Days when you hate wargaming

Do you find that there are days when you can really hate this hobby?

For example, I am currently refighting the battle of Asculum using Commands & Colors: Ancients, and the VASSAL online module. The latest turn came through this morning, and I could finally execute the charge that I had been planning for the last few turns.

As you can see, 3 units of my Epirote Heavy Infantry, 2 commanded by Generals, charge into a line of 2 units of Roman Medium Infantry, 1 commanded by a General.

The score is 5-4 in victory banners to me – I need to destroy 1 unit for victory…and I’m attacking with a 50% chance of causing damage.

An easy win…

…Or maybe not. This is the result of the engagement:

So, I rolled a total of 15 dice – all hitting at 50%. The result? 4 hits. I even had 10 dice to roll to cause 3 hits on a single unit…I could only manage a miserable 2.

But, to make matters worse, my opponents rolls were just the opposite. He rolled 12 dice (again, hitting on a 50% chance) and scored 8 hits.

The final result? I am now laid open to another round of combat, my opponent strikes first.

Funnily enough, I lost the game in the next turn.

I know that dice are used to represent the fact that nothing is ever certain, and this game, would it be written up as prose, would talk about an heroic defense by Roman Legionaries…

…but as someone to whom poor dice throwing seems to be a way of life, this was still a cruel, cruel blow.

Today, I hate wargaming…

Commands & Colors: Ancients – End of Part 1

If you are a fan of the ‘Into The Gamescape’ podcast, you may remember that several months ago they started a Commands & Colors: Ancients tournament, played on VASSAL.

One of my opponents was Jonathan Moody, and after we had played our battles, we chatted about possibly carrying on playing the game through all the scenarios.

Well, yesterday saw the final battle of Leptis, which is the last battle in the ‘Truthless War’ scenario booklet for the original game – a battle which I unfortunately lost.

However, I have been keeping track of the overall score, and it is surprisingly even.

We have now played 40 scenarios (each scenario played twice, so you command each force in each scenario) and the current score in battles won is 21-19 to Jonathan.

If you take into account the number of victory banners won in each game, the scores are still remarkably close – Jonathan again leads 193-188.

So it appears that we are very well matched opponents, which does make for a very good game.

And so, onwards to the Greeks & Macedonians…

Commands & Colors: Ancients – Rome vs Carthage Battle Report

Following on from my previous battle reports, this is another in the series of battles in Scimitar Wargames Group Punic War campaign, using Commands & Colors: Ancients rules with miniatures. I’ve already reported on the result, but I thought an in-depth battle report was in order.

In this hard-fought battle, my Republican Romans were up against the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal, under the guidance of Philip Donald. See the Slide show here. The figures are from Philip’s own collection of 15mm figures.

Commands & Colors: Ancients – Battle Reports

I’ve finally finished two of my battle reports from the Scimitar Wargames Group Punic War campaign.

The first is my (very) bloody fight with the Spanish of Andrew Lawrence

Romans vs Spanish Battle Report

The second is a some what less-than-inspiring battle (on my part) against Pete Manning’s Gauls.

Romans vs Gauls Battle Report

Click on the ‘Slideshow’ button to reveal how the action plays out in both games.

Italy 0 – Rest of the World 7

Last night saw the latest chapters in the continuing Commands & Colors: Ancients Punic War campaign. I fought 2 battles against the mighty forces of Hannibal.

As you might have guessed from the entry title, things didn’t go to plan (my plan, anyway) and I ended up on the losing side twice more. The first game (above) was actually really close – I lost 6-5 – and had a chance to win the game…my inability to roll a single close combat hit on 4-dice meant that the unit survived the combat, and my Cavalry were destroyed the following turn.

The second game (below) was a much more one-sided affair.

Despite drawing first blood by destroying the Carthaginian Elephants, my army quickly succumbed to a concerted attack by warband and heavy infantry, and I lost 6-3.

Afterwards the general consensus was that the only reason my legions hadn’t been recalled to Rome to be decimated in punishment for so many poor results so far was that I was doing a much better job of it in the field!

So, 7 games, 7 losses. What have I learned?

Well, I think more than anything, these two games against a Carthaginian Army has shown me just how powerful a Heavy Infantry unit commanded by a General is. And this brings into question all of my deployments up until now.

I have been deploying in ‘classic’ Roman style, with my Triari behind units of Princeps and Hastati. However, this means that my heavy troops very rarely get into battle until late in the game – possibly when the game is already lost – and in several of my games they have done nothing at all. I need to change my deployment to take advantage of these units – they are the most powerful units in my army, and I should use them accordingly.

So, yet more lessons learned, but not very many battles left to see if the changes make any difference.

 I will post complete photo-battle reports of these two games in the next week or so…

I hate Warband!

I played the latest of our Punic Wars Commands & Colors campaign games last night. It was a return match against the Gauls of Peter Manning – needless to say, it did not go well!

I was deployed on the left of the picture – in front of the river, whilst Peter’s force is on the right.

Initial deployment rules allows the defender to set up first. The attacker sets up and then the defender may redeploy two units – this is why the Roman forces at the bottom of the picture are facing nothing…there was originally two units of Gallic Medium Cavalry opposite them, but they were then redeployed.

And the above picture, in essence, shows the start of my problems. I deployed poorly. There is a large wood in the middle of my deployment area. I should have deployed all my infantry to the left of this wood, and kept only my cavalry on the right. As it was, I split both my cavalry and my infantry on either side of the wood, and in the final event, the infantry on the right flank played no part in the battle whatsoever.

The battle took place in the middle of the table. Although I had a strong hand of cards (I had 3 ‘Order Medium Troops’ cards in my hand!) I simply didn’t use them well enough, and ended up in a situation where I couldn’t move my heavy infantry to support my medium infantry; which were under pressure from early on.

The melee ability of warband to momentum advance and attack again came into it’s own. Peter constantly came up with ‘retreat’ results on the dice, which meant that he was getting at least 1 unit attacking twice in a turn. My own dice luck continued in it’s usual way, with the exception of 1 brief attack on the Barbarian Chariots, which were destroyed in a single turn. For example – rolling 6 dice to attack – each causing a hit or retreat on a 4 in 6 chance, and rolling 1 hit.

I ended up losing 6-2 (again!). The efficiency of Peter’s win was measured in the fact that although I lost 6 units (and therefore the game) the other half of my army, with the exception of 1 stand of Velites, was completely intact.

My cavalry were again destroyed with a couple of turns – again I used them poorly – and I think I have finally twigged where I am going wrong. I am attempting to use them as shock troops – they obviously are not. What I should be doing is keeping them back and then charging them in to administer the ‘coup de grace’ to units that are reduced to 1 or 2 stands.

Maybe by the end of the campaign, I might finally learn how my army actually works…

A hard fought loss…

Last Wednesday saw the latest of my Commands & Colors:Ancients ladder campaign battles, as I faced Andrew Lawrence with his Spanish Army.

Now Andrew and I have a (relatively) long history with C&C:A games, and my record against him is not that great. Plus, his army was now fighting with our new house rules for Auxiliary troops, which gives them no penalties for using terrain. Given the large number of hills and woods in play (see the board above) I knew I had my work cut out for me.

 It turned into one of the bloodiest encounters I’ve ever had in the game. Andrew eventually won 6-5, but by the end we both had several units down to a single stand, and I only had one of my original 12 units still fully intact.

The battle concentrated around 6 or 7 hexes on the left and middle of the board – around the base of a large hill and a wood. I probably ended up playing into Andrew’s hands, as I attacked his troops on his terms, rather than making him attack me on mine. That said, I had an opportunity to win the game, and I did make some mistakes as well.

Some of my frustrations continued – yet again my Cavalry performed poorly, and their commanding general died for the third time in four games! I need to formulate a new strategy for using these – at the moment they are simply providing easy victory points for my opponent – indeed, half of Andrew’s victory points were scored by destroying these units and their general.

And of course, my appalling dice rolling continued.

A very enjoyable game – despite the loss, and I’m looking forward to the rematch. This will be on Roman home soil, and I suspect it will be a very different game.

I’m supposed to be playing Scipio in this campaign. Someone commented that the army was acting as if it was commanded, not by Scipio Africanus, but rather by Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Hmm – looks like a new club legend is born…

Command & Colors Ancients – Repbulican Roman Army: Introduction

Playing Commands & Colors: Ancients, the board game from GMT Games, with figures rather than blocks has really proven popular at Scimitar wargames club, so much so that we decied to put together a Punic Wars ladder campaign.

Now, most of the club members already have Ancients armies for DBM in either 15mm or 28mm, and so it was decided to play with these figures, and use the camapign rules written by Don Clarke, which use the DBA army lists as a basis for each army (12 elements).I decided to play Republican Romans, since these are a fairly “standard” army in C&CA, and give a good mix of troops.

The Republican Roman army of the period is based upon the Polybian Roman DBA army list is made up of the following:

• 2 Units of Light Infantry
• 6 Units of Medium Infantry
• 2 Units of Heavy Infantry
• 2 Units of Medium Cavalry

It has no options within the list.

We were using the standard DBA element sizes, which meant that each unit of Light Infantry consists of 4 bases of 2 figures each, each unit of Medium & Heavy Infantry has 4 bases of 4 figures each and each unit of Medium Cavalry consists of 3 bases of 3 mounted figures. A quick bit of arthimetc revels that I need the following number of figures:

• Light Infantry – 16 figures
• Medium Infantry – 96 figures
• Heavy Infantry – 32 figures
• Medium Cavalry – 18 mounted figures

I very quickly decided that putting together an army of this size in 28mm would be very expensive – in excess of £150 – and so I started looking at alternatives. Even in 15mm, the army would cost a fair amount – and then I thought about using plastic troops.

Andrew Lawrence in our club uses plastic troops for all his ancients gaming, and I’ve previously played C&CA with a couple of his armies. The figures (1/72nd or 20mm) have a good visual impact on the board. What is more, plastic figures are very affordable, and as an added bonus are very light, making a sizeable army easy to transport.

A quick visit to the Plastic Soldier Review website, and a chat with Andrew, confirmed my thoughts and I put together a list of what I needed for the army. The main choice to make was how I was going to represent the difference between the Medium and Heavy troop types, and in the end I decided that I would use Hastati for the Medium Troops, whilst the Heavies would be made up of Princeps and Triari. The figure box sets from Hat Industries seemed to fit these requirements pretty well, and so I made these my troops of choice.My final shopping list looked like this:

• 3 Boxes of Velites & Hastati
• 1 Box of Princeps & Triari
• 2 Boxes of Roman Cavalry
• 1 Box of Roman Command

The box of Roman Comand was to provide the figures for the Army General, and to give some officer figures for the units. The really good news about these figures were that after routing around, Andrew had some going spare, and so I picked these up cheaper than normal. The entire army came to no more than £24.00!

 All that was left to do was to buy the bases for the army, and these were bought from East Riding Miniatures, as they do an excellent range of pre-cut MDF bases, ideal for element based wargames and very reasonably priced.