BIG BATTLES Thematic Byzantines versus Later Abbasid Arabs

An historical match up using Basic Impetus 2.0 Big Battles option.  Brad and John commanded the Byzantines while Karl and I had command of the Arabs.

With Big Battles the benefits of out-scouting and deployment are not so critical.

Terrain was kept to a minimum, just two gentle hills.

Arabs on the right and Byzantines on the left.

The two armies are very similar.

Although the Arab has a lot more infantry.

The Byzantine cavalry wings rush forward.

The Byzantine cavalry (as seen from their side) takes significant casualties.

While the Arab foot advance as quick as they can,

their cavalry is happy to stay shooting at the Byzantines.

The Byzantine cavalry is trying to get into contact.

As seen from the Byzantine side, their cavalry is getting bogged down.

After some success the Byzantine right wing has collapsed

and the Arabs are now focussing on breaking their left wing.

With both wings broken the Byzantine centre stands forlorn on their hill.

Game over.

RAF Take Two

Time for the second scenario which is a four-day event.  We just completed three and sadly had made a few errors as we are still learning the mechanics.  

Some aspects are frustrating, but the overall system seems to work well.

Classical Indian versus Anglo Danish

A club competition battle.  I went into this expecting hairy barbarians but was confronted by pointed sticks and stones. Richard was my opponent.

The Anglo-Danes were out scouted and deployed on a gentle hill.

There is an impassable area called "The Mountain" in the centre of the battlefield.

The Indians start to shuffle to the left and the Danes follow suit. 

A bit of wait and see.

The Indians decide on a full move to their left.

The Indians recover their order.

The Indians start to advance.

The Danish knights skillfully charge the Indian light cavalry,

 who had just routed some of the Danish slingers, 

so that they can't evade, 

but fail to follow up.

Both sides are now close. The Indians are busy firing.

The Danes that have not been disordered push on.

The Indians hold against the first charge.

But it is short-lived as the Indians lose most of their right wing.

Climax of the battle.  

The Indian general with his elephants trundles forward.

The Indian chariots close on the Danish knights

and the Indian light cavalry are about to charge the flank of the main unit of Danes.

Sadly it was not to be.

Indian general and his elephants did well.

The chariots failed to pursue and finish off the Danish knights.

And the light cavalry inflicted serious damage but took too many casualties and routed.

I think I failed to add to 1 to their Cohesion Test for charging a flank. It would have made all the difference as the dice roll was a 3 and they had one hit on a VBU of 2. But it's too late now, I'm knocked out of the competition.

Qugong and Viticulture

Why play one game when you can play two. I see I even have a label to accommodate this type of activity.

Five for Qugong.  For Russell it was his first time, but Richard, Jeff, Stefan and myself are old hands, well, perhaps not so much Stefan who was lucky to get an audience with the emperor on the last turn.

Richard (yellow) wins beating me (pink) by one point!

Jeff (white), Russell (red) and Stefan (blue)

My vineyard.

The board.

Oh!  I won.

(I'm burgundy, Richard yellow, Jeff white and Stefan blue).

Commentary from Richard.

Hi everyone

Thanks for playing yesterday and welcome back Russell who was dropped

right into the thick of a new game.

We had another fun game of Gugong.

Some interesting game play observations. The Great Wall area certainly

seems to be a great points generator, but as I found out, being behind

on intrigue can cost you dearly especially if someone has a double

servant. Mark was able to get multiple Great Wall VPs by being able to

exploit the wall being largely complete with 3 of my servants and

sometimes one or two or someone else's by placing his double servant

and/or one other, winning the tie and then being able to reclaim the

double servant with intrigue points. I got stuck on the wall because I

ran out of servants because I bought that Level 3 decree early in turn 3

and wasn't able to do a lot after that. Ironically, this decree ended up

saving me in the end, but couldn't have got any closer.

Which canal rewards to take are certainly a tricky decision. The extra

card can be an advantage, but the double servant seems to offer a

significant advantage, especially for the Great Wall area.

Interestingly in this game the travel area did not get nearly as much

attention compared with last game.

By far the most interesting game play, however, came from Stefan who

decided to try a sprint finish to the Palace of Heavenly Purity in the

final turn.

For future games, at some point I think we should introduce some of the

modules from the Panjun expansion to keep things challenging.

Viticulture was good too, but I always feel this game is too much of a

race especially with all VPs being public. You really only have a very

limited number of turns and if you don't get decent card draws there is

not a lot you can do and then the end game state is triggered. I do have

the Tuscany and Bordeaux expansions so would also be interesting to play

with them at some point to see how the game play changes. Overall a nice

relatively low stress game.

Thanks again for playing. The next multi-player session will be on 30th

July. I will be back in touch before then to advise the game(s).

Regards

Richard

Later Merovingian versus Later Fatimid Egyptian

Nothing like a bit of practice pre match.  I cobbled together some Frankish types to face Mark B's Fatimids.

Out scouted, the Franks deploy aggressively with their flanks protected 

by difficult terrain on the left and a lake on the right.

The Fatimids are on a gentle hill.

The Franks get straight into action

and it all starts to fall apart.

The Franks keep on fighting, hoping their luck will change.

It doesn't.

Decisive win to the Fatimids.

STP

Some supplementary photos:

British Napoleonic Commanders

In working out an OOB for the Battle of Orthez I realised I was quite a few command stands short.  This has now been fixed (almost I think).

Divisional commanders

Corps commanders.

A small army commander.

Old Nosey

He'll be glad to see the back of the French.

All together.

Military Dress of the Peninsula War

This is a classic and one of my all-time inspirational books for the Napoleonic period.  As part of my research into what is now the 1813-14 campaign, I read chapters 7 and 8 and have now gone down a Battle of Vittoria rabbit hole.

In this book I found a very useful map of the Battle of Vittoria and think I can readily adapt it for Napoleon's Battles.