The Cid strikes another blow for King Alphonso and Spain!

Those Caballeros do like to go into battle armed to the teeth!

A great little game was played at the NWS on Wednesday night as Simon and his invading Almoravid hordes...well 130points of them at least...took on the hero of the hour El Cid and his battling, undermanned and overwhelmed 130 points of Feudal Spanish.

Well you didn't expect any fair reporting here now did you?

Its always nice to start the infantry's activation with a 2

Nice view of Simon's lovely Almoravid's

Another shot of the enemy across the board

Extra archers ready to take on the enemy

The cavalry command on our left - strong veteran troops

Knight led by the wonderful limited edition El Cid figure which James Morris so kindly sent me many years ago

For some reason I thought my Citizen Spear were deep formations - should have lost one later in the battle -sorry lads!

Lets face it, they do look deepish...

Lovely General figure though tonight he was just a Heroic Senior Leader.

Need to fix those javelins and swords this weekend.

Guido's command trying to lull the enemy in knowing we have a flank march stratagem up our sleeve.

Might give those steel javelins a lick of paint at the same time...very poor effort by the Spanish

Great Gripping Beast figures with a couple of Crusader Miniatures figures thrown in for good measure.

Pretty hard to fire arrows without bows!  Have I mentioned the Spanish commander needs to lift his game?

On our right the Spanish take the rough ground and pressure the enemy

In the centre the advance continues.  Nice shot of Simon's African spear in the distance

It was another fun game, lots of fun had by all and I think it is starting to get a few more members of the club converted to these wonderful rules.  It is great that we have eight very active aficionados of TtS at our club.

Maybe time for a Macedonian v Indian epic soon!

A loud and boistrous Marlburian clash at the NWS Games Day

This shot of old friends Marty and Steve took me back to the old photos you would see in Battle Magazine.

Lots of fun had (mostly) at the NWS Gaming Day a few weekends ago.  Lovely to see Steve's Brits and Danes out against Marty's Bavarian's and Phil's Austrians (actually SYW figures but he wanted to give them a run!).

The British lines start to fall back

A little earlier in the battle - all Front Rank figures which are lovely

Cookies Austrians doing their best to hit the British and Dutch hard

It was a great deal of fun and a very close run thing with the British managing a win at the end as the combined Austro-Bavarian forces reached breaking point.

The Huns take it out at the eleventh hour!

A slice of the action

Its always great to play a fun game on a club night.

Wednesday saw us play a tremendous battle using Simon Millers "To the Strongest" rules.  I have no doubt that for our club, Simon has reinvigorated ancients wargaming for us all.

It was great to have Jeff C join Steve and myself for a game of Late Romans versus Huns with grisly Frankish allies and even better to blood Angus into his first game of TtS.

The scene was set for 130 points a side as per the authors competition guidelines and having been outscouted as expected, the brave defenders of Rome deployed and awaited the onslaught.

A view of the central Roman command

Roman light cavalry, with just a few javelins having been thrown (OK the fell off and need to be super glued back on!).

Veteran Roman legios await the Hunnic advance

Roman Cavalry feeling quite confident

Steves Franks hit the centre whilst Angus and his cavalry harass the flank on the Roman right

In what was a fascinating battle, it would appear that the Barbarians would win and win easily.  Angus and his cavalry made very light work of the majority of the Roman cavalry on their right flank (Hunnic left) and then started to make their way towards the baggage and camp.
However on the Roman left Jeff, with the weaker force of raw auxilia and two veteran javelin armed light infantry decided to take the fight up to the Hun in spectacular fashion.
In the centre I had the cornist blow the horn and sounded a general advance. 

Romans on the advance as Jeff leads the way

Jeff indeed leads the way with a flurry of tactical genius.

All that was holding Angus up was this heavily outnumbered and outflanked unit of Roman cavalry and its brave commander.  Thanks to quite a few 1's being drawn for activation and some outstanding saves they managed to holdout for another five turns! Unbelievable.

 

Another view of the Roman heroes

I love this army of Steves.  Wargames Foundry Huns and Franks.

The Roman auxilia

It was a spectacular game, heaps of fun and just epitomised everything which is great about wargaming.  Cant wait for the next one.