FP3x3PW - A New Battlefield

The idea for making a new 3x3 battlefield converged from 3 sources: Mark Cordon'e addition of 'flank' areas to his own invention; the vast amounts of sea in my Byzantiad map; and David Crook's idea of naval battles on a 3x3 battle board. Rather pleased with my box-lid board, I was rather reluctant to add in the flank areas, but other considerations prevailed upon me to give the thing further consideration. Finally I found a piece of something upon which to inscribe my 'map'.

Given the area available, I made the squares rather larger than they are on my box-lid - 8cm instead of 7. The whole board is 40cm square. 

OK, what about the sea, then? That came from the idea of long sea shore-lines, and the occasional large water way like the Dniepr and the Ister (Danube). It so happens, I have a Byzantine dromon that I scratchbuilt about 30 years ago. All I needed then was something.... aquatic looking.  

Here it is, a piece of ... vinyl? - cut to size, with a bit of grey paint drabbled on for the shore line. Here, a dromon ghosts along, just offshore, where it might disgorge a unit of marines (my peltastoi stands will do nicely for that sort of thing) or perhaps discharge javelins, arrows and fire syphons at any enemy that comes within range, on land or water...

The waterway might equally well be placed in one's 'reserve' area, signifying a combined operation beach landing.  This would be quite appropriate for actions involving islands such as Cyprus, Crete or Sicily, or for Norman landings around Dyrrhachium, say.  And let's not forget the Rus... It might mean making some long ships, though...  At any rate, this could be a rather high risk undertaking by the invaders!

The Deuteros Raid - Combat on the Road

Battle lines drawn.  The Bulgars (green die)
with the initiative roll...

'Correctly anticipating that the Bulgar raiders would make their destructive way towards Deuteros, the defeated Commandant of Hapax gathered his small host, intercepted them on the way. Hard by the Forest of April, where the way narrowed, George Pithikos drew up his line, the peltastoi in ambush in the forest itself; the skoutatoi heavy infantry on the left, and himself with the kavallarioi in the centre. The light horse prokoursatores covered the front of the skoutatoi.

The Bulgars matched the Roman deployment: foot and light horse on the wings; heavy cavalry in the centre.  The Tarkhan Tiercel stood with the heavy horse. Having drawn up their battle array, the Bulgars at once surged forward, all along the line...'
Michael Psellophanes, Byzantiad

So fierce was the Bulgar onset that the protection of the forest availed the peltastoi nothing, and the extra weight of their horse (two units to one) drove in the Byzantine centre with loss. The Byzantine left held, but barely.

The Bulgars successful along the whole front. The 
red counter under the Tarkhan actually represents 
an SP lost to the Byzantine prokoursatores beside him

Having reached the Byzantine base line in just two turns, winning the initiative in both, the Bulgars quickly obtained the victory. Pithikos's command had been contemptuously brushed aside.

This action barely lasted ten minutes, and was all one-way traffic.  The Byzantine losses amounted to 3SP; the Bulgars, none.  The Tarkhan could be well pleased.  The next stop would be Deuteros - a large prosperous village, just ripe for the picking.  But there they were to find a formidable opponent, the Strategos, Yannis Zimiskes with a sizeable army...

More Progress...

My Byzantines, of course, must needs an opponent ... or two. I began with Bulgars, the arch-enemy of Byzantium for centuries, until Basil II Bulgaroctonos - Hammer of the Bulgars - over several decades fought them to a finish. Now, I built these 15mm armies for WRG originally, and very soon adapted them to the DBM game system - in my view a fine system wrecked by rules lawyers, over-frequent and ill-considered rules amendments, and a large margin in favour of who knows the rules best. But for mine, the main problem had to do with an unrelieved diet of one-off encounter battles against unhistorical opponents.  Win or lose - and, apart from the poor old Bulgars of whom I shall soon relate, I won more battles than I lost - I didn't enjoy the games. Boring - and I still believe that was not due to any fault in the DBM concept; it was they way it was used. Still and all, the figures can still be used for a DBA or DBM game with these guys. Or Hordes of the Things.

'Generic' barbarian army that might be Bulgar
or Abasgian (a.k.a. Georgian).

Unfortunately, my 'Barbarians', qua Bulgars, had to be the unluckiest army I ever owned. Even though 'irregular' according to the DBM system, they had very good heavy and light horse archer cavalry, and lots of them. Owing to the historical period I chose for it, their heavy spearmen were not so good, classed as 'inferior' to some average - Sp(I). That tended to mean that facing enemy foot, who generally were not (I), was a losing proposition. They weren't really solid enough to face cavalry classed as knights, either.

In one horror battle, my Bulgars were facing an enemy possessing knights and a war wagon or two (I have no memory what this army was). Doing well, too: my few light infantry took out one of the war wagons. Then a whole line of knights thundered down upon my line of spears.

Even though they were overlapped at one end, I reckoned my spearmen, though inferior, were on a winning proposition. So I watched in disbelief as just about the whole line vanished under the knights' hooves. Events such as these just plagued that army. Battle after battle saw one disaster after another. I'm talking winning propositions, here, rather than the occasional 'oops' moment that led to defeat. After beginning with a draw and a win in its first two battles, I think it was about Game 14 or so before it saw its next victory.

There was the occasion in which my line of LH(S) - 'superior light horse' - attacked an equal line comprising LH(F) - fast light horse - flanked by a fast knight element. The Kn(F) was the biggy - took him on, and destroyed that element. Fine beginning. So now I had the overlap, fast troops in their own turn count minus if out-diced ... this is heading for 'gimme' country...  

Nnnnnn...ope.  The enemy light horse held brilliantly and smote my horse archers hip and thigh, croup and fetlock. The whole line of LH(S) vanished at a stroke.  So, pretty much, did the command to which these light horse belonged. My Bulgar army fought well after that, but from that disaster there could be no recovery. 

And then there was the time when one of the commands had to traverse a tract of hilly country to get at the open plain beyond (I tended to be very lackadaisical about the terrain system!).  I could have chosen a better way than a long line, but I figured I could afford the occasional delay caused by a bad PIP die roll. I might have known. Half way through, the command stalled, and could not be got going again. To this day, I remember exactly the sequence of PIP rolls that kept a whole third of my army out of the battle:

1 - OK, we counted on that happening - a nuisance, but factored into our planning.
1 - Damn.  A bit unlucky, but don't reckon the delay too damaging.
1 - Oh, come on! Three ones in a row?!  This is getting serious.
3 - Yay! but not quite clear of the hills yet...
1 - WTH?!
1 - WTFH??!!  Curse you Red Baron, wherever you are!
2 - Too late, and enough only to clear the hills, and nothing more.

By this time, despite heroic deeds of valour, the rest of the army had succumbed to odds of three to two...

Well... you gotta laugh, eh? Or try a different army.

Light horse, and a rather motley bunch of 
heavy cavalry from a variety of sources.

So I tried them out - same figures - as early Georgians.  The heavy cavalry were classed as 'fast knights' - Kn(F) - rather than 'superior cavalry' - Cv(S); the spears ordinary (O) instead of (I), and the army included a useful contingent of close(ish) order archers as well. 'Fast knights' really denotes cavalry of no huge weight that are armed with lances, and like to rush up and to poke people with them. That army did very well - certainly won more battles than it lost. So the problem didn't lie with 'Irregular' vs 'Regular' armies, then! I rather think that, as Georgians, this was a better balanced army, that included an element of shock and a little bit of distant firepower, too.

These six light horse elements are I think Essex
Bulgar figures - very nice! They go well with just 
about any army requiring light horse. 

The thing with Dark Ages and Mediaeval 'Barbarian' types, is that the figures representing them are, within reason, fairly interchangeable. As I mention in my previous posting, you could also almost use Byzantine figures for Georgian heavy cavalry - they weren't so very different. My main unit of heavy cavalry I bought as Bulgars (Essex figures, I think) but in my view they serve very well, possibly even better, as Abasgians/Georgians!

I have no idea what these figures are except they 
simply add to the light horse contingent.

'Barbarian' heavy cavalry - very attractive figures
from (I think) Essex.  I was chuffed to discover that 
although they didn't use them (much) in battle, Abasgian 
heavy cavalry did carry bows and arrows. 
Used them mostly for hunting, I gather...

'Barbarian' close (loose?) order archers.  
Abasgians, these fellows.  Not a Bulgar type.

The Tsar of Bulgaria, or King of Abasgia,
according to occasion.

Barbarian light javelinmen fronting a unit of spears.
Several - not all - of the spears are pins. 
Great hazard to the careless and unwary.

More spears...

More spearmen - fronted by some rather 
crude and horrible light archers.

The whole ... 'army'

There's a little more work to be done on these
though they look fairly OK.

The eagle-eyed reader will observe that this army is a deal smaller than my Byzantine force exhibited in my previous posting. Hung up on DBM for so long tended to inhibit building this one aside from one order of 24 figures from Essex Miniatures and scrounging around picking up oddments from Bring-and-Buy sales. We're looking at 96 foot and 64 horse, not counting command. One hundred and sixty figures - the same number as my Byzantine infantry...

Some Progress on Projects...

 The world has become a much darker place in the last few weeks - but that twilight has been deepening for years and years, and looks to have a lot more darkening to happen.  It is looking as though we're losing the human race. It has got to the point at which I start to ask myself - just quietly so far - why do I war game?  The heart isn't really in it.

So, rather than fight battles, I've been working towards completing (for a given value of 'completion') a couple of projects that have long been waiting for work to be done.  I gave priority has been with my Mediaevals - Armies and Enemies of Byzantium.  Here is the story - well, the Byzantine part of it:

Command elements.  Another has gone walkabout
- dunno where...

Toxotai - bow armed psiloi light infantry

Blue shield Thematic kavallarioi. My convention is
that 'round shield' cavalry are thematic (militia)
'kite shield' are tagmatic (imperial regulars).

Light horse: prokoursatores leading
hyperkerastai, with trapezetai  following

More thematic heavy cavalry

Tagmatic heavy cavalry

More of the same

My third unit of thematic cavalry...

... and my third unit of tagmatic.

The super-heavies: kataphraktoi - a.k.a 
klibanophoroi.

The figures so far have been 'Tin Soldier' from
Australia.  These green shield guys are of different provenance.
I sometimes rope them in a Georgians, though strictly 
speaking they aren't quite the thing...

The Byzantine right...

... Byzantine left...

Skoutatoi.  The command element carrying the icon 
is the Emperor's Own.  The single element with small
shields are the 'semi-light' menavlatoi -
 carrying heavy throwing weapons

More skoutatoi

The other large unit of skoutatoi with its element 
of menavlatoi.

From front: akontistai javelin light infantry
Varangian Guard, my last unit of
skoutatoi

Psiloi - light infantry:
akontistai and sphendonistai.

The whole Byzantine army.

Whole army, rear view.

This whole army comprises 160 foot and 100 horse, not counting the command elements and the green kite shield fellows.  

Since this platform has been playing silly beggars with the ordering of my pictures (which I decided was too much work to correct), I'll do another posting for the 'enemies' of Byzantium.

A Word on my 'Illuminations'

The observant reader will have noticed the occasional hand drawn 'cartoon' accompanying my posts upon my recent Mediaeval games.  I just do these for fun. I just wish I could think of witty captions for them.

Byzantine victory over Bulgarians -
from John Skylitzes

I'm just a fan of the illustrations that adorn and bring to life what few snippets I've seen of the Chronicles of John Skylitzes.  They are simply charming, even the battles scenes depicting a total slaughter. I see that John Skylitzes: a Synopsis of of Byzantine History has been published and is available in paperback. I'd really like to know more about it, especially to the extent that it includes illustrations from the original. I have Anna Comnena and Michael Psellus in translation, so, why not...?

If this sort of thing appears in my blog, it is simply an indulgence, no more...

A New Campaign...

A little cartoon - the Emperor in pursuit -
 just because I like the illuminations of one John Skylitzes

In the last couple of weeks, a fast-play quick game version of Portable Wargames, dreamed up by Mark Cordone, has created quite a stir among PW aficionados. The quick game concept quickly expanded into the notion of using the brevity of battle play to mount quickplay campaigns. As seen on the Facebook PORTABLE WARGAME page, Mark called his The Fall of Rome. Bob Cordery got in amongst it all with his Stalbania versus Khakistan war, and someone else has examined the concept for World War Two.

The proposed  3x3 quickplay set-up.

Briefly, the idea is to play the battle upon a 3x3 square grid, but with reserve areas extending the depth of an army's deployment. The broad idea isn't especially new, but I think the application - incorporating Portable Wargame mechanics - is. The beauty of the idea, and it seems to work, is that the game may be played on such a small area. It took less than ten minutes to hunt up a backing for an A4 pad; subdivide into a 3x3 grid, with reserve areas extending right across the board (and absent mindedly extending one of the longitudinal grid lines through it - damn); drabble some green and beige paint thereon - and there's the battlefield. The pictures convey the idea; the figures are 15mm Byzantines and Bulgars.

Book added to show just how small this 
battlefield is!

Well, of course, when the campaign idea was mooted, I bethought myself to an idea I have long had, but never really got to work on. Working title: Siege of Constantinople. Although... I am strongly tempted to rename the imperial capital after myself: Ionople. Fine appellation for a Greek capital don't you reckon? But I might settle for Byzantium - at least in the title. 

'Working' campaign map.  This may be simplified down 
to a schematic for the actual campaign.  The doodles 
are just for fun...

 

The sketch map gives the idea. It is the beginning of the second millenium: 1001AD. The Empire is surrounded by enemies. I began with three, but, because my Byzantine army is so much vaster than the enemies I have available, I decided on a fourth - a revolting Duke who has designs upon the Imperial throne, that his progeny might be 'born in the Purple' - porphyrogenetes. I'll say straight out here, this hastily drawn map is 'concept only' - what will probably be simplified come the day.

Bulgar - or they may be Abasgian - heavy cavalry

As usual, I have allowed the concept to run away with me a bit.  At any rate, here's the concept in more detail.

Pechenegs.  All of them. They need a war wagon.

The Empire is under pressure from northwest, north, east, and southeast. From the west, the Bulgar Empire, recently pushed back from the Euxine (Black) Sea coast, and seeking revenge. From the North, those ferocious Turkic nomads, those Patzinaks (Pechenegs) whose idea of fun is to raid, pillage and plunder. From the east, there's the small kingdom of Abkhazia - the Abasgoi, soon to become 'Georgians', fiercely independent, and hemmed in by mountains, wanting to stretch their elbows a bit. Finally we light upon Duke Yevgenes Apostas, himself chafing under Ionopolitan diktat, but having concluded that, rather than break away (with consequences he didn't dare to contemplate), that diktat ought to come from none other than himself.

Byzantine infantry

That gives us four campaign paths - four ksenikoi armies; faced by four  Byzantine: two Imperial, and two Thematic. But, just to add an amusing complication, methought: why not add the possibility that the 'enemies of Byzantium'  might (be induced to) attack each other? That is one of the reasons for my adding the Duke, actually. Between the Mediterranean and Euxine Seas, and the Caucasus Mountains, the east is cut off from the west. I wanted someone to be a possible distraction for the Geor Abasgians. Of course, such occurrences are mere diversions, but they might bale out the Empire if the going gets a bit sticky.

Kataphraktoi - the early Mediaeval tank.

Before I go, I should perhaps explain the little sketches. The Pecheneg War Wagon design I've noted down because it seems likely I'll be forced to make one. For the others, I have long been a fan of the type of illustration that added colour to the manuscripts of a certain Ioannes Scylitzes, a copy of which is known as the Madrid Scylitzes.

Varangian Guard, as seen at the Mediaeval Show
Queensland (Australia), May 2014.  Note that these dudes 
favour spears, rather than axes.

I will confess that all this is probably rather hopeful, not to say, optimistic. It may well turn out to be one of those occasional campaigns - one that can easily be taken up for a few quick games, in between other projects. We'll see.  Meanwhile, I wonder if the thing is feasible for Mediaeval 'Naval' war games...?

To be continued ... sometime...