Splendid Little Wars: January 2016

Unique HOTT Army

Bernie Bajak, who games at the Liberty Hobby Center in Wheaton IL, has an interesting collection of figures. Included in his collection is an army for HOTT (Hordes of the Things)....a California Raisin army.

Bernie has them labelled on the bottom of the stand what troop type they are. The guys with surf boards are warbands, I believe. Very cool.

Gaugamela Light using ADLG

A week ago we played a 4 player 300 pt ADLG game in 15mm of Macedonians vs Later Achaemenid Persians, representing something like Gaugamela. Besides myself were Bob Pavlik, John Brust, and Bill Hupp. This was an introductory game of ADLG for John & Bill. We played at the Liberty Hobby Center in Wheaton IL, home of Thistle & Rose Miniatures.

The armies used were originally used for Tactica and WRG 7th edition armies I painted back in the early 90's, and later used for many games of DBM. They work just fine in ADLG.

Early stages of the battle. The Macedonians were intimidated by the large numbers of Persian cavalry on both flanks.

Later in the battle, the Macedonian phalanx finally got going towards the Persian center with the mercenary Greek Hoplites, the Apple Bearers, and King Darius. Parmenio was fighting hard on the Macedonian left, while Alexander and the Hypaspists were routing the heavy Persian cavalry of Bessos on the Persian left. We had to call the game early, with the Persians having a Scythian cavalry unit about to sack the unprotected Macedonian camp. The Persians were 5 points away from breaking, the Macedonians were 7 pts away.

Large 300pt battles in 15mm look good in ADLG. John & Bill enjoyed their first ADLG game.

New Year ADLG Tournament

On Saturday January 2, I attended an ADLG (L' Art de la Guerre) tournament at the home of Phil Roberts in Palatine IL. We used 200 pt armies in 28mm and there were 3 rounds. Present including armies were the host Phil with Sassanid Persians, Mark Huml with Triumvirate Romans, Ed Harding with Patrician Romans, Allan Brown with Avars, and Dan (?? sorry, don't have his last name) who played using Phil's Palmyrans. I had an Ostrogoth army, & substituted 2 games for Myles Toomey, who had a Chinese (Han?) army.

Above is my Ostrogoth army. It had a Frankish foot warrior command fighting as impetuous Gothic heavy swordsmen in the center, and two cavalry (heavy impetuous cavalry and Hun light cavalry) and light infantry commands on the wings. The camp is a fortified Gallic camp, scratch built by Bob Pavlik. My figures are Old Glory.

Above is my first opponent's army, Mark's Triumvirate Romans. Cool looking shields and swell paint jobs on Wargames Foundry figures.

Above shows the height of the battle. The Franks in the center were taking a lot of cohesion hits in an impetuous frontal attack vs legionaries, but the Goth cavalry was breaking through the Roman right flank (see above right in photo).

The Romans flank marched on the Goth right, which the Goths managed to counter and rout some of the Roman cavalry. The Goth breakthrough on the Roman right and subsequent sack of their fortified camp broke the Roman army, though the Goths suffered heavy casualties as well.

Above is the deployment for the second game against Phil's Sassanid Persians. The Persians right hugged rough terrain, with infantry and Elephants. In the center, the Persians had cataphracts and heavy cavalry. On the left they had a Allied command of Arab light cavalry supported by camelry. The Goths had a similar deployment to the first game.

Close-up of the Persians, which are beautiful Aventine figures.

The Allied Arab command.

Preliminary moves.

Things aren't going well for the Goths. The yellow 4 sided die are marking the numerous cohesion hits taken by the Goths. The impetuous Goth heavy cavalry charge of the Elephants on the Persian right was disastrous.