Prepping Bronze Age Greeks

Nothing exciting, but I've prepped the Eureka Miniatures Bronze Age Greeks I picked up the other week.

They'll go well with my satyrs and centaurs (also from Eureka Miniatures) that I painted many years ago (maybe in 2010 or 2011?). I also plan on building some matching terrain for them. Lead Adventure Forum has a Building Something contest coming up, so the timing is good.

Anyway, wishing you all a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2020.

Ancient Hebrew Rocking Horse Chariots and The Judean People's Front

A few years ago (back in November 2015) the League of Ancients' Field of Glory competition was Biblical-themed. Army lists could be anything fielded from 'Swifter than Eagles' and the four biblical army lists from 'Lost Scrolls'.

While I had a few Numidian light foot, I really didn't have anything suitable. Sure, I could've painted a new army, or borrowed one. Instead I quickly assembled 16 Ancient Hebrew rocking horse chariots and four Judean People's Front command stands. As you do. They would be added to some Ancient Spanish and the Numidians miniatures I had to make up a Philistine army (because I was being a Philistine).

The wooden pieces for the conversions were bought cheaply on eBay and cost less than AU$5 from memory. The rest of the wooden body for the chariots was made from balsa wood offcuts and matchsticks. The tops were painted thick card with Battlefront WWII Soviet cupolas and tank crewmen.

The command stands were assembled from spare miniatures I had in the lead pile - mainly Eureka Miniatures samurai painted to look like Judean People's Front (or the People's Front of Judea) from 'Monty Python's Life of Brian'. If you haven't seen the film then I suggest you do. The flags were sourced from online and resized/recoloured in Photoshop. They're a little pixilated, and if I did them again I would spend more time designing / cleaning up the flags in Photoshop than I did.

The point of the exercise? Wargaming doesn't always have to be serious, and you can easily theme an army if you have to. Being a mishmash of troop types it didn't go too well (I finished deep in the bottom half of the draw). I did have fun though.

Edit: Here's some photos of the camp I built for the army. It's made to look like a film set and represents the walls of Jerusalem covered in "Romani ite domum" ("Romans go home") as per 'The Life of Brian'.

Ancient Spanish for ADLG

The June League of Ancients meet saw me face Lyle D and his Middle Assyrians (I/25a) with my Great Sumerian Revolt army (I/1c) for a morning DBA campaign game.

It was a short game, more due to luck than skill - I was able to quick kill Lyle's light chariots with my bow, with two (maybe three) 6-1 rolls in my favour. The other kill was a 5-1 from memory.

It had been a while since I played Art De La Guerre (ADLG), so I took up an offer from Matt W to play a classical-themed game in the afternoon. He fielded an Alexander the Great (#40) army and I wanted to field something suitably historical. I fielded something I haven't used before - Ancient Spanish (#89). These were from my Field of Glory Carthaginian army (Magister Militum / Chariot Miniatures), and I used the African spearmen from that army as my Celtiberian.

The list consisted of:

Thurro (competent C-in-C)
2 Celtiberian (impetuous heavy swordsmen elite)
4 Celtiberian (impetuous heavy swordsmen)
2 Light infantry (sling)
1 Burning cart (scythed chariot)

Lubbo (ordinary sub-general)
1 Celtiberian (impetuous heavy swordsmen elite)
2 Celtiberian (impetuous heavy swordsmen)
4 Caetrati (javelinmen)
2 Light infantry (sling)
2 Light cavalry (javelin)

Caciro (competent sub-general)
3 Medium cavalry (elite)
3 Light cavalry (javelin)
3 Light infantry (javelin)

I have never used many of these troop types (including javelinmen) and consequently deployed poorly. Very poorly.

While on my left flank I deployed the mounted command, I engaged them against Matt's mounted command that outnumbered me and was better equipped.

The centre command should've been the one to face the elephants and be able to take the ploughed field, instead I sent them off on the far left flank. They did next to nothing all game (in part due to having a commander that was hardly able to activate).

However the impetuous heavy swordsmen ability saved me, because when I hit Matt's line I was able to claw back something (helped also by some fortuitous shooting rolls). In the end I lost, but I was close to breaking Matt's army (18 demoralisation points from his army value of 20). But not a victory.

Overall I was happy with the Ancient Spanish list, and a little tweaking of the commands has me ready to field them again.

First Try of Baroque and DBA Sumerians

At the club meet last week Michael B ran an introduction to 'Baroque', Dadi&Piombo's rule set for Renaissance wargaming. He supplied two ~600 point English Civil War armies and walked me through the rules.

I have never played their more popular 'Impetus' ruleset, but it was all pretty easy to pick up.

The game flowed pretty well considering it was an introductory game. While I probably will play a few more games to see if this will suit me for Renaissance wargaming, it felt right - with all situations and combat ending as it probably should. There was a little more influence of chance, but that could be down to poor tactical choices on my part. Rolling of combat dice felt sensible, usually between 3 and 10 D6.

Photos of the game are below, with three main phases - Michael's cavalry army destroying mine, my right flank destroying Michael's understrength left flank and then Michael winning the race to destroy enough units in the centre of the table before I did the same. Having cavalry helped in achieving this. A close fought game.

After the game I booked in a full ~800 point game with Michael next month. The rules can be found here:

http://www.dadiepiombo.it/english-baroque.html

My three afternoon games took me back a few thousand years with some newly painted Sumerians. 

Damian P has organised another DBA campaign for the year, with this year's theme being GTA: Biblical. I had picked up some of Eureka Miniatures' lovely Alan March-sculpted 15mm Sumerians (based off the 28mm range) last year, so I elected to field a Great Sumerian Revolt army (I/1c). 

I had managed (even with work recently being pretty busy) to paint the minimum to field the army, with 1 x HCh (gen), 1 x LCh, 6 x Pk, and 4 x Ps. I still have the other half to paint (much needed Bw and Hd elements), so some more detailed photos will hopefully follow next month.

Both Damian with his Mitanni (I/19) and Lyle (two games) with his Middle-Assyrians (I/25) had way more light chariots than I was able to deal with effectively. Definitely need those two elements of bow! Needless to say I lost all three games, but was happy to field a newly painted army.

Finally, while going through my 15mm Renaissance miniature boxes when I got home, I found these poor lost Dark Age archers, that were left behind one League meet last year. If they're yours, let me know.

Looking forward to more Renaissance wargaming and more effective Sumerians next month.

Victorian ADLG Tournament 2018

Last Sunday I took part in the League of Ancients' annual ancients tournament. Once again L'Art de la Guerre (ADLG) was used, with the armies restricted to 200 points from the Biblical and Classical Period lists.

I took a Scythian army (using the Saka options to represent the Yuezhi) consisting of:
Army Corps I
C-in-C General King Luo (Competent) (3)
4 Cataphract (Elite) (52)
2 Medium cavalry bow (Ordinary) (18)
2 Light cavalry bow (Ordinary) (12)

Army Corps II
Sub-General Prince Kumul (Ordinary) (0)
2 Medium cavalry bow (Ordinary) (18)
2 Light cavalry bow (Ordinary) (12)
4 Bowmen (Ordinary) (28)

Army Corps III
Ally (Mountain Indians) General Gerald (Competent) (3)
1 Elephant (Ordinary) (13)
2 Light cavalry javelin (Ordinary) (12)
3 Medium spearmen (Ordinary) (21)
1 Bowmen (Ordinary) (7)
1 Light infantry bow (Ordinary) (4)

The lists of armies taking part included:
Assyrian Empire and Sargonid (9) x2
Sea Peoples (24)
Mycenaean (Trojan) (30)
Seleucid (42)
Ptolemaic (43) x2
Pyrrhic (44)
Italian Tribes (Samnites) (47)
Camillan Roman (52)
Republican Roman (53)
Carthaginian (55)
Cyrenian Greek (58)
Galatian (72)
Early Arab (75)
Scythian (76) x2
Classical Indian (79)

In the weeks leading up to the tournament I repainted the foot archers and the cataphracts to add to the rest of the army I had painted (or re-painted) over the last year.

In the morning I faced Richard S's Ptolemaic and lost...

...followed by another loss in the afternoon game against James B's beautifully painted Carthaginians.

The cataphracts and the elephant were stand outs, but there was some poor match ups created on my part. The bowmen also shouldn't have been in one block. Overall though I like the army. Just need more games to improve my game.