Ancient and Medieval Wargaming

 Ancient and Medieval Wargaming by Neil Thomas is the latest addition to my rules collection and I am very pleased with it.

I have had several good games with these rules over the last few weeks. The rules have nice straightforward mechanics and are very easy to play. I have tweaked them a little for my own take on some aspects of ancient warfare but nothing too drastic.

The book is a good read and the biggest problem for me is that I would like to try all of the armies featured in it. I am even considering using cardboard counters for the Biblical, Dark Age and Medieval units as there is no way to model all of the armies.

All in all I have found Ancient and Medieval Wargaming a very inspiring book.

Happy days!.

Romans and Seleucids.

 I had myself another game of ancients with the rules in Neil Thomas' Introduction to Wargaming book.

I have made the elephants less effective against infantry (six dice as opposed to eight) and especially light infantry (only four dice instead of eight) so we'll see how it goes.

Here we are getting stuck in...

The Romans beat off the Cataphracts.

The white tunic Velites are taking on the elephant and score two out of it's four hits.

But then they break, oh well, nice try!.

The green shield Romans suddenly break!.

The Romans are beating this phalanx though.

There is some jockeying for position.

The Roman cavalry finally break.

The Triarii see off the Phalangites.

The Companions and Agema crash into the Roman infantry.

The left flank Phalangites are just hanging on.

The Triarii hang on as the Velites arrive to help.

The Seleucid elites are now getting the better of the Roman infantry.

The Green tunic Velites flank the elephant and it flees straight back missing everyone before it dies.

The elite Seleucid cavalry eventually rout the Romans.

The Companions and Agema then flank the Velites but only score a measly two hits!.

The Seleucid archers come down from the hill to threaten the Roman flank. They never hit a thing with their arrows and watched the battle from the sidelines but did their bit just by surviving.

The Velites are not so fortunate this time and are scattered to the four winds.

The Romans are down to two units now and the Seleucids win the battle.

Another very entertaining battle, I have been tweaking other parts of the rules, introducing Peltasts as a troop type and mucking about with the combat dice table. I am looking forward to seeing Neil Thomas' full rules when they arrive.

A canny little Punic Wars Battle.

 After playing yet more Combat Commander for a week or two I decided on a change. I dug out my 15mm Ancients toys and have been playing the rules in Neil Thomas' "Introduction To Wargaming".

Today I had a Punic Wars encounter.

My bases are all 40mm square so the units are officially too deep but who cares?. 

Having said that if I rebase the infantry to 40x20 I will have twice as many bases and should be able to avoid using stand in units such as Marian Romans in my Camillan army as in this game.

Rome on the left and Carthage on the right.

The lines begin to clash.

I have tweaked the rules a bit to account for Pila and to make the Warband troop type more effective if they charge home.

I also let morale tests cascade by taking a test rolling 1d6 per base lost, if it fails to achieve the required score another base is lost, another test is made and so on...

I don't know if this is how the author intended it but I like the possibility for units to collapse dramatically.

The Carthaginian skirmishers break exposing the elephant to the Roman Princeps infantry.

Numidians and Velites battle on the ridge.

The Roman cavalry are getting the better of their Gallic counterparts.

The elephant wipes the floor with the Roman Princeps.

Twice!.

Elephants are very powerful in these rules, I may reduce their combat dice in future.

These Numidians are harassing the Roman Triarii with hit and run javelin throwing.

As the green tunic Velites do the same to the Spanish Scutarii.

Despite being flanked by the Numidians the Roman cavalry see off the Gauls.

Roman Hastati break.

And the Roman cavalry are in a spot of bother but grimly hang on.

In desperation the green Velites take on the Spanish.

The Triarii are up against it too being charged by both Libyans to their front and Numidians to their rear!.

Somehow the Romans rout the Libyan spearmen and in the background the Velites rout the Spanish too!.

The Numidians withdraw from a fight they cannot win.

But then the elephant gets among the Roman cavalry and the Romans lose the battle by the narrowest of margins.

What an enjoyable game, it took just over an hour to play. I have sent for Neil Thomas' "Ancient and Medieval Wargaming" as I reckon I can get a lot of good games out of this system. 

The rules are easy to adjust for my own tastes and although I have played them some years back they have really grabbed my attention this time.

A bit of a change, Commands and Colors Ancients.

 I have been immersed in Oathmark since the turn of the year but recently I fancied a change.

I got out an old favourite and seeing that it is the Ides of March I played a scenario featuring Caesar against the Belgae.

The scenario was Sabis/Sambre 57BC.

Here is the man of the moment.

The set up.

The Belgae cross the water.

With his unit routed Caesar takes shelter among his artillery.

Then the Belgae break through on the Roman right flank to win the battle.

Poor old Caesar is defeated!.

I enjoyed it so much that I set up a game using DBA army lists to give me a pair of twelve unit armies.

As much as I enjoy the published scenarios I like the freedom to make my own.

Here is Vercingetorix looming above his warriors.

It is a grand game, I play it with my 15mm toy soldiers too.

It's DBA Jim, but not as we know it.

Many years ago I was a big fan of DBA, I built up several armies and played using 24 elements per side with some rule changes to facilitate the larger armies.

With my old first edition rulebook tatty and worn I decided to upgrade when the latest edition was published a couple of years ago. I didn't really get on with it however, I adapted it to squares to make it less fiddly here but still struggled to find any enthusiasm for it.

Today I had a bit of a brainwave and decided to draw up a new gridded board. I gave it big 100mm squares so that I could fit units inside and treat the grid square as the element base.

I could only fit 12 squares by 9 onto my 4x3 foot board but it is enough to deploy and manoeuvre 12 element armies like so...

 Gauls on the left and Camillan Romans on the right.

 The rules.

 I gridded the board with small brown crosses to make the grid less obvious.

  View from the Roman lines.

 Some of the hairy Gauls.

The battle gets underway.

And the infantry come to blows quickly due to the shallow board.

The warbands in the second row count as support for the first row.

 A bit of a scrap on the flank. The Roman Generals element was destroyed soon after with a 6-1 roll.

 Some of the Gauls breakthrough while the others get pushed back.

It's down to the Triarii. Who repel the warriors smartly.

But the Hastati and Princeps break and the battle is lost for the Romans.

Not bad, I will play some more of this. I can also use the gridded board to play Hordes of the things without rebasing anything as long as I can fit them in the square.

I may invest in Simon Millers To the Strongest rules which would suit the grid and my collection.

I wonder what else I could use this board for, any ideas are very welcome.