Eye Candy from the WAB GT 2013

These are some of armies which were up for best painted army at this years Warhammer Ancient Battles Grand Tournament.
The basic pictures are small but each picture links to a much bigger picture on the internet, so click on a picture if you want to see the big version (2000 pixels wide). Pictures taken with my tiny Cannon IXUS 100, really great for pictures with poor lighting and a bit of digital touching up in PhotoImpact X3.
Mostly I have been able to get the name tag of the player and their army in the picture, so I let the pictures speak for themselves.


Tim Haslams Numidian army

 





Wayne Richards Pontic army

Andreas Kkounnous Spartan army

Battle reports will come next.

Warmaster Ancients – the day of battle

As mentioned previously the all day WMA event took place in Preston, last Saturday.

On the day there were six players;

Steve Rowland (Chorley)	Carthaginian	1510
Dan Johnson (Lancaster)	Arab Conquest	1050
John Holroyd (Bolton)	Sassanid Persian	775
Justin Taylor – me - (Preston)	Classical Indian	765
Dave (Preston)	Late Roman	630
Lee Yates (Chorley)	Parthian	215

A good win there by Steve but more on that later.

Because of a double booking at Worthy Games, we had to use the small gaming room. That meant that we were limited to one 12 foot by 5 foot table,which I split into three 4 foot gaming tables. I decided to use green carpet tiles (that I had picked up at a discount carpet suppliers in Bolton) as the best surface to play on, despite being heavy to carry.

Four foot wide table were a bit cramped and gave the feeling of attacking down the floor of a mountain pass, rather than the open combats I had been hoping for. The limited frontage favoured infantry armies as it was difficult for cavalry armies to get round the enemy flanks.

But we still had some very nicely painted armies turn up. These are Dans Arab Conquest army

And Steves Carthaginians

Lees Parthians advancing in the early part of the game.

And my own Indian army advancing against Daves Late Roman army. Dave actually uses his own Indian army and so I experimented with a brigade structure that I had always thought would work well for Indians; two units of bows, backed by two units of spearmen, with single elephants in the middle and ends of the brigades. The elephants make the flanks of the brigade harder to attack and so funnel the enemy into fighting the archers and spearmen. Whilst this brigade formation was quite effective, it really lacked the ability to attack anything and with the elephants tied up supporting the infantry, I really felt that the army could have done with some heavy chariots to provide an attacking arm.

The game above (my Indians vs Daves Late Romans) was the most brutal game I played all day. Although my infantry were only really good at defending, my Indian cavalry were unleashed onto Daves archers and managed to obliterate them before attacking the flank of the legions. However the legions quickly smashed my cavalry and then went on to tear the Indian infantry to pieces. Not quite enough to win Dave the game (a win is getting the enemy army to Breakpoint or killing the enemy general) but give him another move and he would have got there.

In the first round of games Dan’s Arab Conquest army shattered Lee’s Parthians giving Dan the only really good win of the round. John’s Sassanids got a slight win against Dave’s Late Romans and my Indians beat Steve’s Carthaginians.

In the second round most of us managed to score zero points, the only exceptions being John’s Sassanids beating Lee’s Parthians and Steve beating the Late Romans.

So we went into the third round with Dan just in the lead closely followed by John but in a upset to the expected outcome, Steves Carthaginians got the only true win of the day (breaking the enemy army) against Lee’s Parthians and stormed ahead. Dan and John fought it out on the top table with Dan just scoring a few hundred points more than John to make Dan a close second behind Steve.

Lessons learned.

Well basically Dan showed us that we have been playing WMA very wrong but the lessons have been taken on board and we hope to up the game locally. I really doubt that we will get anymore interest from the local gamers in Preston but we can continue to play happilly amongst ourselves.

I think the varibale army size system was OK but next time rather than betting against the other players army bonus, I would just make it 3 cards over 3 games and each time you use a card is it ‘burned’ and cannot be used again. So the player has the choice of which bonus card to play in each of their three games.

Oh and I did not allow enough time for lunch. If I do it again, I will allow an hour.

The intro WMA gaming day at Worthy Gaming

On Saturday 19th January we had the introduction day to prepare local gamers for the Warmaster Ancients to be run on Saturday 23rd February. After the day they should be happily able to play games on their own and give their opponents a decent game.

The tables were covered with carpet tiles in two different styles, green and yellow (for a desert battlefield). All tables 180x150cm.

For the first game it was easier to get all the players involved, so that everyone could learn at the same time. The match-up was Indians vs Parthians (1,000 point armies).

The best way to attack the enemy is in the flank or rear. These Parthian horse archers got the hang of it, quickly on to the flank of these Indian infantry and whittling away at them. Using Initiative moves to get into contact, inflicting some damage (eventually they wiped out two entire Indian infantry units) and then falling back to avoid continued combat. A highly effective tactic.

A larger view of the situation. For three moves the Indians failed to move anything in this sector of the table (the elephant on a round base is their commander Porus) and just had to take it on the chin as none of the archers had a target. Once they were able to turn and face the Parthian horse archers it was a different matter however.

The main force of the Parthian army fights against a singe brigade of the Indian army but it does contain a unit of heavy chariots. This is the offensive part of the Parthian force and had their only two units of heavy troops, cataphracts.

In a frontal attack against the Indians the Parthians were successful but lost almost all their cataphracts, leaving them with very little to attack with. But with wiping out the Indian brigade, the two Indian infantry units on the other side of the table all that was needed to sucure a win was to kill two more Indian units and that was done by shooting two elephants to death with massed bow fire (3 units per elephant).

Using the single elephant rules makes elephants horribly vulnerable and easy pickings if you can attack them right and so the elephants became the downfall of the Indian army.

We took a break for lunch and over the meal discussed what we would like to do to get historical gaming going at Worthy Gaming.

For the next games we split into two games; Late Romans vs Carthaginians and Parthians vs Sassanid Persians.

Close up on the Sassanid army. The figures were only finished the night before the event, so basing still to come.

After the first move of the Parthian army. Only one brigade got to move, the others sitting and watching. In fact falling command rolls and having blunders was a feature of this game.

Close-up of the Parthians – 2 units of catapracts, a unit of foot archers and horse archers.

Again the flank attack features as the tactic of the Parthian army.

The Parthian attack certainly broke up the Sassanid brigade but at the cost of two bases of the Parthian horse archers.

Massed combat in the centre of the table. With more heavy cavalry available the Sassanids tended to win these combats.

The other game, Carthaginians vs Late Romans. The Romans advancing happily whilst the Carthaginians (foreground) failed to move most of the army, so ended up leading with the Gallic warband and two units of Numudian light cavalry (one unit of which has already lost a base to shooting).

New range of 10mm Imperial Romans – Van Dyck

I have just been sent a couple of photos of a new range of Imperial Roman figures using my 10mm Roman designs


I love the figures and you can see more of them at the chaps test website. I am afraid they are not available to buy yet but I hope to get my hands on some sample figures.

Two new pictures showing the unpainted (inked) Roman legionaries

Warmaster Ancients gaming days at Worthy Games in Preston

Two gaming sessions are planned at Worthy Games (58 Lancaster Road, Preston, PR1 1DD).

An intro gaming session for those who are unfamiliar with the rules, on the 19th of January and a full days gaming on the 23rd February.

Plan for the Intro Day

First game;           10.00 to 12.45
Lunch;                   12.45 to 13.30
Second game;      13.30 to 15.30

Army size 1,000 points if you are bringing your own. Pick armies from either the rule book or Ancient Armies book. Some players are bringing extra armies for those people who do not have an army of their own.

Terrain will be preset on the table so there is no need to set it up. One player should nominate one table edge to the odds, the other edge will be be evens, roll a die and what is rolled is the edge that player will be playing on.

The tables are 180 wide and 150cm deep.  So you can set up your army up to 30cm from your table edge and just for our games not within 20cm of the table sides.

Players should roll a die each, the highest roller chooses to deploy first or second. The player going first will deploy their entire army first but will also take the first turn. The other player deploys second and takes the second turn.

There are no turn limits. To win either; kill the enemy general or destroy half of the enemy core units.

Preparation of the terrain continues with some trees

First of all a hole was drilled into the circular bases, the trees stuck into position with a dab of epoxy glue then some flocking gel placed round the base to give them a bit of texture. I will then paint the bases and job done.

The Die is Cast in 25mm Byzantines vs Egyptians

With the release of the Die is Cast rules we thought we could now have a bit of fun, playing in the scale that the rules were designed for 25mm. Taking two 1,000 point armies Nikephorian Byzantine and Fatimid Egyptian. The above picture shows the Byzantines deployed for battle; one unit of cataphracts in wedge, 3 units of extra heavy cavalry, 3 units of heavy cavalry and 3 units of foot archers.

Both armies were provided by Ian Crosby a long time WRG 6th edition gamer and a newcomer to TDIC.

Close up on the Byzantine extra heavy cavalry, like all the Byzantine heavy cavalry a mix of half lancers and half archers. Eight figures to a unit, which is probably on the small side for TDIC.

My hot unit in this army, twelve cataphracts with lances in wedge. Guard and veterans, capable of beating any other unit on the table.

A unit of Byzantine foot archers and two units of heavy cavalry.

The Egyptian army. Three units of foot archers, two units of light cavalry, two units of elite Mamluks and four units of Askar heavy cavalry. The Egyptian cavalry units were even smaller than the Byzantines, at only six figures each. This was to prove a serious disadvantage as the game progressed.

Close up on the Egyptian foot archers with the general behind them.

At the top of the photo, Egyptian light cavalry supported by Mamluks and Askars.

The start of the game with Byzantine and Egyptian heavy cavalry clashing. It has gone badly for the Byzantines with the Byzantine unit at the bottom of the picture reduced to only one model. But in the melee the Egyptians have been reduced to half strength preventing them from further advance.

The blue Byzantine heavy cavalry are poised to launch a flank attack on the Egyptian cavalry ripping their friends to pieces.

In the centre the already damaged unit of cataphracts, charge but misjudge the distance, exposing them the fire of all the Egyptian archers. It was enough to reduce them to half strength and stop their advance.

On the left quite an even fight. On the far left lancers are fighting the light cavalry whilst the other combats match Byzantine cavalry against Egyptian lancers.

 

 

 

 

But it was a loss. Two units of Byzantine cavalry were defeated leaving only one unit led by the Byzantine general to fight on. On the far right one of the retreating units was charged by a fresh unit of Egyptian cavalry resulting in almost certain defeat.

In the centre, the remains of the cataphracts gradually fall back taking casualties as they do so from the enemy archers. The Byzantine own shooting is mostly ineffective.

In the next turn, the blue Byzantine cavalry charge the red Egyptian archers. The archers failed their morale test and retreated. The charging lancers were shot to death and the last remaining hope for the Byzantines for victory was gone.

The Egyptian light cavalry on the right advances.

And the combat in the centre continues.

On the left the Egyptian cavalry are fighting the retreating Byzantines, break them and force them to flee.