[Simon Miller]

A round table could work with a single mini, ship or tank fixed at the centre, and the limit of the table representing its line of sight. The terrain and foes could then move relative to the mini…   Might be fun for space combat.

[Simon Miller]

I recall one cracking Raphia at Partizan, where two players on the Seleucid side didn’t co-operate very well, and got distracted, and a small gap opened in their line.  The opposing Ptolemaic player was a quiet 12 year old boy called Tim, who I think they had barely noticed. Against my advice but with an astonishing series of cards, he moved a unit into the gap, turned it 90 degrees and rolled up the Seleucid line, winning the game in a turn.

[Simon Miller]

Command and Colors is a great game; I used to play a heck of a lot of C&C with miniatures.  I’ve not yet played Lost Battles, although several chums swear by it.  Lots of people swear DURING To the Strongest. 😉

[Simon Miller]

For historical scenarios , such as these, we set up for both sides. However for a standard two player game there are rules for placing terrain, scouting, deployment and (somewhat occasionally) flank marches and ambushes. In terms of game play, it’s mostly about deciding the order in which units activate; and being lucky!

[Simon Miller]

[Simon Miller]

Ancient (medieval and renaissance) battles were generally very different from the WSS; generally both sides turned up, deployed parallel to each other, and marched forwards. If you look at deployment plans for Ruspina and Gaza, they are parallel.  90% or more ancient battles have parallel deployment.  I could have inclined the wings but then they wouldn’t have been Ruspina and Gaza. Also, ancient generals generally picked flat plains to fight on; there are loads of battles without even a hillock or piece of shrubbery; terrain got in the way of the complicated business of fighting.

The WSS is one of the first periods where armies tended to deploy at angles to each other, taking advantage of terrain features, refusing wings at 30 and 45 degree angles, per the above plan. I’d not use a square grid for the WSS.

[Simon Miller]

Re the picture. although the game in the foreground used the whole table, the further game had 2′ of space on each wing for manoeuvring.

Both the battles were historical refights, fought on flat plains. I could have stuck in a mountain and some forests, but it might have offended the purists. 😉

[Simon Miller]

Very nice!   A great arrangement of the minis.

[Simon Miller]

Hi Sam,

The Goths at Adrianople 378 (just after arrival inside the Empire) already had a substantial cavalry contingent.  OTOH the Germans at Strasbourg 357 preferred to dismount their cavalry, either because they were less effective or less numerous  than their  Roman equivalents.   So there was perhaps a bigger emphasis on cavalry in the East.  But not a lot of data points as far as I know.

Best, Simon

[Simon Miller]

I don’t think we will ever be able to know about the proportion of mounted Goths, Vandals etc, it is much debated.

Sarmatians and Huns, though, I would think would almost all be mounted, especially the latter, who weren’t short a bob or two.  Both of these races were famous amongst the Romans for always riding.  Some once “proved” that the Huns couldn’t all have have been mounted by calculating the available pasturage in Hungary, but I’ve read arguments against that.

I’ve played some of Simon MacDowall’s Comitatus games and there are a lot of cavalry about, and dense masses of German and gothic foot.

[Simon Miller]

Romans wearing plaid isn’t impossible; a friend recently painted his Alaudae legion, raised in Gaul from Celts, with plaid cloaks.  And the Roman General Caecina scandalised Roman society by wearing plaid in 69AD.

http://bigredbat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/aulus-caecina-alienus-and-salonina.html

 

[Simon Miller]

These days I’m more inclined to mix tunic colours, as the tunics were provided by their owners.  I use off-white, terracotta, red, dark red and sometimes browns, but I don’t think it would be wrong to use an even wider range of colours.

[Simon Miller]

Another day, another Roman army; this time Late Romans painted by mate Craig Davey.  http://bigredbat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/equites-honoriani-seniores.html

[Simon Miller]

Thanks Garry!

I think the new Italians look very nice, and I’ll have a look at them when they become available.  I will complete my “consular army” with Aventines, though, for the sake of consistency (and because I really like them!).

[Simon Miller]

Yes they look very effective!

[Simon Miller]

I like them, too; very expressive faces!

[Simon Miller]

Finished those Hastati from the last post:

More photos on the blog!

BigRedBatCave

 

[Simon Miller]

JEalous; I particularly want to see the Appian way, and the fortifications.  And the rest!    Some day I want to go all Belisarian.

Yes definitely one to do out of season.

[Simon Miller]

Hi James,

I must say that I had no idea we were so close to Trasimene until a week before the holiday, it was a happy coincidence.  Next year, I would very much like to visit Rome, or perhaps Istanbul…  However I find a suitable strategy is to pick one’s battlefield (quietly), and then find a compelling touristic reason to visit the locality.  🙂  I’d love to visit Chaeronea one day

The photos were taken last Friday.  The weather (before our visit) had been unseasonably wet, so everything was rather greener than it would normally be at this time of year.  The hills are fairly steep and wooded; just the place for one’s Gauls.   Although the tree canopy is thick, I don’t imagine that the woods would be particularly hard to move through, although keeping formation would be out of the question, and cavalry would need to lead their horses.  The woods would likely conceal troops marking down from the ridge.

A steep-tree lined slope would make a great backdrop for a future game…

Best, Simon

[Simon Miller]

For James; I took some shots of trees and vegetation in the Trasimene area.  Perhaps useful if you tackle it again, one day.  Far more trees than I had imagined… photos of individual trees on the blog.

Bigredbatcave

[Simon Miller]

Yes some of the infantry definitely used dracos (especially the auxilia), although some of the legiones would have retained their eagles, and I should imagine that there were plenty of vexillae about, too.

So far all of my infantry units have dracos; I’m going to do some eagles for the legiones soon.

[Simon Miller]

I have a set of green flocked boards that I use for Northern Europe and another set of dusty grey-brown boards (my Zama boards) that I use for the south.   The minis are on grey brown bases with clumps of grass and look OK with both.

re Trebian above, I was taking pics today of the Lake Trasimene area with a future game in mind.   by the lake, there were many more Italian girls in bikinis than I had expected to see from accounts of the battle.  ;-).   Also far more trees on the hills.  Unless the terrain has changed (always possible) it would have been very easy to conceal a dozen Carthaginian armies in the area, and very easy for them to approach the road under cover.  There would also have been a substantial marshy shoreline with reed banks behind the Romans.  A terrain-rich battlefield!

[Simon Miller]

Re Cremona, thanks Phil!

I would say that the larger the battle, the simpler the rules need to be.  Also when a lot of players are involved, there is much to be said for simple IGO-UGO turns.

The 3rd Century Romans are a lovely range, and I plan to raise a small army of them in due course.

[Simon Miller]

Lovely work!   Great basing, too.

[Simon Miller]

Yes I should imagine that would work very well.  I also used some Crusader minis for this (Ancient Oscans), but I prefer the Aventines.

[Simon Miller]

There were some battles where a hill, wood or stream did have an impact.  Terrain may have had an impact in other battles, but this may not have been recorded.  And some sorts of terrain, like the stone wall that was so important at Fredericksburg, wouldn’t make a material difference in a pre-gunpowder battle.

I’ve recently been thinking that my battlefields look a bit sparse, and plan to make some fields and other terrain features that will only be there for aesthetic purposes.

[Simon Miller]

Thanks chaps! This is a WIP shot of the Allied Hastati and Triarii, that I am refurbishing for our Pydna game at Partizan. They are almost finished, now.

blog

 

[Simon Miller]

Really like those, Keith!  Love the scales and tassles.

[Simon Miller]

Thanks!  Simon

[Simon Miller]

I have finished basing another couple of maniples; this time allies:

Really lovely painting on these; I could never do a job on the flesh and faces like this. More on t’blog:

http://bigredbat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/allied-principes.html

[Simon Miller]

Zama? Pah. Skirmish. 😉

[Simon Miller]

Great looking armies, James! I don’t imagine I’ll ever have half that many Republican Romans. But watch out for our Partizan game, there will be quite a few of those Roman blighters there, if all my mates turn up. 🙂

[Simon Miller]

I do like my Romans, James. If only their opponents had been a bit more regular and easy to paint, I’d get more of them painted. At some point late this year I’ll shift to Greeks, for a bit…

[Simon Miller]

Hi Mike,

I’d rather been thinking of a sub-gallery for painted stuff within the ancients page, but I don’t even know whether the technology permits that.  I do agree about wading through stuff one isn’t interested in.  Happy to start a thread, I’ll do that later on today.

Best, Simon

[Simon Miller]

Doh, spelling!

[Simon Miller]

I played a game of Warmaster Ancients, once.    There were some mechanics that left me feeling uncomfortable; it seemed that the closer one got to the enemy, the more manouevrable one’s units were.  However I was up against a very game-y player, and he may have been bending the rules.  I have heard it suggested that Hail Caesar does some of the same things that Warmaster does, but rather better.

Hail Caesar is, as someone else posted, a good game if one’s mates are affable and chilled and rather less good if they are competitive or had a hard day at work.   Also, because commands often fail to activate, it’s best if each player has a couple of commands and some decent generals.  Playing Black Powder, I once had a friend who failed all his rolls and couldn’t move for around 90 minutes of game play, and who consequently lost the will to live.

[Simon Miller]

Hi Henry,

Aside from the rules that I’ve been writing*, I also have a lot of time for Command and Colors.  No two games are the same, and there is a combination of lots of luck yet also a good deal of skill.  A lot of people seem to be enjoying Impetus, and the big bases really do permit great modelling; trouble for me that is I don’t like measuring and want grid-based.

As far as scale goes, I don’t think scale matters so much these days, with so many rules being based around units with the same frontage, and no figure removal.  I was looking at a chap’s Republican Romans in 6mm on LAF, today, really lovely.  Have seen some lovely 10mm armies, too.  Ancient armies have lots of long pointy sticks, and pikes don’t look great to me in 6mm, so I might look at 10 or 15mm if it was me.

Simon

*Regarding which I am naturally somewhat biased

[Simon Miller]

Some people will have want anonymity for good reasons, but it will be nice to see real names where possible.

Anyhow, I am thinking about changing my “handle” to Tango01.  😉

 

[Simon Miller]

Hi Henry!

I guess we need some posts, now.  I’ll make a proper one, later.

[Simon Miller]

Hi Keith.  I like the way the site displays real names; this might help to keep some of the less desirable element away.  Simon

[Author]

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