Greek Light Cavalry

Some Greek Light Cavalry; from the Victrix set of the same name. I did add in a few heads from the spares box.

Companions

It has taken me six months to get these Companions done. Victrix from their "Macedonian, Greek and Successor Heavy Cavalry" set. I hate painting yellow!

Prodromoi

I constructed some 28mm Macedonian Prodromoi by adding cloaks and heads from the Victrix "Macedonian Greek and Successor Heavy Cavalry" set to bodies, arms and horses from their Greek Light Cavalry set. I added spears made from plastic brush bristles. I think they work really well.

Dorylaeum With L'art de la Guerre

We have been playing L'art de la Guerre for a few months now. Having played a dozen or more 200 point “line em up and bash hell out of each other” games me and my mate Stuart had a go at a scenario last night.

I found a Warmaster Ancients scenario for Dorylaeum (1097) in Battlegames Issue 32 (by Daniel Johnson) and adapted it to the figures that I had.

Game was in 28mm Seljuks Vs Crusaders on 8X5 table.

The Crusader Vanguard is attacked by a Seljuk horde. The foot are making a camp and then defending it. Other Crusaders are straggling into line. More Crusaders are making their way through difficult terrain (The Turks beleive it impassable). They will appear on the Turkish flank.

End result; Phyrric victroy for the Crusaders. (In real battle they won but sustained more casulaties than the Turks). So, pretty close to historical.

Highlights: Count Baldwin (Commanding the Stragglers) mowing down hordes of Turks in multiple impetuous charges.

Bohemond being destroyed by the Turk Vanguard general. (Would this have doomed the 1st Crusade had it been real?).

Lessons: Heavy cavalry bow beat Knights if they can shoot them up a bit before combat, otherwise they are doomed (probably obvious).

Once LH evade in all sorts of directions it is really, really hard to get them back into the game.

I need to roll higher on the dice (I was the Turk).

AdG works for scenarios - we will play more. I am really enjoying these rules.

Managed to take a few pictures.

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Experiment with Dux Bellorum for Ancients

I picked up wargames Soldiers & Strategy issue 70 the other day. On page 34 there is an article on using Dan Merseys Dux Bellorum dark ages rules for ancient games by Allen E Curtis. I have had a number of excellent games using these rules for their intended period so I thought I would give them a try with Ancients.

I set up a 6x5 table with figures representing Syracusans and Spanish from the mid 3rd century BCE.

Here is a view of the Syracusans 

This a view of the Spanish line.

I started by taking the standard troop types from the book.

I treated Hoplites as ordinary Shieldwall 

I  classified one unit of Hoplites as Companions (representing the tyrant and his elite mercenary guards).

I decided to try out some Gauls? I used the special rule for fanatics to cover these.

Greek style cavalry were treated as ordinary riders. Greek style light cavalry were treated as mounted Skirmishers with javelins.

I made up a standard 32 point army using 6 units of Hoplites, two of Gauls and one each of heavy and light cavalry.

I decided to avoid skirmishing infantry for this first attempt.

For the Spanish I took one unit of mounted Companions to represent the King and his body guard.

I took a unit of mounted nobles to represent Spanish medium cavalry (this made them a little better than the Syracusan cavalry).

The Scutarii were treated as warriors. I decided to waive the rule that makes them impetuous and gave them the hurled weapons special rule to represent their heavy throwing spears. This is a departure from the rules as written where hurled weapons is reserved for Shieldwall troops.

For the Caetrati I treated them as warriors with the javelins special rule.

I made up my Spanish army from one unit of mounted companions, one of noble cavalry, one of mounted Skirmishers, two of Caetrati and three of Scutarii.

I gave each unit a frontage of  about 160 mm and used 6 inches to represent a base width for measuring.

In my game the Spanish noble cavalry and the Syracusans medium horse quickly came to grips. this fight went on for a while. I think that this melee went on for too long, 3 or 4 rounds of drawn combat.

The Gallic fanatics rushed across the field and hit the Spanish mounted companions and a unit of Caetrati. The Gauls were destroyed in a single move. This was dramatic. The fanatics look interesting but they are very fragile. 

On the other flank the opposing mounted Skirmishers came within range and traded ineffective javelin throws for a number of moves. After a while I got bored and charged one unit into the other. they destroyed each other in one round of fighting.

In the centre the Hoplites moved forward and eventually charged the Spanish line. The battle went to and fro for 3 moves. By this point (move 7) the Syracusans army was looking weak. The cavalry had gone, the Gallic nutters were history, losing one unit of Hoplites would trigger morale tests. 

This happened next move and the Syracusans collapsed (ordinary troops have morale 7, you have to throw the morale value or lower to survive).

Spanish victory.

My thoughts.

First off; it worked. An enjoyable game fought solo in about an hour.

I forgot about interrupting enemy moves in order to get the jump on charges. This would have made a difference to the game.

What would I change.

Look at the Gauls! Make them noble warriors rather than fanatics.

Add a rule to break off drawn cavalry combats. maybe after two turns of drawing.

Look at using the rider stats for skirmishing cavalry but still have them move as Skirmishers. They would last a bit longer.

Here are a few shots of the figures.

Paper Banners for Normans

I have been playing about with hand painted banners for my Normans.

All of my shields are hand painted as are the cast on banners for my cavalry.

I made these as outlines on the PC (using open Office), printed them and then painted with Vallejo paints. I have cut them out, tidied up with paint and attached them to figures. I will take some pictures of the figures once the varnish has dried and I have them based up.

Norman army is looking pretty good now. I bought 80 Crusader infantry at salute and these are just about painted. I will have 40 cavalry, 72 Foot and 24 skirmishers pretty soon, should be enough for Hail Caesar, WAB, Clash of Empires or whatever rule set I end up with. Hail Caesar looks pretty good.