War and Conquest 'Age of Warlords 2' day at Peterborough Wargames club

Brilliant day last Sunday at the club! We hosted the second War and Conquest 'Age of Warlords' gaming day, with participants either trying to cause (or prevent) the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the mid 5th Century AD. I had written the lists prior to the same event last year and they had seemed pretty well balanced last time out.

Once again, I took my Patrician Romans. This time, I restructured my force so that it was very elite-cavalry- heavy, fielding my Bucellarii as Huns, supported by foederate German nobles and Hun horse-archers. This was backed up by one unit of Roman pedes and a unit of Germanic foot who had been whipped from the Roman fabricae, so were armoured, and equipped with with heavy thrown weapons. There was an additional unit of Roman sagitarrii and I had 4 personalities - 2 Roman with the bucellarii and 2 Germanic - 1 with the mounted nobles and one with the infantry. This gave me 5 SIPs...very useful they proved too!

Most of the armies present were significantly bigger than mine - players having gone for troops and often big units of them to get more dice in. We had a fair few Patrician Roman armies, several Saxons and a Frank, maybe some Romano-British too...can't quite remember. But each army did have its own 'character', which was nice - no two forces had been composed the same.

Due to one player falling ill on the day, I only got one game in during the afternoon, against George ad his Heptarchy Saxons, so I spent some of the morning downstairs playing some Sci-fi thing by Spartan games (pretty good fun actually, despite the fact I don't really like such games normally) and making tea!

My game was really good fun! It went to the wire! I initially drew the 'kill your opponent's 2 most valuable units' objective. Well, no way my poncy late, late Romans will kill Saxon Gedriht, so I expended a SIP to choose one and went for 'get an unbroken unit into the enemy deployment zone and prevent him doing the same.'

I decided to play aggressively, as George's army was bloody enormous! However, he only had one unit of Gedriht, so that was a bonus! I deployed with all my cavalry on my right flank, intending to refuse the other as long as possible while I smashed his left. I expected him to advance, form shield wall against my cavalry and envelope me on my weak left flank, thereby crushing my plan, but, for whatever reason, he didn't. Seeing my massed large cavalry units, he moved an infantry unit from his right to his left to support it. This was his undoing, as, although his Gedriht mashed my foederate foot like they weren't there, my pedes broke the unit of Geoguth they were facing and, chasing them down, smashed into the flank of the marching reinforcements, breaking them in one turn! While this wa sharpening, my bucellarii, despite flunking two charges, did massive execution in their second combat round to break the Duguth facing them and threaten the flank of the Saxon horse who were valiantly battling my German nobles, the Huns having seen off the skirmishing Saxon cavalry with a volley of arrows and a well-timed charge. In the end though, it all came down to who got strategic advantage in the final turn. If George won that, his Gedriht would have flanked and slaughtered my bucellarii...if I got it, I'd be home and dry. My extra SIPs saved the day here and the game went to me, as my Pedes were firmly settled in George's deployment zone and my cavalry were soon to arrive there, as the Saxon horse were unlikely to last another turn.

This game made me think about the lists. They are generally good, I think, but there may be an argument for slightly increasing the cost of armour for some units - notably those non-noble units who can get them from Roman fabricae, etc, as armour certainly makes a difference (as it should) in combat. I'm going to look again at the lists and possibly submit some suggestions to Rob Broom about that.

Anyway, it was a fun day - everyone seemed to think so and reported it as such, so we must be doing something right! Huge thanks to all who travelled so far to come along, especially Rob who drove from Bristol to be there for 9.00am!

Here are a few pics...

My only game of the day - The Patrician right flank - Huns about to see off the Saxon light horse...

View from the Roman lines...

View from the Saxon lines...

Roman bucellari crash into Saxon duguth...kontos didn't work ever so well in this charge, but luckily the Saxons did no better!

Combat erupts all along the lines

My depleted bucellarii about to finish off the Saxon Duguth...

Season's Greetings!!! Painting and Gaming Update...

Hi folks. I hope that you are all enjoying your Christmas celebrations and that Santa brought you some cool gifts.

I have been busy over the past few weeks painting Lord of the Rings models, having been inspired by the latest Hobbit film. I know lots of people think the movie is a steaming pile of dingo kidneys, but I loved it! Anyway, I have been busy with completing some High Elf spearmen converted from Guards of the Galadhrim Court. They have been painted in my current 'dip & highlight' style. I like them - they aren't the best GW sculpts, but I think my paint job and the addition of shields has made them look pretty cool...

I have also been working on my evil forces as well, prompted by a chance encounter on EBAY. I had been worrying for a while about the amount of time it is going to take to get enough LoTR models on the table for a game when, quite by chance, I came upon 24 painted Morannon Orcs. They were not cheap, but had been painted in a fairly neat base coat, ink wash and dry brush style. Anyway, I took the chance and clicked 'Buy it Now.' 

This is what they looked like when they arrived...

So, I set to work adding proper highlights and tidying up areas where the dry brushing was dodgy. I also repainted the shields black, Dullcoted and rebased to match the Orcs I had already done. Here are a couple of close-ups after the surgery was completed...

Not too shabby, I think you'll agree!! I have 8 more to do by which time my Orc force will have quadrupled in about 4 evenings painting time...result!!!!

Here are a few 'action shots' of the entire LoTR collection thus far...

Finally for today, just before Christmas, Andy Mac and I reconvened for another play test of the War & Conquest Romano-British and Early Saxon army lists. This time we took 2500pt armies which gave me the chance to try armoured milites and Frankish allies. The game was, as always, a cracker. However, it did expose the fact that well armoured Romano-Brits are pretty well certain to grind out a win against the Saxon Duguth simply by virtue of better saving throws and by being close order infantry. This means they need to be limited in Romano-Brit lists. in fact, I am toying with the idea of forcing the Romano-Brit player to field at least one unit of Pedyt in any army list above 1500pts. The Franks were, predictably, slaughtered when facing foot Gedriht. The KA4 of the Gedriht means that they are invincible in a straight fight (although Welsh Teulu will be their equal when I write their list) and in this game, Andy's unit strolled through the Franks and one unarmoured milites unit. His mounted Gedriht came off distinctly worse against the mounted Romano-Brit Commanipulares, helped by the Equites, whose flank charge was a joy!!

Overall, we had to stop due to running out of time. Andy had killed 2 of my combat units, but I had killed more. However, he achieved his objective whereas I did not. Next, we will use different forces - Andy will try some Geoguth in his army and I will field a Vortigern list with Saxon mercenaries and Pedyt...

Anyway, a few pictures...

Saxon deployment...

Battle lines formed...

View from the other table edge...

View from behind the Saxon horde...

Gedriht showing my Franks how it should be done...ouch...

Arthur charges in...

Chop, slice, stab...

Andy ponders the pending destruction of his mounted Gedriht...

Saxon Duguth about to 'take their medicine' courtesy of Arthur's commanipulares...

I hope you enjoyed the update. Next up, more Elves and orcs, plus news of 2015's big War & Conquest project!

First Playtest of My War & Conquest Romano-British and Saxon Army Lists...

Interesting game this...

I have been drafting some revised Arthurian army lists for Rob Broom's war & Conquest rules. It is a thoroughly interesting process and has resulted in mucho debate, especially about whether Saxon Gedriht should be KA4 (killing ability 4, so killing on a 3+ compared to everything else's 4+) Now, I know that in WAB, Gedriht are S4. Difference in War & Conquest is that in second and subsequent rounds of combat, they fight in 2 ranks so you get about 18 attacks coming in hitting on 3+, then you take normal saves (usually pretty crap in Arthurian armies) then they kill on 3+s. Now, I'm not sure that's a problem, but it has led to much debate and this was the first play test... Oh, BTW, you can have 2 comitatus units in a 2000pt plus army...

The following is copied from my post on the Scarab Miniatures War & Conquest forum....

My opponent (also called Andy, which may be confusing later... :?) had had difficulty accessing my lists due to email hassle, but had been unable to let me know. As I only took my British lists along to the club, we cobbled something rough together from my ailing memory. Anyway, I took the following:

Dux (with +1 SIP)
ASB
Decurio

12 x mtd commanipulares (heavy armour, thrusting spear, regular formation)
21 x foot commanipulares (light armour, large shield, heavy thrown weapon, which I bloody forgot to use...)
2 x 24 milites with large shield and thrown weapon
1 x 12 Equites with alight armour upgrade
12 x sagitarrii
2 x 12 skirmishers, one lot with short bow one with slings
This came to 1997 points.

Andy had

Cyning (+1 SIP)
Atheling
ASB
Thegn

1 x 24 Gedriht
1 x 14 mtd Gedriht
2 x 24 Duguth
1 x 18 duguth
3 x skirmisher units, 2 with short bow one with javelin

Approx 1990 points (we think....)

Andy had never played before...

We set up with Autumn deployment because it looks nice...

I favoured an infantry centre, with skirmishers screening my right and all my cavalry on my left. Andy favoured matching my skirmishers with his. His foot Gedriht were in the centre, flanked by large Duguth units accompanied by personalities. These were flanked by his mtd Gedriht and finally his small Duguth unit.

I won the strategic advantage for turn one and advanced slightly. The idea of this was to convince Andy that I was playing aggressively, only to fool him by forming shield wall in turn two and hoping to turn the flank, although I realised this would be tough with Andy's clever deployment of the 18 Duguth on the extreme flank facing my Equites. My initial archery dispatched a fair few of the heathen to their maker, which was a sound start.

Andy surged everyone forward at full pelt and I suddenly realised my error  - I HAD to win strategic advantage for turn 2 or all would be lost....

I didn't.... You can guess the rest....

But anyway, what happened was that I got charged by everything, so the skirmish screen fled, revealing the heavy infantry. The Equites were JUST in range of the Duguth charge (DRAT!) and their javelin fire proved useless.

The game then became one long protracted combat until I died.

This is how it went.

The mtd Gedriht demolished the mtd commanipulares in rapid order, with the equites suffering a similar fate. Both my units were run down in the pursuit. I think I lasted about 4 combat rounds. The mtd Gedriht did not lose a single figure and killed over half the heavily armoured commanipulares!!!!!

In the centre, I forgot my heavy throwing spears (STOOPID!!!!) which meant that my foot commanipulares stood no chance.

They lasted about 4  rounds of combat before eventually being run down. Interestingly, the 2 personalities both died in combat as I rolled an uncommonly large number of 6s when finding out if they were wounded and uncommonly large numbers of 1s and 2s when rolling for divine intervention...sigh...

However, my milites did defeat both large Duguth units, with one being run down in the pursuit. The other, despite losing 4 more men as they fled through my strategically placed sagitarrii, rallied on snake eyes!!!

So it was game over as over 75% of my units were gone, for the loss of one of Andy's. Absolute massacre.

Evaluation:

Mtd gedriht are very, very, very awesome. Probably too awesome! I do think the saxon buckler rule (may re-roll all hit dice in any turn they charge - that's all hit dice, not just misses...useful if you roll really shite dice...) should only apply to foot troops, as it was the re-roll in turn one of the combat that meant they scored 6 hits rather than the 2 they got on first roll!!! Also,  I think it's not appropriate for mounted fighting, having reflected on the fighting style described by those 'in the know'....

Foot gedriht are also very, very awesome!! It's that second (and subsequent) rounds of combat, where suddenly, 18 attacks hit and kill on 3+. I had a save of 4+ on my foot commanipulares and it mattered not a jot. Ok, had they been in shield wall, it would have been 3+. However, my mtd guys had a 3+ save and died virtually to a man without inflicting a single solitary casualty!! Yikes...

Duguth and Milites are well balanced. In a grind out, the milites will win. That's pretty historically accurate in my opinion, as late Roman style infantry were still capable of holding their own and grinding out wins against barbarians in this period. I didn't field Pedyt as this was a late Roman style Romano British Field Army...

Equites probably work fine if you don't get them charged by enemy infantry (sigh.....)

So, overall, the only questions I really have are as follows:

1. Should Saxon gedriht cavalry be KA4? Or would KA3 reflect less comfort fighting from a horse in the earlier armies at the very least?
2. Should mtd Saxons get the buckler re-roll? Gut feeling suggests that the answer is 'no' as it was a weapon best suited to foot combat where the individual could swirl about flailing buckler and axe/sword at all and sundry. That's bloomin' hard to do on the back of a nag....
3. Whatever one does about questions 1 and 2, how on earth will one balance Pict, Scots Irish and Welsh armies who have no shield wall? Welsh Teulu should be KA4, as they were every bit as good as the saxons - they maintained their lands for many, many years in the West and Rheged was never conquered, falling to the Saxons via dynastic marriage in the end - the warriors of that kingdom regularly trashed saxons from Deira and Bernicia (which became united as Northumbria) in the 6th century. But what about Picts? WAB gave their nobles toughness 4, but does Durability 8 (making them 5+ to kill) really work for them in these rules? Is there any justification to it beyond making Picts more attractive as an army??? Durability 8 is usually assigned to cavalry with metal mega-barding, rather than racking up a stupid armour save, so is that appropriate for a bunch of half-naked barbarians? Were Pict and Irish nobles really super humanly tough? I think some serious thinking is in order to make Picts (esp early Picts pre thrusting spear schiltrons, so pre 7th/8th century) and Irish viable armies.

I am also wondering about war band rules for Saxons. I am increasingly thinking that later period armies have no justification for the 'surge' rule in particular, although I think raiders must have it. I am inclined to say that buckler armed Saxons should be subject to war band surge, but am questioning whether shield armed ones should. Then again, maybe Geoguth should always be subject to 'surge' reflecting their eagerness for glory....

Anyway, Andy and I are playing again next week with almost identical forces (he'll make a proper list this time) and we'll see if I can get better results tactically!!! I also intend to just play through some combats seeing how shield wall fares against gedriht, both for milites (who will obviously die immediately regardless unless armoured) and commanipulares. BTW, I have resisted allowing foot commanipulares heavy armour, as that would mean they had a 2+ save in shield wall.

I hope you enjoyed that. I am looking forward to playing again!!!!

I do urge regular readers who are interested to visit the  Scarab W&C Forum General Discussion area. It's not a busy place, but that's where most online discussion about these lists will take place...

A First Game of War & Conquest!!

Last Monday, Grahame and I finally got ourselves a game of Rob Broom's Ancient rules, war & Conquest.

I have had a copy of these rules since their publication in the dark days of WAB's demise, as author (and ex-warhammer Historical head honcho) Rob had taken temporary possession of most of my Arthurian and El Cid models to take loads of photos for the book. Thus, I received a free copy as a 'thank you'.

Now, at that time, I was still a dyed-in-the-wool WAB-ite and, although those rules were clearly on their way out, I had no interest in playing either of the two 'sons of WAB' (as they were coined at the time) which were War & Conquest and Clash of Empires. To be fair, this rash decision was based on my read-through of Clash of Empires, which I thought was just 'WAB with the bits the author grumbled about altered'. I feared the same of War & Conquest, and, as my club was (and still is) playing WAB regularly, I left it at that. My mistake!!!!!!!

What changed my mind? Well, playing other stuff, actually. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do still enjoy WAB, especially Age of Arthur and El Cid games, but in recent months my enthusiasm for it was waned a little and I really just wanted to try something different. A fair few folks in inter-web land have been playing War & Conquest (hitherto referred to as WaC)  and the overall enthusiasm of some (notably Matt from the Wargames Table blog) finally convinced me to give it a try, along with the fact that a few folk at the club had been mentioning it as a 'might give it a bash one night' kinda thing.

So, Grahame and I set to with a Roman civil war game. I brought 2000pts of Marian (1st Century BC - Caesarian) Romans and Grahame 2000pts of EIR. This was because we were originally going to use Arthurian/Late Roman lists but didn't like the look of them - more on that later!

The lists we arrived at were pretty similar to what you'd have got with 2000pts of Romans under WAB 1.5, which was handy as that's familiar territory for both of us.

So, we decided to go with the 'Autumn' deployment (see pic below) and got on with it.

The first thing about these rules that I must stress is that, yes, there are similarities to WAB. Many of the dice rolls needed to hit things, kill things and take armour saves are exactly the same - lots of 'I need 4+' etc... Also, there are similarities in unit size, composition, etc, but this game is SOOOOO much more than just a re-write of WAB.

Firstly, the IGOUGO mechanism is different, as you roll a D6 at the start of each turn to determine who has 'strategic advantage' and who can therefore go first or second. This means that you can get two turns in a row on occasion - very useful! Although you can influence these rolls by a cunning device called Strategy Intervention Points (SIP). Basically, characters (called 'personalities' in WaC) have access to one or two (or more on occasion) of these and they allow you to roll extra D6 when rolling for strategic advantage or for morale checks. When rolling the latter, if you succeed, you even get your SIP returned to you, which is cool!

Combat and shooting are similar but subtly different. In W&C, combat is simultaneous - chargers get a +1 to their combat bonus in resolution. In WAB, you roll to hit, roll to wound, then take armour saves. In WaC, you roll to hit, then the opponent takes his armour saves. any unsaved dice are then used for the 'kill rolls'. Weapons tend to affect kill rolls, e.g. throwing spears allow you to re-roll the kill rolls in the first round of combat - all of them, not just the misses - handy if you roll dismal 'kill dice! Also, the longer the combat lasts, the more models fight, so my Romans go in with the front rank in round 1 of a combat, with their plum gaining them +1 armour penetration (-1 off the save throw) and the re-rolled kills. In the second and subsequent round, the second rank join in with the glades. Thrusting spear-armed troops fight with 1 rank if they charge, 2 if charged then 3 in subsequent round. Pikes end up with 4 in subsequent rounds! Neat!!
In combat resolution, victorious troops gain a 'push and shove' bonus. This is like WAB 2.0's 'momentum' but it is cumulative over rounds of combat, so if you keep winning, the push and shove goes up each time...neat!!

Morale is also subtly different... formed units over half-strength roll 3 D6 and pick the 2 lowest (with the basic mechanism of rolling low as per WAB) They revert to 2 D6 if below half strength.

There are other neat differences too around the use of 'disorder' (prevents rank bonuses, etc). The use of 'command tests' to allow you to do certain things (e.g. march - sorry...'double pace' even if close to the enemy, etc). Also, personalities add D6 to combat, rather than being all-powerful death machines in their own right! This means that if you add your general to a unit of peasant infantry, he fights like they do. I like this, as it means that you tend to put your general where he should be  - with some kick-ass elites.

Anyway, a bit of a summary there of the key aspects of the rules. In terms of our game, as with every first try at a set of rules, we made loads of mistakes. However, the game still flowed well. Grahame gained a victory, albeit not a slaughter. During the pre-battle phase in a typical 'pitched battle', you randomly select and hide from your opponent what your battle objectives are. Grahame and I both achieved ours in this game, but he had killed more stuff than me, hence the victory. Once again, this was partly achieved by more masterly use of skirmishers and by me rolling some dreadful armour save dice on my legionaries when they were being shot at.

I started taking pictures, but the rules reading took over and so I only took a few, below...

'Autumn' Deployment

Grahame's sneaky skirmishers see off my Cretans

Grahame's 'kill' dice in a crucial combat...

My 'kill' dice in the same combat...sigh...some things don't change...

So, overall, we thoroughly enjoyed it! I can see myself playing this very regularly if I can find opponents!!

The only drawback to it as I see it is that some of the army lists are not very well-formed yet. This is inevitable as it's a one-man operation running the whole thing, and Rob can't be an exp[ert on everything, or have time to do it all. So, a number of gamers are helping out and I have offered my services to Rob to help with revising the generic lists from the Late Roman and Arthurian era. Wargames Table Matt has already started some Arthurian lists which I have been busy tinkering with. This is making me a nice little project - I have always wanted to become involved with army list creation and this seems like a great opportunity so I am very grateful to Rob for allowing me to have a bash.

Watch this space for more developments...