SOA Battle Day

I attended the 6th Society of Ancients Battle day last Saturday, held once again at Sycamore Hall in Bletchley.

The aim of the day is to play out a particular chosen battle using many different rulesets, in order to access how each particular ruleset deals with the particular challenges of the battle, and also to examine several ‘what if’ scenarios.

This year, the battle in question was Callinicum, the final battle of the 30-year war between the Eastern Romans (early Byzantines) and the Sassanian Persians, which was fought in 531 AD.

The day started early (though thankfully, not as early as Salute a few weeks earlier) and by 7.30 Dave Luff and I were on our way down the M1.

Sycamore Hall is pretty easy to find, and is actually a nice venue, including both a bar and a kitchen. The main hall was vastly improved this year by the installation of new lighting, which meant that those games away from the window were no longer fought in an eerie twilight.

Andy and Peter soon arrived and we set the table up ready for battle. We were playing a large ‘Commands & Colors” game using a 6′ x 4′ board with 20mm plastic troops, based using the ’standard’ DBA basing format.

Other games present on the day included:

Armarti, with a very nice moulded terrain table.

Piquet – very different in that this game concentrated entirely on the Arab vs Arab cavalry battle, which occurred on the Roman right flank.

Warlord

DBMM

DBA

Field of Glory

…and one I’m not sure about – the board is divided into squares, but much more than that I couldn’t tell you!

We managed to play the scenario three times throughout the day. Much debate had been had over the previous days about introducing special rules to reflect certain aspects of the battle, but in the end, we opted to play the ‘Standard’ C&C:A rules, but using the optional rules for 4 players – which meant that each side had a general and a lesser commander.  The General distributed the Command Cards and commanded the centre section troops, whilst the lesser commander ordered both flanks. Discussion between commanders was only allowed before play, and when a command card was played that affected the entire army.

The final deployment for the battle had a Roman army of 16 units facing a Persian army of 13 units. The Roman army was a mix of cavalry and infantry, whilst the Persians comprised entirely of cavalry. The Romans had 6 command cards, the Persian 8, and the game was played with a victory point total of 7.

The first game was a route for the Persians (played by Dave and I) – winning 7-2.

This game also included one of the most notable events of the day, when the Persian general launched a counter attack with his heavy cavalry in response to a Roman cavalry advance in the centre.

The Roman cavalry was rooted to the spot by the onrushing Persians, forgot to evade their heavy counterparts and were completely crushed. With the Roman centre and right flank in full retreat, the battle was the Persians. This action went on to win me the “Persian General of the Day” award – a very nice surprise!

The second battle was a much more closely fought affair – the Romans (green bases) fought bravely, but their forces on the right were eventually overwhelmed by the Arabs…at which point we discovered that the Persians had won the game – a bit of an anti-climax actually, as it was discovered that the Persians (Andy and Peter) had forgotten to collect their victory tokens for defeated units and all of a sudden it was “hang on, how many units have you got left?” Persians 7, Romans 5

Dave and I once again commanded the Persians in the last battle of the day – a ’speed’ game which resulted in a massed cavalry melee in the centre of the table. This really became a bit of a crap shoot, and the Romans won the day as they were simply able to roll more ‘banner’ symbols against surrounded Persian Cavalry. Killing the Persian general also helped! Final score, 7-4 to the Romans

5pm soon rolled around and the day ended. The Persians, as expected, won almost all the battles fought on the day. It was interesting to see again how different groups interpreted the battle.

I think the biggest surprise was just how well Commands & Colors operated – the battle was fought along pretty historical lines without having to introduce lots of special rules to artificially handicap the Romans.

Overall, a really good day – and I’m looking forward already to next year – it is rumoured to be Zama, so we will be planning an epic scale C&C game, plus a 6mm Impetus game. Battleground Historical Warfare should also be out, and Zama is a scenario in the book. However, I don’t think we will quite get the support from the club to run three different games on the day.

Full details of the day can be found on the Society of Ancients website

Projects – 6mm Ancients

Status – On Hold

As you know by now, I get distracted easily…

Just before I bought Uncharted Seas, back in September last year I’d started painting a 6mm Roman Army for use with the Impetus rules. I’d undercoated enough figures for 2 stands – 24 strips, which is 96 figures, and these are currently sat in my painting box, half painted.

These are part of a larger project to paint up several 6mm Ancients arimes for use with the Impetus rules. At present, I own Marian Roman and Parthian armies (enough figures for 500 point armies), but I’m looking to expand this with an army of Gauls and further armies from other periods.

I know, I need to knuckle down and actually get these painted, but the mind keeps ticking over…

Outlook – Once I’ve finished the Command Horizon painting, I want to look at getting the Romans finished asap, and concentrate on painting more Ancient armies, as I want to play much more Impetus in the second half of this year.

Projects – Command Horizon

Status - In Progress

Command Horizon has sort of taken over from Uncharted Seas – primarily due to the challenge I was sent by Peter Berry to get a unit painted in three weeks. This I achieved, but it does leave me with the small matter of the rest of the army still to paint.

Currently, as can be seen from my ‘in progress tray’ above, I working on a further 5 Battalions – Heavy Tank, Medium Tank, Light Mechanised Infantry, Scout Mechanised Infantry and Infantry + support, plus Command Vehicles. Everything is undercoated, and the first basecoat is on all the vehicles, so we are getting there (albeit slowly).

Having chatted with Dave Luff (my gaming partner in this endeavour) about how we are going to learn the game, I need to add to this list a further 3 companies of Infantry (48 figures) plus and extra support base so that I have 2 Infantry Battlions of 3 bases + support – just so that when we start playing the game, we can start with forces of 3 Battalions a side, which will give each of us an Infantry Battalion, and Mechanised Infantry Battalion and a Tank Battalion, which is the minimum sized Brigade, which will be ideal sized army for learning the game.

I have an extra deadline too, as Peter Berry has been in touch, and has threatened me with much on-line ridicule if I don’t get this army finished by the time that Partizan comes around – the pressure is on!

Dominion – first play with Envoy & Black Market

We played Dominion last night for the first time with the new Envoy and Black Market deck expansions from BGG.

We selected those two decks, plus 8 others at random (Moat, Village, Workshop,Feast, Remodel, Throne Room, Thief and Market)

Whilst the Envoy card seemed to work pretty well – it seemed to have a very balanced effect, on the whole – I think we were surprised at the impact that the Black Market card had on the game.

If you remember, the Black Market card allows the player to buy a card from the black market – he gets the choice of the top three cards from the Black Market deck – which is created by using 1 each of all the other decks currently not in play.

This seems to be a hugely powerful card for a megre 3 money. Not only does it give you access to cards otherwise not in the game, but allows you an extra Buy action, with +2 money.

However, we also found that it appeared to increase the play time of the game, as many of us took advantage of this card, and so 11 of the 17 available Black Market cards were bought. These were 11 cards that would otherwise have probably come from the existing packs on the table, and so the length of the game was increased by several rounds (or so it seemed).

On balance, both cards are fine additions to the game, but the Black Market card is especially useful, and also adds the most difference of gameplay.

In short, if you own Dominion, you should own these expansion decks.

Partizan – an apology

I was planning on hosting a participation game at the Partizan show next month – possibly the Awful Green Things from Outer Space game that we took to Salute.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control (namely my wife needing to go to East Midlands airport in the middle of the day) I will now not be able to attend the show, and I’ve had to cancel the game.

Many apologies in advance for not being there – I was looking forward to catching up with people during the day.

However, look out for myself and Dave Luff at The Other Partizan in September – we are once again planning on putting on a 6mm game – this time with Ancients.

SOA Battle Day this Saturday

Saturday 25th April sees the 6th Annual Society of Ancients Battle Day, held at Sycamore Hall in Bletchley.

If you remember, this was the event that I was frantically painting Battlelore figures for last year.

This year the theme of the day is the battle of Callinicum, 531 AD – an encounter between the Eastern Romans (Early Byzantines) and the Sassanid Persians.

I will be there with some other guys from Scimitar, once again championing Command & Colors: Ancients with miniatures – come and say ‘Hi’ if you are there…

I’m a sucker for Sengoku…

Those of you who follow this blog, or the podcast, will know that I’m a huge fan of Sengoku period Japan.

Whether it’s boardgames like Shogun, or miniatures, I just love this period of history.

I’d heard about Senji, a boardgame from Asmodee, some time ago, but I was somewhat reluctant to have a closer look at it.

However, I recently viewed the video review of this game on the Bookshelf Games website, and once I saw the production quality of the game – including the fact that the game had miniatures of Samurai and fortresses – it immediately became a must buy.

On opening the box, my initial reaction is very good – this is certainly a very well produced game, and I’m looking forward to getting it on the table sometime in the very near future, so look out for a review on the podcast.

Project – Uncharted Seas

Status – In Progress

Of all my current projects, Uncharted Seas is probably my most complete.

At the time of writing, I have a fully painted Iron Dwarf starter fleet and a fully painted Thaniras Elf starter fleet. My Dragon Lords starter fleet is about 1/3 painted (and have been for several weeks).

In addition to the starter fleets, I have an extra cruiser for each race, 2 Iron Dwarf heavy cruisers and a Dragon Lords dragon carrier. The dwarf vessels are about 2/3 painted, but have been sat on my painting table for several weeks as I have since been distracted by Command Horizon.

I’m also waiting for the next wave of new releases for the game, as these should include new units for all three of my fleets.

Outlook – This should be a project that could be completed fairly quickly. The ships are not complicated to paint, and as I have a total of 19 to finish, I’m aiming to get these completed by the end of May, or mid-June at the latest.

Project List…

Following on from my latest project annoucement, I thought it might be interesting to post details of all my current and ‘planned’ projects.

You all know by now what a magpie I am when it comes to gaming, so you wont be surprised to hear that I have a huge number of projects in various stages of incompleteness – I thought I’d just open my gaming soul for public ridicule over the next few weeks…

Just one more project…

Following from the my game of Through the Mud and the Blood at Salute, I have got involved in yet another new project – this time in conjunction with other guys at Scimitar Wargames Group.

Yes, we are doing World War 1 skirmish. We’d originally planned to do this in 20mm, as Bob has quite a few 1/72nd scale tanks – but after looking through the available figure ranges we decided to go with 28mm instead, using the excellent ranges from Renegade Miniatures and Great War Miniatures.

I seem to have ended up with Germans again – which is a bit of a pain as the German OOB throughout the war was somewhat fluid. However, I’ve settled on a mix of troops which I hope will cater for our intended games – we are looking at about 50 figures a side to begin with.

So, I’ve bought a couple of the excellent Regiment Packs from Renegade – at 50p a figure for metal figures, you simply can’t go wrong with these – and supplemented them with a couple of blister packs (Bombers and Light Machine Gunners), plus an additional two packs from Great War Miniatures – the Command and NCO’s pack, to give my Big Men a bit more variety, and the 37mm A/T gun, as I’m sure I will be facing British tanks soon.

What this space for more details…