Warmaster Ancients Carthaginians vs Indians practice game

This game was part of our introduction to Warmaster Ancients practice session at Worthy Gaming in Preston. Using a Games Workshop plastic battleboard (I hate the things) 6 foot by 4 foot and 6mm armies. 1500 points a side. The main fighting arm of the Indians were three units of heavy chariots and 2 units of elephants. Personally I try to avoid the use of elephants in WMA so had a lot more units, especially of cheap Numidian cavalry (5 units) and Gallic/Spanish warband (9 units).
  
Looking at the Indian army. Chariots on the left and 2 brigades of mixed; archers, spearmen and elephants in the centre.

After the Carthaginian first move, which was mainly to move onto the hill nearest to us in the picture and to move the Carthaginian infantry away from the centre and onto the flank. The Indians move in a long line to meet the Carthaginian advance.

On the far left, Numidian cavalry sneak round the Indian line making the Indian movement more difficult. This is a classic tactic I use with the Numidians.
 
In the centre you can see the long line of Carthaginian light cavalry faced by the mass of the Indian army, including one of the mixed force brigades.

One of the mixed brigades separates with; archers on the wings, elephants and spearmen in the centre. In my opinion this formation would be better with archers backed by spearmen and the elephants acting as protection on the flanks.

On the left, the Indian forces have been cleared away but feirce fighting is going on in the centre. The blocks of white are my unpainted Carthaginian spearmen. Nothing special with 3 attacks a base and a saving roll of 6. Apart from the Carthaginian heavy cavalry they are the best troops in my army.

Under attack from Indian chariots, spearmen and elephants, the Carthaginian spearmen quickly crumble but do destroy the Indian spearmen in the melee.

The final scene. The infantry in white are Spanish warband the last line of defence of the Carthaginian army. Things looked grim for me at this point but in one astonishing move the situation was turned and victory was won for the Carthaginians.
The reason, those huge gaps in the Indian line. In a fantastic series of dice rolls Carthaginian cavalry were able to get behind what remained of the Indian infantry and attack them both in the flank and rear. Five units of Indians were destroyed in a single turn and with the losses they had already suffered, that was enough to break the Indian army. I left the Indian elephants strictly alone as they were just too tough to kill.

Die is Cast Carthaginians vs Republican Romans

Another of our small scale games using DBA lists and the Die is Cast rules. The game was played with 15mm figures, mostly Donnington Miniatures.
 
The Carthaginian army; 2 bases of Spanish cavalry, 2 of Numidian cavalry, an elephant, a base of slingers, 2 bases of Gallic warband, 2 bases of spearmen and 2 bases of peltasts.

The Republican Roman army (under my command); 3 units each of 2 bases of hastati/princepes, 2 bases of spearmen and 2 of cavalry. I decided to use the 2 bases of velites as separate units to both give me extra flexibility and because I believed that under the rules once these light units had taken any casualties they would fairly much be useless, so best give my opponent two units to target.

After the first move. All the Carthaginian cavalry move over to the left to face the single unit of Roman cavalry, whilst I push my Roman infantry forward as fast as they will go.

View from behind the Roman front line.

The Roman infantry press forward but the Roman cavalry turns back and moves away from the Carthaginians hoping to delay combat but still remain as a threat to stop the Carthaginian cavalry and elephant from attacking the Roman infantry in the flank. The Numidian cavalry and a unit of velites hurl javelins at one another. With only 1 die per base firing (as they are light troops), all dice hit, the velites are destroyed and the Numidians take a hit. The Numidians fail their morale test and rout, rallying at the end of the turn. 

On the left, the Carthaginian (Spanish) cavalry charge, supported by the elephant. Rather than face that lot, the Roman cavalry try to evade and are caught by the cavalry – they outdistance the elephant. Under many rules that would mean that the Roman cavalry would be automatically broken but is not the case in the Die is Cast. The Roman cavalry will fight back but count as shieldless and unformed. With the charge bonus and fighting shieldless enemy, the Spanish cavalry needed 7’s to hit but only scored one hit (see picture above), the Roman cavalry needed 3’s to hit (no charge bonus and they were fighting unformed and with only one die per base, as they were hit in the rear. The Romans scored no hits and lost the melee by one hit.

However the Romans roll good morale dice (keep the 6, 4 and 2. Discard the 1) and stay in the melee. But they cannot turn to face the enemy and can take no action (unless it is to run away) when the elephant charges in.

On the next turn the elephant duly charges in, the Roman cavalry pass their morale check and fight on. This time the combined attacks of the Spanish cavalry and elephant inflicts 4 hits on the Romans whilst the Romans get really lucky and to do 2 back on the Spanish (rolling 2 dice and needing 3 or less!). So the Romans lost the melee and are now down to half strength, so they roll 3 dice and discard one of those. As can be seen above, they rolled well, kept the 5 and the 4 and Retreated out of the melee. pursued by both the cavalry and elephant.
 
In the centre at the same time as the cavalry charge is taking place the Roman infantry charge along the front. The Carthaginian light infantry and cavalry are driven off and the peltasts totally wiped out (although causing 3 hits on the Roman infantry on the far right of the picture). In the centre the Gallic infantry take 4 hits (the blue die) and lose a base, half the unit strength, roll 3 for morale and rout. The Roman infantry took 1 hit and pursue into the Carthaginian spearmen behind (who have their flank to the Romans).

The routing Gauls can be seen in the background, running away. The Carthaginian spearmen have been hit in the flank with another unit of Romans coming up behind them. On the left the Numidian cavalry have returned and are throwing javelins into the Roman infantry, causing another hit (the yellow dice are hits taken throughout the game).

On the next turn, the Roman infantry charge into the rear of the Carthaginian spearmen and the Roman spearmen replace the previous Roman unit fighting (using the Legion special rule). These combined attacks reduce the Carthaginians to 50% strength and they lose the melee, roll 3 dice (5, 4, 3) and discard the 3. Even with a roll of 9, the Carthaginians flee and are pursued by both Roman units.
To the left of the picture, the Roman infantry have charged and driven off the Numidian cavalry.

The end in the centre, the Romans have broken through. So even though the Roman cavalry has been destroyed, their sacrifice allowed the Roman infantry to get into combat and do what they do best, fight.

Warhammer Ancients Axes and Axis 2011

With Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) hard to find these days it was nice to see the Phoenix Gaming club running a combined Flames of War and WAB event on Saturday the 20th August. That meant I could go down to Cambridge pick up my mate Steve Riley and head off for a days gaming in Rushden not far away. Steve seems to live in a wargaming desert near Cambridge, so if you know of any gaming going on round there please let me know and I will pass on the details to Steve. As it turned out I ended up being the sponsor for the event, so took down prizes as well as stuff to sell.
I decided to take Carthaginians the first chance to use the new Carthaginian spearmen I had worked on earlier – you should be able to spot them in the photos.
We were using 1500 point armies to give fast games and my army consisted of
General and Army Standard bearer, both mounted
20 trained African spearmen
32 Gallic warriors
22 Oscan hoplites – the cutting edge of the army
14 Oscan warriors – light infantry, to be used as a formed unit or as skirmishers depending on the game
12 Gallic cavalry
1 elephant
9 skirmishers with javelins
The day consisted of 3 battles using a scenario pack, shown here for info. So on to the games
First game, with defenders in the middle trying to cross the table with the attackers closing in from both sides. I was up against Imperial Romans

the brown felt represented an area of difficult ground. My opponents deployment was 2 units of legionaries on the left of the picture with mainly missile troops on the right. The cavalry played no part in the battle and marched off (to gain victory points) as soon as they could.

on the right I deployed my skirmishers, elephant, hoplites and Gallic warband. The idea was to advance quickly to prevent the Romans from marching off the table (to victory). The Gauls were my fast attack force to be supported by the hoplites if serious fighting was involved.

and here you can see the whole table with my cavalry, Oscan warriors and African spearmen ready to roll in from the other side.
The Gallic cavalry hit the Roman artillery from behind and destroyed them, the Gallic infantry took heavy losses from artillery and bow fire as they advanced but charged and over-ran the Roman archers. But I was unable to break the legionaries and the game ended as a draw. Lesson learned from this game, warband cavalry are too unmanoeuvrable, so don’t use them in your army. Cavalry are there to exploit enemy flanks and rear and these guys failed to do it (the rule, warband only move at half speed unless they go directly ahead unless charging).

A look around at some of the other games going on


Paul Scrivens-Smith the eventual WAB winner with another Carthaginian army

my friend Steve (on left) with his Franks, against an all cavalry Scythian army. The Scythians got first turn and simply rode off the table and to victory. Silly scenario!


this chap has obviously decided to stand his ground, form a semi-circle and fight it out.
Second game, a head to head battle up against a late Persian army

close up on my Gallic infantry

against the might of the Persian army

The game was a fairly simple affair, both sides advanced. I cleared the enemy skirmishers out of the way but was then charged by the Persians. It came down to a combat grind with in the end the better armour and fighting skill of the Carthaginians winning the day. A massive victory for me.
Sorry no pictures of the last game – it was too hectic – Paul and I fought in the floor of a valley, the battle swayed backward and forward, I thought I had him but like in the previous game, his troops were better than mine. Both units of Gauls charged in when they should not have (failed the test for warband charging nearest enemy), the elephants crew were all shot dead and it stampeded back into my own army. A dismal defeat was my fate.
But a great day out, well organised by the Phoenix club who are a great bunch of gamers. Paul got first prize for the WAB side of the event and since he did not want to take two prizes I won the goblet of blood for the most troops killed (I think that includes your own!) on the day.

Carthaginian project

For the next Toy Soldier tournament (Manchester 23-24th July) I have decided to use a Carthaginian army. One of the advantages of Carthaginians is that they tended to use mercenaries from other nations, so if you have armies of that period then you use those figures rather than buying new. So most of the army I have already got. But there is one troop type unique the the army, Libyan mercenaries so I am going to have to do a couple units of those for the army. Like most people who live around the Mediterranean, the skin colour would be dark but not as dark as central Africans. Clothing I have assumed as fairly simple, I think the main reason that the Carthaginians employed those soldiers is that they would be cheaper than using Greek mercenaries (cost-benefit was an important part of war for the Carthaginians).

Now one wrinkle was that I wanted to see if the Wargames Factory plastic Numidians could be made up to look like spear armed close order infantry. They were made for skirmishing infantry but there were enough bits on the sprues to make a stab at close order infantry and so it proved. After a few efforts I found the best looking option was a helmeted head, two arms held close to the body (one for the shield and one for the spear). There are 4 different body variants in a set, two of these made a good spearman and the others could be made into spearmen at a pinch.

My first step was to build the figures in the movement trays. I do it this way to make sure that the units will rank up when formed. Each unit was 20 figures strong with leader, musician and standard bearer but I also made up a couple of spares as well for just in case. The white stuff around the plastic bases is flocking gel which I left to dry out overnight.

Once the figures were assembled the next thing was to put the figures (which have magnetic bases) onto a 'stick' of heavy card faced with steel paper, that allows the figures to be sprayed with primer without being touched.

you can even spray them upside down

Close up on the figures after spraying

Then after spraying. I decided to go for a dirty white shield using my own transfers (a large horse head designed by Kit Burroughs). The rank and file are dressed in unbleached linen tunics, the officer in red. For the next unit I think I will use grey and dirty white (inspired by the film Gladiator). I also decided on iron helmets, rather than bronze. Iron was in general use in the period so should be cheaper to make, if more difficult and the helmet would be stronger. The figures were varnished with Ronseal varnish with a touch of brown paint to give a bit of shading. In the shields I used plain (non-coloured) varnish before applying the transfers. Then at the end the whole of the figure was then varnished with a brush-on matt varnish.

And view from the rear

And who noticed that I glued the standard on back to front? Will I did after building the figures but decided to let it ride.

OK second unit coming off the painting table - just painted the bases so they are still wet!

Lessons learned from the first unit; mix up the colours of the tunics and inspired by the film Gladiator I have gone mainly for shades of grey to almost off white. The shields are a red centre, yellow rim and a jolly little white elephant transfer.

I also (because I mix the skin colour) lightened the skin tone and that way the shading in the varnish stands out more.

So from the front

rear view