Little Battles

[dwkay57]

I was fortunate enough over the summer period to get the opportunity to fight three battles. I've written up the two that might be the least boring in a shortened form.

However, if you are interested in battles with some sort of historical reality then you probably need to "look away now".

[Jim Webster]

Two interesting battles and I do like the terrain 

[dwkay57]

Thanks Jim. I'm quite impressed with the terrain too - especially when I compare it back to green cloths and beer mat based woods I was using back in the 80's. It does take a while to set up (even allowing for the carrying of the boxes from their storage cupboard to the dining room) but I'm getting a bit quicker at it.

[Jim Webster]

I think it's worth the effort 

[dwkay57]

Another battle with probably too much terrain on the battlefield. But it was a good excuse for some extremely odd tactical decisions and probably a fair representation of the local area on a wet day in late autumn.

[Jim Webster]

The games always look good 

[Patrick Waterson]

The Greek force seems to have had much the same capabilities against the Trinovantes as a Roman one: the Britons' best bet is to skirmish with mobile forces and avoid any large-scale clash completely.  If such a clash becomes inevitable, putting some vexing terrain between oneself and the classical types seems necessary, but it appears anything short of a complete river is likely to be inadequate.

One gets an insight into why Caractacus' method of waging war against the invaders (as with Cassivellaunus earlier) was plenty of mounted hit-and-run, meanwhile avoiding battle unless his infantry could defend a river, hill fort or both.

[dwkay57]

The first battle of 2016 and two new armies as well!

To understand why the Thessalians may be Greek "but not as we know them Jim" you will need to read Robert Heiligers' article in Slingshot 299 and also the discussion (probably a few years back) on the army research thread about Greeks. I've taken the view that most of the infantry weren't hoplites just to make them different from my other Greek armies.

I admit the Persians are very fictional. The army is supposed to represent that of the Satrapy of Somewherefarawai (keep saying it and it might come to you) which I've placed in far north-east of the Empire, hence the Bactrian and Saka allies.

[dwkay57]

Having been inspired by some of Justin's work on animated battle reports, I'd thought I'd try to see if I could do something similar and see how it worked for my rules.

Well, I did but unfortunately the resultant pdf was a touch too big to be uploaded to this forum. So if you are interested you'll have to visit https://veryverylittlewars.wordpress.com/ and have a look at Battle 55. The result isn't as polished or as entertaining as Justin's output but may be this style could be a different way forward to the more typical narrative and occasional photograph article.

Views and comments welcome. 

[Justin Swanton]

This is brilliant. Very clear - I was able to use my mouse wheel to go backwards and forwards to see exactly what was going on. I definitely encourage you to do battle reports like this in future. First rate!

[Chris]

Second Mr. Swanton's opinion.

A visual feast . . . pictures next to maps with captions. Appreciated the introduction and conclusion as well.

[Patrick Waterson]

Excellent presentation, Dave.  The action is easy to follow and distinctly clearer than the traditional narrative with photos.

[Chris]

Picking up on Patrick's comments, I wonder if this might indicate a "sea change" in the format of battle reports?

Should we try to imitate this style? What kind of impact will this have on future issues of Slingshot?

Are maps and pictures with captions better than maps and pictures with text?

The comments made by Justin, myself, and Patrick would seem to point to the affirmative.

[dwkay57]

I think the response from me is not necessarily as a lot would depend on the media and the rules and how much detail readers / viewers wanted.

I followed up on Justin's ideas of an overhead viewpoint following comments that sometimes - despite wonderful photography on my part - it was difficult to follow everything through but still wanted to include shots of the figures to remind everybody that the little figures did run about. I wouldn't think this style of presentation would suit the printed format typically well.

Potentially Slingshot could carry a synopsis of a battle with some photographic highlights (much the same as a newspaper report of a football match) and then readers could go on-line to "view the video".

IF I get time over the next few days I'll try and draft up what might be the Slingshot version of the battle for consideration / comparison.

[Justin Swanton]

Go for it!