Visit to Glasgow Phoenix

I try to get over to the Phoenix club a couple of times a year to play DBA or HOTT.

On Tuesday I had 4 games of DBA against Mark.  I normally take along a historically matched pair of armies and something to take on his Wars of the Roses army.  All 25mm of course.

The first clash was Syracuse v Later Carthaginian.  Mark had the Africans bravely charging forward against their opponents some of whom had the advantage of being on a hill.  I threw a lot of sixes and blew them away in very short time.

The first game was a typical DBA line v line clash.  I tried something different for the rematch and split the Carthaginians into two groups with a gap in the centre.  I then refused the right flank made up of my Spanish auxillia and put cavalry on the right flank.  Finally I left my cavalry general in the centre.  The plan worked pretty well with my left flank winning the game helped by the general who sneaked through the centre and was able to get to the rear of the Italians.  Rolling more sixes helped.

By this stage I was quite embarrassed at my excessive rolling of 6s.  I actually changed my dice twice but it made no difference.

Mark was to have his revenge in the second round of games.  I started using Scots Common Army but although the spear held up well losing only one element the loss of my Highland Archers, Horde and Knights (on a draw v Blades) was enough. 

Using the Tudor army for the final game I tried the split army trick again massing the missiles on my left and the rest on the right.  All that firepower only managed to take out the hordes and the death of my general hastened me to a second defeat.

We each won two games so honour was satisfied on both sides.

Games played this year 113 miniatures 2 board

Systems played 36 miniatures 2 board

Introductionary game of DBA 3.0

A last minute change of plan resulted in me pulling together a game of DBA at short notice with fellow Falkirk club member Alan.  Fortunately I still had my box of Carthaginians and Spanish together from my games against the 3 Marks the other week so it didn't take too long .

Alan is an ancients novice so in many ways this was a good opportunity to give him a gentle introduction.  I gave him a very quick intro and we then lined the armies up and got going.  I find it better and easier to have a game and point out rules and tactics as we go through rather than give a comprehensive introduction at the start.

I took the Spanish and Alan the Carthaginians.  The two lines advanced a little offset giving opportunities for outflanking on our respective left flanks.  The Spears and Blades just bounced off each other.  Alan did manage to turn my blade line and take out one element but I ended up winning the battle on the flanks for a 4 - 2 victory.

Alan enjoyed the game - he likes quick games and DBA certainly fits that bill.  He has some Perry's plastics and he agreed to sent me a list from which I will fashion a 12 element army.  We can then have a game where he can use his figures


Sorry for the glut of posts but I want to at least post every time I game and I am now up to date.  The next one will be about our club show Carronade on Saturday 12th May in Falkirk

Games 47

 Rules played 19 New 8
Places played 7 New 0 

Sextuple DBA fun with two Marks

Two games on Monday at the Falkirk club against Mark Learmouth and four on Tuesday at the Glasgow Phoenix club against Mark Grindlay.

The picture above shows Mark L in what is the new traditional pose for a wargamer - taking a picture with his phone!



Mark brought along his Early Imperial Romans which I pitched my Ancient Spanish against and for the second game it was his Ancient Britons against my Later Carthaginians.  Neither of us had played for a while so we took a while to get back into.  I kept my tactics very simple and came out with two wins and an agreement that we would not leave it so long before playing again



On to Glasgow on Tuesday.  Our first two games were Spanish v Carthaginians.  The Carthaginians seemed to have the advantage in terms of the make up of their army which I used to good advantage in the first of the games picking off the opposing psiloi.  Mark was about to return the favour in the second game when a series of poor rolls thwarted him and I snatched a lucky victory. In fact at one stage Mark rolled 5 combat rolls of 1 in succession!

The third and fourth games were a first outing for Mark's new Wars of the Roses figures (see above).  We set up a Richard III v Henry Tudor match up.  Henry is an unusual general type, a CP. Basically blades but with a restriction on initiating combat.   Mark lined up with Henry at his centre and I opposed with Richard but the disadvantage of this inability to charge soon became apparent.  I concentrated my shooting and killed a couple of units and then took advantage of the gap in the Tudor line to roll up his Pike for a quick win.  Having swopped sides I kept Henry back as did Mark with Richard initially.  We got into a bit of a confused melee in the centre and this time it was Richard with a cavalry charge who made the decisive breakthrough.  One win each and we counted these two games towards the Society of Ancients championship.  A really good night of gaming.

As for the title - well they say that you can sell anything with sex so lets see if I can attract a new clientele to the blog!

Games 27

 Rules played 16 New 7
Places played 4 New 0 

Mid Year update

Against my annual target of 100 games I have managed 59 so broadly on track but still pretty challenging as December is usually a write off and I have (non wargaming) holiday weeks to take yet.

What has helped has been a playing much more DBA – Monday saw another 3 games.  It was my regular last Monday in the month DBA/HotT  event but this time we down to just myself and Dave P.  No matter as we had 3 interesting games with me using Romans against his recently acquired Cartheginians.  It ended up 2 -1 to myself – I was a bit reckless with my general in the last game.

Last Saturday I attended the Lakeland Phoenix show event at Penrith.  Not a bad start for a new show – I am sure it has the potential to grow in future years.  I had a quick run through with Beyond the Gates of Atares – think SF Bolt Action.  I don’t think I was in the target audience as we ran through it all in not much more than 10 minutes – I would have appreciated more of a game.  I then played an absolutely excellent Lion Rampant Lord of the Rings game recreating the final scene before the Fellowship went their different ways.  The aim was to get the Hobbits to the boats and thanks to some good rolls I managed to get them all away.  Great fun – well done to Matt who played it through 9 times on the day – I have suggested that he might like to bring a game to Carronade.

Onwards and upwards – just another 41 games to play this year!

DBA/HotT good SAGA bad

Last Monday saw the first of our 'last Monday in the month' DBA/HotT events.


Myself, Frazer, Gordon and Andy K got through 3 games of 25mm DBA. We played a round Robin with Andy and Frazer winning 2 games each  and myself and Gordon 1.  We still have a lot to learn but it was fun.  I got 2 new armies (to DBA) on the table, Early Achamenid Persian and Seleucid.


The 4 playing 15mm fantasy were Andy W, who provided the figures, John M, Ric and Doug.  I think they only got 2 games in but once again all seemed satisfied. 


The next event is scheduled for 27th June.


Bad news on the SAGA front, 2 Mondays with work commitments and other campaign nights mean that I am probably going to have to pay Danegeld for the first round!


Looking forward to tomorrow as we are taking a couple of games to the Wartime Experience event at the National Museum of Flight.

SAGA game plus DBA plan

On Monday I had a final rehearsal game of SAGA before the campaign kicks off.  It was my opponent's first game of SAGA and I of course took advantage and soundly thrashed him.  To be fair rolling lots of 6s helped.  I now have a catch phrase for the campaign 'The Viking Way'.  This means that my plan is to ignore scenario's victory points etc. and just get stuck in at every opportunity.  We will see how well that approach works! 


We have a good turn out for Monday 30th and our first DBA/HotT night.  There are 4 playing 25mm DBA and 4 15mm HotT.  I have been working up some new armies so we have Achemenid Persian v Hoplite Greek and Seleucid v Roman. Although most of the figures are painted some need finishing off and others based up - DBA has certainly increased my output compared to previous years.  I will probably bring along another couple of armies in case anyone else wants to join in.

Blog Relaunch

The blog has been very quiet recently – largely due to my difficulty in getting pictures onto it.  Some time ago I found that I was unable to post photos saved on my laptop onto the blog.  This was compounded more recently when I could not even download photos from my camera to the laptop.  I am afraid that I have very little patience with computer issues and when a couple of attempts to fix these issues failed I have simply parked them for another day.

So what has changed?  Well firstly I have made a resolution to have another serious go at solving these problems.  More importantly I want to record my progress on current projects and the blog is the best place to do that. So these projects are:

Mordhiem campaign.  This will be my second campaign of this system at the Falkirk Club.  The games are always relaxed and fun.  I picked up some old citadel medieval/fantasy types at the Carronade flea market for a song (nicely painted as well) so these have formed the basis of my Marienburger warband.  We had our first outing on Monday with 6 of us on the table with a simple treasure hunt.  I paired off against Andy’s Skaven and we quickly knocked each other to pieces.  I departed first with no treasure quickly followed Andy who did rather better – however in the post game phase Andy lost 3 killed whilst the worst that happened to me was that one of my heroes was knocked stupid.  Kev and his Undead were the winners.  Next game 20^th June.

SAGA campaign.  Tim, another Falkirk club member, picked up the SAGA campaign system pre release at Salute and has organised 8 of us to fight it out over 6 seasons.   I had the figures, have played a couple of games which were quite fun so decided to give it a go.  It looks as if it will be June before the first game.  One added bonus is that with the exception of Tim I have not played any of the participant before, some of whom have only been down to the club a couple of times.  Playing new people is always fun.

DBA gaming.  This one is not a campaign, more an opportunity to get a lot of myf25mm figures on the table for the first time in years.  This has also involved a little bit of painting and basing resulting in me being my most productive for years.  I ran a fun tournament back in April where I provided the 12 armies and it was well received.  This also resulted in me getting some contact at the Glasgow Phoenix club and visiting them a couple of times which I very much enjoyed.  I have a plan to play DBA (and HotT) at Falkirk on the last Monday of the month for the remainder of the year and am hoping to get a good turnout on the 30^th May.  All welcome, by the way, whether Falkirk club members or not.

Jason and the Argonauts.  This is the one that I am most excited about.  I am a member of the Society of Ancients and the last 2 issues have included the first parts of a series on the classical Greek story.  For some reason this has really caught my imagination.  As well as a lot of background information the articles include ‘actual’ and what if scenarios with maps and army lists for use with the Hordes of the Things system.  There were 3 such in the first article and 6 in the second.  My rather ambitious plan is to follow the series through to the end refighting all the battles hopefully several times.    More on my progress in a future blog.

Thanks for reading – sorry about the lack of pictures – hopefully that will be sorted before too long.

 

I'm organising a friendly 25mm DBA 3.0 tournamet

It will be held at the Falkirk club's usual venue on Sunday 24th April from10:00 to 17:00.


I will be providing historically matched opposing armies with fixed terrain and the players will rotate around the tables


It's friendly because none of the players taking part have that much experience with the rules and it is really an excuse for us all to play a few games and for me to get my 25mm figures on the table.


The title of the event is Antonine's Folly  which is the same name as I used for the Impetus competitions that I used to run - this one is definitely DBA 3.0!


There is enough interest so far to mean that this event will run but there is plenty of space for more participants.


Please contact me if you are interested in taking part