New Goths for Kingdom Con WAB game

San Diego has a new game con and the gaming groups are helping out to hopefully make it successful. I'm going to be putting on two participating WAB games on Saturday morning, April 16, 10AM. The website for it is over at http://www.kingdom-con.com/

Game 1: Late Romans vs Huns and Goths. I'm putting on this game with Tony Rodgers.

Game 2: Syrian Wars, Seleucid vs Ptolemaic Empires. Jeff Jonas is helping me with this one.

Here is some of the Goths I've been painting up for the Late Roman game. They are Musketeer Miniatures figures. Real nice. Next on my painting block are Guard Phalanx from Gripping Beast's Polemarch line.

Julian pictures

Here's some pictures of Julian II, the Apostate I painted up. The figure is from my friend Alex over at Black Army Productions. Julian is in their Champions of History range. It's a great figure and would make a good general for any Imperial Roman army I think.

The Seleucids are heading to Strategicon next week. Stay tuned for some updates on how they did soon after.

Back to Syria

After a long rest, Jeff and I got back together to throw down in the next installment of his Syrian Wars compaign. I've been painting quite a bit and wanted to use all my new units, so we decided on a big 3,250 point battle.

Here is what I had for my Seleucids (broken up in Characters, Cavalry, Infantry, Special, Mercs):

Antiochus III - Successor King
Army Standard
Taxiarch

Companions (10)
Elite Light Cavalry (10)

Silver Shields (28)
Katoikoi Phalanx (28)
Katoikoi Phalanx (28)
Elephant Escorts (8)
Euzonoi (10)

Armored Elephant
Normal Elephant
Scythed Chariot

Thureophoroi (18)
Thorakitai (18)
Ne0-Cretans (12)
Thracian Peltasts (10)
Iranian Levies (44)
Arab Cavalry (12)
Arab Archers (12)

Jeff had 5 pike units (3 normal, 1 Machomoi, 1 mercenary), Companions, some cavalry with thrusting spear, Galation Noble cavalry, an African elephant, some Greek allies, thureophoroi, thorakitai, the dreaded Cretan archers, and some other skirmish troops.

We had two new players (Alex and Jen) acting as sub-commanders. Jen had my right and Alex had Jeff's right. So each side had an extra Strategos sub-commander.

Here is our set up. We wrote down our deployment then just set up. Pike in the middle, Jeff's strong right flank with Companions vs my weaker left with Elite Light cavalry and Scythed Chariot, my companions where on my right with the Arab cavalry against his Greeks.

Some random pictures of figures at the start.




Not much happened the first couple turns. Skirmishers ran out. Archers shot some stuff. Both right flanks played a little cautious. My Thracians got their rhomphaia handed to them by some upstart Neo-Agranians. The thureophoroi were in open order so they went stamping through the woods.

On Jeff's right, his Companions were getting pretty shot up by the Arab archers so them and the Ptolemaic cavalry pushed up. I send in my Elite Light cavalry to to punch through his Ptolemaic cavalry and set up my chariot to charge into the Companions if they charged my Arabs. If things went right I could bust open that flank. My elite cavalry couldn't hit a thing though and ended up being run off.

The Arabs ran from the Companions when they charged. I did manage to his Companions with my scythed chariot and bring them down in numbers so they weren't effective anymore. But all I had on that flank to stop his Ptolemaic cavalry now was my massive levy unit with their flank to them... which can't reform due to being levy.

On my right not too much happened. My Companions were in position behind the woods ready to exploit whatever happened on the either side but nothing much happened to expoit. The Arab cavalry and Jeff's Galatian nobles tangled a bit with the Gauls coming out on top after a few turns.

In the center, I turned my Phalanx to try to meet his so Jeff wouldn't get a too much of an overlap on my left. I had my thorakitai, armored elephant and levy to try to hold up his phalanx there. When the pike did meet, my Silver Shields took a beating from his mercenary phalanx and they took off running. Luckily they rallied next turn. Jeff Machimoi phalanx turned out to be WS2 (you roll to determine their WS when they enter combat) but still dealt a lot of damage. I put my king with my center phalanx to make them stubborn (his randomly determined King ability), which they swiftly used. They ended up falling back leaving one one of my pike units in combat.

Alex charged in one phalanx into my thorakitai and another into the elephant. My thorakitai stayed but the elephant got poke in the eye by a pike and stampeded off. Not looking good for the Seleucids. At this time the Ptolemaic cavalry charged by levy in the flank which failed their panic check and all 44 of them ran into the rear of my line.

The stampeding elephant ran through my fleeing levy and destroyed them. The Silver Shields lost again and ran off. The thorakitai couldn't hold the phalanx any longer and broke. Poor Antiochus III decided enough is enough and called it there. A massacre if I ever saw one. Here's a few ending photos.

So the Seleucids were stopped on their run to Alexandria. We'll have to see if I can keep what's left of my army intact fleeing back to Damascus as I'm hounded by the Ptolemaics. The levy only got chased off so I'm looking forward for them to come back and redeem themselves!!

Seleucids at KublaCon

I took my Seleucids up to Kublacon last weekend for the WAB tournament. Mark let me play the Seleucid Empire list from Jeff's new book for some playtest games. It happened to be a bad time for quite a few people so there was a total of 4 of us were there. This is what I took:

1 Successor King @ 158.0 Pt
Horse; Impact Modifier; Regal Impact; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armor; Horse; Drilled; Stubborn; General
0 Horse @ [0.0] Pt

1 Army Battle Standard @ 83.0 Pt
Horse; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armor; Horse; Drilled; Stubborn; General
0 Horse @ [0.0] Pt

10 Companions @ 285.0 Pt
Close Order; Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Xyston; Heavy Armor; Half Metal Barding; Stubborn; Wedge

24 Silver Shields @ 255.0 Pt
Light Armour; Shield; Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Pike; Macedonian Phalanx

28 Katoikoi Phalanx @ 267.0 Pt
Light Armour; Shield; Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Pike; Macedonian Phalanx

28 Katoikoi Phalanx @ 267.0 Pt
Light Armour; Shield; Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Pike; Macedonian Phalanx

10 Euzonoi @ 60.0 Pt
Hand Weapon; Javelins; Buckler; Skirmishers

10 Arab Cavalry @ 165.0 Pt
Leader; Mixed Weapons; Shield; Light Cavalry; Feigned Flight

9 Arab Tribesmen @ 54.0 Pt
Composite Bow; Open Order

18 Theureophoroi @ 141.0 Pt
Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Thrusting Spear; Shield

18 Thorakitai @ 177.0 Pt
Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Thrusting Spear; Light Armor; Shield

9 Thracian Peltasts @ 86.0 Pt
Leader; Hand Weapon; Rhomphaia; Javelins; Shield; Light Infantry

Total Army list Cost: 1998.0


GAME 1

My first game was against Mark and his Assyrians. He had 3 blocks of Assyrian infantry, 2 units of chariots, and some slingers and archers. My camera was on the wrong setting, so a lot of my pictures were blurred. Here are a few though.

Mark's setup.

Me trying to to wheel my phalanx to match up with the Assyrian infantry blocks. Half movement while wheeling really hurts. My companions ignore the archers in front of them and are able to march right past them to get into the rear. But there are some heavy chariots with the general and ASB there to meet them. My companions end up charging the chariots but can't break them. After a few turns of fighting they end up running off the table.

The Arab cavalry try to hold up the other chariots while my Thureophoroi get in position. The Thureophoroi place themselves directly in front of the chariots and get run down. The Arab cavalry swoop in behind the pursuing chariots and take one down with javelins which cause them to panic off the board.

One phalanx is going toe to toe with the Assyrian infantry. They win most of the combats but just can't get them to break (even after burning their stubborn). The Thracians charge the flank for one final push before the General's chariot army arrives. No luck though. The infantry hold.

My Thorakitai and Arab archers were run off by the red Assyrian infantry which are now getting back into the game. My Silver Shields try to hold them off until my other phalanx (which scared off some slingers) arrive. The Assyrian general's chariots plow into my flanking Thracians, killing them all. This causes my phalanx to break which panics my king, ASB and supporting phalanx. Game over for the Seleucids. It was a very good game which could of gone either way.

We had a few errors pop in since we were using WAB 2 and this is Mark's first run with his army. I screwed up when my wedge flattened out. I was thinking my frontage was as big as to cover the opponents front but it is actually only as wide as my widest rank in the wedge. Opps. Mark ran his Assyrian infantry as WS 4 / BS 4 but I think they are actually 3 after looking back at Chariot Wars. The killer was them being stubborn and causing fear. We goofed on a few morale checks too (we forgot the -1 for being half strength). Going to need a marker for that.

GAME 2

This was against Rob's Ancient Spanish. He had 4 infantry units with throwing spears and feigned flight. One was stubborn. A Celtiberians unit with heavy throwing spears and warband, some normal slingers and a unit of Baleric slingers rounded his army out. He also had a general and ASB. It was an all infantry force.

Rob's setup. Stubborn infantry on the his left by themselves and warband on the right. The Baleric slingers are actually next to stubborn unit but out of the picture.

I had a phalanx lined up against a Spanish unit and the Thorakitai and Thureophoroi had to handle the Celtiberians. My Companions were in the middle.

It went pretty bad for Rob from the beginning. His Baleric slingers couldn't hit anything and when my Euzonoi ran up to throw he charaged them. WS 3 Baleric's vs WS 2 Euzonoi, you'd think it would be over quick. But the Baleric's struck out again and were run down by my Euzonoi. The stubborn warband did a number on my Silver Shields. There were able to mass fire javelins on the hill and caused my phalanx to panic. It managed to rally but was then charged by the stubborn Iberians and swept my Silver Shields away.

My Companions charged the skirmishers in front of them which made their fear test and fiend flighted away, but not far enough away (I caught them by an inch). I blew through them and ended up in the rear of the Spanish line. I ended up sandwiching a Iberian unit between the cavalry and the phalanx. The new 2.0 rule where you automatically die if you are engaged to the front and rear worked out well here. We weren't sure if my units pursued or not after the broken unit is just picked up and if so where they would pursue.


Here is my Companions after running down the skirmishers and charging one Iberian unit to the rear. With our confusions of pursuing we rolled which direction they would go (left or right) and I ran them that way (I actually rolled to not pursue but no luck there).


The Celtiberians charged my Thureophoroi which ran away. This let my Thorkitai to get a charge in on them. With all the heavy throwing spears coming their way, the Thorakitai took a beating but made their break test. Their spears vs the warbands single fighting rank started to take a toll on the Celtiberians. During this time Rob's general joined a infantry unit and I put my King in the phalanx opposite it. When the Spanish charged the phalanx, the Spanish general challenged my King, who happened to roll +1 Wound on the kingly table this game. But otherwise he's a panzy with 2 attacks and 3 strength. The melee went for about 2 turns where my king took 3 wounds (and I was complaining about the extra wound roll at the beginning of the game) before my companions ended it all with a rear charge on the Spanish unit.

Tony with his Age of Arthur Civilized British army list and I played a quick game after this. Tony beat me on our practice game before we left to San Francisco but he had horrible luck on this one. After one charge and most of his units panicing we just called it.

So I'm glad I got a few WAB 2.0 games in with the new army list. All very fun games against great opponents.

Might of Arms Gaugamela Game

I put on a Might of Arms game at my club the other day. I was thinking of a good battle to put on and decided to go with Gaugamela. This let me use most of my models I've been painting off and on for the last few years.

I used Luke Ueda's DBM order of battle and a map from Wiki for the starting setup. Bob Bryant (the creator of MoA) sent me some of the test rules he's using for MoA II, so I used most of those too. If you are familiar with normal MoA, you'll see some differences in troop types and a Drilled/Untrained rating for troops. I also added a house rule to help differentiate the xyston armed Greek cavalry from the javelin/short spear armed Persians. Xyston armed cavalry get a +1 in combat vs. non-xyston armed cavalry.

Here are the army lists I used. I had to modify the lists a bit from Luke's due to what models I have. I decided to not represent the second line of Persian levy in this battle for one. I made most of Alexander's Greek hoplites as unarmored infantry instead of heavy infantry to try to represent Iphikrates-type hoplites. Both sides ended up around 2200 points without generals.

Alexander
Royal Lancers & Paionians	3	LC		Xyston	B
Royal Lancers	2	LC		Xyston	B
Agrianians	3	SI		Jav	B
Macedonian Archers	3	SI		Bow	C
Greek Mercenaries	6	UI	Trained		C
Greek Peltasts	6	LI	Trained	Jav	C
Companions	3	HC	Trained	Xyston	A
Companions	3	HC	Trained	Xyston	A
Companions	3	HC	Trained	Xyston	A
Javelinmen	3	SI		Jav	C
Hypaspists	6	MI	Trained	Jav	B
Koinos
Phalanx	6	HI	Trained	Pike	C
Phalanx	6	HI	Trained	Pike	C
Phalanx	6	HI	Trained	Pike	C
Phalanx	6	HI	Trained	Pike	C
Greek Mercenaries	6	UI	Trained		D
Krateros
Phalanx	6	HI	Trained	Pike	C
Phalanx	6	HI	Trained	Pike	C
Thracians	6	LI	Untrained	Jav	C
Thracians	6	LI	Untrained	Jav	C
Greek Mercenaries	6	UI	Trained		D
Parmenio
Greek Cavalry	3	MC	Untrained		C
Thessalians	3	HC	Trained		B
Thessalians	3	HC	Trained		B
Cretan Archers	3	SI		Bow	B
Thracian Skirmishers	3	SI		Jav	C
Thracian Horse	2	LC		Jav	C
Thracian Horse	2	LC		Jav	C
Greek Mercenaries	6	UI	Trained		C
Greek Peltasts	6	LI	Trained	Jav	C
Bessos
Scythians	3	HC	Untrained	Bow	C
Bactrians	3	AC	Untrained		C
Bactrians	3	HC	Untrained		C
Sogdian Cavalry	3	HC	Untrained		D
Persian Cavalry	3	HC	Untrained		D
Satrapal Cavalry	3	HC	Untrained		C
Light Cavalry	3	LC		Jav	D
Light Cavalry	3	LC		Jav	D
Light Cavalry	3	LC		Jav	D
Dahai	3	LC		Bow	C
Dahai	3	LC		Bow	C
Indian Hillmen	6	MI	Untrained		D
Takabara Peltasts	6	LI	Untrained	Jav	D
Skirmish Archers	3	SI		Bow	D
Darius
Scythed Chariots	2	ScyChar	Untrained		C
Greek Mercenaries	6	HI	Trained		C
Greek Mercenaries	6	HI	Trained		C
Persian Apple-bearers	6	HI	Trained		B
Karian Deportees	8	Levy	Untrained		D
Mardian Archers	8	Levy	Untrained	Bows	D
Persian Kinsmen	3	HC	Trained	Xyston	B
Kardakes	6	UI	Untrained		D
Skirmish Javelinmen	3	SI		Jav	D
Mazaios
Slingers	3	SI		Sling	D
Albanian Javelinmen	3	SI		Jav	D
Albanian Archers	3	SI		Bow	D
Kappadokians	3	LC		Jav	D
Kappadokians	3	LC		Jav	D
Light Cavalry	3	LC		Jav	D
Light Cavalry	3	LC		Jav	D
Satrapal Cavalry	3	AC	Untrained		C
Persian Cavalry	3	HC	Untrained		C
Persian Cavalry	3	HC	Untrained		C
Parthaians	3	LC		Bow	C
Heavy Cavalry	3	HC	Untrained		D

We played on a 4x12' table with no terrain. Here are some of the battle shots.

Here's the setup. Persians on left, Greeks on right.

Some pics of the Persian battle line.



Here are some of the Macedonians

Both centers moved forward with their cavalry wings keeping the line. The Persian light cavalry on their right starting making a wide swing around to get behind. The Persians through unit after unit against the Companions to stop them from breaking, wearing each unit but never breaking them. Parmenio lost his whole flank except for one extraordinarily brave Thessalian unit, but was able to hold up the Persians enough to allow the phalanx to break the Persian center. A Macedonian win but not an easy one. A fun game for all though.

Companions and hypaspists moving forward.

Persians massing against part of the phalanx hoping to hold the rest of it with the levy.

Parmenio desperately holding off the cavalry hoards.

The Persian center folds before their cavalry can sweep around the flanks.

Companions (Hetairoi) done

I finished up my 1st Corp Hetairoi. These are really nice models and easier than I thought to paint up. I pretty much carbon copied the colors from Sekunda's Montvert book. Hopefully they done have the freshly painted curse in the next big battle coming up. I'm running out of things to put on banners. It seems almost everyone has a sunburst, so I went with the Seleucid anchor. I still might decorate it up a bit more.

Here are the pics.