Favourite Units of Mine No. 7

To Joe Public, the 15mm scale model above by Essex Miniatures will look like an Elephant with some guys on top it.

To an Ancients Wargames General, however, what he will see is an instrument of terror, several tons of crushing power, the scourge of mounted troops, a harbinger of chaos and doom and that's just when the General is thinking about the effect the Elephants will have on  his own Army!!

There is no doubt, the Elephant is one of the more colourful troop types available to the Ancients Wargames General. The Ancient Worlds' version of the tank, the Ele can be devastating to formed bodies of Heavy Troops, particularly cavalry, who will normally be under some kind of penalty for being in close proximity to the beasts. In Warhammer Ancient Battles 2nd Edition, an Ele will cause fear in infantry and terror to cavalry - and that's to the troops on both sides! And if an Ele takes wounds from a shooting attack, then if it is not slain, it takes a stampede test and if that test is failed then the Ele will stampede moving 2D6" in a direction determined by a scatter dice. If an Ele loses a combat it automatically stampedes. And of course, if it runs into an another unit, friend or foe, it will attack that unit.

In Hail Caesar, the Ele has a similar, although perhaps less dramatic effect. In combat, any Cavalry charging an Ele will lose it's charge bonus and will risk disorder on a roll of 1,2 or 3 ( which then gives that unit a -1 in it's combat round). An enemy unit that loses a combat to an Ele may be forced to re-roll one of it's dice when taking it's break test. And if the Ele gives ground in a combat, on a roll of a 1, it will stampede 3D6" away forcing any unit that it bursts though to take a break test.

No doubt other rule sets will treat Eles in a similar way but it is with good old WRG 6th Edition now re-printed by John Curry and The History of Wargaming Project that I had my greatest ever wargaming disaster.

At Dundee University Wargames and Role Playing Society back in 1983, I had arranged to meet my mate, Chris, for a game of Ancients at the club. Chris had been busily painting his new Aztec army which he had purchased from Tin Soldier UK. As my Byzantines were nowhere near ready, I agreed to use Chris's Carthaginian Army. I had played with the Carthaginians before, with various degrees of success, so felt I could handle them, so much so that in addition to the 4 "Irregular C" Class Elephants that could be fielded I also decided to field 4 "Irregular D" Eles, but didn't bother upgrading them to Irregular C. Irregular D class troops were the real time bombs in any army, regardless of what the troops actually were. It was a very fine line between the unit going impetuous or turning tail and heading for home.

So I duly arrived at the club room, Chris was already there.

"Did you bring terrain?" asks he.

"No" said I. "Was I supposed to?"

"Well I've brought all the figures, I didn't have enough hands to carry anything else!" he responds.

"So what are we going to do??" I asked.

Much scratching of heads.

"Okay" says he. "We can use some books for hills and we can tear up scraps of paper and use them for woods, rough ground and the like."

"Okay", says I.

So it wasn't going to be the most aesthetically pleasing table to fight over but needs must. So we deployed terrain as per the rules, a few hills here, a bit of rough ground there, and a wood right on my far right flank, just inside Chris' side of the table.

So with terrain deployed we took a step back and looked at the lie of the ground and then, and to this day I don't know why, I took off the bit of paper that represented the wood on my right flank. I guess I must have just been on automatic pilot and was "tiding up" the battlefield of rubbish before the game started. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it, okay?!

So we then drew our maps and wrote down our deployment and orders for the first turn. We started deploying our troops. By this time I had realised that although Eles in WRG 6th Ed can be devastating, there were no mounted troops in the Aztec army to cause panic on. And as most of the Aztec Army had Two Handed Weapons (2HCW), they were pretty effective weapons against Eles. Sooooo as the Eles were looking a bit vulnerable I stuck both units on my right flank, as near to the centre line as I could go, with the Irregular D's being on the extreme right, with the thought of trying to out flank the Aztecs and try and threaten their rear.

So troops deployed we were about to start the first turn.

"Hang on" says Chris.

"What?" says I.

"Where's the wood?"says he.

"What wood?" says I.

"The one that should be over there!", says he, pointing to the spot on my far right flank, just inside his centre line and right opposite where the Irregular D's were standing.

"Oh Bugger!" says I. "I thought that was just a scrap bit of paper! It's in the bin".

"Well it's not scrap, Garfield!" says he (Garfield was my nickname at the club, due to the belief,  and in my view, much mistaken belief, that I looked like the cartoon cat). "Go and get it out of the trash and put it back on the table!" (Chris was American hence the use of the word trash).

"But I've put my Eles right in front of where that wood is now sitting!" protests I. "I wouldn't have done that, if I had realised that there was a wood there!" (Elephants could not move into woods). "Can I move my Eles?"

"No!" says he.

"That's not fair!" I protest again. "Come on, let me shift them?"

"No!" he retorts. "We'd have to redo all the deployment again and we haven't got time. And it's your own stupid fault for removing the woods in the first place!"

I knew I wasn't going to win the argument, so with heavy heart I relented and we started the game.

The Eles were pretty stuck. They couldn't move directly forward because of the woods so, as there was a sizeable gap between the woods and the nearest unit of Aztecs I decided I would aim them for that gap and wheeling the Irregular D's to their left, started forward. The first turn's shooting saw me cause absolutely zero casualties and Chris scored a few, but not enough to force a unit to remove a model.

So the second turn started. Charge Declarations. I had none as the nearest Aztecs were still some distance away from me. Or so I thought.

"Ok", says he. "My unit of Otomi in the woods will charge the Eles" (Otomi were "Irregular A" Light Medium Infantry, as were the majority of the Aztecs, which meant they didn't suffer penalties for moving through woods and they carried 2HCW).

"WHAT???!!!", screeched I. "Where the hell did they come from???"

"They were at the back of the woods at the start of the game, moved through them on the first turn and now they are going to charge your Eles. And oh, I believe that it is also in the flank".

The grinning leer on Chris's face as he uttered these words has lived in my nightmares for a long, long time.

So he rolls his charge test. Irregular A troops, 3D6 to roll, needing 11 to charge, 12 to go impetuous, nae bother. The savages go impetuous and make the charge distance with about 5 paces to spare.

So I roll my reaction test. Again being Irregular troops, the Eles would roll 3D6 but being "D" Class, I needed at least a 9 to avoid being left shaken in the ensuing combat.

1, 1, 1.

Chris' howls of laughter around the room were only drowned out by my wails of anguish.

"Let's work out the result!" he chortles.

"Do we have to?" says I.

"Oh Yes! Let's see, you get +1 for advancing, but no other pluses, so that puts you on 4. You get -1 for me advancing, -2 for having enemy on your flank, and -3 for being mounted troops being charged by foot, so that's a total of -2. Break!!"

So the Irregular D's turned and fled. And in WRG 6th Ed, when a unit breaks, every friendly unit within 150 paces must then take a reaction test in response to that break, for which you then get a -2 to your test for each friendly unit within 150 paces that you see being broken. And you tested from your right flank to your left.

So which unit was next in line? The "Irregular C" Eles.

They broke.

There then followed the worst sequence of reaction test rolls I have ever made in my life. Like a row of dominoes toppling over, unit after unit failed their test, even the General's unit spectacularly failed it's test, with the end result that by the time I had taken the last test on the last unit on my far left flank, the entire army was routing towards my table edge.

I hadn't inflicted a single casualty and my army had routed off the field, on TURN 2!

Needless to say, I was not allowed to forget the game for many, many years.

I don't think I played with the Carthaginians again after that battle, such was my humiliation. Still it gave me plenty of incentive to get my Byzantines painted as quickly as possible.

So it's probably a misdescription to call the Ele a "favourite unit of mine", though it is certainly a memorable one, but for all the wrong reasons.

This Ele is not a Carthaginian Ele, but an Ele from the Alexandrian Imperial range by Essex Miniatures. I won't have Carthaginians in the house!!!

Favourite Units of Mine No.1

Given that the painting output has slowed to a crawl again, I thought I would start an occasional look back at some of the units, figures, models in my collection which have been either fun to play with, won a spectacular combat (not many there I'm afraid) or have been fun to paint.

So first up are - "The Stupid Pechenegs"

Way back in my first year at Dundee University, a few of the guys in the Dundee University Wargames and Role Playing Society were playing WRG 6th Edition Ancients with 15mm figures. I have to say that over the years that I have played wargames, 6th Ed WRG has to be pretty near the top of my favourite rule sets.

As a newcomer to the club and never having played Ancient wargaming before, initially I had to rely on borrowing an army from 1 of the guys or being a sub-general if the game being played was large enough to accommodate more than 2 players. I knew I had to get my own army but the question was what to get?

I spent hours pouring over the 3 Army List Books that WRG produced for the rule set. Early Libyan was quickly ruled out as a possibility. We already had Carthaginian, Aztecs, Early Imperial Roman (which was then replaced by Late Imperial Roman when the army's owner, Jim "The Mad Doctor" left his tool box of figures on the train between Dundee and Aberdeen and never recovered it - God that was a day of national mourning I can tell you), Swiss, Mongols, Indians. I wanted something different but, and I freely admit it, had to be good enough to win with, despite my terrible Generalship.

So the decision was made to go for the Nikephorian Byzantines. Reading about the thrashings handed out by Basil "Bulgar-Basher" to the Empire's Bulgar neighbours, the blinding of 10,000 Bulgar warriors which led to the Bulgar Tsar, Samuel, dying of grief at the sight of his maimed army, the intrigue and plotting of the Byzantine Court, they were the Superpower of the 10th and 11th Centuries, the professional Cavalry army including the fully armoured Klibanophoroi Cavalry which looked totally cool on the battlefield, the Varangian Guard with their 2 handed axes, the impetuous Norman Allied Cavalry, the Greek Fire siphoners and the drilled ranks of the Skutatoi Infantry, the army had everything, I could not fail to win with these guys, they were hard as nails.

But they also had the Pechenegs.

Okay, under the lists, you didn't need to include Pechenegs, but given that the Regular Byzantine Cavalry, the "Trapezitoi" was 2 1/2 times the cost of a Pecheneg Light Cavalryman, and given that the flanking and scouting ability was so important in the game, the Pechenegs, almost by default, became obligatory in the Army List.

The bulk of the figures that I purchased for my army were from a company called Asgard Miniatures. They are long gone now but the moulds live on, having been purchased by a company in the States called The Viking Forge. Unfortunately, I don't think they ship to the UK as they only seem to accept payment by way of cheque (check for our colonial readers) or money order. Still it is comforting to know that they are still available. Not that I need any more figures for the army, for at the time I purchased enough figures to field every possible option available on the list, including the full 40 Pechenegs allowed plus General. I supplemented some of the units by buying some figures from Minifigs and also from Mikes Models, although the latter were noticeably smaller than the Asgard and Minfigs models which were nearer 18mm in size as opposed to 15mm .

I had also obtained the excellent Men at Arms book from Osprey Publishing entitled "Byzantine Armies 886-1118". The Minifigs Pecheneg models were very closely based on the plates of the Pecheneg warriors included in that book which were drawn by the late, great Angus McBride.

The Pecheneg Light Cavalry by Minifigs

The Riders are depicted as having a knee length coat, which on the Minifigs figures was sculpted pretty well but which on the Asgard figures looked like a pair of pyjamas, not helped by the bright colours these coats tended to be

The Pecheneg Light Cavalry by Asgard

But I quickly got a unit of 16 cavalry painted up - in 6th Ed WRG, you did use figure removal, 1 figure being removed for every 20 casualties suffered and as Light Cavalry units could use such wonderful formations such as the "Cantabrian Circle" and the "Skythian" formation, they were originally based singly (they are now based for DBM).

And they were terrible.

Being Irregular "C" light cavalry, they were very, very fickle and if the slighest thing went wrong in their vicinity and I was forced to take a morale test for them, I would inevitably roll so badly that they would flee off the table. Eventually, it became a standing joke that I didn't need to roll the test, I should just pick them up and place them off table as inevitably that's where they would have ended up. But as a result, they did actually become fun to play with as their unreliability meant you never knew what to expect with them.

In their own army list in Book 2 of the lists (list no.109) Phil Barker describes how the Pechenegs inspired the proverb "As stupid as a Pecheneg" and so that is how they came to be known as in my army.

With the transition to De Bellis Multitudinis and the dropping of the morale classes, the Pechenegs did become a bit more useful, being now classifed as "Irr LH (F)", but they could still be relied on to do something stupid. And they no longer form part of the Nikephorian list but instead take their place in the Konstantinian Byzantine list which covers the period 1042AD to 1071AD, so no longer would my Super Heavy Klibanophoroi Cavalry have to look on in mild amusement as a pile of Pechenegs ran past them, usually in the opposite direction towards the nearest friendly table edge.

1071AD, saw, of course the Battle of Manzikert, but as a Byzantine player we don't talk about that..........

De Bellis Paininthearsesus

De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) has been an immensely popular set of rules for the Ancient/ Medieval period since it's initial release in 1995. It's unofficial fan site - Fanaticus  has a healthy online community, there is DBA Online, an online version of the game and has spawned a number of variants, some official as in De Bellis Renationis (DBR) (Renaissance  period) Hordes of the Things (HoTT) (a fantasy version) and it's big brother variations De Bellis Multitudinis (DBM) and De Bellis Magistrorum Militum (DBMM) and some unofficial versions such as Napoleonic DBA and Solo DBA.

There are a number of plus points to DBA :-

1. It's a short set of rules (of the 52 pages in the Version 2.2 rulebook only 10 pages are actual rules);

2. Very little is required in the way of figures, you require a total of 12 bases, or elements, which depending on the army list you are using can vary from 24 figures (Early Libyan) to 116 figures for the Medieval French Army (source "The Unofficial Guide to DBA" produced by the Washington Area De Bellis Antiquitatis Gamers (WADBAG) http://www.wadbag.com/ );

3. It requires very little space to play the game  - a 2' x 2' area;

4. It requires very little in the way of terrain;

5. It plays very quickly and a number of games can be played very quickly in a night's gaming.

Some people question it's historical accuracy and it's stylistic combat resolution but to be honest the only negative point that I can think of about DBA is that I am CRAP at it.

And so it was last night when the boys and I got the figs out for a series of games.

As those of you who have been following Ruarork's blog  Minis, musings and a midget will know that after much much delay he finally finished his 15mm Gaullish DBA army that he had purchased from Museum Miniatures so was keen to get them on the table. Cammie has been slowly working on a Polybian Roman army Tales of Toy Soldiers and had also just recently bought from Gordon a Carthaginian army. I have numerous armies based around my Nikephorian Byzantines and also a box of Macedonians from which a variety of DBA armies can be built.

So for the first game the Romans lined up against the Gauls in a classic confrontation

And due to the inability of either General to roll more than a 2 on their "Player Initiative Point" or PIP die the armies slowly rumbled forwards toward each other to eventually and almost simultaneously the 2 extreme flanks contacted each other

The Gaulish Chariots and Roman Cavalry in the bottom of the picture  bounced off each other over several bounds with no one getting the upper hand. As usual, it was left to the Roman Legionnaire to win the battle for his General and so it was on this occasion where although the 2 battle lines swayed back and forwards, eventually the Romans made the decisive breakthrough and won the game. First blood to Cammie.

So next up was myself, and I decided to play with the Carthaginians. I was the defender and for a bit of variety laid out the following battlefield

The water feature on the left was actually a waterway as required in set up rules for a Littoral battlefield which as the Defender, I was required to set up, but it meant no forces could be deployed to the left of it unless there was to be a landing. In numbering the sides of the battlefield for deployment, Cammie had actually numbered the right hand side of the battlefield the "4,5,6" side and then proceeded to roll a 2 which resulted in the armies being deployed as above, not what I was intending and already putting my forces at a disadvantage in splitting my army in 2. To make matters worse when my cavalry element attempted to cross the right hand river to help support the Light Horse elements, I rolled a 6 which meant that the river aided defence and any element attempting to cross had to roll a 3 or more to be able to continue.

As Cammie's Romans, neatly filled the gap between the 2 water features I knew my battle line would be outnumbered so I sent the Cavalry on a sweep down the right flank to hopefully get behind the Roman battle line

The 2 battle lines continued to roll forward and when the Light horse where in a position to contact the Roman battle line in the flank, the Carthaginian battle line on the right flank, led by the General element charged

The Roman Cavalry moved to counter the threat of the Light Horse, the Roman General staying on his side of the river for fear of being cut off from the rest of the battle line but disaster struck the Romans when the Cavalry were routed by the Light Horse (Romans rolled a 1 adding their combat factor (CF) of +3 for a total of 4, the Light Horse a 6, adding their CF of +2 for a total of 8, bye bye Romans) and on the Battle Line the Roman General was recoiled in his attempt to achieve an overlap on the Carthiginian General

But then it was my turn to have an epic fail on the dice rolling and the Roman Legionaries, supported by an element of Psiloi (or as we pronounce them "Pissoils") which gave the Legionaries a +1 CF against mounted troops, it was their turn to roll a 6 and the Carthaginian General rolled a 1

Game over and Cammie's second win.

So I tried again, but this time brought out my Macedonians for their first appearance on a DBA battlefield for a long long time - the figures were mainly Mikes Models (remember that range Dear Reader) with the General element being Minifigs.

The Macedonians long stay in their box had clearly dulled their wits as I had no sooner deployed and started to move the battle line forward when I realised that Cammies' cavalry moving down their left flank, would quickly get behind me and threaten my camp . The only troop that could counter this threat quickly enough was my General (the Macedonian Light Horse was itself trying an outflanking manoeuvre from my left flank.) The General moved to counter this threat with the inevitable consequence that the Macedonian General was killed, Game over and Cammie's third win of the night.

Determined to get 1 victory on the night I challenged Ruarok's Gauls with the Macedonians. Again I was the defender and with the resultant table edge roll, the initial deployment looked like this

On reflection, I should have swapped over the Psiloi with the 2 elements of Auxilia (4Ax) on the right hand flank of the Macedonian line - the hills had been declared as being steep and therefore counted as bad going so the Auxilia could have easily defended the left hand hill and not worried about the Gaullish Chariots - but I didn't.

The Macedonian Pike Block filled the gap between the 2 hills but I soon realised that the Gauls were not going to be foolish enough to try and force a result there, again the battles would be decided on the flanks

The Macedonian General moved to his left to help support the Light Horse there but once more in the decisive combat again the kingsleypark dice demons struck again

And the Macedonian General was no more, so Ruarok's game and my third straight loss.

In a game where you only have 12 elements to look after you would think it would be a relatively straightforward thing to keep them doing what you want them to. But the PIP dice ensures that you can never be sure what your forces will be able to do from 1 bound to the next.

Maybe, also, I am overly aggressive at using my general to charge home attacks, but sometimes, as in the 2nd game I had with Cammie, sometimes there isn't anyone else available to do the job.

And of course, you just can't legislate when the dice are just going to bite you on the back side. Clearly, though despite it's appearance as short set of rules, there is a lot to be learnt about the tactics of the game and so no battle will ever fight the same way twice.

So despite my total inability to be successful at the game, the boys and I will no doubt try again and maybe in a future post I will be able to say that DBA is no longer De Bellis Paininthearsesus but De Bellis Kingsleyparkusvictorious