Another Hellenistic WAB bash

First, a bit of news... I have become a Grandad. My first grandchild, Elijah, arrived last Wednesday... I am thrilled. Of course, he will now be prime heir to my wargaming collection, if he ever becomes interested! I have time to 'groom' him for that.

Back to the tabletop...

Once again Andy came over for a game of WAB yesterday, bringing with him a Phokian Greek army to face my Rise of Macedon army.

I had Philip of Macedon in command, and the young Alexander as a Hipparch leading the Companions.

What I hadn't prepared for was the appearance of three Phokian stone throwers... or as they became known the phlippin' Phokian ph*****g stone phrowers!

They did a lot of damage to my phalanxes as the latter moved across the table. My Agrianians also managed to throw a 1 on their fire and flee move, got caught by pursuers and were wiped out, and it all went from bad to worse. I manasged some minor 'victories' during the game, but the day couldn't be saved! In the end it was a 'losing draw' for me. Back to the drawing board for next time I face the war machines... it was a good learning process.

As we are coming to expect from these WAB games, it was great fun, the afternoon very enjoyable, and we have more games planned.

Here are just a few snaps of the game which will give you a flavour of the action. I have included some close up photos of some of the units in Andy's very nice army too.

In a couple of weeks time, I'll be at Partizan. Hope to see many of you there.

Alexander and Companions

The continuing story of the Rise of Macedon army...

Here is the newly painted Prince Alexander, and his Companion Cavalry...

I have added a new page to the blog devoted entirely to this army (see pages list to the right hand side).

The army will be getting an outing next weekend when Andy will be bringing his Greeks to do battle. My Oracle is already practicing his dice rolling, watched carefully by Philip of Macedon!

I notice an upsurge in ancients amongst fellow bloggers who are normally firmly in the Horse and Musket era. It's all great stuff...people like Jim (Der Alte Fritz) and Graham (Scotia Albion) and others too are engaged on interesting projects. Pay them a visit. It is always worth popping over to their blogs for the inspiration...

The Rise of Macedon

One of the attractions of doing my Successor armies is that once you've got a core of Phalangites (the guys with big pointy pikes) that form the centre of the army, you can easily morph the force into many different variations on the theme.

That also means that my Macedonian Successors can, with a little adjustment, become an Alexandrian army, or (as in this case) go a little further back and be a Philippian army. I decided that for future WAB games, especially against Andy's Greeks, a more appropriate army might be that of The Rise of Macedon - headed up by Philip of Macedon, with Prince Alexander in the early part of his career, before he started to believe his own PR too much and became all megalomaniac and god-like (although many would say that he was always like that, but that's another discussion).

The core phalanx troops remain the same, but what of the likes of the  particularly elusive Hypaspists? There are so many options for these troops with reports of them performing many roles.

I decided to depict them as an elite peltast unit, taking on a role supporting the Companion cavalry, rather than being formed up with the phalanx.

I also decided to have their shields with a simple Macedonian star, rather than fancy parade-ground shield designs, or even the image of AtG himself on as is so often shown. 

For Philip of Macedon, I used the Foundry figure (the Hypaspists are also from the Foundry range). Philip was keen to fight at the head of his phalangites, in the thick of the action, wielding a pike. It was all 'butch and manly and stuff' (If you're getting an image of Brian Blessed, or King Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones series 1, that's about right)

So... here are Philip and the Hypaspists (sounds like some sort of Macedonian punk rock band... or maybe it's true Classic Rock!):

Next up, young Alexander, and his Companion Cavalry...

And there's another game booked in the diary, providing a valuable deadline for getting this army table-ready.

I hope all readers and visitors to the blog are well... and thank you to those who continually comment on this stuff. I know many readers are dyed-in-the-wool 18C wargamers, but having a 'side interest' in all things ancient is a lovely distraction sometimes. And I'm finding that, just now, the promise of the odd game, for a few hours, on a 6x4 table, with a hundred or so figures per side, using some fun rules (WAB 1.5), is a massive tonic.