists, 72 other HC, 84 LC, 72 infantry and 40 skirmishers. As the legitimists to Simon's rebels, the armies lined up as follows:

On my left lots of SI bow then 6x8 fig LC in the first line and 4 x18 colonist columns in the second with a 16 fig colonist and and 18 fig persian HC in line. Then another LC and a gap to three widely spaced 24 fig hoplites (2 in column and the elites in line)

Facing the cavalry the rebels had 6 x 8 scythian horse archers backed by 3 x 12 LI hillmen and 2 HC units then there was scythed chariots and in the centre 48 kadakes, 48 elite hoplites and 48 kardakes. 

My right had 2 x 18 HC persians 16 armoured cavalry and a further 18 heavies with 3 x 8 scythians on the flank. I kept 12 HC elites at the back. 

The rebels faced these with 2 armoured HC units to the right of the kardakes and then columns of colonists.

Three shots of army deployments.

A couple of ground level shots.

Both sides advanced except for my foot which sensibly hung back. I intended to shoot up the Scythians and then finish them off with my LC before performing a giant Austerlitz type wheel with the colonists. I couldn't hit a thing and the LC became embroiled in lengthy melees. The weight on this wing did eventually destroy the forces opposing them but the rebels had held up a large part of my army with a smaller part of their own. Things went disastrously for Simon on my right where my horse swept all before it as his morale collapsed and my dice tore holes in his units. In the centre this infantry had all of mine on the brink. However I had kept a unit of colonists back and it wheeled onto the end of the infantry (passing a missile halt test in so doing). The break of the end Kardakes unit took the rebels above their break point and the failure of morale of the elite hoplites removed any chance of a draw.

Finally, three action shots of the game in progress:

It's always good to see the Persians in action!

A Blog I've Just Found: Late Roman Empire Goodness

Please do have a look here:

http://dbagora.blogspot.co.uk/

I've just come across this blog on The Miniatures Page webzine, and there's a lot of really good material there about the disintegrating empire. At the moment, there is a nice hypothetical order of battle and engagement report for Huns against the Eastern Empire.

Quarter of a million

No real reason for posting this, except that my hit number for the blog reached 250,000 some time over the weekend. Helped, no doubt, by Russian robots. I originally started doing this because Mark Grindlay back up in Glasgow suggested it as a way to get a free website, as well as being a good way to keep a sort of online diary of gaming things. That was in May 2010, a chance discussion on the way to a game at Willie's place, if I remember correctly. So it has taken me six years to get to this stage. Thanks, Mark!

Hello to Mark Hume

Just saying hello to Mark and thanks for joining in here - it's good to see you!

Paul

Keith's Ancients Wordpress Blog

Society of Ancients member Keith McNelly has just posted a link on the Society's forum to his tabletop/Empire campaign. Here's the site:

https://ancientwargaming.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/empirecampaign/

Do go and have a look!

Battle Report from Glasgow: Goths and Later Romans

 Up in Glasgow, Graham and Gordon went to it with figures that could double as a museum of 25mm wargaming - very old school. Some of Gordon's famously ferocious fyrd stood in for gothic infantry, and they did him proud. Gordon's report follows, slightly edited to be a little less rules specific for public consumption.

From the Gothic side the terrain was some rough ground in the left corner and a long open space to a low hill on the right. On the Roman side there was a long ridge facing the Gothic left. The Gothic left was some bow armed skirmishers and two 12-figure light archer units. There then were 5 x 32-figure warbands with a 40-fig in the middle and a 24-fig elite on the right of the line. On the right were 3 x 12 HC 5-6 one of which was elite. The Goths were liberally provided with skirmish archers as well. [All of the warbands and heavy cavalry had an initial Impetus assault capability; a possible disadvantage of this is that it renders them subject to a compulsory charge. Impetuous is a Goth's middle name...]

[Gordon's Gothic cavalry massed behind a hill on their right. It's good to see these guys again - I think the last time they were in action was for the Society of Ancients Battle Day a few years ago for Chalons. That makes them younger than their foot counterparts. These figures are by Musketeer (now Footsore Miniatures) if I remember correctly.]

[Warbands, sir - fasunds of 'em!]

[More of the same, from a different viewpoint.]

The Romans faced the Gothic left with allied light horse and 3 units of Alan and Gothic heavy cavalry. They advanced 24-figure legions onto the ridge and had a couple of legio units to support the cavalry. They were going for a big effort on this side. The Roman centre consisted mainly of auxilia palatina with a further 2 heavy horse. Facing the Gothic left they had  a cataphract unit supported by  auxiliary light infantry and light cavalry.

[The Roman deployment.]

[A closer photo of the Roman legions and their nice safe hill.]

[And here they are sitting on top of it.]

The Roman plan was to pull the Goths forward perhaps making use of the compulsory charge and fall on them on their left, rolling up the line. The warbands in the centre would be diverted by the auxilia which would be a waste of their strength and the cavalry would hold its own against the Gothic right.

So what went wrong?

The light horse in front of the big Gothic wheel took 4 missile casualties and failed a morale test. The next turn the other LC unit took 3 casualties and failed its test. The traffic jam prevented the Roman flank manoeuvre from developing and the warband advanced en echelon across the table and charged the auxilia. [Units that take too much damage from missiles in a single turn have to test morale; if they fail they must remain stationary for a turn.]

The warbands almost all passed the impetus test and three warbands took out the auxilia in two turns. Everybody on the Roman side failed their morale including the endmost unit on the hill which was then struck by an impetuous war band. [Units that see other massed non-light units rout must test morale; a fail here can be disastrous because it disorders the unit.]

The Gothic right was more conventional. The elite warband got into the cavalry and then the Gothic horse joined in gaining their Impetus. On the first break the Romans all failed their morale again and it was game over.

[The Roman left advances in impressive style. Off to the bottom left of the photo you can just about make out the Gothic heavy cavalry waiting for them.]

Impetus troops are effective and the missile halt rule can decide the outcome.

The only thing that didn't feature was the fates. [This is a special roll to render rout a bit less certain - basically, there is a small chance that a unit will hold on against all the odds. I like to think of it as a loony noble or officer grabbing the standard and rallying enough men to make a last-ditch stand against all the odds.]

[Sounds like a quick battle! It's good to see a battle from later antiquity, certainly several centuries away from where we currently are with the campaign. Thanks to Gordon for the report and photos]

Beautiful Persian Army

https://landofthelead.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/my-big-fat-ancient-persian-army-part-2.html?showComment=1469434331673

I especially like the effect on the shields and flag of the Indian infantry. Will definitely be borrowing this one!

What to do!?

Now that I've been in Cheltenham for nine months, I'm taking stock. I have found several games clubs, but they are either all sci-fi and fantasy, or miles away. And distance is a killer when you play with the size of 28mm armies that I like, as is the limited time available at club meetings hereabouts. Gaming is therefore limited to forays out to major events, or as a guest player with a couple of folks I know in Cirencester and Stroud. I haven't done the latter yet because I am still unsettled, renting while waiting for our new house to be finished.

So this is a good moment to think about where to go from here. I am still running the Dies Martis campaign remotely for the guys in Glasgow, but it is slowing down, which is inevitable given distance. My painting has slowed down too, not only because work is really heavy, but because I lack the stimulus of a regular gaming situation. I work best when I have some purpose for what I am painting at any one time. I am now thinking about what to do when I finish my current batch of Marian/Caesarean Romans in the next few months, roughly in time to move into the new place. I do have some 15mm stuff (1812 Russians and Sengoku Jidai Japanese), but I'd need to do a huge amount of work to add enough to those to get any sort of game. So I think I'll stick with the 28mm I really enjoy.

Here are the options:

1: Continue painting for Dies Martis, which means that I will need to choose which army to collect next. The Glasgow boys can usually cope, but they do seem to have problems putting certain games together. They struggle with the Parthians because although one of them has some, it's not enough for a full game - I used to supply the other half. I could remedy this situation by going for it properly. It would then be a case of collecting their opponents beyond that - Indian, perhaps, and Ptolemaic Egyptian. Other options would be the European tribals, probably starting with the Germans.

2: Accept that I am not going to get any regular gaming done, and instead try to reduce the lead mountain. I have two partial armies sitting there: Alexandrian Macedonian and Camillan Roman. If I do those, I will coincidentally have two of the main players for an Empire Campaign of my own. This would mean abandoning Dies Martis at my end, apart from acting as an electronic umpire.

3: Start my long-dormant Greyhawk Wars campaign for solo play, or perhaps occasionally at a club. This is completely mental, as we say where I come from. A long time ago I ran a campaign based on the original Greyhawk Wars boardgame because it allowed me to use my secret stash of fantasy figures as well as my historicals - the idea was that most of the human states were based on historical analogues, exactly like Tony Bath's Hyboria. In other words, a sort of Imagi-Nations setup. I'd like to pick up where the Greyhawk Wars left off, with a resurgent Undead Great Kingdom ruled by Ivid the Insane. I already know which figures to buy (skeletal Roman legions) and who would be their first target - Elves and friends, most of which I already have. If I were to do this I'd paint armies on a rolling basis depending on what is needed, which would include historicals.

So - any comments? Inspiration would be very welcome...

New ancients blog

By Robert Heiligers, a prolific writer of articles for Slingshot:

http://historandmor.blogspot.co.uk


The more the merrier!

Quick edit - thanks to Robert for following on here too!

Online library: resource for Roman history

Hi all, I've been looking for easily accessible information on the interrelationships between the Jugurthine War, the Cimbric migrations and the ongoing problems the Romans were having with the Scordisci and friends. Found this on the web:

http://erenow.com/ancient/crisis-of-rome-the-jugurthine-and-northern-wars-and-the-rise-of-marius/5.html

There's quite a lot of other material on there too - might be of interest to someone?

The reason I was looking is because this is where we have got to with our ongoing campaign, with me umpiring and the guys in Glasgow playing the battles.


QUICK EDIT: I posted this link on the Society of Ancients forum, and the consensus there is that erenow is a form of internet 'privateering'. In other words, they'll post stuff, but if the author sees it and complains enough they'll take it down. Not quite piracy, but close...

Sumerians in Battle

These are some photo of Simon's rather lovely Sumerians and friends in the heat of combat. Taken from a game in Glasgow a few weeks ago, the photos are courtesy of Simon. Not a period you see very often, and not with this number of figures!

The battle lines approach.

The battle lines clash.

Lower level shot.

Make sure I get a good view. Higher, you scum!

Run away! Run away!

The Hand of The Lord of Battle!

Traffic jam. I don''t think I've ever seen so many battle carts in one place.