2nd April, Bletchley MK (overview)

THE SOCIETY OF ANCIENTS BATTLEDAY 2016

This year's SoA Battleday was a well attended full house - a sunny day in the now well-established Sycamore Hall venue.  There were a lot of legionaries ...

(the Pharsalus BattleDay ... just out of shot, C&C, To the Strongest and Piquet)

The day started with an informative introduction by Lost Battles author Prof. Phil Sabin of Kings College and a lively Q&A.

There were 13 games being run on the day with some overlaps within 12 basic ancient wargame systems.  I'll give you snapshots of them in alphabetical order ...

You will see a couple of overlaps there: two DBA variants - a Big Battles variant focusing on part of the battleline, and my own 'Double' battle configured in depth similar to my treatment of Zama some years back ...

And Lost Battles appears twice ... once in the familiar Sabin/Cruttenden/Waller presentation, and then in a dual focus game which used Lost Battles for the big picture and Hail Caesar for the closer view.

Variable resolution might be one of the features of the day, as the Piquet game also sought to change focus (you might notice, on the general picture of the game above, a couple of magnification zones that up the scale) ...

(Pharsalus ... smaller scale figures: Civitates Bellantes)

... and smaller scale figures ... Pharsalus was a colossal battle and many presenters seem to have felt that smaller scales captured it battle (or games that mixed sharper focus with the big picture) ... 15mm predominated as usual but 10, 6 and 2 had a lot to say.

(Pharsalus ... smaller scale figures: Double DBA) 

I will put a report on my own game in separate blog (to follow) and wrap up the overview here.

It seemed a great success with some new approaches, some big games and lots of legionaries ...

(Pharsalus ... lots of legionaries: Armati)

Well done the Society of Ancients ... another great battle recreated!