To the Strongest! - first game

 

I put on and umpired a game of To the Strongest! at my local wargames club. Bernard commanded the Huns and allies (left) while Ian had the Romans and allies (right).

The Allans flanked the Ostrogoths (top) and the Visigoths pushed back the Huns (bottom). In the centre the Romans and their Frankish and other Germanic opponents traded blows fairly evenly.

I had already gone through some moves in a solo game a few days before, so I had a reasonable grasp of how the game is played. I don't think we forgot anything or made any mistakes. The players were quick to pick up the flow.

Most importantly my wargaming comrades enjoyed playing and have a positive view of the game, endorsing my own optimism and paving the way to play the game in the future.

The photo above shows the situation at the end of five game turns. The figures are all 15mm from my collection. The Allans are proxies.

The game didn't reach a decision but the Huns were under pressure. 

I'll be sorting out some Feudal era armies for the next game and we'll play with slightly fewer units and just two commands a side while we're becoming more familiar with the rules.

Rebels and Patriots 1798 game: Capture the plans

This was a first outing for my part-painted 1798 Irish Rebellion forces. I improvised a variant of Scenario A: First Clash At Lament Ridge which I called Capture the Plans:

An informer has alerted Government forces that secret plans for a French invasion are buried under a cottage floor. Players gain 3 Honour if they are occupying the cottage with an infantry unit at game end. Game is at least 10 turns. Thereafter throw D6 at beginning of each turn. If D6 >= 4, that is the last turn. Use character traits for Captains. Deploy in 9" zones one unit at a time starting with the Defender. Attacker activates first in each game turn.

The scenery needed careful definition:

• The road is aesthetic only.

• The cottage is Hard Cover and cannot be targeted by long-range cannon fire. It is enterable only by the door and has a capacity of one foot unit. To enter a unit moves up to door with one move and takes another to go inside. Shooting only via long faces with a 45 degree arc of fire. Attacking only via the door side.

• Stone walls are Hard Cover but do not obscure LoS.

• Hedges are Cover and block LoS. Units next to them can see and be seen through them.

• The Wood is Cover. Units can see into or out of them but units outside them cannot see through them, i.e. they block LOS to units outside them.

I positioned the cottage nearer to the Rebel start line because I feared they would be shot to pieces. Things turned out rather differently.

The Companies were as follows:

UNITED IRISHMEN
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
6 Shelmaliers Skirmishers Sharpshooters 6
24

CROWN FORCES
12 Militia Line Infantry Green 3
12 Militia Line Infantry Green 3
6 Light Infantry Small 5
6 Grenadiers Shock Infantry Small 5
6 Yeomanry Light Cavalry 4
1 6pdr +4 crew Light Gun 4
24

I commanded the Government forces while Bernard and Chris took control of the United Irishmen. Sometimes it’s an advantage not to have a collective command, but in the event my combined opponents played much better than I did. The Rebel Captain was with one of the pike units. I placed mine with the Yeomanry.

Crown Forces: Line, Lights, Grenadiers, Gun, Line and Yeomen Cavalry. The cannon had little potential for fields of fire that would not be blocked by my own advance so I placed it on the road. Rebels: Pike-and-shot units as shown. Shelmaliers initially on road.

Very early in the game I suffered a friendly fire incident (double 1 on Activation) when my left-hand Line unit fired on my Lights inflicting a casualty (above). My opponents found this very amusing! Worse was to come...

The Rebel Sharpshooters took up position behind the wall next to the cottage. With a 24" range, and hitting on 4-6 they began an intimidating fire on my Grenadiers and Lights. Cotton-wool denotes a unit that has had its First Fire.

Galled by the Rebel sharpshooters I decided to move around the other side of the cottage. It would be a long way round but seemed the best option. On my right the Line unit lining the hedge began to take its toll of the Rebel unit lining the hedge directly opposite it.

The Light Infantry and Grenadiers, both weakened, moved into the shelter of the dead ground provided by the end wall of the cottage.

The cannon proved completely ineffective though this was partly due to forgetting that artillery reduces Hard Cover to Cover.

On seeing a friendly unit rout, the Rebel General's unit, which was occupying the objective, retreated out of it! Result! This would give the Rebels a draw rather than a win.

View from the flank. I was bringing quite a lot of fire to bear but it was a bit of a sideshow. The Rebel sharpshooters had also moved round to the flank.

Aware of the Rebel unit crossing the field to my right, I moved the gun up to the hedge to get a crack at it but the pikes charged me causing a rout! We were unsure how to resolve this. We decided to move the crew away leaving the gun in place. I'm not sure that is correct and have not been able to find any further explanation in the rules.

While the Rebel General's unit remained exposed outside the cottage I decided to commit the Yeomanry but they declined to charge three times despite being accompanied by the Captain.

Even more significantly, the Rebel Captain's unit reoccupied the cottage at which point I gave up though the game was almost over anyway and a clear win for Bernard and Chris.

I didn’t play at all well. I think the mixture of infantry, cavalry and artillery confused my options, the large amount of cover shielded the Rebels and prevented me from bringing my superior firepower to bear, and the Rebel sharpshooters were particularly decisive.

I lost the game but I was pleased with how the 1798 project looked and played. It captured period flavour and made the game sufficiently different  from other R&P games (AWI and ACW) to make the project worthwhile. I had feared the Rebels would be shot to pieces before closing but this didn't happen so indications are that the game is reasonably balanced. I had always wanted to do this war. Rampant games sizes made it possible.

Painting Pledge All of my current projects involve basing-before-painting and playing with unfinished figures, but I have pledged myself to do more painting before a given army puts in another public appearance. However, this is the first time these 1798 forces have been used so there is no additional painting to draw your attention to. I will be adding a 'Painting Pledge' note to all battle reports until figures are finished.

Last game of 2019: Dragon Rampant

Last game of the year was a welcome return to Dragon Rampant. I laid out the 6' x 4' table and we played with 36 points (in contrast to Lion Rampant) in order to allow more scope for magical elements. We allowed units to be 1" from friends, but otherwise attempted to play by the rules as written.

We also used Quests, both choosing three very similar 2-Glory ones. Winning the basic scenario was worth 5 Glory, so it was necessary to have a potential of 6 Glory to provide an alternative path to victory.

The game featured Ian's beautifully painted Chaos army versus my barely undercoated Elves on their first outing. As usual, my figures are based on 2p pieces - thank you to my fellow gamers for continuing to keep me supplied. Many of Ian's figures towered over mine, projecting an initial sense of menace and intimidation!

The Elves comprised:

King and Companions EF Leader Missiles
Spearmen LF Offensive x2
Archers LM Sharpshooters x2
Druid HF Wizardling

 'The Chaotic Bunch' were:

Dragon-Ogre Shaggoth ER Leader Level Headed Fear
Centigors LR Short Missiles
Minotaurs GW
Chaos Reavers EF
Bestigors HF Offensive
Gargant BF
Gors and Ungors RH

This is the first time we played with a significant linear obstacle - the stone wall. We were perplexed as to how a unit could Attack an enemy standing back, say 1", on the other side of a linear obstacle, so decided to ignore the obstacle for the purpose of Attacks. What should happen is that the Attack should be done in two stages. The first stage brings the attacker to the wall even though this may be closer to the enemy than 3". A subsequent Attack then takes the Attacker over the wall and into contact. In other words, while a normal move cannot end closer than 3" an Attack stopped by a linear obstacle can. Had we played this way I'd have got in a round of extra shots.

The Pendraken dice-frame strength markers look overly prominent in the photos but work well for Single Model Units and Reduced Model Units. The blood drops (indicating Battered units) are from Products for Wargamers.

The enemy Leader - an Elite Rider with Armour of 4, was a tough nut to crack. At first I started to have serious doubts about the effectiveness of missile fire and at one point I thought everything was lost. But with only 6 Strength Points, Elite Riders (and Elite Foot) are brittle. Killing the enemy Leader fulfilled one of my Quests and caused the enemy Warband to take Courage Tests.

The Minotaurs were after my Druid, another Quest target, and eventually succeeded in killing him. They were about to do more damage when they failed to Activate and crucially lost the initiative. This was something of a turning point in the game and Ian blamed this for losing him the game.

The Chaos Reavers (top left in the above photo) took the Scenic route through the rocky outcrop. This severely delayed them. Had they arrived earlier it could have been a game changer.

The end game. The Chaos Reavers (left) made a strategic withdrawal to take them out of harm's way while the Ravenous Horde (right) were seen off by more missile fire.

Although I had wondered about the power of missiles, they worked in the end and I would seriously consider taking the Spearmen as Mixed Weapons in future rather than as Offensive. Once you decide on a modus operandi for a particular army you might as well rationalise its application. An Elf army in which every unit can deliver a sting rather appeals.

Lion Rampant: Bloodbath scenario

Simon's Burgundians far side. My Swiss near side.

This was my second game of Lion Rampant, fought back in January, and was a first outing for my Late Medievals. Simon commanded the Burgundians whilst I had the Swiss. The armies were 24 points each.

Burgundians
2 Pike (Foot Serjeants) @ 4
2 Veteran (Expert) Archers @ 6
1 Crossbows @ 4

Swiss halberdiers on the right are reluctant to advance.

Swiss   
1 Pike (Expert Foot Serjeants) @ 6
2 Halberds (Fierce Foot) @ 4
1 Handguns (Bidowers) @ 2
1 Crossbows (Bidowers) @ 2
1 Foot Men-at-Arms @ 6

My Bidowers (left) close but the main attack lags behind.

I had designed the Burgundians as a steady warband with good missile-power and the Swiss as do-or-die desperados.

My plan as the Swiss was to conduct a delaying action on my left with my Bidowers while attacking on my right with the halberdiers and, more cautiously, in the centre with my pike and Men-at-Arms.

Casualties mount on my left-hand halberd unit.

My Fierce troops certainly had Simon worried, a threat I jokingly exaggerated! In the event they were slow to move off and were then very badly shot up. One of the units never recovered. The other was delayed. This was basically the end of Plan A.

My best and only remaining chance then lay in the centre - Plan B. I wiped out the enemy Crossbows with my Men-at-Arms but the opposing pike went into schiltron. This made the pike-to-pike contest more-or-less even when it would otherwise have been in my favour.

My main attack is shot to pieces.

I was successful in using the Bidowers to tie up the units on Simon’s right, but the only point of that was to win elsewhere which I obviously didn’t.

Full marks to Simon for his steady defence. High quality Archers certainly need to be treated with respect.

Some success for the Swiss but a rather sorry end.

My introduction to Lion Rampant

The English defending their hearths and homes.

I played this first game of Lion Rampant back in May 2018. This report has been kicking around for some time. The game was set in the Dark Ages but we used just the ordinary Lion Rampant rules rather than the Landwasters and Raven Feeders extension. We didn't use Leader Traits or Boasts.

The English viewed from their left flank. What a nice little village!

I set up a trial scenario based on forcing a river crossing. The Attacker's objective was to get across a ford and contact a settlement. The Defender's objective was to prevent that, but the game was basically about crossing the ford (and trying out the rules).

The Viking marauders.

The game featured my old 25mm Viking army which I'd split into two armies and rebased on coins. My opponent, Bernard, had a generous 34 points of Vikings while I had 24 points of Anglo-Danes. They would never have called themselves that, so let's just refer to them as the English.

Squaring up at the ford.

Vikings
2 Huscarls (Men-at-Arms)* @ 12
1 Hirdman (Serjeants, Expert) @ 6
2 Bondi (Yeomen, Mixed Weapons) @ 10
1 Berserkir (Fierce Foot) @ 4
1 Scouts (Bidowers) @ 2

The English unit at the ford is well-supported.

English
2 Huscarls (Men-at-Arms)* @ 12
1 Select Fyrd (Serjeants) @ 4
1 General Fyrd (Yeomen, Javelins) @ 4
2 Skirmishers (Bidowers) @ 4

Face-to-face.

We played lengthwise on a 6' x 4' area. The river was impassable apart from the ford which was difficult ground. The felt templates represented copses. I didn't have any large trees at that time. The wattle fencing was a linear obstacle, but the Vikings never got that far.

The Berserkir, already weakened, finally make their move.

The Vikings enjoyed a prompt start. Bernard held the Berserkir back to avoid any wild charges but they eventually emerged as his unit of choice to contest the ford, but when they got into position they refused to do so! Evidently too many magic mushrooms. This gave my skirmishers a good opportunity to shoot them down.

The English counter-attack across the river.

We played for about 2 hours before calling time. The Vikings never did get across the ford but had the game continued they probably would have done. As we had not defined a game end point, we agreed to call it a draw.
 

A ford too far exposes the English unit to annihilation.

We found that shooting can be quite decisive. Faced with missile troops, fighting defensively is not really an option. Had the game continued (and if my Retinue had not been so depleted!) I would have been forced onto the offensive.

TMWWBK - ‘Get off my land’ replay

I posted a game report of this scenario before. We decided to run it again but changed ends, as it were. I took the Mahdists - three Irregulars and three Tribals - whilst Ian had the British - three Regular Infantry and a Machine-Gun.

The scenaro makes the Attackers deploy their range away from any edge, but as my range was an upgraded 24" there was nowhere to deploy them on a 6' x 4' table! So we changed this to 18", the same as in our first game.

By choosing to deploy on the edge he did, Ian was almost on top of three of the objectives right from the start, but as luck would have it the centre of this edge was also the zone I had nominated for two of my Tribal units to pop up in.

This allowed me to place them at 8” from the British. This is almost as good as it gets, but would have been better if I could have placed them in cover. If they survived Ian's next turn and if I could activate them, I could charge home without the risk of failing to double adequately.

Beginning of Turn 2. My Irregulars are the three grey units in the centre (C, A and B) flanked by two of my Tribal units (F and E). The Tribals have been placed so as to be able to charge either of two opposing units. British unit H has been pinned by fire. Mahdist unit E loses four casualties and becomes pinned during this turn, neutralising half of my attacking force. This is a decisive moment.

Beginning of Turn 3: Mahdist unit E recovers from pinning but can only sit there. Mahdist unit F fails to activate and cannot charge. This is the other decisive moment of the game.

Beginning of Turn 4: Mahdist unit A takes the hill, but Mahdist unit E loses more casualties and is pinned again.

Beginning of Turn 5: Mahdist unit E is effectively no more. Unit C manages to charge but is beaten off.

Beginning of Turn 6: All the Mahdist units are now too depleted to be effective.

End of Turn 6: a technical win for the Mahdists at this premature end to the game but their fate is sealed.

Had I made contact I might have overcome one or two of the British units. Failure to do so left me exposed to the cycle of being pinned, attempting to rally and gradual or not so gradual extermination.

Our club AGM curtailed our gaming time. At the point we decided to stop I was technically the winner as the British had by that time taken only two of the objectives. But had the game continued I think I would have been wiped out, so I take no satisfaction in this 'victory'.

We are still trying to work out how best to use Tribals - how to survive and how to make them more than a one shot, one tim e weapon. Perhaps it's too early to admit defeat but I'm inclining to Ian's view they should be reduced in price to 2 points.

We also had some dreaded Line of Sight issues but I'll gloss over that until we've had more time to think about it.

Two games of 'The Men Who Would Be Kings'

Continuing this year's focus on Rampant games, my friend Ian and I played two games of The Men Who Would Be Kings.

North-West Frontier

Our first game featured the 'Run to the Hills!' scenario using my British and Afghan forces. The Brits (me) had to reach the far end of the table while running the gauntlet of the Pathans (Ian) who were on their first tabletop outing.

We used random Leader Values and Leader Traits, but found the latter hard to remember. I wanted to minimise on-table clutter so abandoned the unit cards used in earlier games in favour of off-table rosters but we soon realised it was still necessary to ID the units on-table which we did with temporary pieces of paper. I've since utilised some lettered Scrabble-style tablets.

We initially made a mistake in the Pin Tests, subtracting for casualties in the game rather than casualties just inflicted. The minor differences between different Rampant games are easy to confuse, and I am currently working on a spreadsheet to compare them.

The photos show the course of the game. Owing to the Pinning Test error, the British appear a lot more battered than they should be. Allowing for this rule error, this game was or should have been a British victory.

Sudan

For our second game Ian brought his newly acquired Sudan forces, and we did the 'Get Off My Land' scenario with the British vs Mahdists.

Ian laid out the table with a scattering of hills, some small clumps of vegetation and an area of soft ground. Six markers were distributed as per the scenario rules. The British had to search these by  Standing To when in contact with them.

The Mahdists had three upgraded Irregular Infantry units (@ 5 each) deployed centrally and three Tribal units (@ 3 each) which could pop up in nominated sectors during the game.

The British had three Regular Infantry units and a well-drilled Gardner Gun (all @ 6 each).

We agreed to drop the Leader Traits. Once again we adopted paper IDs to identufy the units. I also added the LV values to mine as this was the only difference between my infantry units.

My plan was to destroy the Mahdists piecemeal while searching at least some but not necessarily all the objectives, so I deployed on the edge furthest away from the main enemy concentration. It was the Falklands strategy.

My progress was entirely systematic. I moved towards the objectives, shot up any Mahdists encountered and only Stood To over the objectives if all the closest Mahdists had been neutralised by pinning or elimination.

Basically it all went like clockwork and a point came when it was a virtual impossibility for the Mahdists to win.

Ian's chances weren't helped by forgetting to bring on one of his hidden units when it might have made a difference. He did bring it on but late in the day and unsupported, so it just got chewed up in its turn.

IMO it's hard to fight Regulars with Tribals. Tribals will tend to have twice as many units as Regulars and need to attack in that 2:1 ratio, i.e. sending at least a pair of units against each single Regular unit. The latter can, of course, only shoot at one unit at a time.

In this scenario the Tribals also need to 'Go to Ground' to optimise their chance of survival. Even this is tricky. If Gone to Ground the Tribals can't be targeted beyond short range so the Regulars will be obliged to advance to within 12" of them. At that point the Tribals can try to Activate (with a 58%, 72% or 83% chance of success depending on the LV) followed by a 50% chance of Doubling into contact (4+ on 1D6).

If you attack with two units your odds of getting one of them into contact is better than evens and then you will have 16 to 12 dice in the melee. If, however, they are caught in the open they will be subjected to a cycle of being shot at and then having to rally which will have only one outcome.

Ian currently believes that Tribals are overpriced at 3 points. I'm reserving judgement.

All figures are Perry plastics, undercoated but not yet painted.