Little Battles

[dwkay57]

The attached is a little rough round the edges and might warrant a bit more time to tidy up but is reasonable as a first stab.

I've tried not to dwell on detail but give an overall feel for the armies, the tactics and the major incidents or flow in the battle. Whether a few more photographs might have helped or a more round-by-round summary, I'm not sure.

However I did manage to keep it to 2 sides of A4 (a typical requirement when writing reports for work) so it could be about the right size for a Slingshot article.

[dwkay57]

Having read the Society's publication "Simple Campaigning" whilst on holiday, I borrowed a few ideas to generate the mechanisms to allow me to simulate the seemingly random Greek wars fought in the period between the Persian invasions and the rise of Macedonia. I'm adding more details on the mechanics as I develop them to www.veryverylittlewars-wordpress.com for those who are fed up with the football.

The attached document summarises the encounters that happened during the first campaign of the first war, when Tanagara decided to invade Tegea (no real reason just the way the dice rolled).

The concept of the "retreat" encounter was generated from the ideas in the WRG "Setting Up A Wargames Campaign". Other encounter types could have occurred if the initial battle had ended differently.

[Patrick Waterson]

Nice work, Dave.

For various reasons we players rarely if ever conduct an operational/strategic retreat and follow-up on the tabletop, so it is nice to see these neglected activities aired for once.

John G-L's Simple Campaigning is a gem.  One of these days I shall finish a review of it; one of the hidden advantages is that one can 'borrow' the concepts and extend them to other settings, as you have done.

[dwkay57]

Another battle, another write up (sorry chaps).

Again somewhat fictional in terms of opponents and general context (i.e. an early geographical error meant that East Anglia was joined on to the north east area of Persia enabling the Trinovantes to mount an invasion).

Attached is the Slingshot style narrative and a few photographs article. For those who want a more detailed period by period story please go to www.veryverylittlewars-wordpress.com and look up Battle 56.

[dwkay57]

Chris,

Sorry if the links didn't work. I've just tried them and they seemed to work OK for me whether I went from the home page or the battles page.
I attach a pdf with where I've highlighted the links, if you can let me know which one(s) didn't work for you I can check further. (might be best to send a message rather than post a reply).

https://veryverylittlewars.wordpress.com/ Link to site should be as to the left.

Thanks for the comments on the article.

[dwkay57]

For those bored of elections, attached is a write up of a recent battle.

The Athenians should be fairly recognisable, but some of you may blink at the Persians. This particular Persian army is my representation of a Satrap's force from some where far away in the north east corner of the empire. Highly conjectural and suspicious I know.

For those who are really bored a longer version in a slide format exists on my website.

[Justin Swanton]

Very thorough and interesting battle report, and beautiful photos. The terrain pieces make my mouth water.

[Jim Webster]

Very thorough and interesting battle report, and beautiful photos. The terrain pieces make my mouth water.

yes David's terrain is something else :-)

[Imperial Dave]

never really looked at hex terrain before but yes it does look somewhat gorgeous

[Chris]

Guessing at the dimensions of the field/table: 6 or 7 feet by 3?

If I recall correctly, figures are 6-10mm and rules are of David's own design. (Seem to recall an article about leadership in a previous issue of Slingshot . . .)

Agree with the assessments regarding the terrain. Guessing here too that the hexes are polystyrene or some such. (Reminds me of Kallistra products.)

Playing surface appears very clean . . . Reading numerous ADLG reports on TMP, the field/table is often awash in plastic casualty markers, various devices and dice, and even the oddly large command figure.

Thanks for posting/sharing David. Provides inspiration or at least ideas to many, I am sure.

Cheers,

Chris

[dwkay57]

Thanks for the positive comments guys.

The hexes are Kallistra (https://www.kallistra.co.uk/) mostly flocked by them although I've decorated some plain ones myself (woods and rough terrain).
The table is about 1.6m by 1m (or 63in by 36in in old money).

Figures are 6mm - mostly Baccus - and rules are my own (was an article in Slingshot about issue 282 and I've prattled about them in various threads or there is some detail on my website). All the information for a battle is held within an Excel spreadsheet and as the hex is the universal measure there is not much paraphernalia apart from a few dice, hence the clean battlefield although a slice of cake did appear in one photograph somewhere......

[dwkay57]

Despite having all the necessary figures at 25mm I never got round to fighting a battle with a full legion deployed. Having just recently finished my first legion at 6mm I had just had to give them a try and test out a number of rule modifications that I had been working on over the summer.

Short battle report attached. Longer version available at www.veryverylittlewars.wordpress.com for those who need an excuse to put off that really important chore....

[Chris]

Justifiably distracted by a splendid report, splendid table, and splendid troops (figures), I decided to delay addressing the pressing chore(s). Thanks, David. 

For some reason, I thought a 6mm roman legion would have been bigger . . . guess I may have been spoiled by the Pharsalus report featuring these tiny metal men.

In stark contrast to an ADLG tabletop, I did not see a single die or marker on your excellent-looking terrain. How do you keep track of what is going on? Rosters?

Very well done, IMO. Kudos!

Curious: Will you be recreating Paraetacene on or around Battle Day? I would be interested to see how you model the engagement and how your rules handle Successors.

Thanks for posting.

Chris

[Imperial Dave]

second that. Great report. Very well written and with good visuals. I am quite taken with the hex terrain

[dwkay57]

In response to Chris:
- the figure:real man scale I play at is 1:50 so a cohort of 400 men is represented by 8 figures on a single base. A full legion is quite easily represented by 12 bases (including a double strength first cohort, the cavalry and a bolt shooter) and fits into 3 hexes. More legions are planned!
- In the full report some dice do photobomb in one shot but I managed to avoid getting a shot of cake in this time. The monitoring aspect of both casualties and morale is held in a spreadsheet, which I think I may have bored for England on before, but always happy to drone on again if you wanted some more detail.
- The only phalangites in my collection are part of my Commagene army, so not enough for a full successor engagement. They are based in 4x4 blocks and despite low morale / weapon skill seem to punch above their weight though they haven't faced up to legionnaires nor Persian immortals yet.

Glad I was able to provide a diversion.