Argentoratum/Strasbourg refight 2012

Down at the Goulburn Valiant Stormers club meet today I finally ran out my late Romans (along with units from Richard, Andrew and Dave's Late Romans) against my Germans (made up of my Germans, Vikings, and Richard and Dave's Saxons) we played the re-fight using the Impetus rules, which we have started using since the demise of WAB at the club. Impetus is simple fast and looks good, all pluses in my books and I have been looking for a new system for my late Romans and dark age armies.

The Battle of Strasbourg, also known as the Battle of Argentoratum, was fought in 357 between the Late Roman army under (future emperor) Julian and the Alamanni tribal confederation led by the joint paramount king Chnodomar. The battle took place near Strasbourg, called Argentoratum in Ammianus Marcellinus' account, Argentorate in the Tabula Peutingeriana.

Julians Army was outnumbered by a substantial margin, Julian's army won a complete victory after a hard-fought infantry struggle, the Romans finally drove the Alamanni beyond the river Rhine inflicting heavy losses upon the confederation. 

After set up we worked out the points around 600 points of Romans,  the Alamanni army had 900 points.

the Alamanni generals kicked off with confidence knowing that the large Germanic warbands could really stick it to the Romans on this day!

This bade well when in the first round a double six is rolled so a expert general is born!!!!

The Alamanni cavalry start with confidence

The Roman Cavalry are not intimidated

The Roman Infantry were set up historically, legio in the middle, and Auxillia palatina on each flank

Tarty's very Fine Late Romans from the A and A Range

The Auxillia Palatina were the Roman's secret weapon, taking the impetus away from the huge Germanic units.

Julian directs his sub generals

the Romans advance off the Hill

the Alamanni left and right flanks surge forward hoping to overwhelm the Romans on their flanks

The Alamani cavalry commander (me) is overconfident, my Commander Chnodomar, points out that I should not be overconfident..........it proved to be very true!

Bad Alamanni cavalry rolls and amazing Roman rolls result in disaster for the Alamanni  cavalry, nearly all destroyed in three turns of fighting.

the Alamanni  right flank also loses to many to high archery casualties, bolt throwers are nasty........bad cohesion rolls result in the collapse of the Alamanni right flank on the forth turn.

break point is reached without the center even being engaged, the small Alamanni cavalry command and the right flank are all but destroyed by turn four, turn five the army losses result in a win for the romans........

History is replayed with lots of prisoners and loot for the Romans I guess!

reminder to self when playing Romans, the Auxilia palatina (negating impetus) and Saggitarii (especially at close range) are deadly, along with the Clibanariorum, who rode down three units for two casualtys.


I need to finish off some units completely before I post some pics of individual units(most are missing weapons and shields ....also awaiting transfers or some hand painted shields!)

cheers 
Matt

Argentoratum/Strasbourg refight

This our clubs upcoming game  in June on the 17th of June. Between, Dave, Richard and myself we decided back in Feb to put together a refight of Argentoratum. I have been slowly working through my Roman army and also Daves! Along with this I have also been madly painting the Alamannic army, with only about a week to go it will be tight but worth it! I am yet to base any figures for the game hence no recent posts of painted figures so I have put together a list of waht is done and what needs doing!!!!! We will be playing with the Impetus rules which I am still reading at the moment!

CavalryEquites octavo Dalmatae (vexillationes comitatenses unit) light cavalry Painted
Scola Scutariorum Sagittariorum Painted
Scola gentilium seniorum (heavy cavalry) Painted
Scola Scutariorum Clibanariorum (guard extra heavy cavalry) Painted
Equites Sagittarii Clibanariorum (vexillatio comitatensis) Painted
Scola Scutariorum Prima (guard cavalry) probably light .......Dave
Scola armaturarum seniorum (with Julian) (heavy cavalry) Painted Dave

SeverusPrima Flavia Gallicana Constantia (Pseudocomitatenses) Painted
Sagittarii Tungri(auxilia palatina) painted
Sagittarii venatores (auxilia palatina)painted
Sagittarii Nervii Gallicani painted
Balistarii pseudocomitatenses painted

First Line
Petulantes seniores (auxilia palatina) painted
Heruli seniores (auxilia palatina) painted
Moesiacii seniores (comitatenses) Richard Painted
Pannoniciani seniores (comitatenses) Dave
Ioviani seniores (Legiones palatinae) Richard Painted
Heculani seniores (Legiones palatinae) Richard Painted
Cornuti seniores (auxilia palatina) painted
Brachiati seniores (auxilia palatina) painted

Second Line
Celtae seniores (Auxilia palatina) painted
Primani seniores painted
Batavi seniores (auxilia palatina) painted
Regii seniores (auxilia palatina) painted

Alamannic
16 warbands x 2 deep (32 bases)....still being painted!
8 light cavalry 4 painted
6 light inf bases painted


next post will be the battle report!!!!!!!

cheers
Matt

Bloody April

The month of April 1917 was known as Bloody April by the Royal Flying Corps. The RFC suffered particularly severe losses — about three times as many as the Imperial German Army Air Service  during the spring offensive in support of the ground assaults. 

This year at the club we decided to get out some of the 1/72nd planes I have been building and have a game using a set of rules I threw together for conventions, a sort of a play test before I run them out to the public in June.

We played 5 games in four hours (with two coffee and one lunch brake in between) we tuned up the game mechanics a little as we played, the game was on a six by five table with four players and was normally over in 15 minutes although one did last less than three minutes. The game basically has a card activation deck for initiative with three coloured cards each (hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs) and three jokers which allowed someone to step out of  initiative, 3 lengths of movement, stall, average and top speed, and five maneuver turns, sharp, drift, half, full and a  Immelmann loop. Interrupt fire was permitted at close range if someone flew past in their turn, and A D10 damage chart, with another D6 dice roll for engine and rigging. 

We had a good day out, the Germans however had the worse of it and this April ended up very bloody for them!  I was happy how the rules played, the key to convention rules is simplicity and speed so you can churn players through the game. A big thanks to Ryan, Boyd, Ian and Greg for helping me fine tune the game mechanics and to Greg for the pics!

cheers
Matt

Battle of Asculum

At the March Club meeting Tarty and Ralph came down from Sydney for my Birthday and to run a intro 500 plus  point game of Impetus Romans under the command of Consul Publius Decius Mus Vs Pyrrhus of Epirus . The game was quite impressive and I watched for about two hours after I had completed my game. I was so impressed by the ruleset I will be basing my Late Romans, Sassanian and my Republicans to the the Impetus system and possibly a few more of my ancient and medieval armies, I am thinking of working the bases so I can continue to play WAB and Impetus, not sure yet!

cheers

Matt

Club meeting Feb 2012

The Valiant Stormer's first club meet of the year was quite well attended with three games running, the two Chris's and two Dave's played  Might and Reason using Dave W very fine 7YW armies, Greg, Leigh, and Ian played a Pulp VBCW game and Boyd and myself ran out his recently completed Brunswicker's.

                                                             Might and Reason game

Very British Civil War

Napoleonic

cheers

Matt

Cancon 2012

Another CANCON come and gone,

On Friday I was running late to set up the trade stand arrived about 9:30, I had the tables and the stock so it was looking very bare!!! This year Matt C  came down from Sunny Queensland and ran the Wartime stand allowing us both to mingle and catch up with a lot of mates and have a look around the trade stalls ourselves along with manning the stall.

A large number of people traveled from all over OZ, New Zealand and the south Pacific to Australia's largest wargames convention. The traders stalls all seemed to be busy and were busting at the seams with stock. I think the convention was a little down on numbers this year due to Australia day not being on the Thursday, not the Friday or Monday.

 A few of the club members were involved with running some fine participation games,

 Gregory ran out his tried and trusted Alamo,

Dave W put on two days of 15mm Might and Reason WAS games

and Mark and John ran the 1812 game

 and Craig ran a Viking Saga  game.

Matt C and I had decided to run a Force on Force participation game with 20mm Wartime miniatures on the Sunday, I built the tables and painted the minis and ran the game while Matt manned the stall. The rest of the pics are on my modern blog.

The Melbourne boys also ran out two huge ECW games using a Black Powder variation apparently due for release soon.

and a very fine Borodino game in 6mm

Next Year the club members are thinking about running a Russian themed participation games, one period of Russian front gaming for each of the three days, planning are in the early stages, so more discussion to be done..........To sum up Cancon was a success as usual, I still would like to see some changes regarding layout of the trade stalls and the quality of the participation games, moving the trade and participation games into the middle hall (air conditioned!) move the card gamer's upstairs and that way more room around each of the competition tables,  the Vice president of the CGS committee  knows my thoughts so I will leave it there.......and see you all next year.

cheers

Matt

ACW Williamsburg Club Game

Goulburn Valiant Stormers played a 28mm ACW game at the weekend club meet using Johnny Reb III rules. The game was straight out of the scenario book based on the Williamsburg Peninsula campaign. The game consisted of a flank attack by two Union brigades on a redoubt in which there was a large gun. It was a great opportunity for Greg B to place his recently finished 8" Columbiad emplacement. The game lasted nine turns out of a possible fifteen turns and was a resounding success for the Union who broke the Confederate line and forced to the Rebs to retreat in disorder..........another loss for the confederacy!