[Adam Hayes]

As has been mentioned, once you stray away from the Egyptians there is not a lot of hard evidence for the makeup of armies of the Bronze Age. Certainly not enough to make judgements about the proportion of troop types in any given force. Many armies were of the Hurrian or Hittite model where a war leader called upon his vassals and allies to provide soldiers for a campaign or defence of an area. This allows you to rationalise quite a variety amongst a gathered host.

[Adam Hayes]

Great idea! I was similarly inspired after I read that book for the first time. I still have a big box of South Seas natives in 25mm sitting around somewhere (never painted of course!) In 15mm it is at least easier to convert figures to a different use just with a clever paintjob. Irregular and Old Glory have Chinese and Indians in 15mm that might be a basis to start from for the headhunters.

[Adam Hayes]

Those look like they stepped right off the page of an Osprey volume.

[Adam Hayes]

There were a lot of very fine Indian armies on display, it was sad that they were mostly going to their doom. The Indians should generally do better though as they won’t often be fighting such a high quality opponent as Alexander’s Macedonians.

[Adam Hayes]

Very good. Did the job, awoke my interest in”yet another” set of Napoleonic rules.

[Adam Hayes]

Very confusing indeed! Looks like an up to date attempt at the classic Spencer Smith plastic figures at around 100 times the price!  The Minifigs logo looks a lot like the classic British company (now owned by Caliver.) I wonder if there is any link?

[Adam Hayes]

The game we tried at the weekend in preparation for the SOA Battle Day in March, threw this subject into stark relief. The game mirrored history pretty much to a tee, so scenario objective acheived(?)  Our post-game discussion was about how or whether to tweak it so that there was more to life for the Indian players than inevitable doom at the pike ends of the deadly Macedonians.

http://wargamewarrior.webs.com/apps/blog/show/42625983-hydaspes-test-game

 

Piquet doesn’t usually suffer from any charges of predictability, so there is every chance that some very minor tweaks could change a stroll in the park to an edge of the seat nailbiter for the Macedonians. We will see on the day. *

 

(*2 practise games would be an indulgence!)

[Adam Hayes]

I remember Asgard doing some very nice little elephants in15mm.  Cannot for the life of me remember what army for! (We are going back over thirty years mind you…)

[Adam Hayes]

Iannick wrote:

Lovely! Nice unit. I’m currently working on some Canaanite archers. I love the Foundry biblical range.

They are excellent aren’t they? I had to drag myself away from them with what was left of my willpower when I was up there last week!  (Didn’t know then there was a harpist I didn’t have.. Curses!)

[Adam Hayes]

Please let us know what you end up trying and how successful the historicity end of things works.  (I’ll stop using that word now I promise !)

[Adam Hayes]

willz wrote:

Whilst at Bovington war-game show this year I was talking to the “Warlord games” rep and he said they had plans to release 18th century figures. Now I am not sure if this is true of just polite sales talk to get me to purchase some of their products but it would be nice. Strange with the explosion of hard plastic figures that no decent 18th century figures have been produced (sorry “Wargames Factory” but your figures just are the wrong shape) what’s even stranger the only decent 30mm plastic figures are Spencer Smiths (yes I know they are not the best cast, but come on 1960 odd they were produced. We are in 2014 now). So please sculptors and figure producers take the bit by the horns and produce some correctly proportioned 28-30mm hard plastic 18th century figures.

Perrys’ AWI figures are the exception I would have to say. Almost make me want to do an imagi-nation just to have a use for them!

[Adam Hayes]

Well, now we have established that we are all  promiscuous where miniatures are concerned 🙂 …  My  Spencer Smiths have  all been replaced by Front Rank figures but the Hinchliffe  cadre  are still doing good service.  They have also been joined by Foundry and Crusader SYW latterly which are good and fit in with the Front Rank.  If I was forced to choose just one range it would probably  be the Conquest FIW figures (although the Ebor GNW range looks really excellent, the Warfare Miniatures GNW figures are very good and… Oh no, here we go again!)

[Adam Hayes]

I’ve only played the basic version of Imprtus, didn’t notice an inordinate number of melee outcomes(?)  Piquet has: Win, Narrow win, Narrow loss,  Loss, Loss and rout, Loss and rout unralliable. Seems like plenty to me.

[Adam Hayes]

There is I suspect some circular logic causing you problems there.  “Reasonably historical rules” would tend  to be designed so that  the historic victors have a built-in  presupposition of superiority.   A more level playing field would leave  the generalship to the players and  encourage the use of  actual tactics not the supposed winning sides tactics.  Beneath the Lily Banners is the rule set that i have used for big games. It straddles the two approaches with probably a lean towards gameplay  as opposed to historicity (is that a word?)

[Adam Hayes]

Do you include the battles in Ireland?  I have played in a couple of those with 70+ units a side. Works very well and is  anyone’s victory for the taking.  IIRC the League of Augsburg have also done European battles of a similar scale…  http://www.leagueofaugsburg.com/gallery/gallery-146-278.html

 

[Adam Hayes]

Piquet: Cartouche 2 for most battles. Donnybrook for skirmishes and Beneath the Lily Banners for Marlburian and Great Northern War.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Adam Hayes.

[Adam Hayes]

My oldest attraction in 18th C. warfare was the Indian armies, brought to life by a series of articles in some of the earliest issues of Miniature Wargames.  My first armies were Spencer Smith plastic figures painted up as Austrians and Reichsarmee after I had read Duffy’s ” The Army of Maria Theresa.” Managed to get to do Indians later once the Foundry Sikh Wars figurea appeared and provided perfect cavalry. Still probably  my favourite altough I have now further expanded into late 17th C. War of the Grand Alliance (it’s all tricorny) which is fun too.

[Adam Hayes]

Lovely figures, is the chap with the harp Foundry?

[Adam Hayes]

James,

I place equal blame with and the Perrys for one of the foothills in my lead mountain 🙁

(lovely army)

Adam

[Adam Hayes]

The ancients rules that I have been playing and enjoying for the last 15 years or so are Archon 2, the Piquet period supplement that covers up armies up to around 1200 AD. I thoroughly enjoy the games using these rules for many reasons: there is an inbuilt command and control / fog of war mechanism that eliminates a lot of the predictability of igo ugo turn sequence games. There is also a real ebb and flow of battle which mirrors quite well the descriptions of real actions and causes every game to be an enjoyable, edge-of-the-seat affair, with the chance that things will turn your way however bad the situation that you find yourself in.

There is also a lot of scope to give different armies idividual character. The troop types within the force can be described by their training grade, armour, allowed formations and the chance on any given day that they will be battle weary or at a fever pitch of enthusiasm for the current fight. (I do like that there is a small chance that your Praetorian elite guard unit will be having an off day or that levied peasant might be feeling well up for it!)  The army as a whole can also have suibtle variation in its character; keener on shooting or getting stuck in, better or worse at formation changes or rallying or superior in close terrain.

There aren’t many rulesets that would allow a game with the smaller army outnumbered almost 2 to 1 to still see off the enemy by having a superior overall plan and seizing the opportunities when they  presented themselves.

http://wargamewarrior.webs.com/apps/blog/show/42524096-the-battle-of-utica

 

Hmmm sounding like a bit of a zealot there Ultimately I have found over many years that it is the company not the rules that make for an enjoyable game and I’ll paly whatever is offered if someone has gone to the trouble to organise a game.

[Adam Hayes]

Wow those Spencer Smiths  bring back memories.

My painting table is moderately organised (for me) at the moment. Mostly finished: Italian gendarmes, Triari an Bactrian Greeks have been shoved to one side whilst I knuckle down to Alexander the Great’s Hypaspists, Companions and pikemen for the Society of Ancients Hydaspes game in March. I might inflict a photo on you later if  I am feeling brave…

[Adam Hayes]

Using the terrain to your advantage is one of the skills of a general, real or tabletop. I expect that competition gamers don’t  want the inconvenience of it interrupting their carefully designed cheeses tactics…

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