Ipsus at Partizan- the close-ups!

Chum Ian Notter shot some great images of our huge "To the Strongest!" Ipsus game at Partizan, which was a slightly extended version of the Saltue game. All the photos will enlarge if you click on them. Above the pike phalanxes clash; the Antigonids are in the foreground and to the right. One of my favourite image of the whole battle; almost abstract!

     

Above are some of the allied phalanxes. They are screened by Asiatic archers- I need a whole lot more of these. Below, Thracian light horse skirmishing. I need more of these, too. :-)

Above are some of Demetrius' cavalry squadrons. These performed well on the day, wiping out the opposing wing and turning onto the flank of the phalanx which was (fortunately) protected by elephants. Below is a shot of the remainder of the cavalry wing; you may be able to make out Demetrius in front, with his kontos.

Above is part of the Antigonid phalanx; most of these minis are new, this year. The argyraspides are on the left of the image. That's Antigonus and his litter beyond the phalanx. The elephant screens are deployed in the foreground- each side had one, 20' in all. Below is a better view of the "no man's land" between the two phalanxes. Most of the lights and elephants shown here were to perish during the course of the morning session.

Above, the phalanxes clash. To the rear can be seen part of the Allied elephant reserve and (below) in front of them some Thracians from Lysimachus'contingent.

 

Elephant screens were able to withdraw behind the phalanx (as above) by some mechanism that, alas, the ancient authors alas do not describe. Presumably intervals were left that were later closed up.

Below, hoplites advance to the fray, screened by lights. They did a pretty good gob of resisting the pike phalanxes- honours were broadly even.

Above, a late-in-game shot from behind Antigonid lines. The Antigonids did really well, wiping out both Allied wings and then breaking the centre of the Allied line, winning a convincing victory and reversing history!

Huge thanks to Ian for the photos, and for all his help with basing. I'd also like to thank all those who helped to run the game (particularly Andrew and Andy), played in it or helped with the set up and knock down, which were considerable exercises, as you can imagine! Partizan is a splendid event, very well organised and a whole lot of fun. the highlight of the gaming year, in fact.

In other news, I've put a number of products on sale for the next few days, including the To the Strongest! and For King and Parliament rules, the army lists (which I'm really proud of, there are hundreds and they represent great value), chits and lots of bases and basing products. Get them while they are hot!

Ipsus at Partizan

Hello all, I'll be at Partizan in Newark-on-Trent on Sunday- the award-winning To the Strongest! Salute game, as above, but slightly larger. If you wan to drop by for a chat, please do! Better still, if you'd like to play in the huge game- now with over 3K minis- please drop me an email and I'll book you in!

Thessalians for Partizan

I'm dashing around basing a few final things for Sunday's huge Ipsus game at Partizan in Newart-upon-Trent. Above are two new squadrons of Thessalian cavalry in their famous rhomboids, freshly wood-glued to their bases. They have been assembled from my "reserves" (storage boxes of painted minis sourced from eBay) and represent the work of at least three different painters, but they came together well with a little overpainting and retouching. I'll be grouting tonight, dry brushing tomorrow and Ian will flock later in the day.

In total, I've managed to base an additional sixty cavalry figures for the big game on Sunday, which now involves a tad over 3,000 miniatures. If you'd like to play at Partizan, in what must be one of the largest ancient games ever run at a show, please drop me an email. 

If you want to buy anything from the BigRedBatShop for collection at Partizan, feel free to order, and drop me an email- I'll refund postage, bring it with and add some free extra chits or whatnot.

In other news there's a date for a TtS! tournament in Glasgow, below.  I'm assured that the recent event was a blast, please contact Dave Soutar at the address below, to reserve a place.

Preparing for Partizan

 

I'm busy getting stuff ready for a slightly extended version of the big Salute Ipsus game, next Sunday at Partizan. This means adding some more units and tweaking the scenario. Mostly I need extra cavalry cavalry units; I'm doing whatever I can finish in time- some Greeks (actually Thebans) above and some Scythians below. They are just off to Ian for flocking, need tufts, too. There are also numerous Persians and Thessalians at other stages in the process.

I'm gradually re-modelling all my cavalry into units of 18 heavy and 10 lights. Much more grouting and flocking to follow!

If you are coming to Partizan on Sunday and would like to play in the big game, please drop me a line.

T'other Partizan 2021

Here are some images of Dave Lycett's wonderful 90mm Macedonians and Persians from our game at the recent Partizan show. All of the miniatures are from Expeditionary Force and painted by David. I wrote a scenario called "Gaugamesque" because of its similarity to Gaugamela, and we fought it out on a very austere table with no terrain. I posted some pics on Facebook on Sunday, but there are more here.

Scythed chariot, above and Persian foot, below- hand painted shields! All of the minis are of this quality.

Above, Dave converted some Schleich camels by adding a howdah and crew- Queen Semiramis would have loved these! Below, Darius' command chariot.

Above the Macedonian army (lovely Prodromoi in the foreground), and below the Persians.

Above, mid battle. We used To the Strongest!, of course. The Persians crushed the Macedonian left, and the Macedonians, the Persian left. 

Below Phil Garton, David and Matthew Hotston who helped us to play the game and as the Persians, eventually crushed Alexander (but not before we gave them a few scary moments!).

The obligatory picture of wargamer, pointing. ;-)

Myself, above and Dave, below!

These figures really are terrific. There's a surprising amount of variety in the poses, more than some 28mm ranges!

The elephants are also converted from Schleich models, they are huge and quite stunning. 

A huge thank you to Dave for bringing all his wonderful toys! Alas time was so short that I took no photos of any of the other games, and there certainly were some splendid ones at the show! It was a great show, kudos to the Newark Irregulars for scoffing in the face of Covid. It was great to see so many chums, after such a long interval, and oh so many miniatures!

Leuctra at Partizan

Hi all, I'm still playing catch up after Partizan but here are a couple of photos of the game, taken by chum Ian Notter.

Above is the Spartan deployment- that's Cleombrotos I at the start of the battle. 

Below is the Theban extra-deep phalanx. The speed of the Theban advance in the first game was astonishing (hilariously the new pack of cards they were using for activations wasn't completely shuffled and they played the 6, 7 and the 8 of Hearts in a row, advancing straight into melee and clobbering the Spartans).

In both games Epaminondas' phalanx got off to a cracking start, but narrowly failed to break the opposing Spartans and was pushed back, disordered. In the second game it was routed. Despite this, both games eventually ended in extremely narrow Theban victories due to their superior cavalry (and in particular a large unit of very scruffy raw light cavalry) getting behind the Spartans and causing mayhem. Next week, when I have the time, I'll post the scenario in the BigRedBatShop for downloading; it's a cracker!

A huge thank you to Ian, Andrew Brentnall, Simon Williams, Phil Hamer and all those who helped, played or dropped by for a chat! It was a very enjoyable day at a terrific show. We were surrounded by lovely games with astonishing modelling- but I don't think any games were played by more people or with more good-natured enthusiasm than was ours.

Raphia at t'other Partizan

I had a fine weekend travelling to Newark for my favourite wargames show, Partizan. My extended Raphia  had its first public outing.

Above, the view from behind the Ptolemaic left; those are the (supposedly) inferior African elephants. In the photo below are the more numerous and heftier Seleucid pachyderms.

The cloths we used are the new Sagebrush Steppe mats from Deep Cut Studios. I was really pleased with these as I had them designed to match my bases.  Note that they have a good deal of green in them, as well as the dusty beiges and ochres; indeed very much more green than the Deep Cut thumbnail would suggest...

The game was particularly exciting. Usually the Seleucid Indian elephants sweep all before them, but yesterday the Ptolemaic African beasts overthrew them. To add insult to injury, the inferior and outnumbered Ptolemaic cavalry managed to seriously wound Antiochus the Great (next to the man on the white horse, below), who retired from the field.

In the centre (below) both phalanx hit each other and became locked in a shoving match in which honours were broadly even.

On the other wing, though, the Seleucids gained the upper hand and routed the Ptolemaic cavalry. They then turned onto the flank of the Galatians (below) and were well positioned to roll up the Ptolemaic line; it was looking sticky.

Just at this point a wonderful wargaming event occurred.  A 13-year-old named Matthew was commanding the Ptolemaic centre- he'd had a fairly uneventful battle, so far, but had picked up the basics of the rules. He noticed that a couple of units on the Seleucid left had failed to advance, leaving the left hand side of their phalanx temporarily unsupported; it was "hanging in the air". Matthew saw an opportunity to turn his rightmost phalanx unit onto the Seleucid flank. This might have gone very badly for him (I told him it was very risky), as it exposed this unit's own flank, but luckily the opposing Seleucid general was temporarily distracted and the young Alexander proceeded to slaughter not one but two phalanx with flank attacks, winning the game for Ptolemy! I should imagine he won't forget that in a while.  :-)

Many thanks to all who played and all who helped, especially Ian Notter (who took the photos), Andrew Brentnall and Dave Lycett who helped hugely with packing. Another fantastic show organised by Tricks, Laurence and the Newark Irregulars! Oh and we won the raffle, too.  ;-)

The basathon continueth

Above are my first Tarentines and the twentieth phalanx from my last post, now grouted but as yet un-flocked. Below is Alexander's second squadron of Companions; presumably led by Hephaestion. I have a slow burn project to depict Alexander's army of the Persian campaign. These were painted by Nick Speller with some highlighting by me.

Lastly below are my first unit of Thracians from a purchase on eBay or LAF. Lovely work by the original painter.

Most of these are intended for the large Raphia game on Sunday at Partizan in Newark- if you are coming please do say hello, or stay and turn a few cards!

To Partizan and back...

This weekend I went to Partizan and met up with a lot of fine wargaming chaps, including but far from limited to James, Steve, Phil and Matt of the Newark Irregulars, Curt and Mrs Campbell of Analogue Hobbies and Harry Sidebottom and Ben Kane (a bonus author!) and of course Keith and Adam from Aventine. I am afraid I was only able to take a very few photos but here are a small selection.

Dr Phil Hendry, me and Harry Sidebottom, author of the book on which the game was based. Harry said he had a great day. I'm wearing a laurel wreath donated by James.

Below, our Circensium gaming table groaning with Phil's lovely collection. The quality of his minis is extremely high, and the fortress beautifully made of 10mm foam card. It was great to meet so many people who now know the "To the Strongest!" rules and who are enjoying them! We played this game twice, One Roman win, one draw.

Aventine Adam sculpted a super model of Ballista (the Roman General from the books and battle) and Keith brought me a couple of dozen- I need to get one painted up. I'll do a promotion with them when I have time.

Here are a couple of shots of James Morris Fort Vaux game- the modelling was stunning, as was the poilu moustache. James always comes up with something original - often, as in this case, three dimensional. James deservedly won an award- best in show I think.

I was very taken with the Anglo-Dutch war naval game (above)- so many lovely ships- and this novel game using painted pegs, below.

There were lots of other stunning games which I sadly had no time to take photos of. 

Tricks, Laurence and the Irregulars did a super job with the show- the new venue is a step improvement over Kelham. I can't make the summer show but will be back in 2017!