If

 Hi all,

The Great Rebasing continues apace, but didn't get in the way of me being able to host remote DBA from my end.  It was a treat for me, both because it's the first non-WWII historical game played at the new house, and also the first ancients game played with my figs since we left Toronto about six years ago!

Macedonians top.  The grouped cavalry at the top of the pic was standing in for the Mac camp.

With what I have for figs (Spartan / hoplites and Antigonid / eastern successors) we opted for a historical, but slightly misrepresented matchup, with Philippian Macedonians vs. Spartans.  Philip, somewhat notoriously, threatened the Spartans with slavery if he won their impending conflict, to which the Spartans, laconically (ha!), replied "if".  While the Spartans may have, in point of historical fact, been rather limited socially, politically, and even militarily (and see the brilliant set of posts on Spartan social organization at CoUP, you're welcome), you can't fault them for smart-assery, which I personally appreciate.

The Spartan left wing.  Didn't want to extend the line into the fields, just in case.

Macedonians deploy on a narrow frontage, with their right covered by light troops in the woods.

Sparta, oddly enough, had elephants for a camp.

Macedon had a slight edge on aggression, and ended up as attacker, and once we'd established terrain, we had one side of the table dominated by woods, and the other mostly open.  I picked the clear side, not out of any tactical brilliance, but because it was the side that had the computer and camera set up (I had the webcam hanging off the light fixture).  Turns out, expediency is the mother of brilliance, as it meant Jura (my increasingly regular remote opponent) got stuck deploying in a narrow frontage between the woods.

Spartan generals anchor the line.

The Spartan right wheels forward, and the Macedonian cavalry counters, skirting the woods.

That's the General and companions, waving around the xystons.

Macedonian light horse engage!

The opening moves of the game saw me advancing and wheeling my right, in the hopes that I would envelope his flank.  This is a pretty standard move for me when my line is longer, although traditionally I do it with cavalry, rather than Even More Spears.  Jura countered by advancing his cavalry in column around the woods, and a rather aggressive charge with his light horse (Tarantines posing as prodromoi), which my spear handily repulsed.

The Macedonian cavalry charge home.  This one was dicey, but the Spartans repulsed the impetuous horse.

The first phase of the battle saw the Macedonian cavalry launch repeated charges against my right wing, including a number of high-stakes clashes between Phillip and the companion cavalry against my General (the Spartan with no name).  As long as the phalanx (and the side support spears get from spears in DBA) held, my general had the advantage in combat, but if he lost, the knights get a quick kill (they destroy the opposing element if they beat them, not just double them).  Turns out, a line of spears is pretty solid against mixed cavalry, and the Macedonians were thrown back repeatedly, with the light horse, at one point, fleeing entirely.

The Macedonian phalanx advances past the choke point.

On the right, the cavalry make little headway against the Spartan phalanx.  On the other hand, the Spartans can't seem to do more than drive off the cavalry - combat is largely inconclusive.

Jura managed to get his phalangites out from betwitxed the woods, and started to shake out a line, but it was still uneven when the main infantry formations clashed.  The Macedonian phalanx has an advantage under these circumstances, but not a decisive one, and the result of the on-going othismos (which I really enjoy saying, for some reason), was a pretty classic grind, with the deeper Macedonian pike phalanx pushing back the Spartans, but not quite breaking through.

Macedonian cavalry regrouped and charged again, with similar results.  Meanwhile, the lines grow closer.

Macedon tries to shake out a battle line, but poor C&C (i.e., low PiP rolls) meant it happened slowly.

Othismos!  The deeper phalanx begins to drive back the Spartans, as the lines break down.

At this point, my longer line, and ability to roll higher PiPs (i.e., command and control resources), let me slowly envelope and gnaw away at the Macedonian flanks.  I had plenty of opportunity to set up attacks where I could pin, and then flank, isolated Macedonian units on the flanks, and while they didn't always pay off, any win resulted in a destroyed unit (flank attacks aren't a big deal in DBA, unless they complement frontal engagement - losing is BAD in DBA if you're engaged both to the front AND to the flank).  It took some grinding, but the Spartans managed to chew away the "softer" elements of the Macedonian formation, before the Macedonian pike could really grind down the Spartan phalanx.

Spartans struggle to get past the Macedonian pikes.

Both lines are in disarray.

On the left, the Spartans envelope the Macedonian light troops, and look to roll up the line.

The Macedonians manage to wheel, but are under increased pressure from multiple sides.

Even without the delays expected from new armies and a new "technical" set-up, this game took longer than others we've played - but it felt "right".  The Macedonian phalanx had a clear, but not decisive, advantage over the Spartans, but the Spartans, with their wider formation, were able to envelope the Macedonian core.  The four elements that the Macedonians lost were their "weakest" ones - auxilia, psiloi, cavalry, and light horse, and the lost them because I was able to hit them on two sides.  The hard core of the Macedonian army had no problem driving back the Spartan centre, and had I rolled poorly, things could have gone very differently (all I needed to do was lose ONCE against his companions, and my general would have disappeared).  Even with the constraints of terrain, this one was much closer than it appeared.

This unit was frustratingly stubborn.  They just would not die!

Note how the Macedonians continue to push back the spear at the middle of the shot.

Repeated attacks failed to break the Macedonian phalanx.

Spartan turn to roll low on PiPs.  Macedonians struggle to reform their line.

Spartans step back and reform.  Behind the Macedonian infantry, their light horse are caught and flanked.  With essentially all of the Macedonian lighter troops gone, Spartans win the game 4-2.

It was so good to get the minis on the table again.  Although I do really enjoy the appearance of the Impetus / element basing, the DBx gives me more options for play, and being able to use the figures counts more, in the long run, than them looking good on the shelf.  Once I get the rebasing done, I'll get back to the Ayyubid / Seljuk painting, and am already looking forward to expanding the stuff I have (later Achaemenids, and various hoplite variations, are in the works).

FMB

Ayyubid goodbye . . .

 

 . . . but I bid hello?

Okay, a bit of a stretch, I'll warrant, but these are strange days, and I figure one should find one's cheap laughs wherever they might be found.  Bit of a mish mash today, a combination of an update on the Ayyubid DBx project, and a few shots from a small game of Flames of War I got in with the Cub, before he went back to his mom's for the school year.

What's been done so far, some rebased, some newly completed

The Ghulams are the same figs I've had kicking around for years, but rebased for DBx.  The plan is that post-plague, these guys can go up against Jura's Eurotrash kniggits in a real-live face to face game.  

Mamluk Ghulam general

More Ghulams

I also knocked out some Kurdish Javelinment (3Ax in DBA).

Kurd Javelinmen

And some Quaraghulam lancers.  

Quaraghulam lancers

There's a fair ways to go on this, and not a huge rush, but I've been picking away at it fairly consistently - there's a unit of Turkik archers in the painting queue as I write this.

In addition, the Cub has been busily painting a platoon of Finnish commandos he picked up back at the end of summer, and we managed to sneak in a small game of FoW; it was pretty much everything I had painted vs. everything he had painted.

Finn Commandos top, Heroes of the Soviet Union bottom

The finn commandos are some of the best infantry in the game, whereas the Soviets, even in the relatively veteran form I'm taking, are on the good side of mediocre at best.  Very much a quality vs. quantity match-up.

The Finnish commander reviews his troops

In the end, quantity took it; Cub was attacking into some big blobs of soviet infantry, and as it was his first game, hadn't really got the hang of coordinating attacks.  That said, he pushed pretty hard, and on the last turn had put himself in a position to win, holding key objectives.  If the Soviets hadn't regained control, he would have taken the game.

Soviets dig in.

.

I'm pretty sure he had fun, as he's been talking about getting some more Finns.  We might stop in at the game shop as part of an apple-picking excursion over the next couple weeks.  In the meantime, my soviet tanks have arrived, and I've been busily assembling T-34s.  I'll probably do a post on the PSC kits soonish.  Until then, stay safe.

Pass me the remote . . .

 Hi all,

As I think I've mentioned, one of the local historical crew (although, by this point, I suppose I am one of the local historical crew) and I have been corresponding for a bit, looking for possible projects during and after the plague, and decided on DBA.  It's a relatively simple game to play "virtually", and can serve as a possible springboard to a larger post-covid project (like Art de la Guerre).  We've managed a couple of online sessions, and in the last one, Jura was able to take some pictures.

The initial deployment - hairy Germans left, noble Romans right.

The first game was basically a story of my right, made up of Auxilia, using their speed and mobility in terrain to envelope his flank.  This pushed him into an aggressive rush in the centre.

A bit of luck in the cavalry engagement on my left, the loss of his screen on my right, and a few fights that went my way in the centre clash, and I had the first game.

Second game, we decided on trying out a river, which naturally was revealed to be the most difficult kind.  As it ran down the centre of the table, it pretty much defined the game, as it meant that anyone who tried to cross would end up doing it piecemeal.

Romans left, Germans right.

I think I deployed reasonably well in this one, using my one bow element in the centre, as a hinge between my Blades and Auxilia.  Ranged fire consistently drove back units in the middle of the opposing line, breaking him up even more, and I think contributing to the German difficulty in coordinating an attack (although abysmal PIP rolls by my opponent also helped!).

I managed to get some cavalry across on the flank, and envelope him.

And the one real chance he'd had, to take out my general's unit (which I'd left exposed, partly on purpose, and partly as a result of combat), didn't pan out.

With him pinned down in the centre, his flank collapsing, and his left unable to cross, the Romans took it again.

I've quite enjoyed the two sessions we've played so far.  Jura's been kind enough to set up the table, and make his armies available for play.  The games, predictably, have me inspired to paint, and I've made progress on the Ayyubids for the first time in years.  I've also been eyeing my Antigonid successors, and some unpainted Achaemenids, as possible rebasing / painting fodder for DBA.  It'd be nice to be able to return the favour.

Longer term, I've been hearing good things about AdlG from my Toronto crew, who seem to have adopted it as the current ancients club game.  It would be nice to have something to play once all this craziness wraps up, and a slow-grow project fits in nicely with the pile of other stuff I want to do (plus, you know, life, work, and family).  I have enough Ayyubids for a DBA list, and certainly have enough Persians and successors to work towards AdlG lists.

The one thing I'm wavering on is my Spartans.  I really like this army, primarily as a hobby project (love the Xyston hoplites, and even the old glory figs I'm using for some elements are pretty great), but have consistently been basing them for Impetus.  I quite like the latter game, but it has zero traction around here.  DBx basing is compatible with Impetus (with 4 DBx bases making up one Impetus unit), but pretty much gives up the "element" basing approach that is much of the hobby appeal of Impetus for me.

Of course, the easiest solution would be to try and promote Impetus locally.  Jura's indicated some interest, but I'd likely need to supply figs.  I could, of course, paint up some opponents for the Spartans (early persians, maybe, or athenians, or something), but that would mean buying more figures . . . 

The Maw. Also yet another Crusade.

Hi all,

As anyone who follows this blog is aware, I'm a bit of a hobby magpie (more than a bit, if we're being honest).  As I've been involved in this hobby for something like 30-odd years, this means I've any number of projects going at any given time, usually more than I can realistically manage.  Today's a bit of a twofer, covering both a GW side project I've had running for a while, and a historical project that has been languishing in the drawers of shame.



I've had a soft spot for the GW ogor range for a long time, but for all the usual reasons (time, money, the chaos of life), had never really gotten around to doing much about it.  About a year and a half ago, I picked up a box on a whim, and started painting them - even got in a game or two.  Between other projects, Covid, and life, they've never really become a key focus for me, but they're something to which I keep coming back, and the horde is slowly growing.





They've kind of become my reward / treat / break project.  When the other things I'm working on start to feel like work, or when I just can't face painting more red things (given how much Khorne I play), I break out an ogor, and have some fun with it.  It's a very different process of painting, and feels different as a task than the painting I do with a "gaming" project, even my historicals.





More than anything else, these guys are the ones I paint to relax, and just enjoy the process of painting.  While they're unlikely to be a focus any time soon, I suspect they'll be part of the rotation for some time.

In contrast, these guys have been sitting around in the drawers of shame for something like 7 years.



Waaaaay back in Toronto, when Impetus was my main game, a few of us planned to start up a campaign around the Crusades.  Much planning, and some buying ensued, resulting in me picking up the start of an Ayyubid force, for which I painted a single stand (which has since been given a flag).



As sometimes happens, however, the project kind of petered out.  I don't remember that anyone else actually got as far as getting stuff painted up, I was playing other games, and the whole thing just became less of a priority.

Lately, however, I've been corresponding with one of the local historical players, and we've been kicking around ideas for a) remote gaming, and b) post-Covid gaming.  Both of us have an interest in trying out Art de la Guerre (which seems to be the new historical hotness), but building armies on that scale is a fairly large (and hence longer-term) commitment.  Given, however, that AdlG armies use a variant of DBA basing, and DBA is both a manageable project, and relatively easy to execute (and hence suitable for remote gaming), and we figure we're on to something.



I've played DBA before, a long, long time ago when living in Newfoundland, but it's one of those games I've kept up with.  The rule book, with it's endless lists of obscure armies, remains a source of fascination to me.  As it turns out, Jura (my prospective opponent) has a backlog of mid-crusade appropriate 15mm "Franks", so our plan is to start with DBA lists, and then build towards AdlG armies from there.

The stuff I picked up for Basic Impetus looks to pretty much cover me for the DBA list; I think I'm short one stand of arab cavalry, or something like that.  Should be fudgeable with a house rule, or I can run a sabot until I pick up the needful.  In the meantime, it's a reason to get these guys painted, and a way to try out both the new version of DBA, and eventually AdlG, without having to engage in a massive rebase (just the one stand).  Sounds like a plan to me.

FMB