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.

More gaming!

This past week, I have managed two games! 

First one was with John Boadle and Garry Broom at John's house: an 1866 bash at which I failed to take any photos, but was an engrossing encounter. And thanks again to John for his hospitality.

Second was yesterday with John Kersey who came up for our first game of WAB - part of my continuing re-exposure to the old ruleset (we are using WAB 1.5).
As many will know, John is the WAB ancient Chinese guru, author of the 'Art of War' supplement, and so it made sense to pit my Successors against one of John's Chinese armies.

A thoroughly good game, and again I was so engrossed that I didn't take many photos and those I did take are merely quick snaps. It was a bloody encounter, and ended in an honourable draw, although I think John was being quite generous there. Having said that, my elephant (in the room), ably assisted by some Greek allied cavalry, caused no manner of trouble to the Chinese right flank and eventually was left with no one to fight. On my right wing, Philipolytas 'the Highly Offensive' was just that... offensive. Following his previous outing (see a previous post) he decided that this time he would be very positive at the head of the companion wedge, driving off one enemy unit and severely blunting the enemy chariot squadron... however, he ended up positively 'deaded' for his trouble. But the companions remained intact.

In the end, troops were scattered everywhere, and we'd had a really good time. The inclusion of a couple of tense musician 'roll-offs' in the centre had added to the excitement and made the game what WAB should be about - fun.

Now the pictures:

Below: endgame...

The final picture shows the unit of Agrianians I recently painted.

Inspired by recent WAB games, I have more ancients on the painting desk. And more games in the diary...

WAB game

Last weekend, I had the immense pleasure of welcoming Andy Moran for our first game of WAB together. It's been many years since I played WAB and the same was true for Andy, so we took it rather gently, just really getting used to the mechanics again in this first encounter.

We opted to have a plain tabletop, and simply deployed and went at it.

It was a hard-fought game with Andy's Greeks causing me problems all over the table. Fortunately, for my Early Macedonian Successor Army, the game swung in my favour and a minor victory was achieved... thanks in part to a rather fortunate first roll for Oracles (I opted for an army in which Oracles were preferred to unit standards). My elephant caused more consternation in the enemy than real damage and did tie up Andy's right flank considerably. However, i found my left flank Thessalian cavalry outnumbered and broken by a couple of units of Greek cavalry, so it was a tricky situation. On my right, Philipolytas 'the Great' (Philipolytas 'the decidedly average' might be a better title) managed to get himself and his companions charged by some infuriating peltasts, but won out in the end.

Eventually, my central phalanx units (after some pretty poor dice rolling) did come out on top.

Here are just a few snaps taken during the game (when we remembered to do so!)...

First up... my Oracle roll augured well...

Pictures below taken by Andy

It was a great game, played in true WAB spirit of being fun and exciting. We learned lost of lessons as we went along, both in relation to the rules and also tactically.

Philipolytas has been sent on an Aggressive Leadership course, and the phalangites are considering actually arming themselves with pikes that work next time!!!

And, there will definitely be a next time.
Thanks to Andy for a great afternoon... more to come.

A Game and a Building

Despite my lack of posts, there's been quite a bit of wargaming activity of late, and also coming up.

The other evening I joined with John Boadle and Garry Broom at John's home for a Franco-Prussian wargame. We used part of a large collection of figures which they have been working on revamping over the past few years...all from the old Foundry range.

I can only imagine their delight to see the Perrys come out with a new range! Lol! But at least John is making the artillery piece masters for the twins for the new collection, so "swings n roundabouts", as they say!

Here are a couple of snaps I took quickly on my iPhone whilst the game was in progress.

Around 2 years ago, John was kind enough to give me some one-to-one model building mentoring over a couple of visits, working on a German style building for the 18C. 

I was inspired and intimidated in equal measure by John's skills, and somehow the finishing touches on the painting were never done (which was my job!).

Well, John recently said he would complete the painting for me, and the other evening he presented me with the finished piece... and I think he has done a great job. I'm delighted with it. Still inspired and intimidated... but delighted.

That's all for now... but I may post again soon, as I am having an ancients game this coming weekend.

I'm dusting off the WAB rulebook, picking my 2000 point Early Macedonian Successors Army, and preparing to welcome Greeks (whether bearing gifts or not) courtesy of Andy who answered my call for 'local opponents' on the WAB Facebook page. Looking forward to it very much...