Mongols to the right and Eastern Romans to the left

Mongols to the right and Eastern Romans to the left

Roman shields

Mongols command

Mongols overwhelm Roman forces

 

CV=  Combat value

WARG (Wednesday Afternoon Retired Gamers) rules

 

WARG (Wednesday Afternoon Retired Gamers) rules are an unfinished, simple, and non-commercial set of rules protected by numerous curses and cantrips. 

WARG games are played on a board that is 9 X 9 squares (size of squares varies according to base size to allow 2 bases in square for close combat) and divided in to 3 equal zones (left, center, right). Though we have played on a 7X9 board, still using the 3 zones.

WARG activation cards:

At start, draw 2 cards, select 1, draw card, when entire deck is used, reshuffle discard pile, repeat.

Note: for solo play, use 2 decks drawing 1 card each turn per side/deck. 

The activation cards: 

1 unit each zone; 1 unit left flank; 1 unit in center; 1 unit right flank; 1 unit both flanks; all units left flank; all units center; all units right flank; all units both flanks; all units; 1 unit any zone; 1 unit with command unit.

If card cannot be used, discard and 1 unit anywhere can be activated.

Optional simple activation is roll a 4, 5 or 6 on a 1d6 for each unit to see if it is activated every turn or roll a 1d6 each turn to determine the number of units that can be activated.

We use a "scenario sheet" with the order of battle, victory conditions and any retreat restrictions or special rules.

Influences for WARG rules: "DBA ", "Triumph!", Bob Cordery's "The Portable Wargame" series, Osprey Publishing's Rampant rules series, Neil Thomas' "One Hour Wargames", Borg's "Command & Colors" and the countless number of free or low cost homebrew rules sets shared on the internet. 

The current WARG rules are in the files section of the Gamer's Guild FB group.

Portable Fulford Gate  being stored:

No Paint 6mm Plastic Mesh armies for DBA or Triumph!

Yes, I said no painting needed. My experimental work continues on making DBA/Triumph! armies with different colored needlepoint plastic mesh.  Any additional color will be done with Sharpies, and that will be limited to helmets and shield decoration (Easy peasy). The armies pictured here are Alexander's Macedonians (purple and blue) and Darius III's Persians (red and black). The sarissa troops are made with black craft wire and shields are made from different colored card stock. Cavalry are made with black, brown and white (for Darius's chariot) plastic mesh. The main figures are made with different colored #7 needlepoint plastic mesh, which is 6mm scale. 

   Yesterdays check of the Essex site indicates complete 15mm DBA armies cost $105 without shipping and still needing to be painted. I estimate one of these armies cost $1.05 and an hour slicing plastic mesh and gluing. I will be using some pre painted balsa bases 8-)

Home made gaming Miniatures for years to come 8-)

                                                       "Man up and go to the Craft store"

Battle of Issus DBA 3.0 on 8 1/2" X 11" board

Wednesday nights game was the Battle of Issus using modified (movement distances halved due to scale) DBA 3.0 rules  and played on a piece of paper ( 8 1/2" X 11" board) using Plastic Mesh armies.

Initial deployment. Top of the screen are the Persians. Cavalry and Light Horse on their right wing, the Scythed Chariots, Spears flanking the Persian leader Darius III with his chariots, and Psiloi on the Persian left flank.  The Macedonians on the bottom of the picture have Parmenion's cavalry on it's left flank. The sarissa Pikes (phalanx) are deployed in the center. Alexander and the Companions are on their normal right flank with Auxilia to their left.

                                       A look at the Plastic mesh Macedonian sarissa troops

                                                                 The Macedonians advance.

                                Alexander attacks the Persian Psiloi across the Penarus River.

Having destroyed the first Psiloi element Alexander turns to battle the last Persian Psiloi. The Persian spears and Macedonian Pike prepare to engage. Darius III does not rush into the Macedonian trap in the center but waits to face Alexander.

            The Cavalries engage on the left side of the photo. Darius prepares to face Alexander.

Mixed results with the cavalry battle, but the Persians turn the tide when their Spears defeat some of the Macedonian Pikes in bloody fighting in the center. 

Darius and Alexander face off and the Macedonians finally get themselves better organized with rear support against the Persian Spears.

Darius recoils, his supporting Psiloi are finally eliminated and the Macedonian Sarissa prove their power when properly organized.

As with history, in a very close battle, Alexander defeats Darius III and prepares to chase him across the Middle East.

Frank has been my gaming opponent for over 45 years. I have asked him to play some strange games and playtest many of my crazy gaming ideas. Playing DBA on a "piece of paper" board has to rank right up there. However, it did work and was a great deal of fun. I'm not sure I'm ready to try a miniatures battle on a 4X6 index card, but who knows.

I spent some time looking at the pricing of both 6mm & 15mm DBA armies, this week. Continuing to use Plastic Mesh at under a $1.00/army is a very attractive way to go. Please look back through this blog for details on making your own Plastic Mesh armies for DBA play.  How to ... Needlepoint Mesh Armies

Needlepoint Armies

The blog is back.  Working on a set of basic rules that covers several periods of warfare. Wednesday night, we began with play testing a hoplite subset of the Ancient rules. Our combatants:

The Spartans

The Athenians

These 4 mm "miniatures" were made with Needlepoint mesh, punched card stock and craft wire. The battle was the Battle of Mantinea in 418 B.C. 

 The forces engage when the Spartans (top) exit the woods.

Initial play test resulted in a historically accurate re-creation of the battle. The Athenian general Laches was slain early in the fight and the battle turned into a major route of the Athenians. However, the rules while accurate were not fun to play. After a rules review, some changes in the rules were made. And the battle re-fought.  

This time it was an extremely close battle in which the Athenians won a narrow victory and we agreed the hour long rematch was fun and played much better. A few more tweaks and we may have a set of hoplite and ancient rules for the future.  

Meet the Alans

                                                       Alan Blades (not a Porn Star) above with multicolored shields.

                                                            Alan Cavalry, above. Knights & Light Horse

                                                             Alan Light Horse, above.

Finishing up my "Barbarian" armies for a planned Barbarian playoff.  Shields are made with 1/16th paper punch and multiple colored card stock. Cheaper way to make those "curiosity" DBA armies than using lead miniature.

NKE & Hittites from #7 Needlepoint plastic mesh

               Overall view with Hittites on left and New Kingdom Egyptians on right (above).

Hittite spears with shields and Psiloi and Horde.

                                         Hittite chariots.

New Kingdom Egyptians with archers in rear.

                                          New Kingdom Egyptian chariots, psiloi & warband.

Doing it right

Upgraded the Late Eastern Romans to rectangular shields.

3 mm Cavalry

Lost 2 days while experimenting with different ways to make cavalry for my hair roller armies. I was looking for a quick way to assemble large number of mounted troops. No luck. So I Returned to using a modified Van Pelt cut. I am using #10 plastic mesh used for Needlepoint. As my hair roller infantry is only 3mm high I opted to use the smallest mesh I could find. I choose to leave them as strips to make them quicker and easier to paint. Will cut them 5 deep on a 30mm deep base.  Still not sure how many units on a base for the different cavalry types, as I prefer a more massed looked.

The making of the 3 Armies

In the lower right are the cavalries, which are a bit tricky to construct.

2 mm Hair Roller Armies

My new fascination... Hair Roller Armies. They are made with the old knobby & pink rubber hair rollers. This is a setup of Early Hoplites, Athens versus Sparta mounted for DBA. The scale is interesting at 2 mm. Makes the battlefield scale look like a general would view it. One Day to figure out the technique and build and paint 2 armies. I am working on 3 Napoleonic Armies (British, French, and Russians) while learning how to make horses and artillery. Now all I need is to find more hair rollers. A quick way to assemble large armies for any set of rules.

OoB, Battle of Kline's Bridge

Irish: 1 X 3Kn (lance)(Gen), 1 X 4Pike or 2LH, 2 X 4Pike, 4 X 4Shot, 1 X 3Blades (Scots), 2 X 2Psiloi, 1 X Art

Scots Covenanters: 1 X 3Knight (Gen), 1 X 3Cav, 1 X 3Cav or 3Dr or 2Psiloi, 2 X 4Pike, 4 X 4Shot, 2 X 3Blade, 1 X Art

The Battle at Kline's Bridge

Our ECW DBA-Hx battle of the week was dedicated to Doug Kline of Battlefield Terrain Concepts, our host at Cold Wars 2010.

Participants: Scots Covenanters (top edge of first 2 photos) versus Irish Confederate. Gordon's 92nd bagpipers provided the setup music and Cromwell was on the DVD player.






Bad die roll during artillery exchange results in the loss of the Scots Galloper gun.


Failure to destroy those pesky Irish Psiloi (Kern) distracts the Scots commander, while a series of low die roll limits Scots movement. And, the Scots-Irish Blades inflict heavy damage at Kline's Bridge, while the Irish gunner and Pikes hold the Scots cavalry at bay.

With their right flank turned and their center weakened, the Scots retreat North.

Post battle analysis: The Scots commander's new die (purchased at Cold Wars 2010) will be retired.

Great battle, great night.