Victorian ADLG Tournament 2017

The League of Ancients ran its annual ancients tournament over the weekend. It was the second year of using 'L'Art de la Guerre' (ADLG) third edition rules. This year armies were restricted to 15mm 200 point armies drawn from the Dark Ages, Feudal Ages and Late Middle Ages lists.

I took a Medieval German (227) army consisting of:

Army Corps I
C-in-C Frederick III, the Peaceful (Ordinary) (0)
x4 Heavy Knight impact (Ordinary) (52)
x2 Heavy cavalry firearm (Ordinary) (22)

Army Corps II
S/gen Louis, Duke of Savoy (Ordinary) (0)
x2 Heavy Knight impact (Ordinary) (26)
x2 Heavy cavalry impact (Ordinary) (20)
x4 Crossbow (Ordinary) (28)

Army Corps III
S/gen Tully Bascombe (Ordinary) (0)
x4 Pikemen (Ordinary) (44)
x2 Light infantry firearm (Ordinary) (8)

As you can see, a pretty ordinary army. Having only had four games previously under my belt, it was a good learning opportunity. What follows are pictures of mostly my army's backs (not such a bad thing - that's how I want to be seeing them during a game) and them being thrashed (I didn't win a game!). In all 21 people played over the weekend (some only on the Saturday or the Sunday), with a mix of armies.

The lists of armies were:
Feudal Spanish (148)
Beja (162)
Feudal German (183) x2
Later Crusader (187)
Teutonic Knights (209) x2
Later Samurai (210)
Medieval Scandinavian (221)
Feudal Scots (222)
Medieval Scots (222)
Hundred Years War English (225) x2
Medieval German (227) x2
Medieval Spanish (228)
Free Company (230)
Burgundians (231)
French Ordonnnance (234) x2
Burgundian Ordonnance (235)

In the morning on the Saturday I faced Alex I's Medieval Scandinavian (221) and lost 96 - 14 (he would go on to be the overall winner).

In the afternoon I faced Andrew W's Feudal German (183), losing 95 - 15.

On the Sunday morning I faced Andrew O's Hundred Years Wars English (225). Lots of Lb. And stakes. I was wearing him down (he had a few units with cohesion markers), but it was not quickly enough, losing 99 - 11.

In the afternoon I faced Peter C's Burgundians (231). This was another close game (the the final score doesn't truthfully reflect the closeness of the game. Honest! I lost 95 - 15.

Another well run tournament, things went pretty smoothly (three playing umpires were in use again and worked well). While I didn't get anywhere near the podium (okay, I was second last, but only because the player in last place only played two games). I did win the player's choice for best painted.

The guy on top is charming - I'll have to find out where he's from.

Edit: the drinking Saxon is from Wargames Foundry's SAX005 - Saxon Shield Wall Characters set:
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/products/sax005-saxon-shield-wall-characters

All in all a fun weekend, doubling my number of games of ADLG I've now played, making me a lot more comfortable with the rules. More a definitely on the horizon.

Cup Eve DBA Tournament

Every year the Monday Knights host a DBA tournament. It's a lot of fun and gives people an opportunity to paint and field ancient and medieval armies relatively easily. Version 2.2 was my introduction to the period 10+ years ago (where I had only played Games Workshop games and Flames of War up until then).

I love the game for its simplicity (but not the simplicity of the language the rules are written in!), and the ability to field interesting armies from history. The open book tournament used version 3 of the rules, including normal terrain set up. I decided to field IV/12e Maori as I painted them 3-4 years ago and never fielded them in a game.

The miniatures are from Battleline Miniatures in New Zealand. The sculpts are okay, needed a lot of cleaning up, but there's next to no choice out there, but I'm happy enough with them (as I'm slowly collecting Pacific armies or ones that adjoin it).

Anyway, onto the games. In the first game my 12 Blade army faced Ed with an army of Elephants (Burmese or Tamil I think). Was a nightmare. Lost 10-2.

Game two was against  Django and his Ptolemaic (II/20c) army with a little bit of everything. Struggled to take down the pike in difficult terrain, but managed to survive longer than I should have in the open against Knights, lost 9-3 (there's a pattern forming).

Game three saw me face  Steve and Italian Condotta (IV/61). I thought a littoral landing would be cool and I hadn't done one in years. Cool doesn't win you battle kids (particularly if your opponent does it better than you), lost 8-4 (I lost 5 elements, mostly to the Knights).

Fourth and finally game saw me face off against Gareth and New-Kingdom Egyptian (I/22a). At this stage I was regretting my poor choice of army in an open tournament; no mounted and no bad going troop types, lost 11-1 I think.

All in all was good to finally play version 3 after not playing DBA for a few years. I plan to play at Cancon in January next year - so time to paint and play with something with more flexibility. Tibetans maybe, or Malays. Not sure yet.

Pop-up Globe Theatre's Henry V

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother"
― William Shakespeare, Henry V

The other day I went to watch the Pop-up Globe's production of Henry V, Shakespeare's tale of King Henry V taking on the French army at Agincourt in the face of impossible odds. I enjoyed this immersive theatrical experience complete with spectacular and blood-thirsty battle scenes, with men in full armour wielding broadswords, longbows, garottes, crossbows, bagpipes and... a frying pan.

Pop-up Globe is a full-scale temporary replica of the second Globe, the theatre Shakespeare and his company built and opened in 1614 after the first Globe theatre burned to the ground, and more information can be found here:
https://popupglobe.com.au/

Below are some of the photos I took. If you can go, I recommend you do so.