Newbury Racecourse 13th - 14th September

Where have we been since Partizan?Sorry to regular visitors for the uncharacteristic gap in posting - work and other issues have meant a few items have backed up a bit. Well here goes - lets get caught up...
Colours 2008
September always brings the prospect of a pleasant day out at Newbury Racecourse - now the long established home of Colours. It always seems to be a sunny day - and the big windows characteristic of these racecourse venues flood the exhibition spaces with light. Vapnartak is similar. Sometimes this is a disadvantage - especially if you are too near the windows ... but I, for one, would much prefer plenty of natural sunshine to the dismal corners one gets in some pokier spaces. Nice turn out this year, and plenty of good games around - photogenic too.

my 'postcard from colours'

Colours is a two day show, and we usually have the 'A team' - Philip Sabin with something from Strategos or Lost Battles and the impressive Eric Cruttenden 28mm collection (see the entry for Salute, e.g.) to give it shape and figure appeal - on saturday, with Shows North taking over on Sunday. This year, we had a bit of a manpower issue, so I went on both days ... manning the stand on Saturday, putting on Welcome to Jerusalem on the Sunday. A bit of a strain, time-wise, but a great weekend ... affording time both to meet people and work on the project. Most of the significant historians and wargames personality of the age were calling in on the Society stand on Saturday, so it was an interesting place to be all day (and if the promises I managed to extract on behalf of our august journal are redeemed, Slingshot will have some good reading coming up!).

Saturday


In a very impressive last minute revision, Philip Sabin presented a scaled up version of the new Society game - Roma Invicta ... 6' x 6' of relief map, with 10mm figures replacing the counters used in the standard game. The vast map was created, Phil tells me, following the 'artroom' tradition of fixing the sheet up on the wall, then painting in over an image projected onto it. The effect was them enhanced by building up the back to raise up the contours. Very impressive.

The game was virtually the same as that issued out earlier this year, just everything boosted up. Clearly the way to present a boardgame at a public show - and it attracted a lot of visitors and favourable comment. Good show, and a worthy variation on our usual displays, I think.


The map follows that issued with the game. Troop counters were
replaced with 10mm figures (1: 1,000 horsemen/2,000 foot)

Sunday
Sunday saw the Shows North team take over, and the up-dated 'Welcome to Jerusalem' game back up to full size. A quieter day, as usual, on the Sunday - but a good chance to play through what we had learnt from the Partizan experiment and put the full display together.

The key zone, of course, is the area around the walls, within range, through which the assault parties will move. The garrison needs space to move about inside the city - and some rules for doing this, too ... but outside, and beyond the range of the defenders, the space is very much decorative (and/or available for game components, charts etc.)... As the defenders aren't really going anywhere, there is very little point forming any assault parties up outside shooting range. And it is probably not that realistic either (although they would obviously move up from the camp or whatever, the point at which they would form up for combat would probably be as they come into range of shooters on the walls). This will need to be a deployment feature of any full 'siege system' for FoG. And probably in an ambush variant also (so that surprise attacks can be launched). More anon.

In 1099, of course, the surprise assault failed. The main attack centred on two mobile towers, one - under the control of Raymond of St Giles threatening the southern approaches - the other, featured in our game, attacking the north east corner. Raymond's tower was burnt by incendiaries, and abandonned. The northern attack was under the leadership of Godfrey de Bouillon. Although his tower was also on fire, it was close enough to the walls for the troops to gain the battlements. As in the game we played at Colours, the successor failure of the incendiary weapons will be critical to the outcome. History seems to give us a tantalising 50/50!


Will had taken Godfrey's role, and the tower -largely undamaged - duly gave forth its complement of assault troops. The results were not good for the wavering Fatimid defenders. They were put to the sword, and the Crusaders flooded into the city. Elsewhere, the ladder parties were struggling to get a foothold - but the collapses elsewhere undermined the resolve all round.

Many thanks to John Curry and Matthew Bennett for important contributions, and to the players for helping us move the project on.

Next time out will be at Derby.

See you there, I hope!

Newark 7th September

Kelham Hall - The Other Partizan

The Society of Ancients and the Lance & Longbow Society back together again for a combined 'ancient and medieval' zone ...

And yes, Dave, I'm sorry. I have been attending shows at Kelham Hall for a decade - but somehow the A1's lack of junction numbers can still leave me confused. Jinxed from previous visits, we were on schedule this time at least not to be late ... then somehow just cruised past the junction and on for about 15 miles before even realising. In total, the unscheduled round trip was 45 miles. Fantastic! Why does this nonsense happen?

Ah, well. Thanks to everyone for their help and patience.


Tell you what, though ... like all the recent Partizans, it was a great day, once we got going. And that's the main thing. Historical wargaming, and meeting fellow enthusiasts.

We had decided to follow up the popular *Crusader battle using Field of Glory* formula we had tried at Claymore, but this time reviving one of my earlier scenarios, Welcome to Jerusalem (the first Crusade 1099 siege of the Holy City)...

I had first devised this game in time to do the shows circuit back in 1999, the 900th anniversary year of the city's fall. After a fair bit of experimentation with (then) fashionable rules, I opted to write the scenario around the more traditional Medieval Warfare by Slim Mumford (so-called Mumford's Siege Rules ...).

These are still available from the Society of Ancients, and are a classic. The nearest contemporary equivalent would be Warhammer Ancient Battles: Medieval Warfare assumes you use individually-based figures and retains that skirmishy feel, with characters dicing for hits, making saving rolls for armour etc. - but with very little instruction on how to play (just a framework of mechanisms and modifiers around which you have to develop your game yourself ... ).. Ideal for adapting to scenarios, and lots of ideas for the big equipment already built in for assault games.

I think individual (sometimes heroic) characterisation has its place in siege games, however grand the notional scale. So often, in history, citadels hold or fall according to the success of one man
at the top of one ladder! The Crusades is also one of those eras rich in heroic personalities - and, like the medieval chronicles we base them on, I think we really want the Bohemonds, Stephens and Godfrey de Bouillons of legend to shine through our games. So any scenario or adaptation will need to balance the modern player's desire to use armies based up for current (often quite abstract) battlegames with the asymmetries of siege warfare and the dynamic contributions of the individual.

(a medieval style Godfrey de
Bouillon in the Crusader camp)

There has been chat, on one forum or another, of whether the very new Field of Glory might work for a siege game - and in terms of its actual game structure, no obvious reason why it wouldn't. And the equipment built for the Jerusalem assault has long been gathering dust. It seemed like a worthy challenge.

For Partizan, we devised some basic accommodations of the equipment and kit into Field of Glory (we replaced most of my 'Mumford' single figures with bases of troops from Chris's DBx Norman army - the singletons would now serve as equipment markers or similar, as appropriate - artillery would be 'bases' as in the battlegame, Siege Engines - towers ans such like - we would have to experiment with as the game progressed) ... and set about devising a list of potential points of advantage for shooting, impact melee etc. What would be Complex Moves? ... what additional factors might need adding into the Cohesion Tests and modifiers (incendiaries?) ... how might we go about the whole process of hitting/destroying siege engines ....

So, with limited space and a lot of question marks, we set up a very simple array - a shallow playing area with some assault parties lined up ready to go, a modest artillery battery to worry the defenders, and some homesick Fatimids lining the walls (determined to keep the Franks out - but unlikely to hang around once an incursion was achieved).



Each part comprised the equipment and/or markers (rams, ladders, axes, mantlets etc.) and a BG's worth of conventionally based Normans to indicate the strength, take the casualties and do the fighting.



The main function of the colossal Beam Slings would be to cause Cohesion Tests on the defenders (the odd 'disruption' result being likely to influence the chances of the ladders parties..)..

The defender artillery were equipped with incendiaries - we decided a simple Complex Move Test (pass or fail) would be sufficient to indicate whether an artillery group's shooting going to be normal or volatile ... the volatile hits igniting the target and causing extra panic for the crews.

(yes, those are Airfix walls -

a great job they do, in 15mm)

Who wins? Well for a full siege or assault game, that's an interesting balance - given that there won't always be a 'fair' balance of resources between the forces. In 1099, the issue was clear cut - if the Crusaders get in, they have won, and the defenders have lost. If all of their equipment is lost or destroyed, or the assault parties flee, the day's endeavours will be called off - and the Fatimids have won (for now, at least ...)...



Well, suffice to say this was just a preliminary outing - a chance to give it a go and get some opinion as much as anything. We were able to play through the sequences enough to see that the game will work, Field of Glory will provide a suitable platform, and that the Crusader siege of 1099 has lost none of its appeal to the showgoing enthusiast.

I will update information as this project progresses - and assuming it is all working, will build up the FoG Siege Game resource as problems are solved/fixed. Follow it here, and I will let you know as/where material gets collected.

Thanks to everyone who helped or took part - whether playing or chewing over some of the ideas. I got a lot out of both forms of involvement, and I hope you will join in again.

We are going to do all this again on Sunday, on the Society of Ancients stand at Colours (Newbury Racecourse - see the link in the side panel) ... Come along and join in if you are free.

Thanks to Chris for his assistance, figures and pictures - and thanks, too, Mike T. for some excellent ideas.

Manchester 15 -17 August

Britcon 2008 - University of Manchester

Richard Sullivan, Marketing Director of Osprey Publishing presents the Society of Ancients Sportsmanship Award to Pete Dalby at the conclusion of Britcon 2008 - the UK's National Wargames Convention.

The trophy is presented to the top player from scores awarded by their opponents over the six games. Congratulations to Pete who - whilst earning the respect of his fellow players - also scored enough game points to come third in the Field of Glory (15mm) event. Our thanks to everyone who participated in this scheme. It relies on the support of the players.

Great job, too, from all the event sponsors - the stacks of prizes at Britcon just seems to get bigger and bigger.

Show or no show, Britcon is about wargaming - and ancient period wargaming at that. A quick tally on my fingers suggests that over 120 players took part in the ancients categories this year. With so many players involved, the choice of many Committee members and activists is to enter the events over the weekend - so our thanks also must go to Dave, Steve and co on the Lance and Longbow Society stand for covering the Society of Ancients pitch as well.

Because of the big 'ancients' audience attending the event, we picked Britcon for a special promotion of the revamped Slingshot. Hopefully, any non-members who attended the show were able to get a complimentary copy of the July issue as part of their 'show goodies'. OK, a bit of showing off - we are proud of what the upgrading has been able to achieve ... but we also realise that the very best effect will be if the 'flip appeal' of the journal encourages a few more fellow enthusiasts to come join us.

Successive editors have done a great job maintaining the traditionally high standards of historical and wargames content and independent commentary. We must ensure that the production qualities draw as numerous and diverse a readership as that content merits. As I said to the many interested browsers at Britcon, joining up on-line couldn't be easier ... there is more information and a Paypal button at the website (here ...), and, if you want to get more details of what you'll find inside Slingshot, the editor maintains a contents and support page (here ...) . The Society, of course, offers an extensive range of publications and games written by our members, and, as well as Slingshot, membership brings access to that publishing scheme, special prices on Society goods, together with a long list of trader discounts between 5 and 25 %.

OK - that's what the show team did at Britcon ... we played wargames and gave out complimentary copies of Slingshot. What else went on? Well, part of the ceiling collapsed, it rained (OK, it's Manchester ... it rains ...) ... we celebrated the 50th birthday of a well-known Wargames Society President ... Mike Bennett won the DBM event ... Steve Metheringham won the Armati ... Ian Speed won the Field of Glory 25mm category, Stuart Whigham the DBMM.
The big one, the 62 player Field of Glory 15mm event was won by Graham Evans, and former SoA Committee man, Tony Garry, won the Warhammer Ancient Battles. Congratulations to all of them.

Indeed, current Committee members were not far behind. I'm sure you'll indulge me slipping in a snap of SoA Treasurer receiving his 3rd place award in the 25mm FoG event. Congratulations to Richard, who has found the time - in amongst keeping the ship afloat and resourcing the new Slingshot - to learn a new set of wargames rules more comprehensively than the rest of us ... (or that's what the results say, anyway ..).

The rest of the show teamers? Well, we gave it all our best shot in respectable mid table obscurity, Chris with his Later Crusaders, me with Hawkwood's 'old fashioned' Florentines...

OK, I did get a few photos, but I must confess that Field of Glory (certainly for us beginners) does take a bit of playing, and the Britcon schedule is very compressed. Why do wargamers want to start at 8.15 on a Saturday morning? With game time an issue, I much prefer the challenge of responding to a randomly drawn 'pre-set terrain' table than do all that faffing about to set up every game from scratch. I've done many rounds of the FoG set up game, now. It works. It doesn't look great (the BHGS gave up its half-hearted incentivizing of presentation a while back ...) .. and although it is less 'gamey' than DBM (in truth much of it is a return to the BHGS version of DBM), it is still player manipulated, so is still artificial. Of course, the price of playing over such a player manipulated felt landscape is getting up unreasonably early and not having any proper breaks. I hope the BHGS rethink this aspect of an otherwise great weekend. We should have a more civilized mix of game time and social time (and start time...)..

Hawkwood's lot? Oh, they suffer the usual non-Roman Italian prejudices in the FoG list (everything drops a morale grade because they're Italian - even if they are veterans of the 100 Years War ...) - just like the WRG games.... Never understood that. Historically, these are the most accomplished, experienced and professional armies in the history of medieval Europe. But in FoG it's low grade because it isn't English, French or Serbian. So its cheaper, but needs to keep very compact and mutually supportive.

I like it because it looks great, it is unashamedly Italian, has as good a mix of flags and banners as it does of troop types - and you can command it with the Diabolical Englishman .. the greatest soldier of the age. Oh yes, the condottieri never were broken, and, without ever routing, the army won more games than it lost.

Good games. Thanks everyone.

Field of Glory vs Armati: revisiting the Arsuf show game

Claymore: After Action Report

This report does not attempt to give a fair and comprehensive review of Field of Glory. It does attempt to tell you what happened when we set up our Shows North Armati scenario (here ...) for Arsuf, then played through it with Field of Glory.

The game should have a chance of working ... the scenario's orders of battle followed the historical encounter as best we could accommodate it, and both games are unit-based (in FoG they are called battlegroups - BGs). One of the differences between the games is that in FoG, the BG size is variable, where as in Armati the unit sizes (within any given troop type) are uniform. In practice, we made the (few) Saracen Heavy units into 4-base BGs, but amalgamated the Turcomans and LI/SI foot roughly so that their Armati divisions became FoG BGs (of 6 bases).

On the Crusader side, we similarly kept the HI units the same (4s), grouped the main body Knights into 4s, and amalgamated all the Turcopoles into a single 4-base BG. This left both the Templar and Hospitaller Knights (the vanguard and rearguard) with just a pair of bases each. Historically these were pretty small contingents, and the 2-base knight BG does exist in FoG (just not in the Late Crusader list) - so we decided to leave them as little elite units ... to see what would happen.

The Armati scenario listed quite a few commanders, and all can be played in Field of Glory. We rated Saladin an Inspired Commander, and his subordinate (who commanded the army on the day), Takedemus, as a Field Commander. Richard we also played as a Field Commander, with the rest of the Crusader hierarchy as Troop Commanders. This was less a judgement on relative ability as on behaviour ... the Saracen leaders exercising command from afar, the Crusader lords being much more tightly lined up with their men. The balance - a couple of long range commanders v. a cluster of limited and local ones - seemed to work fine...

Deployment, approach to battle etc.

This phase of the of the Field of Glory game worked better than expected. I knew that the FoG systems would be handy with respect to the Crusaders deploying from the march. I was a little more concerned about move distances and shooting ranges (as these are much longer in Armati): I didn't want us to have ended up with the forces too far apart, and spending all day on the approach. In fact, although you do have to get quite close to make the shooting effective, FoG has very few complications until you get there, so, like Armati, you can get on with it (gone are all those excruciating hours of irrelevant Pip management that DBM made mandatory just in order to get two distant armies to close with each other ... you can get to the proper battlegame quite quickly).

In fact, in our game, the Saracens moved across the plain and closed around the marching Crusader columns in a very similar pattern to the familiar Armati envelopment (both games encourage proper battle lines, Armati with its manoeuvre divisions, FoG with its commanders moving linear arrays). We quickly got to the phase where the Saracens were shooting, and the Crusader commanders (Chris, ably assisted by a cluster of visitors who seemed pleased to stay with the game) needed to decide how, where and when to drop out of their columns, and organise a proper response to the intensifying harassment.

Armati, of course, normally starts the battle with armies deployed opposite each other, and only allows an (authentically) restricted capacity for units/divisions to turn, wheel, expand etc. A big chunk of the scenario, therefore, sets the parameters for deployment - fixing the orientation and composition of divisions, where and when they can be set up. This is quite complex, but worth the trouble ... as you get to play the game with a very good set of rules.

In this situation, FoG's comprehensive movement and manoeuvre rules are a real winner. For symmetrical set-piece battles, they are undoubtedly over elaborate (and if you were playing any of the open field Hoplite battles, you really ought cross most of the 'Simple and Complex Moves' page out). Here, it saves all the extra rules the Armati scenario needs. Everyone can turn to face the enemy, BG's can deploy with gaps in between ... Knights can deploy on a one-base width in order to charge through the gaps in the Crusader infantry line (and expand later and/or in the melee if they can bring one about ...) ... all pretty much as we imagine it must have happened. Again, there are issues of balance to achieve: although the Crusader infantry was seasoned, and (on this march) evidently excellently disciplined, I thought that they ought to take Complex Move Tests to deploy (a CMT is a simple 2D6 dice roll, modifiable around a 50/50 chance)... that would make them 'undrilled' in FoG nomenclature.

Shooting
Keeping the Crusader BGs small certainly helped out this phase of the FoG game. I don't really buy the 'shot = no shot' (no point in rolling the dice...) that commonly happens in the standard game (if twice as many shooting might have an immediate effect, why do smaller numbers shooting for several turns never need even pick up the dice?) . In this game, with the Crusaders in 4s and the military orders pairs, the shooting was consistently exciting. I suspect, in the fullness of time, correctly balancing the BG size of shooter and target will be an important component in designing FoG scenarios. A successful ratio of hits to the target's unit size forces a Cohesion Test, and it is collapsing cohesion which causes BGs to rout. The effects of intense archery gave encouragement to the Turks, and some failed Cohesion Tests forced the Crusaders' hand.

Charge and Chase:
Where FoG does outclass many contemporary games is in its 'old school' sequence of declare charges/evade/dice for evaders-dice for chargers. This makes the whole process legible and exciting (like WRGs 6th and 7th edition) ... whereas Armati is legible but a little predictable - it is all on the 'whole turn' initiative roll - and, of course, DB's abstract way of doing skirmishing was just dull. Here, the sequence follows our understanding of the engagements ... the skirmishers need to get close to get their hits. If the shooting isn't doing too well, the target player will be happy enough to try to move closer without charging. If he takes damage the impulse will be to charge sooner rather than later (either they will run away which might be good, or they will be caught ... which will be better)... Crusades games are all about this interaction ... Knights against Turks ... Shock troops against mounted archers.

Everyone enjoyed this phase of the game. It was obvious that the skirmishing needed to be neutralised, it was equally obvious that the knights and Turcopoles needed to press the attacks home if they weren't to end up pulled out of position and surrounded by hostile archery.

Key Moments...
An important charge was made by the Templar Knights in the vanguard. At the end of the line, the Turcopoles (deployed by us as Light Horse, not Cavalry ..).. were getting the better of a larger unit of Turcomans who had decided to put their faith in numbers.... but the position was still compromised. A successful charge, now, would gain the Crusaders the upper hand. Actually, both target and charger threw 6s , so the charge was futile, and also pulled the Templars way out of position. They survived the shooting phase of their own turn - but the Saracen move saw them assailed from all sides. Although they still passed the Cohesion Test, they had to roll at least a 4 on a death roll not to lose a base. They failed, and in FoG BG's reduced to only one base are dispersed at the end of the turn. This mechanism worked nicely in everyone's opinion: ... the brave Templars surrounded, undefeated and undeterred ... yet shot down to just a few militarily insignificant stragglers. The Saracens looked to be getting the upper hand.

In the centre, it looked no better ... with Cavalry and LH horse archers liberally scattering Cohesion test failures about amongst the infantry. The bigger BGs of Crusader knights committed only to chase vainly after evading Ghilman cavalry ... Again everybody liked the way this passage of play depicted the relative flexibility of the fighting styles.

At this point, the Saracen player (me, that is) made some crucial mistakes .... in the centre, the first of two BGs of knights charged after some (evading) Turcomans. As these knights were disrupted (one rung down the cohesion ladder), some enterprising Ghilman cavalry launched an interception charge. Adjacent, the next Turcoman BG had declined to drop back in front of the other knights (electing to keep in close range of some infantry who had just failed a test ... and trusting to a '35/36's die roll to get away when the knights charged...). Both calls were bad. The evading roll of 1 was not enough to get away from the charging roll of 6. The disrupted knights next door still converted their 'impact' advantage on the Ghilman BG. A disaster, and a losing melee were the twin results.

To grab back the initiative, in the following Saracen turn, I declared a charge with the Saracen guard cavalry on a disrupted BG of 'defensive' Spearmen. A critical point in the line, they could be taken out quite quickly, and the Saracens would be through. Actually, the charge was a catastrophe, and the guards were immediately in trouble.

In the space of a couple of turns, accident and design had produced a rash on contacts across the battlefield, and the Saracens were losing all of them. Those valiant Templars turned out to be the only Crusader BG destroyed in the game (though many were severely worn) - and the battle had become unwinnable. I know how Saladin must have felt. It had all seemed to be going so well....

Afterthoughts ...
This game worked out very well. Field of Glory 'dropped into' a unit-based scenario with very few complications. As a rules set to play 'historical' Crusades, it worked in a clear and entertaining way. In the battle we played, the game's narrative was clear enough... the Saracens seemed to have the upper hand until the player tried to capitalise over-aggressively and found his troops in melee with the Crusaders. They are good at this, and it should be avoided at all costs. The game was lost very rapidly. The Armati game has been played dozens of time, with a very even distribution of results. We played this time with Field of Glory, and the Crusaders won hands down, once Saladin had made his mistakes. Actually, for what it is worth, that is a historical result - but there is no way one can speculate about the balance.


Field of Glory Scenarios: as mentioned before, we thought the 2 BG size for the military orders worked very well, and I suspect it is the right way to go for scenarios. Players would not do this for tournament games, and bigger BGs of military orders knights will be very powerful.

An important way of approaching these balance issues in designing the scenario is listing the units already in partial decline (starting disrupted, or disordered from the defile etc.). We started everyone fresh, but only for ease of set up.

Historically, the general engagement at Arsuf was prompted by the master of the Hospitallers (the rearguard) disobeying Richard's orders not to charge. Obedience is not a problem in the standard FoG game, but will be quite an important feature in developing plausible historical scenarios. There is quite a lot of potential here, and scenario designers have been given a pretty blank canvass.

All in all, a very worthwhile experiment. Field of Glory does 'attack on a marching force' well, and its 'charge and chase' mechanism suits the Crusades period ideally. Whatever the issues of balance maybe for tournament play, everything is there to make FoG an adaptable system for building up interesting historical scenarios. Thanks to everyone who joined in at Claymore.

Oh! Sorry .. Armati versus FoG? Too early to tell. As explained, this is exactly the sort of scenario that suits FoG's game type, and it did very well. The Crusader army and leaders were, however, too disciplined in my view, and in writing a scenario for this battle in future, I would concentrate on making the command and control far more challenging. This battle happened because, despite all the preparation, Richard lost control of the army ... and not its 'greener' European contingents, but its 'professional' military orders.

Edinburgh 2nd August

Claymore 2008


The weekend brought the opportunity to make a long drive up to Edinburgh to SESWC's flagship wargames show, Claymore. Thanks to Colin and the organising team for inviting us ... sorry it took til late on to put our package together, but from our point of view it was well worth the trip. It was a great opportunity to meet so many of our Scottish members for the first time - a big thank you to all of them for calling by and making us feel so welcome. In addition to taking up the Society literature stand and a wad of glossy new Slingshots, we decided that a suitably topical thing to do would be to run an experimental version of our Armati Arsuf Scenario from last year with the new Field of Glory rules.

Topical? Well a combination really. FoG is a topic many ancients enthusiasts are interested in (how do they work, do they give the right 'flavour', how would they cope with historical scenarios etc.)... and the grapevine had already informed me that Dave L had had to cancel the planned Arsuf game that was to form the Lance & Longbow Society's centre-piece. So, with a week to go, there was going to be no Field of Glory at Claymore, no Arsuf presentation, and although Colin had kindly reserved the Society some tables, nobody had volunteered a Society of Ancients game. I thought we could fix all those items.


The downside, necessarily, is that at this stage neither I nor Chris, who assisted, are adept enough, really, to present FoG at a show (neither experts nor practiced). I'm sure that was evident to everyone! Perversely, however, it seemed to work with a fair few fellow enthusiasts all day long. Many of them were just as intrigued as us, and maybe were put at ease by the fact that we were beginners too. The upside was both that a number of visitors were happy to get involved, and that Field of Glory actually did a pretty good job of handling the battle.

Given all the chat, meeting and greeting (and a fair amount of looking things up!), we only played the game through fully, once. However we did work things through to a decisive outcome, with the Saracen army in general retreat. I will post some more detailed feedback in a separate report ... suffice, for now, to say that although Saladin's army got some impressive early results, they were defeated wherever the Crusaders managed to tie them down in hand-to-hand combat. Although this is a pretty obvious feature of a Crusades engagement, in truth, not all rules systems do give that result, and how FoG got us there was both plausible and entertaining.

Special thanks also go to Alan and Phil who volunteered to take charge for a spell around midday - so Chris and I could get some refreshment and have a look round. I was very impressed by a genuinely diverse and eye-catching mix of games (and a fair mix of things to look at and things to play). Best display game was the Battle of Solachon - the last minute stand-in for the Lance & Longbow Society (AD 586, and something Richard might look at in his count down to the 2009 Battle Day ... he already favours Byzantines and Sassanids ..) - yep, I wish I could get games looking that good at the last minute! Best participation game was the RAF Wargames Club's 'Toy Story' and off-beat teatime game with Eureka's engaging range of nursery-style figures coming to life.

Wandering around, my attention was distracted form the Ancient and Medieval theme by a number of good looking games - a couple of good colonial examples which stood out being Dingwalls impressive layout of the
defence of Rorkes's Drift, and the Iron
Brigade's Indian Mutiny game.

Back on topic, the St Helen's and Ashton Spartans (the Phalanx people) had brought a phalanx along. An impressive, and impressively linear refight of the Hydaspes (you can find out more about them and the home-grown rules they use here ...)..

Well, you might be wondering at this stage about that Lance and Longbow Society game ... AD 586? Hmm? I have to say my tongue was stuck firmly in my cheek. It has to be the earliest demo game the LandL Soc have ever put on. As our Arsuf game added to an existing 2008 Society of Ancients Poitiers theme, maybe this signals that Dave will be leaving the Medieval period to us, and opening up their display space to prize-winning games in any related periods. I'm only teasing, of course, and am aware of the last minute changes. Solachon was a good choice (look at the pictures) ... Between ourselves, Phoenix and Lance and Longbow, the advanced information (or lack of it, from us ...) could have been quite misleading ... as it is, Claymore did indeed get the Battle of Arsuf, and a 28mm 'ancients game' - and I think ancient and Medieval enthusiasts got stuff to do and things to look at.


My thanks again to the indulgent people who stopped by, had a chat, helped out etc. You made the day for us. And to our hosts, the SESWC, who had put together an attractive and friendly show - as I'm assured they usually do ... but it's nice, for newcomers, when it's true. We're already working on making some effective arrangements so this and the other Scottish shows can get fuller coverage, and local enthusiasts whatever back-up they might need.

Stoke 20th July

The 2008 Stoke Challenge

Just a brief entry this time. The Stoke Challenge was a day of locally popular games organised into a tournament format: not a show as such, but some of the Shows North team were there, and we were flying the 'ancients' flag. Mark Fry (Armati League) and Jonathan Murphy (Stoke) had organised a Triumph of Cavalry 'one off' Armati Doubles event. There are very few Armati doubles events around, though the format has worked well with other rules sets, and multiplayer games 'at home' are commonplace. There was a little bit of jiggling on the day, as a result of which Mark played one of the armies single-handed, and there was an extra (and well-appointed) Roman Army in the mix (a Ghaznavid army having been left behind ... but that's another story ...)...

I was there to play in the Armati, but there was DBMM also, plus, out of our period, FoW and some Wings of War...(with some familiar faces ...)...

In the Armati event, Chris and I used the 'Triumph of Cavalry' period's jack of all trades army, the Abbassid Arabs, and finished a respectable somewhere in the middle - losing to Craddock and Murphy's Romans (which should have been Ghaznavid), and narrowly getting the better of Mark's Romano British (Arthur and all ...)... There were also 2 Tang Chinese armies. There were one or two rules clarifications to resolve during the day (as much because Armati players are too relaxed to have bothered reading the rules properly as resulting from different interpretations between local players and the League players ...) ... but no real complications with the format, or the extra generals and slightly bigger armies.

OK ... if you must know .... Roy Boss and Rodger Williams won using their Late Roman (Eastern) army, followed by (2nd) Mark Craddock and Jonathan Murphy - Late Roman (Western) - and (3rd) Mark Fry - Romano British.
Thanks to the Stoke organisers for a great day's wargaming. Here's some of those Romans.

Knuston Hall, 4 - 6 July

COW 2008

Conference of Wargamers

Well ... July comes round again ... and time for one of my 'best weekends' of the year ... COW ... The Conference of Wargamers. Wargame Developments' annual weekend of wargaming...

To dispel a few common myths about COW/WD: no - you don't have to be invited to join (you can click the link in the bottom right hand box of this blog for WD's website ... and you can do it all from there...); no - you don't need any special qualifications ... just an interest in wargames, game design and presentation; no - you don't have to wear a cardboard box on your head (but if you think that is the way you can capture a certain something in your game, this is one of the places where no-one will raise an eyebrow!); no, it isn't 'anti-' the Society of Ancients ... and is frequently attended by current and former Officers and activists (... Presidents, Treasurers .. that sort of thing ...)... as well as by the author of the DB WRG games, by the (RFCM) Conquerors and Kings team etc. and many of the SoA games designers ...
From big games with big maps, enabling you to tackle the kind of problem missing from many conventional games , to ....
... little games with little figures, giving a compact session's quirky entertainment, there are few wargame styles missing from the packed COW programme.

For the ancient and medieval enthusiast, Mike Elliott, co-author of 'The Battles of St. Albans' (Pen & Sword books 2007) contributed an engaging illustrated talk on the first battle (1455) - including a positive i-d of the point where the Yorkists broke through the timber buildings and stormed into the town centre - and a run through of a quick-fire WOTR rules set, 'The Sunne in Slendour'....
... details will be appended when I have them. Warlord Japan got varying treatments, from role play to RFCM's new figure game Battles in the Age of War (in which Bushido meets the bloodiest of barons ...). I contributed a development session on a card game inspired by the death of Cleitus ('Dinner with Alexander' ... more on this anon .. it may well make a Slingshot inclusion ...) ... and on Sunday morning, several of us put together an Ancients Mainstream review, discussing and demonstrating the current wealth of options the conventional tabletop battlegamer has to choose from (OK, with a nod to WAB and DBA, and a lot on Armati and FoG ... well it was our session and people were sensible enough to get us to focus on the stuff we know and like...).

Of course, COW is much more than the strand that is directly relevant to the SoA Shows North blog. Excluding impromptu 'bandit' games, the programme was pushing 50 sessions and part of the charm is trying new things. What is noticeable to the ancients enthusiast is perhaps the games less commonly played in our period: both the huge operational and 'mega'/multi-player games, and the individual and skirmish-style games (driven as much by role play and adventure gaming). Few eras have had the tabletop battlegame refined to the level of precision and smoothness as the ancient and medieval period. But every year, COW opens up a wider wargaming experience from which there is still much to learn and develop.

Well, 'enough of all that wishy-washy stuff' I hear you telling your computers, 'what about proper toys on the tables ... ' ... OK .. I finished my COW weekend pushing Byzantines and Turks around in a first go try-out of Impetus, helpfully put together by Fred Cartwright. I have said elsewhere that all the current 'new' games are good and work well - the writers are good at their craft, and our understanding of what the player expects from the period is well tested. The same general presumptions apply to Impetus... it clearly works ... it clearly is a thoughtful treatment of the period. It would be unfair to say much more based just on a first outing (save that all the participants seemed to feel they wanted to see a bit more of it - which is positive) - and the fact that the simplified game is available to download (here ... ) is a bonus many will appreciate.
All in all, a great weekend, plenty to think about, and a wealth of interesting games and ideas.

As for the welcome to ancients enthusiasts - well I'm very grateful to COW
organisers, Tim and Bob, for allowing a little space for the Society to leave
out some of our publications for attendees to browse .. this always allows us
to 'shift' a few games and join up a few new members.

This year, of course, our display included a new visitor to COW - the shiny
new Slingshot ... resplendent in its laminated colour cover. Thank you very
much, everyone who had a look and were kind enough to comment.

The feedback has been very positive - even those fellow travellers who
don't do ancients seemed pleased to see a (now) veteran periodical brought
fully up to date.

COW 2009 is now in the planning stages. If you've not been before ... maybe its a treat to consider next time round.

To game enthusiasts everywhere and all the WD crowd: a prompt on this theme - the Society of Ancients offers a prize for the best/most innovative new non-commercial wargame set in the ancient a medieval periods (SoA Competitions details here .... ) . We are taking submissions now. If you have a game that fits the bill (or have seen one that you think we should consider) drop the Secretary a line. If you have a game that needs a bit more development, think about booking yourself into COW next year and taking it along.

COW 2008? Thanks to everyone. It was a great weekend