Sunday 28 January 2018

The Battle of Xanthos

Today I had the joy of playing Matt in his dungeon. We played Republican Romans (me) vs Persians (Matt) using Kings of War. I really like the rules, played about 4 times now and think I'd lost the previous 3 times. The last time these 2 armies (or their kin) met the Romans got mullered by Matt's elephants. So I bolstered my forces with a large Numidian contingent including elephants.
I was invading and had a large(ish) flanking force (1/4 my army) which would arrive randomly from turn 3 on a random flank.
The battle field was "L" shaped and about 8 long and 4 wide with the short leg of the "L" being another 3 by 4. Matt was the outside of the "L" and I was the inside. Enough waffle on to the fighting

The opening, I'm on the right. Beautiful isn't it. The most panoramic battle we have fought

My left, cavalry heavy with Roman infantry

These guys here. At the top is a walled field with my Triarii and some Cretan archers. These were the pivot and the plan was to swing both flanks around this pivot and crush the persians

My right, heavy infantry and elephants

Matt's right, mixed mercenary force

Matt's centre - elephants and strong infantry force

Matt's right - Thracians and mainly light troops. My 1st error

I advance everywhere

So does Matt

My left, looks good doesn't it

My right

Down the lines

Matt's eleohants move. I was on the inside and as I advanced my troops spread out. This was a fatal error. Matt's naturally moved closer together. I hadn't spotted this

On the left i massively out class Matt and he is about to get pummelled

However it's worse for me. Told you my units had spread out. it in the flank by a charging elephant has only one outcome - flat Romans. 2 other elephants clash. Fairly even

Matt's cavalry catch another unit in the flank but he roles poorly and a counter charge sees him off

Left is going well

Very well. My flanking force arrives and Matt is going to be toast

However my centre is in really deep trouble. Not enough forces and they need the left and the right flanks to hurry up

The right kicks in to action. My elephant charges the thacian bowmen.Should be a doddle. Get rid of these and I'm in

And not a moment too soon

Disaster. My other elephant wavers and goes berserk. It charges directly in to the rear of my other elephant. that's 64 dice. I kill the archers but my red elephant is gone

I'm pushing matt back on the left but his centre is swinging to meet me

With my centre gone and the right messed up it's all on the right but Matt has more, fresher, better troops. including the elephants

In the end I can't cope and it's a big victory to Matt.

This was a brilliant game and a deserved victory to Matt.. Once again I got my units isolated and then picked off. I made 1 set up error - heavy infantry facing light troops. It takes to long to kill them, and I was unlucky with the mad elephant. 
The rules are great and I'm getting more familiar with them. We think that elephants are far too powerful. In the real world if you can get you elephants to catch troops in the open, in the flank etc then they were devastating. However this didn't happen often and generally they were often ineffective, especially vs missle troops and pike blocks. Elephants are hard to hit and hard to wound )OK so far, they are epic in the attack, still OK, but they are incredibly hard to rout. That is the problem. They have morale significantly higher than a regiment of Triarii (50% higher) and similar to a horde of spearmen. I imagine that elephants would tire easily and should have a morale similar to an infantry regiment. 
Also Numidian cavalry are a little too good, too many attacks. Think we will tweak the rules for next time, although that could be ACW so elephants would be interesing




Wednesday 24 January 2018

Challenge Update

painting has taken place




Victrix Numidian Cavalry - these will probably all be killed by Matt on Sunday

Bonus round this week was BFG - Big Freaking Gun. So obviously I painted this Big Freaking Goril from Mr Lee






Right off to paint some more Numidians


Sunday 14 January 2018

Team Yankee - How Cheating can Beat the Russian Horde

On Saturday James MacMillan and me were invited down to Dave Docherty's for a 1st play of Team Yankee in 6mm. Dave has a great wargames room. James and me were the Brits and Dave the Russians. 1st time Dave's Russians had fought in 29 years, and the 1st time my army had had an outing.

The battle field. Russians at the top under command of comrade Dave. The battle is for control of the road junction in the centre


My command, infantry platoon, couple of light tank troops and a chieftan troop, plus other bits

James in the woods has the rest of the tank squadron, couple of infantry platoons and some other troops

Dave has tonnes of stuff and gets 1st go



Dave has rushed to capture the junction and is advancing across the board. I have deployed my Strikers and infantry to hold the line.I have a milan section and hoping to bugger him up with them

Dave's advance is costly, James' Chieftans. my Strikers and Chieftans have started to brew him up

Hinds fly about menacingly covering his advance - tough tokill but not that effective. They do look very cool though

He he comes. My flank is very weak

Call for a fast air attack which Dave turns into confetti


Dave's tank regiment facing James has been destroyed

More Hinds and tanks facing me. I have to withdraw behind smoke.I have called for reinforcements in the form of infantry platoon and will hold the wall

Looming large i would have retreated if this had been a campaign battle. Instead I cheated and brought on another full tank squadron


This killed him everywhere'

It's a great fast play set of rules and we are thinking about a short campaign. James has been shopping for West Germans and Dave has some Amricans. Ideal for a full Club battle.

We then played 3 games of Wings of Glory, really love it. Fun, easy, hard and very very dynamic

My new MK1 Spitfire

The game on Dave's cool mat

Me taking out a Stuka

Great day.

Finally the AHPC VIII catch up

6mm tanks - Heroics and Ros

Swingfires and and Abbott

Armoured Infantry Platoon

Numidian Elephant - warlord plus bits box



WW2 Naval section - Warlord


German paratroops disguised as nuns - Warlord


PC - looks like Davros. Warlord

US Marines - Cuban war - Northstar


A fun week