18th and 19th May, Sheffield

TRIPLES 2013

I seemed to be busy the whole time at Triples this year.   We had played both days last year, and had supporting manpower this year as well.   Tag-teaming the DBA meant I only played two games on Saturday (although FoG V2 did wipe out most of Sunday I suppose)

As well as great wargames show with every sort of game and all the big historical wargames traders, Triples, these days, is positively bursting with opportunities to play ancient and medieval wargames in low impact friendly competition. 

The Society of Ancients Northern DBA Cup

The Northern Cup is sponsored by the Society of Ancients and is part of the SoA UK DBA League.

Tony and Paul from Lincoln organise it all and provide armies and terrain boards for a series of loosely historical scenarios.   This year had a Chinese theme.   Something I know nothing about.

(Game one: Early Northern Barbarian - me, near us - vs Shang Chinese)

Some of the match-ups left me scratching my head, and I confess I struggled with the military challenges of unfamiliar troops fighting across terrain not usually found in the middle of my battlefields.  

That is good in a number of ways ... but I didn't win any games for the SoA team (sorry, Chris)

The scenarios were  I/10 Melukhkhan vs I/23a Vedic Indian; I/13b Shang Chinese vs I/14a Early Northern Barbarian; I/32c Western Chou vs I/43a Early Hu; III/9 Burmese vs I/49d Early Vietnamese; II/4b Yeuh Chinese vs II/4a Ch'in Chinese; III/20a Sui Chinese vs III/20b Early Tang Chinese; III/61 Sung Chinese vs III/54 Early Samurai; IV/15 Qara Khitan vs IV/35 Mongol Conquest ...

 

(a very popular Chinese scenario)

The battlefields are all preset, the attacker and defender are specified and the nature of the river is already defined (that river is a 'delaying river', so chops the battlefield in two) ...

I would normally have taken more photographs to add to the SoA/DBA gallery, but although I did like the look of the Samurai (and have bought a book by Stephen Turnbull), in general I have no affinity for this history and can't really tell which army is which :(

(typically smart presentation: III/54 Early Samurai)

(five games produced yet another new winner)

Congratulations to Mark Johnson (1st), Sandy Carruthers (2nd), and Tom Whitehead and Graham Fordham (tied in 3rd).

The gathered players expressed their thanks to the Society for its support, to the hosting show, and to Paul and Tony for putting it all together.

Impetus

My 'out and about' sequence this week is just some shots of the Impetus tables ...

Unfortunately I was unable to photograph more of the Impetus event as due to some oversight somewhere, most of the games were being played on bare tabletops.  That was a pity as this is an interesting game, and some of the armies were appealingly presented.

There was also a WRG 6th edition event, but they kept themselves very much to themselves for some reason.   A testimony to durability, however.  What a lot of choices we have these days.

Sunday: the Northern Doubles League

(the well-supported Sheffield round of this evergreen competition)

This is Colin and Geoff's last year running the series so I had hoped to play more often. 

  

There is a round at the Royal Armouries in Leeds which would be great were it not for COW being the same weekend (but those of you not going to Knuston Hall ought to make a note in your diaries).

I was very pleased Chris agreed to using my Hawkwood Condotta Italian - it is a favourite army and needs to come out every year.  

I had hoped that it might fair better under FoG V2 with the marginal boost to rear rank shooting at impact (no minus poa now for the rear rank archers/crossbowmen) - actually, I think the army loses much more from the neutering of skirmish troops than it gains from the impact bonus ... so it remains more a decorative than a competitive army.

On this occasion we got no historical match ups so our knights fought gamely against Palestinian Insurgents - and some Greeks from the Middle East who predominantly fought with what, for us, would have been thought Swiss equipment.  Seleucid and Jewish Revolt, to be specific.

Although I don't really see the point of mismatched games like these, they were very amiable and tense, and at time I almost forgot it wasn't history!  

Unfortunately neither game got to a conclusion.

More thoughts on V2 FoG

Our first 8 Doubles games produced just 1 decisive outcome and sadly a whole day's wargaming did not add to that total.   Despite rattling through as many turns as we could in a losing second game, it still did not reach a natural result within the 3.5 hours.  The earlier game was a 10:10 draw with only 2 units broken on each side (of the 30 or so on the table).  V2 continues to disappoint in this respect and I am losing interest I think.

NDBML page

******

With the two full length games of FoG on Sunday, I was not able to get back into the main show and only had lunchtime with the Bosworth game.   Overall, I felt I missed out a bit (as the slideshow demonstrates).  Fortunately there are many good blogs with pictures of the main areas.  However, I'm not sure I would do Triples this way again.

After a weekend off, it is Partizan and we can devote ourselves fully to the show, the visitors and to the Bosworth project.  

11th - 12th May, The Centre, Milton Keynes

CAMPAIGN 2013

Yes - that was us just outside John Lewis's ...

Thanks to MKWS for the extra table.   It was down to me to come up with the plan as Trebian is away for his holidays ... 

I decided to use the Society space for our 54mm Bosworth participation game, and the extra tables to help publicise the Naseby Project's open day next month ( see Naseby Open Day ) - this is a publicity and fund-raising event so if you can get involved it could help a great heritage project edge closer to achieving its goals).

We were perfectly position in both cases ... next to Rupert's Blewcoats who helped promote the Naseby day and explain the battle, and next to DBMM and HFG demos for the DBA (with Phil Barker and Sue Laflin joining in on the Saturday) ... So full marks to Neil and his band for theming it nicely.

(the Battle of Bosworth presented as a DBA game in 54mm)

There are still a few enhancements that need completing with the game but I focused mostly on adding in some captions for this outing: members of the public love the big figures and without a wargamer's eye for detail, appreciate the extra information more than they notice that I haven't fitted all the new spears, yet.

Elsewhere around the show there was a really good range of display and participation games, covering a lot of the history and breadth of styles that today's wargaming offers - from Megiddo to Sci-Fi, and whimsical what-ifs like Peterborough's Napoleonic invasion by Montgolfier balloons game ...

(Bosworth: Richmond's army)

Many thanks to Graham Fordham for scaling his printed cloth 'Fluttering Flags' up from 15/28 to 54mm for the project.

(Bosworth: Richard III's army)

Although we played the game several times each day, at a public event like this most of our time is spent explaining the concepts and talking about the historical battles.   

In the games, Richard had a consistently poor weekend habitually rolling well below the Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII, of course) whoever played him and whichever dice were rolled.

(scenes from a disappointing weekend for the last Plantagenet king of England)

It is, of course, all in the deployment - a vindication of Mike Ingram's theories (though usually DBA is unpredictable enough to allow Richard to rewrite history on a regular basis).

Hastings and St Leonards put on an epic Megiddo ... hundreds of figures (though I understand one less mare on heat than might have been the case) ...

Bedford Gladiators put on a very impressive Command and Colours game on the now familiar hexagon terrain system from Kallistra ...

... and right next to our 54mm DBA was this splendid DBMM 6mm demonstration.   You might say, the Alpha and Omega of the DB approach.   Of course, this was extremely useful when explaining ideas of scale to browsers (each 80mm of frontage representing around the same in each game - just a different approach to denoting what soldiers are fighting in the line) ...

Even bigger than the SoA 54mm knights were these jousting fellows (splendid 90mm toy shop figures similar to the one I used in Greyhounds in the Slips).   Ancient and Medieval wargaming was indeed very well represented at the show in all its engaging variety.

(wargaming at Campaign 2013: something for all the family)

This was as good a selection of our period as you get at many a bigger show - and nicely presented to encourage newcomers and browsers to get involved ... rather fewer of the 28mm sprawlgames, rather more variety of scale, size and concept.

Outside our period, 20th century wargaming was well represented, air, land sea and under it.   There was some Krush the Kaiser and some Bolt Action, but I really like the Huntingdon club's 1:35 scale Stalingrad Crossfire game ... OK, it was big ... but not because it was sprawling, but because the toys were, well .. big.   Indeed, almost adhoc in scale ...

(BT tanks lurk round the corner from Univermag in the Stalingrad crossfire)

Hard work, and a long day (especially the Saturday), but well worth it.   Wargaming should do very out of this, and most of the sceptics seemed won over ...

Thanks to everyone who took an interest ...

DBA Northern Cup at Triples next.

20th April, London, Docklands

SALUTE 2013

There was an ancients theme to Salute this year ... well sort of: Jason and the Argonauts - but very much the Ray Harryhausen approach as you would expect from the Warlords.

For actual historical ancients games I think there were fewer this year.   I think I may have said that last year ... but of 85 (yes, 85) games I can see listed, 14 purport to be Ancient, Dark Age or Medieval.   Some of those turn out to be fantasy - and some are purely commercial tasters.

(President and Secretary reflect during a quieter moment at Salute)

That leaves a handful of games being used to present ancient and medieval battles to a wider audience.   The Society of Ancients did an Ilipa Lost Battle, The Lance & Longbow a dramatic Impetus battle of Cravant, and the Oxford Wargames Club an innovative grid-based Heraclea.

(Eric Cruttenden and Alan Waller presented this 28mm battle for the Society of Ancients)

(the river crossing at Cravant ... from an original photo by Simon Chick)

(a panoramic battle of Heraclea)

Beautiful figures in the Cravant game from Simon Chick, and spectacular hand-finished terrain boards - a great advert for medieval battle, and not a bad demonstration of how good modern 28mm figures can look.

Full marks to the Oxford club for taking a home-grown historical game - which they had devised because they were interested in bringing out what they thought were the essentials of battle in the period. - I wish I had had longer to spend with it ...

Amongst the commercial generic games, Rob Broom's Dark Age game stood out, along with some Saga and Dux Bellorum demos ...

(Rob explains the set up over his War and Conquest game)

... and in the fantasy ancients theme, a mythical spin on that old favourite 'Escape from Atlantis' at least seemed to capture the younger minds ...

(participants attempting to Escape from Zeus ...) 

The commercial games are, of course, there to demo the mechanisms and sell copies of the games - so they pick lyouts that will be full of engaging eye candy and bring out challenges, fun and mayhem in the game.   

For now, that always seems to mean a generic rather than historical episode - which contrasts with club and society games - which generally have nothing to sell and which almost universally recreate historical events.

(15mm eye candy from the Heraclea game)

(28mm eye candy from the War & Conquest game)

In that respect, there may be less difference between this post and the BattleDay post than I'd first have thought.   It will be good to see 28mm ancients getting to grips with the challenges of depicting real historical battles.  And, yes, I know there are exceptions - I feature them here every time I see them.

The full size spectacular this year was the reconstructed beam sling featured in the reenactment zone.   Making the 'for and against ExCel' propositions, I wonder how many venues could accommodate that indoors?

I enjoyed the display, and every time I walked past, the people in the stand seemed fully engaged talking to visitors and demonstrating weapons and equipment - they were making very good use of their space I think.  Thumbs up for that!

I was very busy helping out the Pike & Shot Society this year .. But, at the show, I also managed to see ...

(Mexican American war)

(World War Two)

There were lots of plastic 28mm figures, masses of WWII and cabinets full of MDF buildings.   Even Magister Militum had a commercial spin off table (complete with players in livery tee shirts) and Kallistra had 3 tables of hexon terrain ... so, if there was a theme to the Jason & the Argonauts Salute, what would it be?   Probably playing an imaginary Bolt Action WWII scenario with plastic 28mm figures hiding in MDF ruins on a hexagon tablescape.

If that wasn't your ideal wargame, there was always Slingshot ...

Join the Society of Ancients and secure your next 6 issues of Slingshot

Me?   Well amongst a lot of predictable stuff I managed to get a look at Peter Pig's new Vikings.   OK, I had seen them on the website and in announcements on TMP etc. but they had looked a little ... er ... 'unspectacular' in Martin Goddard's customary flat grey primer.  

In fact, the figures are little beauties ...

(a handful of my new Peter Pig Vikings)

I know the picture just makes the point that most figures do look unspectacular in raw metal - but bear with me ...next time you see them they will be painted and you will get it!    

Unashamedly hollywood, they have big beards, big axes, broken shields, spears through their chests ...

With so many 54mm and flats incoming, I had pretty much decided not to do another 15mm project in the near future - but as soon as I saw them I knew that my Dark Age DBA options would need a Viking army adding!   I'll do a proper job, mind.

Next outing Milton Keynes ... see the 54mm Bosworth game ..!

13th April, Bletchley

The Society of Ancients BattleDay 2013

Chalons 451

This year's BattleDay was full to capacity ... I had hoped to put out some SoA gear while the talk was in progress but I listened to Simon instead - the room was full and over-spilled out into the lobby and I didn't want to disturb anybody.

That was all good as the introduction was very interesting, and people were not wanting to browse til lunch anyway.

There were 13 different rules represented, with two interpretations each of the ever popular DBMM, Armati and DBA (/Big Battle DBA etc.).   Wow!

Well I just about managed to capture all of them - and I just about managed to speak to every one about their games.   Apologies to the Shrewsbury DBA team:  I twice caught you between games.

Here they are ...

I hope the pictures speak for themselves: most of the games were presented in 15mm (C&C:A was done with 20mm plastics, HC and W&C with 28mm, Warmaster and The Die is Cast 6mm) - the presentation of many of the games was remarkable ... 6mm and 15mm in particular doing a wonderful job of capturing the rolling landscape of Chalons.

The prize for the best terrain went to Mark Craddock's hyper realistic foam mat (which uses an ingenious system of magnetic grips to hold the game surface to the landscape structure) for the Armati Epic game ... and the overall best game went to Simon MacDowall's Comitatus.

Both seemed to have a cast of thousands, all beautifully turned out.

Organiser Richard Lockwood had, as usual, prepared a set of souvenir figures to award to notable deeds and anecdotes ...

(you can click the image for bigger pictures)

It gives him a good excuse for circulating amongst the games collecting impressions and noting down the stories players always tell.   I was fortunate again: an ex President who commanded the Alans and defeated in personal combat the new President (who had taken Attila's contingent opposite).  It got noticed.

It was not enough to win us the day as no sooner was the great warlord killed than alarm spread across the battlefield at the death of Aetius too.   The Alans packed up and left (the Roman alliance proving more precarious than the Barbarian) ...

This was in the epic Armati.   It was not untypical.

Here are some close ups ...

(Field of Glory)

It was great to see FoG at the event (I think for the first time): another big game on a striking textile print.   Very effective.

(The Die is Cast)

I was impressed with the 6mm games and managed to get my camera close to Justin 'VVV' Taylor's forces (The Die is cast) ... The figures are by Baccus.

(Hail Caesar)

At the other extreme, and much easier to get at were these 28mm Germans in the Hail Caesar game.

(Command and Colours: Ancient)

... and how about these beautifully presented 20mm Romans ...

However, it may not surprise regular readers that my favourite figures were the 15mm collections on the epic DBMM, Armati (Epic) and Comitatus tables:

(that marvelous Armati Epic landscape)

(that's a proper body of cavalry ...) ...

(battle at close quarters in the Comitatus game)

(finely turned out 15mm figures)

I hope this whets your appetite for forthcoming articles and reports which, as well as on blogs and websites, will form a good chunk of Slingshot material over coming issues.

At the end of the afternoon, Richard did his debrief and introduced the awards and prizes presented by Society President, Roy Boss.

Missing from the mugshots is your humble blogger/photographer who received the Attila award for killing the Hunnic warlord in melee.   As I was the cameraman at the time, I have inserted a picture I took during the game recording the skills I used to take down the mighty warrior!

Sorry this blog entry has been delayed a while - it took a while to edit all these photos ...

Reports elsewhere ...

Simon MacDowall's, War & Conquest, Big Red Bat,  Veni Vidi Vici, Caliban's Scotland game

Hmmm ... I wonder what they will pick for next year ....