Back to Ancients ramble and link to Battle of Paraitakene 317BC battle report

[Shaun Travers]

Short version
After a bit of a hiatus, I am continuing in replaying ancient historical scenarios from Peter Sides scenario books. The Battle of Paraitakene 317BC is the 25th. For a bit of a challenge, I am hoping to play about 11 more of these scenarios by the end of November of the Successor, Pyrrhic and First Punic War.  The Battle of Paraitakene 317BC battle report using my own rules on a 2’x2′ table can be found on my blog:

http://shaun-wargaming-minis.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/battle-of-paraitakene-317bc-using.html

I played this a year ago and had forgotten all about it. So it does not really count, but kicks off my reentry into Ancients gaming after a year of nothing after years of it being mostly what I played.

Longer version with background, waffle etc.
I have been on a bit of a WW2 binge for the last year or two – writing some rules, playing with some others.   I originally started off my blog to replay ancient battles using different rules.  And that was all I thought it would be.  Besides WW2 the other major project was creating my own fast play solo ancient rules  and then testing them using the Peter Sides historical scenarios booklets, about 150 battles.  I anticipated playing a game every 2-3 weeks, but from 2012-2015 I played 24 in three years  The last game Peter Sides historical scenarios AAR I posted to the blog was in May 2015.  Although not replaying the battles, I continued to develop the rules and play tested using randomly generated armies and played 30 games in 30 days in October 2015.  This was also the last time I posted an AAR with these rules.

I have not been playing many games this year. My gaming mojo has been low, I have played less games and my free time has been spent on other things.  But I always knew in the back of my mind I would be back to Ancients someday.  That someday is today.  I usually do something gaming wise to stretch myself a bit in November but did nothing in 2015.  In early October 2016, I thought it was time I should really do something for November 2016.  There were a few things to choose from but my mind kept coming back to the Peter Sides historical replays.  I really liked them – diving into detail into the background and description of the battle; and a game that I could setup, play and take down within an hour.  I discovered I had actually played the next one in the series – the Battle of Paraitakene – in November 2015!  I had the draft blog post with notes, and the pictures on my computer.  I have tidied it up and posted it, although I cannot remember a thing about it.

For this November, I was looking at playing and writing up 10-11 historical battles as that would be one every three days – I think I would be able to spend the 3ish hours or so to play, take pictures and write each of them up.  To save time, I started to write up the pre-battle notes – the one sentence background, work out translating the units into my rules and then deployment.  But then I realised that I really work out deployment by reading different scenarios and then set them out on the table.  So doing it early was going to be hard as I would need to using a drawing tool or (shock) even use pen and paper to write it down.   And I may change my mind by the time I go to playing.  There was only one course open to me I could see – start playing them now! I did not look for other options just in case there were ones that did not have me start playing now 🙂

To keep in manageable, I will stick to doing at least 11 games. I have now given myself an extra week but I am also attempting to be a realist (or releasing my inner slacker).  If I do more than 11 games it will be a bonus.  I want to do at least 11 games.  This will take me from the last few Successor Wars battles to the start of the 2^nd Punic War.  Because I have also stuck with the target of 11 games, I have also included a secondary  target to base about 150 15mm painted dark age figures and 150 15mm painted Chinese figures I got from eBay about 5 years ago but have been sitting in the drawer since then.  Last year I began fixing my ancient armies one at a time (mostly fixing spears etc but a little rebasing as well) but got halfway and stopped (in November 2015 – there is a pattern).

There will still be WW2 games played, but I am very excited about getting back to Ancients after a break away.  You never know, I may even start replaying the same ancient battle with different rulesets again!

Lastly, here is a shot of one of Eumenes’s elephants having just charged through some opposing skirmishers:

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