Battlescale Ancients Battle

   With my new terrain, now I can start thinking of what armies to use. Right now the plan is just to get games in without becoming bogged down in a project that  can take weeks before a game is played.

   I started thinking of a quick set of rules to use with ancients or Medieval figures. Using Battlelore or Command & Colors for ideas, units are  light, medium or heavy.  Light infantry are either archers or infantry without body armor or shields. Medium infantry is armed with either a shield or body armor, but not both. Heavy infantry is armed with both shield and body armor.

I didn't take any pictures of this game until half way through. Using my unit classification, the Britons were made up of mainly medium infantry; the Romans, heavy. Therefore, I put two hills that the Britons should reach to offset the difference. As I was setting up, I used mainly based figures; two bases equalled a unit. It was simple enough that when a unit lost a figure, to replace the base with a solitary figure. 

A closeup of a Roman light infantry unit that has lost one man. Thank goodness I hadn't taken all the figures off their bases!

The heavy Roman infantry takes one hill.

The Romans start pushing back the Britons right flank.

The Britons launch  a counterattack.

They recapture one hill.

The Romans send three units to retake the hill.

The Romans attack all along the front and finally break the Britons line.

 

Two Experimental Wargames

       I managed to get two experimental wargames in this week. The first was a Napoleonic wargame, using a Command & Colors Napoleonic scenario (Salamanca) on a Heroscape board. For armies I used Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargame army selection of rolling for armies. As I was going to use 8 units to a side, I rolled two dice a side, and picked from the 4 unit army chart twice. The British had 4 infantry units, 2 skirmishers unit, one artillery and one cavalry units. The French had 6 infantry, one artillery and one cavalry units.  I used my single mounted 1st generation Minifigs. For rules I started out using a Battle Cry Napoleonic variant I had downloaded years ago. Half way through the game some rules weren't really cleared so I finished the game using Bob Cordery's Memoir of Battle. I looked at the C&CN scenario and tried to place the different units so that it somewhat resembled the scenario.  I rolled for intuitive at the start of the turn. After a confusing beginning with unclear rules, once I switched to MOB rules the game picked up and was and enjoyable game.  The British won (barely). I must admit ending a Napoleonic game with a few single figures scattered across the board doesn't really capture the splendor of the period.  If I continue to work on this project I think I will have to go with based units of multiple figures. I have been thinking of how to go forward with this idea and hopefully will do a posting on some ideas in the near future.

     The second game was an Ancients game.  I will admit this game was more to do with some ideas I wanted to try that would get me using Peter Laing figures that I haven't used. For the armies I planned to use the suggested armies in Neil Thomas' Ancient & Medieval Wargaming. If I use these armies with Command & Colors units, an army would consist of 32 figures, a number that would be rather easy to paint. For rules I used Battlelore rules that I changed slightly for my own use.  The opposing armies were a Midianite Arab Army made up of 4 camel units, 2 skirmisher units and two archer units (the book called for 2 slinger units, but I didn't have any slingers ready). This army let me use my rather large collection of Peter Laing camels. The other army was Early Achaemenid Persian Army, made up of 2 Persian cavalry, three Persia infantry, 1 Immortals unit, 1 levy infantry and 1 horse archers. In his book, Mr. Thomas has suggested deployment of the armies, which I used for the game.  For the battlefield, I just used the Salamanca field again. Before the game started I had to work out rules for horse and camel archers. I decided to use a range of 2, instead of the 3 used for archers in Battlelore. For camels in these rules I had them as medium cavalry. However, as the camels I was using were armed with archers, I gave them the range of two with bows, but if they closed into close combat, counted as medium cavalry. If I continue on this project, obviously I will have to work how the different units battle.  One good thing is the battle was close, where either side could have won.  As it was, the Persians managed to win.

The Battle of Salamanca. French in the foreground.

The French capture a ridge line.

The French cavalry drive off the British hussars.

The French cavalry continue to harass the hussars. 

It looks like the French are going to carry the field.

However, the British counterattack and between the artillery and musketry, drive off the French.

The Arab army drawn up for the second game.

The Arab army based on the suggested deployment in Ancient & Medieval Wargaming.

The Persian army.

Two Arab camel units try to outflank the Persian army.

The Arab camels engage the Persian cavalry on the Persian right.

The camels drive off the Persian horse archers.

The Persian infantry starts driving through the Arab center.

The camel units try to come to the aid of the infantry.

The camels cause havoc among the Persians, but eventually the Persians rout the Arab infantry and the camels start suffering too many losses. The Arabs withdraw.

Future Ancients Plans

        I have watched just about all of the Time Commanders videos on Youtube. Between these shows and reading up on Command & Colors Ancients, I have found myself excited about doing more gaming of this period.  My knowledge of Ancients is next to nil. This is one reason why I have done little with all the Peter Laing Ancients I have, which, by the way, is what I have most of. I do have a book, Greece and Rome at War, and several books put out by Barnes and Noble, including  Battles of the Bible 1400BC -73 AD, Battles of the Ancient World 1285BC- AD451, and  The Ancient Warrior 3000BCE-500CE (which I am currently reading).  However, I really do not know anything about the period.  The fact that 20 years ago, when I started really getting into wargaming, I concentrated on the Horse & Musket period, dabbling in other periods.  It is quite exciting to take the plunge into another period.

   As I know little of Ancient armies, I wanted to find a book that might have a good overview of what different armies looked like. I also wanted to find a book from the period that Peter Laing was active.  Someone pointed out to me that Peter Laing seemed to use Wargame Research Group books to design his figures. I looked up what WRG books were available, being interested in the period before Rome's dominance of the ancient world.  What I found were quite pricy.  then I came across a title that I had seen in the past, Blandfords' Warriors & Weapons, which was published in 1972. Having several Blandford books from this period, it seemed that this book might be a good book to begin with.

     Right now my plans are to use C&C Ancients scenarios on Heroscape terrain.  The ruleset to be used is still unknown. Among sets I plan to test play is Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame Anicents, Command & Colors Ancients (without the card set), and variants of both Battlelore and Battle Cry.  As for the armies, I haven't worked that out. I have several ideas on armies. One is having generic "blue" vs "red" armies that would be made up of random figures. I also have large collections of PL Greeks and Assyrians. Using these, I could make up two or more Greek city-state armies to fight against each other. Another possibility is an Assyrian army vs another army similarly dressed as the Assyrians. one idea I had was to make a core of an army, say, the king's bodyguard, then having the majority of figures painted and the king could build up his army using these figures as mercenaries. Right now all is on hold until Warriors & Weapons arrives; hopefully this will inspire me on how to proceed with my armies.

New Hexes & a Battle Cry Ancient Wargame.

      I received my new Heroscape swamp water hexes. I'm very pleased with them. Anyone who has put together a Heroscape board will tell you that the pieces can be rather difficult to put together. These pieces went together easily, taking maybe ten to fifteen minutes to assemble the board based on the Battlelore board. As the hexes are flat, the hill hexes don't lock together as they do with normal Heroscape hexes.

   I wanted to try the new board out, along with trying a different set of rules and using two armies from Neil Thomas' book; Ancient & Medieval Wargaming.  I wanted to try a Battle Cry variant for ancient battles.  I used the recommended Persian & Greek armies. Both armies have 8 units. The first army to lose 4 units is defeated.

The new hexes in the typical Command & Colors 9x 13 board.

The new hexes with old hexes as hills.

The Greek Army on top; Persians on bottom.

The armies close. Most of the Greeks are heavy infantry so they are slow to move forward.

The Greek light infantry push back a Persian unit.

The Immortals are stopped by the light infantry.

The Immortals are hit hard and suffer 60% losses.

The Greeks push back two infantry unit.

The Greek light infantry is eliminated.

The Persians start shifting their cavalry to their left flank. 

The Greeks push back the Persian Blues, a unit that has distinguished itself in other games.

The Persian Blues counterattack, and eliminates the Greek unit.

The Greeks manage to push back the Persian center.

The Persians now sends forward their cavalry on the left. The cavalry on the right pushes back the Greek left.

The Persians overrun two units. The Greeks have lost four units, and the battle.

In the end  I think that I will use Battlelore for my ancient wargames. After all, those rules were made for Medieval warfare. I also think I will use  a point system to  pick units in the army.  I will also allow the army to deploy in the first two back rows, instead of just the last row. This will allow heavy troops to close sooner and allow for more centrally located reserves.

I wanted to try some of my terrain  in the new  hexes. I'm happy with the results.  I  think the new Heroscape hexes was well worth the money.

New Peter Laing Figures and the Braggarts Curse

    In a recent post I said how I hated to mention figures that I had bought until I actually received them, then when on to boast how I was waiting for two lots of Peter Laing figures. Yesterday the first lot came in. Instead of receiving a lot of nicely painted Peter Laing ECW dragoons, I received a nice lot of 1st generation Minifigs French Dragoons. And while nice, I would prefer the Peter Laings. Somewhere there is someone wondering where their nice Minifigs are, and what they are going to do with a lot of soldiers riding oversized dogs!

   Today the second lot came in and luckily, they were the right figures. It is a nice lot of ancient and medieval cavalry figures.

The wrong figures!  These are two of the lot of 1st generation Minifigs that I received.

Two more nicely painted Peter Laing knights

These three mounted archers are new recruits for the Mahdi army.

These figures are my favorites of the most recent lot. They are new figures to me, and I  got six of them.

New Peter Laing Figures

I recently bought three different lots of Peter Laing figures. The first two lots came in the mail today.

The first lot is an Ottoman Turk Army. The cost was very high; I almost passed on it. The painter spent a great deal of time painting these figures. Most of the cavalry is painted with none being the same.

The Janissaries likewise are painted individually.

I don't know exactly what this figure is; it seems to be some kind of standard bearer.

Some of the Janissaries.

Unfortunately the new Turks are larger an the first Turkish cavalry I got.

These are some of the next lot I received. There are other figures in this lot that  that are new to me. My favorites are the 2 on the right, that look like dogs with spears (berserkers?).  Needless to say, they have me thinking of some uses which they probably weren't intended for.

One blog worth checking out: gridbasedwargaming.blogspot.com . The blog's author has been working on an American War of Independence game, using Peter Laing AWI figures. There are some great pictures of the figures, which leave me green with envy.