Great Battles of History from GMT over the years has accumulated a huge back catalogue of ancient battles ….. and of course, just one rule book. Even better, there is a simplified version of the core rules.

In the SPQR Deluxe package, at the back of the scenario book, there is a suggestion of an introductory game (Punic Wars). It was obviously intended to be used with the full system rather than the ‘Simple’ rules, because they make reference to Line Commands, but it should work fine with a tweak or two.

They describe is as being something of a skirmish type affair between two sides sitting at a strength of 5 - 6000 men.

What it does aim to do, is bring several unit types together, so that the player gets a wide handle on these in a controlled environment. For example, the Carthaginians have a couple of Phalanx (2 hex counters), a couple of elephants, light infantry, light cavalry, slingers and some Celtic cavalry.

It is a free set-up, so even this feeds into the learning curve of where is best to place units.

The Romans get a single Alae Sociorum (from III Legion), so they get a bit more cavalry and the Extraordinaire unit.

In reality, at this time, each Roman Legion (Roman Citizens) is paired with an Alae Sociorum Legion (non-citizen Allies of Rome) and they are fielded as a pair. The Alae replaces Hastati and Principes with single standard cohorts. Today, we are just getting the Alae part of a force.

Each side has three leaders, notably though, the Carthaginians get Hannibal and the Romans get Flamininus.

There is an account of the game over on the RECENT GAMES tab (see menu on the left).

The game did give me a good practice scenario to re-engage with these rules, which I must say, were regularly in my hand.

With the game played, I will go back into the rules and do a cover to cover read, as it will all be in context now. 

I might do a small proper battle next, before doing the bigger Trebbia battle that is most definitely in my gaming queue.

You might be forgiven for thinking that this is a Gettysburg-esque scenario, but nothing so grand I’m afraid!

A Confederate and Union force are each desperate for their (unpainted) troops to get resupplied with some clothes and shoes. Both have the same idea of marching towards Dunker Church, which had been recently serving as a provisions depot.

This results in a simple meeting engagement. The game is played until one side has absolute control of the building. The unit that is holding the building has the best pick of the uniform and …. will be painted next :-)

Each side has just 4 infantry regiments and 1 artillery battery, making this the size of a typical Neil Thomas style scenario as described in his One Hour Wargames book. I will be using my own rules. The table is close to 4x4 and the figures are Epic ACW from Warlord Games.

The game notes can be found on the RECENT GAMES tab in the left menu.

This was such a simple scenario, with identical forces and the church building placed dead centre in the middle of the board, yet from the ‘get go’ I was totally drawn in to the pleasure of play - even the unpainted aspects of the figures just became a background thing. It seemed such a small action when setting up, yet it gave a really pleasurable Sunday afternoon’s play …. Not too long and a proper gaming conclusion met within the time.

I did dice to see which table edge the units would arrived at - it just so happened they got opposite sides and then I diced for some minor adjustments such as on which wing should the artillery sit etc.

My rules stood up to the demands of play rather well (I thought). I did wonder whether in such a small game with a single objective, that something like Black Powder might have done better at mixing things up a bit, due to their order system that might not see units activate, or some units might move further than others - which could matter in the early stages when there is a race to be first at the church.  

Anyway, another reminder of how the smaller scenario can so easily hit the right spot.

The ACW project, with roughly a division per side is going to need an overall commander for each force in addition to the three brigade commanders. 

I am working on the Confederates and for the brigade commanders I have used the ordinary mounted colonels provided in the set. The divisional commander however, needs to be something different for instant recognition and befitting of his status.

I have the box of Warlord Games’ five resin commanders and thought it best to start with Lee. He is of course too grand these days to be a divisional commander, but I won’t tell if you don’t!

Putting him on a 40mm round MDF base, instantly begs for a second figure as a bit of company and at first I considered using another senior leader from the Command Pack, but preferring the base to carry an army flag, a standard bearer of sorts was needed. Warlord Games don’t do one, so a conversion is necessary.

Looking at the new cavalry plastic sprue, there is a horseman with a revolver in his hand and the arm is crooked. This figure invites the gun and hand to be removed and a flag pole added instead.

A length of brass wire of a suitable length was cut. A nick was made on the horses neck / mane for the pole to not only sit ‘in’ the model, but for this to also be a good gluing point for security. The other end of the pole is secured against the riders face. A couple of dabs of ‘Liquid Green Stuff’ on the pole game the impression of the rider’s hand.

I have signified Lee, simply by giving him a grey / white beard and a white horse.

In truth, I found the cavalry figure to be a surprisingly ugly sculpt, with erroneous and anonymous plastic present to both front and back of the rider, due to poor detail (a consequence of the moulding process) and it really diminishes the pleasure of painting the figure ….. but once painted, it passes the 3 foot rule, a principle that underpins this project.

As a final thought and I didn’t notice until after the figure surgery! but the cavalry sprue has a pendant pole on it. It may have been easier to use that instead of brass wire because the bond between plastics can be made very strong with plastic cement.

Anyway, there we are and with someone now in charge, plans are being drawn up for some tabletop action very soon.

With the Union and Confederate units virtually without any clothing (unpainted), the respective forces are both heading towards Dunker Church, which had recently been used as a forward depot for supplies, in the hope to scavenge clothes and footwear. Whoever controls the church will have the next unit painted in their colours! :-) 

The mag has just hit UK shelves. A themed issue on Normandy July - August 1944 means that this will be a cover to cover read for me.

It is my fave mag and I’m sure part of that is that it has under-tones of the now defunct, but splendid ‘Practical Wargamer’, which was itself a bi-monthly publication. I remember my copy being brought into me at hospital during a visit in the late 80’s and reading over and over again!

Ideal for me this month is an article ‘Lets Play Hail Caesar Epic Battles’ to coincide with the Hannibal release - which concludes “Hannibal is a real joy to play”

There is a Rapid Fire Reloaded replay involving the Sherman rangers Yeomanry, so this gives a nice additional action to the recent Brothers in Armour release in the ‘reloaded’ series.

They game with 20mm on a 6x4 and its good to see RFR giving so much focus to the 6x4 and especially for anyone working in a smaller scale, getting this down to a 4 x 3 table would be very straight forward.

The chaps at Little Wars TV get a slot, with their article on the Philippi Campaign and includes a really nice looking naval action.

They advise that next issue will be themed on ’Storming the South’, Sherman’s march to the sea.    I am already looking forward to the next issue, but still have tons to explore here, well done WSS.

The front cover tells you everything you need to know about this issue … the Vietnam conflict.

It does seem to be a period that is enjoying a resurgence in interest, with an increased presence on the wargame show circuit and quite a few blogs having current articles.

It’s not particularly my thing and for me, the magazine has given over too much space to it, with not a lot in there left to catch my eye. If Vietnam is your thing, then this will be a very entertaining issue.

There is a diorama build, using the Epic Hannibal figures, which is something that I might have a go at, but perhaps for the English Civil War. I like the idea of each part of the diorama being involved with a story.

I have always bought all three of the wargame magazines, but I think Wargames Soldiers & Strategy is the one that consistently serves me best. I will continue to get that one and perhaps just cherry pick on the other two … sad to say!

I do wonder whether a problem is that the wargaming community in general are not submitting articles the way they used to and that the magazine editors are increasingly needing to draw on a small body of staff and friends to keep the articles coming.

I shall think about putting pen (e-ink!) to paper and doing a contribution.

Oh My! This is an impressive box of goodies. I pre-ordred this from Sally 4th Miniatures, who were offering a kind and respectable discount of just over 20% (thank you).

It is chock full. I seem to recall reading that this is their biggest Epic box to date and the box is certainly deeper that their big Pike & Shotte / Gettysburg sets.

The important stuff I noted on first opening ….. lots (and lots) of figures for Carthage and Rome, nice shield decals and the updated Epic Hail Caesar rulebook in an A5 type format, which presents the rules with a Punic Wars perspective.

Also of interest is a large paper map, gridded in squares, which allows the figures to be used as a boardgame, that is something that I will explore and report back here once experienced.

The elephant sprues look amazing. I bought the wargames Illustrated magazine earlier this month, which had an Epic Roman sprue on the front and the way the 3 rank units clip together to minimise painting time is pretty imaginative and welcome. All told, this is an imaginative set.

The rulebook has a lot of scenarios, with many thankfully aimed at the 6x4 table. I have always had a fascination with the Trebbia battle and some (many!) years ago, I built two 2mm armies specifically to fight the Trebbia action and so I think I will build up the forces (using a temporary glue) just for this scenario and have a go at appreciating both the battle and the scale. This way, I can game with the raw plastic as they ‘slowly’ go through the painting cycle.

A great package, offering many game hours to explore the Punic Wars.

I will be putting up a TREBBIA Project page in the menu on the left very soon, so you may want to keep an eye out for that if this sort of thing interests you.

On UK radio, there is a long running fun quiz show, that amongst other things, has the panel members singing the words of given song, to the musical score of another song. Hilarity you might think, I’ve never found it so!

Anyway - I did the wargame equivalent today, I took the rules of one boardgame and with some modifications, applied them to another boardgame …. I wish I could get those few hours of life back!

I have been playing Hexasim’s Eagles of France (Napoleonic) system quite a bit lately and have the rules firmly under my belt and like them.

A new game in the Jours de Gloire system dropped through the letter box the other day, a system that I have not played for a while. The systems have some similarities and perhaps that is why, on finer points I frequently get the two rulebooks confused. So today, I put one of the smaller JdG battles, Quatre Bras 1815, to the test of being played using the Eagles of France rules and game markers - would it work?

It actually played okay, but felt a touch flat. I am guessing the brain processing was harder because visually I saw a JdG game, with most of its rules probably still deep in my memory, so subconsciously I was fighting against that, while over laying the Hexasim rules. It was all a rather needless exercise and the game felt a bit mechanical rather than intuitive.

I recall years ago trying to develop a hex based napoleonic game for figures and using GMT’s Command and Colors game parts to play, but while playing, I just couldn’t ‘un-see’ the Command & Colors game. I’m sure the same effect was taking place today.

The photo shows the game after a couple of turns. The Anglo-Allies have been falling back towards Gemioncourt, but their guns had already heaped a load of hurt onto the advancing French.

You can see up on the left, French cavalry are about to fall on that flipped Allied unit (Saxe Weimar), but the infantry successfully rolled to go into square and the cavalry attack failed (the cavalry would later rout when close range artillery caught them forming up again).

Looking at the Anglo-Allied reinforcements (the first of which can be seen at the top of the photo) marching towards Quatre Bras, I can’t see the French having much of a chance.

Edit - they didn’t! 

In the menu on the left, 5th tab down, sits the ACW Epic Project button.

I have updated the page, adding a discussion about terrain, painting and basing, particularly concerning the gap between figure blocks if the provided 60mm bases are used.

There is a photo there that illustrates the issue, which may be worth a look if you are bothered about ‘that gap’.

The latest game module in the Jours de Gloire (Days of Glory) system, dropped through the letter box today.

Just released by Vae Victis, this module called Two Years of Glory, covers the battles of Jena-Auerstedt (1806) and Eylau & Friedland (1807), which is an absolute bonza bundle of battles for the napoleonic fan.

The game comes with 4 maps, 3 ½ counter sheets, plus rules and scenario book, written in dual language (French / English). Units are brigades and regiments, the hexscale is 500 metres and the time scale is 1 turn covers 1 hour and 45 minutes.

I can see this module selling out even faster than the Austerlitz game did.

For those that don’t know, each formation is represented by two command chits, placed in a draw cup. The chits are drawn one at a time and ‘that’ formation is activated, so there is no certainty as to what order formations will become available to you. The last chit left in the cup is not drawn, also adding an extra dynamic to the game.

It is a while since I have put this system to the table, so it needs jacking up a bit in my memory, but I think once I get these to the table, I will do all four in sequence.

Each full scenario also carries a smaller scenario, though in the bigger games, even a 5 turn game can take more than one session to play. I shall have a look and see what is the most playable and report back.

A face-to-face game, with a smaller scenario from the Austerlitz game (Eagles of France system), looking at the southern end of the battlefield around Telnitz and Sokolnitz, which sit on the Goldbach Stream.

Davout thinly holds the area with the lead elements of IV Corps. The rest of the corps are off. Board and will arrive as reinforcements over the coming hours. The Coalition have orders to strike and take Telnitz and Sokolnitz and the dynamic of the game is whether they can do that before Davout’s numbers grow.

The game starts at 7 AM and plays for 5 turns, each representing one hour of real time.

When you play the full campaign game and there are several opening options for the Coaltition to take, seeing the thinly spread Davout at the foot of the Pratzen Heights makes for a very inviting target, even though as a player you know that the whole of his French Corps will soon assemble and that you will struggle against them, opening the attack against Davout is just too compelling to ignore …. plus the the high victory points for that area just draw you in.

One of the fascinating things about wargames is how individual parts of the battlefield, thanks to situation and dice can see narratives unfold that surely deserve recounting and so it is here, with the tenacious (in our game) Tirailleurs du Po.

They are a small unit of 308 Italian soldiers, allied to the French. As a gap opens in the French centre at the Goldbach and it suddenly starts to look like a potential crisis point, this small unit works its way across the northern arm of the stream into wooded ground that sits in a loop of water.

The position is good, proof against cavalry and terrain that protects against both infantry assault and gun fire. Further, the troops are classed as light and so get a +1 bonus to their own fire.

So what can be hoped for from this small unit?

The first assault is launched by a single powerful column (stack) of infantry and the Tirailleurs Defensive Fire, sends that column routing off into the distance (the red arrow in the photo).

The shock to the Coalition caused Dokhturov to make a much better prepared attack (3 attack stacks), preceded by artillery fire. Despite facing the overwhelming numbers and taking heavy fire (flipped to the weaker side), the small band of Tirailleurs held out for another two hours, by which time, Davout had brought enough support up to the centre position to keep it secure from breakthrough.

On another day, our dice would be less lucky and we wouldn’t get our little story of a little unit bravely battling to save a Corps!

By mid-point in the game, it was looking a tough uphill struggle for the Coalition, but towards the end, the Castle and Telnitz fell to them, but with the clock ticking down, the Coalition were not left with enough time to turn that into a victory - Davout had held on for long enough - the battle would be decided in other parts of the field.

As always, the system gave an entertaining game and we play this often enough now that the system is pretty familiar to us, so not too much time is spent with the rule book.

Out of the Blue, there has been a bit of re-organisation, plenty of selling and some buying, which has brought about a different sentiment to my hobby approach.

Over the next few weeks, I have a few things flowing into the collection that on the face of it will look like I have gone into a free-fall spend and might appear a little ostentatious. However that is not where my mind is at the moment.

Indeed, my hobby spend is about to significantly contract as I hit a point of being content with pretty much everything that I have.

The goodies that should arrive over the coming weeks have each been paid for a month ago, 3 months ago and last year (a Kickstarter), so with the approach of August, I am already entering a somewhat cash neutral position.

This is not something that I have deliberately sought out to do, but rather an accidental discovery as the wargaming planets align and I find myself re-appreciating what I have.

I should add that I am going through a bit of re-organisation, re-buying some of the things so quickly divested last year, but that is set against a background of making a tidy sum at a recent ‘bring ‘n buy’ held at a wargame show, together with a concerted effort to off-load the unloved / surplus stuff onto E-Bay (I really find that quite tedious), plus the local refuse centre has played its part!

My Hobby area is split into two areas of interest, boardgames and figures.

On the boardgames front, I have pretty much already moved towards series games, with multiple games / modules using the same rules. I just don’t seem to have the desire anymore to ‘buy to try’ in the way that I used to. New purchases will be to either expand a current game series or it will be to get  something that is a one-off and special.

I have been quite strict and anything that is not in my ‘A’ star group has gone …. No ‘B’ listers or any ‘also ran’ titles!

I am not left with a lot, but I see that as being really helpful.

I have come to really appreciate the idea of getting familiar with fewer rule sets, increasing the chance of getting games to the table and for our face to face games to flow better / faster, plus a de-clutter really does bring a cathartic element to it.

For figures, I just have to look at the stash still waiting to be painted and the enthusiasm to add to that is no longer there. I collect both sides and so that also means accepting that some new periods that I fancy getting into will not get the green light any time soon. I have abandoned the 1066 project, others  face the axe and AWI is now off the cards, which was to underpin an evolution of my eagles at Quatre Bras rules..

I have accrued a ton of terrain that not only hogs space, but doesn’t really get to the table as it simply doesn’t need to and it has become obvious that I can actually manage with a smaller terrain collection.

Rather like the last time I did this, I have to be careful not to get carried away, once I get into a serious clearing out mood NOTHING is safe - seriously!

All of this feels a little at odds with by usual drum beat of ‘we need to spend to keep the small wargame businesses going’, but I am where I am and consumerism, at least for now, is not an aspect that is actually helping my hobby.

I like the concept of ‘Pocket Armies’ which helps keep figure projects contained and restrained. My 28mm Napoleonic project has just hit their 8 units per side target and the recent Epic ACW project has divisional sized forces (7 - 8 regiments per side plus artillery) on the painting tray, slowly getting cycled through and sent to barracks, ready for their ‘Action at Mill Creek’.

In an effort to reduce my screen time, I have not posted anything fresh on the Battlefields and Warriors blog for over two months - though I note, despite the lack of fresh material, that it remains a frequently visited place, with over 10,000 hits a month still being the norm (thank you, I feel a little bad about not servicing that support).

Posting will carry on here. The re-structuring of this site (see the menu to the left) will help more fully ‘showcase’ interests, but it just needs a bit of time for each location to be populated in a meaningful and useful way. I have paid up my hosting fee for this site until October next year.

None of the above is an expression of regret, far from it, my enthusiasm for a cleaner, tighter, more focussed collection is running high. I expect to start up a number of small projects and also hope to get some sort of campaign going to get the benefits of linked results and ‘the big picture’.

There is new stuff waiting in the wings. Some of it might take a while to filter into here, but as always, I hope the content of the site tickles the fancy of those with similar interests and who are looking to get good games within the domestic setting of the dining / kitchen table.

So there we are, a happy wargamer, who suddenly has a keener sense of what is what!

How long will it last :-)