28mm Macedonians v Late Greeks again.

 For this week's game we adopted scenario 1 'The Eagle Soars' from the recent Hail caesar supplement 'The Pyrrhic Wars'. We were using 2 smallish armies of 300 points in two divisions each. The scenario has the two sides attacking each other over a river and a long area of rough ground. I was still using my (never won a game yet) Macedonians and Ian and Charlie were using Ian's Late Hoplite army again. Good news is that Charlie has been out and bought some Spartans although it will be a while before we see them in all their glory. 

I only used one unit of companions today, swapping them for a unit of peltats and another skirmish unit which I thought may be of more use in the rough terrain. 

The full glory of Macedon.

and some ever victorious Late Greeks.

Ian's division looking strong defending a hill. 

Bird's eye view, Macedonians at the bottom, Greeks at the top. Note the river (fordable but could cause disorder ) and the long strip of rough ground, passable but slowed down to just one move and may cause disorder). This was a tough table of terrain to fight over, especially for the phalanx's in any rough terrain. 

Hiding somewhere off table is my set of new Royal Macedon Purple dice which were doing brilliantly over the first two turns. Good order throws allowed me to throw my skirmishers and peltasts forward to threaten the enemy. 

Over on my left flank the bulk of the macedonians advanced, the red counters showing which units suffered disorder crossing the river. 

Ian's Greek hoplites advance more cautiously. 

Charlie charged my peltasts with the Theban Sacred Band who failed their evade test and got caught and thus destroyed. This was the start of bad things for Macedon as the purple dice lost their luck. 

Risking the rough ground my Hypaspists lost their phalanx rules in the rough stuff and were soundly beaten by Ian's Greek Hoplites. 

The Hypaspists about to break. 

After much maneuvering over on my right, one of my Mercenary phalanx's had caught one of Charlie's in the flank and pushed them back. Next turn I was able to charge my victorious Hoplites into the Theban Sacred Band and after two rounds of melee destroy them...that felt good, note the good scores on the purple dice, I needed 3+ to hit!

However, elsewhere my right division was broken and the phalanx above became 'shaken' during the melee so with few troops left I conceded the game.

After this very enjoyable game we were left wondering why any army would attack across a river, over rough terrain and up a hill. However, it did create some very interesting situations and we all enjoyed the game. 

So far the score is Macedon 0 v Rest of the World 4!

Macedonians v Late Greeks with Hail Caesar

 With my newly painted Macedonian army not doing so well (they lost at 'On Bloody Ground' against a Successor army then lost at Warhammer Ancient Battles against a Late Greek army) how would they fare today when using Hail Caesar rules against the Late Greeks again. With me commanding my Macedonians Ian and Charlie were joint commanders of the Late Greeks. 

The table was set up with quite basic scenery and the dice decided that I would deploy a division first then the Greeks etc... We only have enough figures painted for 2 divisions a side but on my 6'x4' foot table this is plenty with a little bit of room left for manoeuvre. My Macedonians were also awarded first turn. 

The Greeks assemble.

A view along the Macedonian line. 

View from above the Macedonian line. Note the quite open terrain. 

My light cavalry advanced quickly to harrass the Greek skirmishers sheltering in the wood. 

Ian and Charlie got caught re-arranging their hoplite units so I went crashing into a lone unit of hoplites and then threw really bad dice so that combat was a draw, I had hoped to break them and smash through the enemy centre. 

With the Greeks having more missile troops than me I had decided not to hang around but to get stuck in quickly, my dice throws for orders often had a different idea! 

Ian's new unit of Theban Sacred Band come crashing into my Greek Mercenary Phalanx's. This combat bolstered by the phalanx rule of they can only be defeated and forced to take a break test if they lose a melee by more than 2 meant that this lot were still locked in melee at the end of the game, although both were 'Shaken' by then.  

My central attack went slowly but eventually we forced one lot of shaken hoplites off the table then destroyed the other. 

My cavalry charge on the right flank failed by a few inches allowing Charlie to smash a unit of hoplites into my Companion Cavalry. With my cavalry supported b a Pike Phalanx to their left I was confident of the win...but lost!

It took a few turns but Charlie eventually broke the Companions, elsewhere Ian had broken my left division. On the last turn I still had a chance if my units would obey their orders...they didn't, my order throws were appalling. This allowed Ian and Charlie to mp up a few more of my units and claim a hard fought victory. This was a very exciting game where it seemed first one side then the other had gained the upper hand but sadly for me my Macedonians lost again. Three losses in a row and I can't see my Macedonians forging a huge empire that history will remember forever! We play again next week, I shall have my revenge. 

28mm Vikings plus a Macedonian elephant.

 I have just finished my 4th unit of 28m Vikings plus an elephant for my Macedonians that I got as part of a £20 bargain box of 28mm ancients from the Phalanx Show in 2024. There were 2 elephants in the box so I will paint the second one up soon. 

The Vikings are all 28mm Wargames Foundry. Foundry very kindly have a page of 28mm Viking flags and banners that you can download to use for free. I happily printed the page and chose the banner you see, painting over the printed version as my printer is not so good. 

All shields are of course hand painted.  

The elephant is I think an old Hinchliffe model that has had a plastic Britain's elephant head crafted onto it. Thus it looks a bit big and lacks tusks. The mahout is the original model but the crew in the howdah are a metal Wargames Foundry Macedonian with his pike arm raised a little and a plastic Victrix Greek archer.

I added the shields to the side of the Howdah to add some extra detail, the Macedonian stars are also hand painted. I tried to create a brownish grey colour for the elephant with some fleshy highlights on the ears. 

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.