Early Macedonian Successor versus Burgundians

Battle of the pikes in my second league game, this time against Andrew's Burgundians.

There is broken ground on my right and an impassable lake on my left. 

There are lots of longbow to my centre.

Advance!

My peltasts have to run the longbow gauntlet.

First blood to the Burgundians.

But their genius commander turns out to be just an expert.

My screening force of light foot and skirmishers, 

while doing their job, are starting to thin out.

I hurry up my right wing heavy foot 

only to see them go disordered.

On the left I've sent some Greek light cavalry on a sweep.

A very wide sweep.

At least they took one of the longbow units out of the Burgundian line

and didn't get themselves in any trouble.

My peltasts are coming to grips with the longbow.

And the pikes go in!

Might right wing is doing well, although they are having trouble rallying

Javelin skirmishers - love em!

Arghhh!

My expert CinC is just having a fair day.

One unit of Hoplites on my left has been chewed up.

My right is having trouble finding targets

The end of the left wing.

But it is damn close! 

However I was just not able to get in and do enough damage.

Songs of Drums and Shakos Over a Hill

Much like the last game, although this time I've read the rules.  We had 235 points a side which gave the French (my team) a squad of seven and the Prussians, ably commanded by Mark B, eight figures.

Each side was different in their abilities.

The French commander

Using the cover of the hill, the French advance on the Prussians.

The Prussian landwher man the wall and start delivering some telling volleys,

 while the Prussian jager gain the hill and deliver some accurate shots.

The Prussians maintain the pressure, 

however the white puffs of smoke indicate they need to spend time to reload.

The French attempt to fight back.

Two French grenadiers gain the hill and hand to hand combat ensues.

It was an exciting fight for the hill.

The French won the hill, but...

Losses had been high, too high.

The French commander orders a retreat.

Sound the drums, but marching feet...

There came none.

Excellent game for a club night, just need a bit more practise and some extra troops to say double the forces available and then perhaps have a bit of campaign.

Fallschirmjager for Crete - One standard equals one company

I've started to work through my haul of Fallschirmjagers.  First up some HMG for them, necessary for both Blitzkrieg Commander and Crossfire.

I wasn't sure how they were going to turn out and I have some challenges matching paints, but I'm very pleased with the results with what is a fairly basic paint job.  I think it's the tufts.

But the real challenge has been to work out what to do with them in regards to an OOB.

My first project is to go for one base is one company using the GMT Operation Mercury OOB.  While I still have a good amount of work to to, I can readily do all except the formations that came on the second day (the 5th Gebirgs Division).

 This is mostly the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Regiment.

This is mostly the 1st Fallschirmjäger Regiment.

This is the Luftlande Sturmregiment.

I might paint this collection up in later war uniforms just for something different.

This is mostly the 2nd Fallschirmjäger Regiment.

Odds and sods.

At this scale it would be interesting to see if I could work out something using Megablitz, but that is more at the battalion level.  However Blitzkrieg Commander would lend itself to this scale with a bit of thought around the scenario.

Next is to work out a one base equals a platoon (Blitzkrieg Commander) and one base equals one squad (Crossfire).

And now having thought of it, one base equals one battalion (Megablitz).

Late Sassanids versus Justinian Byzantine

This was going to be a Class A cavalry battle.

550 points of Sassanids in two commands.  Mark Woods has the forward command and I have the six cavalry units in reserve, the Pushtigbahn and Zhayedan in Sassanid speak.  Mark B, chief organiser of this game, is in the little tent reading the morning's scrolls.

 

Facing us are the Justinian Byzantines, Stephen N commanding their right and Olivier (with their elite cavalry) on their left.

Roundels are sixes and on the first turn Stephen N gets upgraded from Expert to really Expert (his command is not the CinC who is a Genius or so it seemed).

While the rest of the armies are fairly static, on our left the Byzantines advance aggressively with their cavalry.

What was that about the Byzantine commander being a Genius?  

Not any longer...

Looking from the Sassanid left.

And still on the Sassanid left, but the Byzantines have now been given a bloody nose.

This is the Sassanid right.  Both sides are trying to work round the flanks.

The Byzantines can be seen in the top left hand corner.

A view down the field of battle from the Sassanid right this time.

The Byzantine infantry continues to advance.

However the Sassanids focus on the weakened Byzantine right wing cavalry,

which is thinning fast.

The Byzantine infantry make their presence known.

It's getting tricky on the Sassanid right.

Byzantine right wing cavalry is in step decline,

or rather, it has ceased to be.

Elephants away!

That's my commander engaged with the enemy.  

My fellow commander is in reserve to my left.

The Byzantine left wing cavalry are having a better time.

All over on the Byzantine right.

But on their left things have just got going, but too late.

The Byzantines flee.

Elephants on their way to squish the enemy camp.

Another great game with the Impetus rule set.  

If only they would bring out a consolidated ruleset which includes all the errata and clarifications.