The return of 'Warhammer Ancient Battles'.

 Today, Ian, Charlie, Nigel and I played a 1,500pt game of Warhammer Ancient Battles, first time we had used these rules in over 20 years. Charlie and I were in control of my Macedonians with Ian and  Nigel commanding some Late Hoplite Greeks. I set up some simple, almost symmetrical terrain to keep movement simple as we were very much treating this as a learning game. 

Armies were selected from the Armies of Antiquities book. 

The Macedonians arrive. 

Macedonian deployment. 

Greek deployment. 

Note that our formed units were all in movement trays and we marked casualties with numbered markers rather than removing figures, far easier to do. 

I sent my cavalry off on a flanker.

Greek light cavalry on the left being defeated by their Macedonian counterparts. 

A good start for the Macedonians. 

My wedge of companions surge through the gap, get shot at by the Cretan archers in the wood then charged by a unit of hoplites. My flanker failed miserably. 

The Greeks had taken the central hill but Charlie was pestering them with some peltasts. However, the Greek slingers proved to be very effective at short range, I had forgotten how nasty they were.  

Charlie advanced our Hypaspists and Nigel took the bait and charged them with his hoplites.  With their heavy armour and large shields giving them a 3+ save the hoplites were just too tough for the hypaspists and to Nigels glee he soon broke them and off they fled only to be pursued by Nigel's hoplites and destroyed. 

The main macedonian phalanx had clashed with another unit of heavily armoured hoplites and also got well beaten, and destroyed. At this point a well deserved Greek victory was declared. 

We enjoyed playing Warhammer Ancient battles again, most of the game moved smoothly with a bit of flicking through the rulebook. The main part that was a bit trying at times was melee. Basic melee between two units is fine but when you add in different dice throws required for attached command figures and different dice throws required for their war horses through each stage of throwing to hit, then to wound and then to save all seemed a bit too much. We agreed that we would happily play Warhammer Ancients again, but when we meet again in two weeks we will try Macedonians v Greeks using our usual ancient rules of choice, Hail Caesar. 

Paint What You Got Challenge 2026 - finished!

 Prompted by good friend Mister C I entered this year's 'Paint What You Got' challenge set by Dave Stone on his blog just search for 'Paint What you got 2025/26

https://wargamesculptorsblog.blogspot.com/2025/12/paint-what-you-got-20252026.html

With my gaming friends and I are currently keen on the Barons War set of rules my challenge was to paint all 24 plastic figures from Wargames Atlantic Foot Serjeants boxed set that my daughters got me for Christmas and hopefully a few other figures etc... too. 

Here are all 12 of the foot serjeants with crossbow I made from the box. Note a couple of figures are wearing the livery of my chosen Baron, John de Lacy. 

Next up I painted 12x foot serjeants with falchion and shield complete with banner and musician. All shields and flags are hand painted. Note the De Lacy colours again. 

A closer view of the command figures in the group of serjeants. 

So that was my basic challenge complete but I carried on painting.

Next up, Baron John de Lacy himself complete with banner and a few friends. All Barons War figures from Wargame Atlantic. I really enjoyed the challenge of painting these knights with all their bright colours and heraldry. 

A group of archers, plastic figures from Fireforge games. 

They match the Wargames Atlantic figures very well. 

Finally some scatter terrain created from a variety of sources plus a haystack, all add to the atmosphere of the game although these will be used in other games and periods too. 

I have really enjoyed the 'Paint What You Got challenge' and I certainly feel I have achieved quite a lot of painting, possibly one of my most productive periods of painting ever. I now also have more than enough figures ready to play quite large games of Barons War. 

Barons War, scenario 5: Strategic Sites.

 So, for our 5th and final game of Barons War (for now) it was on to scenario 5, 'Strategic Sites'. With the score currently being two wins each, would the Royalists or the Rebels prevail. Ian and Nige took on the role of the Royalists as usual with my Baron Lacy being in charge of the Rebel forces. 

For this scenario each side had to place 2 objectives scattered across the table and the two sides would then score points every turn for each objective they controlled. 

Nigel placed his tax wagon as one objective. 

The Royalists also placed some spearmen in the small field on my left flank. 

My retinue leader, Baron de Lacy used his tent as an objective. 

I had a unit of regular archers which soon advanced across the wheatfield to shelter beyond the hedge. This was a good central position so their ranged weapons proved to be of great use. 

Ian's spearmen, already damaged by my archers foolishly charge my levy with spears. 

To my amazement the levy won 3 casualties to nil. 

I had not taken any photo's of my right flank but I had a unit of crossbowmen on the front edge of a wood who were managing to out shoot Nigel/Robin Hood and his not too Merrymen. 

Next turn the crossbowmen 'broke' Robin and the Merrymen who started to head for their baseline.  

On the other flank, there was a very busy few turns of combat. Ian had sent in his foot knights who struggled against the levy then struggled against my serjeants on the hill. So Ian sent his Baron Maudsley in with his mounted knights. Baron Maudsley and one of the knights took on my Lord de Lacy (the Barons elder son). I was even more amazed when Lord de Lacy killed Baron Maudsley and my foot serjeants, enjoying their bonuses for fighting from the hill

With Baron Maudsley dead and Robin Hood fleeing the Royalist troops were in complete disarray.  Victory for the Rebels and now an overall victory of 3v2 over our 5 games. 

We have really enjoyed playing Barons War but we will move to another game/period for the next few weeks as we tend to do but never fear, Baron De Lacy will be back!

Trying 'Snorkers (Good Oh)' WW2 Naval Rules

 Today, Nigel very kindly hosted us for a try at a new set of rules to use with his wonderful collection of WW2 1/2400 scale ships. The rules are called 'Snorkers (Good Oh) 'and there is an interesting tale behind that name, I will let you all look it up! The rules are produced by the grandly named 'In Which They Served Games'

Some of my Italian ships. 

Fighting WW2 Naval actions is not something I know much about but the previous rules that Nigel had used for these models were very slow moving and to be blunt, Boring. How would these new rules fare?

The rules come with the various card counters and movement arcs that you need. 

Movement in Snorkers is quite fast and simple. The mdf pieces actually represent banks of fog (not sandbanks) and these can move (in the same direction) during a game. 

The scenario was set in the Mediterranean where an Italian Fleet was trying to intercept and destroy a British convoy escorting some merchant ships.  

Firing is fast and can be quite nasty. Here we see the firing arc trying to see if there is a legitimate shot through the fog banks. 

Here a British ship fires torpedoes at an Italian ship. Torpedoes are quite lethal when they hit. 

More torpedo action and a glimpse of the torpedo chart used to decide whether the torpedoes hit or not. Target ships can also try and evade torpedoes with a decreasing chance of success.  

A badly damaged ship takes more damage. 

Here is the torpedo chart which also displays my usual dreadful dice throwing. The idea is to get your dice throws modified up to 7 which is then a possible hit. 

My Italians were taking quite a pasting. 

Nigel introduced aircraft for the last turn. 

These tiny planes are amazing models. Sadly the British Hurricanes combined with the British ships AA guns took my planes down before they were able to get a shot in. 

Overall the three of us really enjoyed these rules. I am sure these will become our rules to use for WW2 naval actions. As this is not one of my main areas of interest I will leave it up to Nigel to plan and host games but I will certainly be happy to play again. 

On Bloody Ground: Macedonians v Seleucid's.

 It has been a couple of years since I played a game v George at his house. In that time he has had some building work done to create a wonderful wargaming room that will be the envy of most gamers. George was keen to try WIP's 'On Bloody Ground Ancient rules 'and I was just as keen to get a game in with my newly painted Macedonian army. We had both read through the rules and selected our 2,500 point armies. I had played the rules a couple of times when they first came out but as that was a couple of years ago I still felt like a novice.

We went through the terrain layout and then deployed the troops. 

Here we are ready for battle. 

The main centre of George's Seleucid's. 

Most of my Late Macedonian's. 

Another view of my Macedonian's... 

...and another.

George had an elephant, why did I deploy my cavalry facing it? 

Turn 1 done and the armies close in on each other. 

George's Seleucid cavalry routed one of my companion cavalry units then turned onto the flank of the other. Over on the far right flank George had a unit of horse archers and some slingers who soon destroyed my light cavalry and peltasts over there. but I forgot to take photos of that action.  

Here comes the elephant which was forcing Leadership tests on my cavalry being within 12" of them. It was starting to look like my Macedonians were going to suffer the fate of all newly painted armies. 

Just before George's elephant and cavalry charged my remaining companions. 

It was no surprise that my cavalry got defeated in that melee, hit by the elephant to the front and the opposing cavalry in their flank. 

We also had some hoplite v hoplite action over on the left flank. We struggled a bit with the rles here, a bit confused over how many ranks should be fighting for each side. Despite that George unit won that melee too. 

In the centre our two forces were just getting ready for charging each other but sadly we ran out of time (too much chatting). Overall the four turns we got through tested the rules out as we had tried a variety of shooting and combat actions. We were a little puzzled over a few aspects of the rules but felt that we played things right in the end. George had got himself into a very strong position with both flanks collapsing on me so we called it a Seleucid victory. 

That was a fun day, a great game played in a nice friendly fashion. 

Barons War: Field of Glory

 For our fourth game of Barons War we played scenario 4: Fields of Glory. It was just me (Baron de Lacy-Rebel) and Ian Baron Maudsley-Royalist) playing this week with a 600pt Retinue each. We decided that the crossroads in the centre of the table was the main objective with my Baron's tent as another and the stone cross as the 3rd objective.

This was the first time that we had both used mounted Knights and it is perhaps not very surprising that they tended to dominate the action. In this photo Baron de Lacy shows his intention to ride around the flank and claim the Royalist objective...would his cunning plan work!

On the opposite side of the table Baron Maudsley is pondering his action plan. 

Baron Maudsley and his retinue after deployment. 

You can see their stone cross on the far side of the table. 

Baron de Lacy and his Retinue deploy.

Baron Maudsley advances.

Baron de Lacy sends his levy to take on the enemy levy (or simple folk as Ian calls them). 

Maudsley's levy won that fight so Baron de Lacy went charging in, due to some bad dice rolls he did not do anywhere near as well as expected but did manage to break the levy...just!  

Next Baron de Lacy headed along the road towards the crossroads. 

Note the retreating levy and also Baron Maudsley and his knights lurking in the background, protecting the cross. 

Baron de Lacy charges into the enemy crossbow troops and again, although they won the melee, it was not very convincing, I was beginning to despair of my poor dice throwing. . 

Baron Maudsley has seen all this.

 

So Baron Maudsley charges into Baron de Lacy and his knights, winning the melee and pushing de Lacy and his remaining knights back over the hedge. I could not believe how many '1's I threw on my 'defence' and 'shield' throws. 

Eventually only Baron de Lacy remained fending off Maudsley and his knights plus a few crossbow bolts. 

The end is nigh as Baron Maudsley claims the crossroad as quite an intense melee in the small field also goes Maudsley's way. 

Baron Maudsley charges in just to make sure the few remaining enemy are defeated. 

This was a clear victory for Ian and Baron Maudsley as he claimed 2 objectives to my one but with most of Baron de Lacy's retinue in tatters there was little that could be done to avoid the defeat. 

That was our fourth game, I had won the first two but Ian has pulled it back with two wins to make the current score 2v2. Next game will be scenario 5 and it will be the decider of this little run of Barons War games.