Alarms and Excursions on the Limes Germanicus - Clash of Spears

 

I'm always interested in trying out unfamiliar rule systems, particularly with periods of personal interest and so I couldn't resist an invitation from Chas to join him in the forests of first-century Germania with a Roman punitive column and some rebellious German tribesmen getting stuck in using the rules Clash of Spears (CoS)

https://www.thewargamespot.com/clash-of-spears/

When it comes to playing ancients, I probably class myself as a 'big-battle' kind of wargamer, with the skirmish or even large skirmish gaming lower on my list of preferences, which is probably contrary to the current fashion in the hobby towards snappy, quick play, small scenario kind of games with rules to match.

The figure manufacturers seem to have cottoned on to this theme by producing small groups of figures to build retinues or warbands and I noted Victrix are involved in a similar exercise with this particular set.

For our game of 'Tree Huggers' versus 'Tree Choppers', as Chas decided to entitle our two sides, we had forces of just over 2,000 points, double the size of a recommended standard game of CoS at 900 points each, with our units ranging from seven to ten figures and the various unit definitions and stat lines taken from the Rise of Eagles lists pulled together by Chas using the handy Army Builder App to be found on the CoS Home Web Page, and in the link below.

CoS Army Builder

The Romans mustering a force of some three units of legionaries, four of auxiliaries, one unit of archers and one of javelin men, two auxiliary cavalry and a Scorpio bolt thrower and crew.  

The table of battle with the Germans to enter from the edge nearest the village and the Romans from the opposite side, and with the sacred tree in the centre of the table, complete with captured Roman trophies, the main objective to control for both sides.

The Germans were equally well represented with eight groups of warriors in various flavours, ranging from fanatics, veterans, Roman equipped to plain basic tribesmen, backed up with two units of javelin men, one of archers and a cavalry unit.

My command occupying the German left flank

I don't intend to give a review of the rules here, but rather an impression of play using them, suffice to say each unit has the usual stat line of attributes for melee, ranged combat, morale, armour saves and any special abilities that would apply to a given unit, such as 'drilled' for Roman legionaries.

Stat numbers work on the basis that lower is better because you are dicing against them, hence 3+ is a success on 3 or more.

Movement is either in open or closed order, the latter offering better protection from close shields and range is taken from the nearest figures between two units.

The Roman Scorpio crew take aim

The sequence of play is alternate, based on winning an initiative die roll, with the active player able to choose one of three options, do nothing and pass, activate a commander or unit or rest a unit to recover fatigue and with each side having the opportunity to activate any given unit up to three times, with the first activation guaranteed to happen before the enemy can react, but subsequent activations open to challenge by the opponent to try and get the jump on the second or third attempted move.

The actions of units usually consist of moving, throwing or shooting something and attacking in close combat.

Greg advances with his Auxiliary Cavalry

The basic idea is, not surprisingly, to destroy the other chaps units whilst avoiding him doing it to you and this is achieved through an accumulation of fatigue points caused by casualties recieved and strenuous activities in close proximity to the enemy likely to lower morale, stamina and motivation.

Units can take up to six fatigue points with excess points causing casualties and more than double that number destroying the unit, and the little red dice seen next to units shows us recording said fatigue as we went, with some units gradually getting fewer in figures as fatigue caused casualties.

 

My Veterans and Fanatics, carrying a bit of fatigue as they move forward

With three players on each side we divvied up the units between us, with my command consisting of the German cavalry, a unit of noble warband, fanatic warband and spearmen warband, out on the German left flank, facing Greg, my determined Roman counterpart with two units of Roman cavalry, one of auxiliaries and one of allied barbarian and supported with a unit of javelin men.

'They shall not pass!'

The game started with each side bringing on markers for units, together with the odd dummy, and proceeded to move them on to the table, until reaching a prescribed distance from an enemy marker that effectively locked down any other markers in proximity, thus staking out our lines prior to deploying the units represented by the markers, very much familiar to Lardy players using Chain of Command.

A strong force of Legionaries and Auxiliaries made up the Roman centre

As with most large games in my experience, you only tend to have a superficial impression of what was happening on other parts of the battlefield, so most of my comments will be based on my part of it, but it appeared that the Roman centre got a bit of a hard time of it with the front two legionary units succumbing to missile fire followed by a bit of the close encounter, barbarian warband style, this after the German ranks were thinned with the odd Scorpion bolt and javelin.

Roman Auxiliary infantry out on the Roman left flank

Out on my flank, both Greg and I deployed as per our markers, with me throwing out my unit of rabble spearmen to get into some woods close to the centre of the table on our flank and using them to limit the Roman advance, whilst giving them the benefit of some cover from missiles in the trees.

My cavalry of course went out on the extreme left and I brought up my veteran and fanatic warbands closely behind in the centre to support either or both the cavalry and spearmen ahead.

The view along the German line from their right flank, following deployment

Greg similarly advanced both his cavalry down his extreme right, but with marshy ponds in front of his deployment area was forced to come forward against my cavalry one unit at a time on the narrow pass offering firm footing which I was keen to defend in as I could avoid fighting at two to one.

In the end my Germans beat the Roman auxiliary cavalry to the punch and managed to damage them heavily, with Greg deciding to swing his Barbarian Ally cavalry towards the Roman centre in support of his Javelin Men, which similarly got caught by my Spearmen Warband as they skirmished next to the Scorpion.

Close combat starting to accumulate the fatigue with four points on the German warband as they go toe-to-toe with Roman Auxiliaries

As most of us playing were using CoS for the first time we were all keen to push the rules to the maximum to see what could happen, so missile fire and charges were flying in with 'gay abandon', and units started to melt in the heat of battle.

The game produces interesting decision points for players knowing when to push on after a successful round of melee for instance and perhaps push the opposition to breaking point with another round, or to hold back and look to recover incurred fatigue before pushing in again in the next round with the hope of winning the initiative to get that guaranteed first strike.

The Javelin Men add their missiles in support of the Scorpio bolts

 
Thus the melee battles can be quite interesting little battles within the much wider contest and if carefully managed can enable an opponent to be rolled back in a grinding attack.

Roman Legionaries and Auxiliaries having a hard day in the centre

We played about six hours and our game left both armies exhausted with numerous units removed from the table and both sides having relatively fresh ones ready to contest the sacred tree, so I guess we called it a bloody draw, without resorting to use the break off tests that are in the rules to decide when a force has reached that point through losses, and anyway it was 'Pub-Time' when we called it which pre-empts any break off tests.

My Spearmen about to charge out from the woods towards Roman Javelin men supporting the Roman Scorpion team

My impression is the CoS is a solid work which draws on ideas I've seen in several other sets of rules and uses similar mechanisms, which is no bad thing, and indeed they produce a flowing game that easily handled the number of units on the table with six of us playing.

I think they are a set of rules that would reward regular playing to really get at the nuances of managing the game, knowing when to press forward and when to re-group, and we were all feeling our way to begin with, getting our heads around the various titles along the unit stat lines and which number to apply to any given situation, but not surprisingly that became more intuitive as we played.

My German cavalry charge towards their Roman counterparts as they try to manoeuvre around the marshes to their front.

They are certainly pitched as a very competitive market, with the offerings around from Osprey and Footsore, but I think the fact that Victrix have aligned their range with them to supply specific units and with Roman, Carthaginian and Gallic box sets to build a complete force, I'm sure they will do well in an era of short games that can be played on a 6 x 4 foot table in two to three hours.

Victrix Clash of Spears Gallic Warband box set

 

Thank you to Chas for organising and running our game, and to David, Steve M., Vince, Steve L. and Gregory for playing the game in our usual DWG spirit, good fun all round.

JJ

Frostgrave Campaign Game - 'High Mountains'

Alas the second battle report for our Frostgrave campaign was written on unstable parchment and faded to dust before it could be e-mailed to the club’s editor (Ahem….), so we turn now to the third, and penultimate table ‘High Mountains’.

The warbands continue to journey towards the thawing city of Felstad in pursuit of the ultimate prize that will see their own school of magic prevail.

The journey took them across the table from west to east (towards you in picture above), moving from the graveyard, through the giant’s lair and to the gate of Felstad in the far south-east corner.

The winners of the previous table (Chronomancers) had a deployment advantage on this table.

Though treasures weren’t immediately visible, the could be ‘discovered’ when a model was within 6” of them (12” for magic users). However, this still left the uncertainty that the treasure might spring something nasty which would need to be defeated first!

The Chronomancers scooped up a number of treasures from the churchyard and graves, having only a Golden Wight and a single ghost to deal with before they moved on up the table.

The Elementalists were less fortunate….

…and discovered a Daddy Giant munching on something as they rounded a copse.

However, good use of ‘tactical withdrawal’ allowed them to get both magic and conventional ranged shots in, and soon the Daddy Giant was slain. 

Unfortunately his death throes alerted the rest of his family, who then activated and headed off to attack both warbands simultaneously.

Both warbands dealt with these new abominations carefully, avoiding casualties. The process did slow down the Chronomancer’s advance, and had the effect of giving the Elementalists time to come within bowshot. Thus the next phase of the game involved not just fighting ‘monsters’ but also having to contend with each other!

By lifting the treasure nearest the gate, the Chronomancers inadvertently released a cloud of ethereal souls onto their warband, having to contend with several ghosts at once and suffering casualties accordingly.

(Orange dice show the number of health remaining, and indicate that a model is wounded)

Despite nearing the gate and having defeated all the ghosts they had released, the Chronomancers still couldn’t exit because the Elementalists were strategically not picking up the last treasure (a condition for the gate to open). To force their hand they sent a Treasure Hunter back up the table, cleverly drawing Wraiths (immune to normal weapons) towards the Elementalists whilst all the while managing to stay just beyond their reach.

The Elementalists tried to freeze the Treasure Hunter with a spell and let the Wraiths catch up, but their magic user just wasn’t up to the task. So, they had their archer shoot him in the back instead!

In the end the Chronomancers secured five treasures (but lost two soldier specialists) and exited the table first, so will get deployment priority on the last table, the city of Felstad itself. The Elementalists, being the amoral opportunists that they are, will no doubt follow them in to the city hot on their heels, stab them in the back and claim the prize for themselves!

All will be revealed in the next, and final instalment of our Frostgrave campaign.

Clotted Lard 2023

Last month the Devon Wargames Group in conjunction with the Too Fat Lardies ran the sixth Clotted Lard Show held annually to celebrate playing all things Lardy and to contribute to a worthy charity with the proceedings from the show, which this year was in support of a very worthy local charity, Devon Air Ambulance Trust, that is a vital emergency medical response service, in such a large rural county as Devon, turning out to assist 1,169 critically ill patients in 2022, of which 109 were children.

Devon Air Ambulance Trust

Last year saw the show relocate to Lympstone Village Hall, in the beautiful village of Lympstone, perched on the banks of the River Exe, and the venue has provided superb facilities for our needs that has seen us outgrow our previous venue in terms of the number of folks wanting to play Lardy games.

This year we had twelve games running, using nine sets of rules, covering themes across the millennia, on air, sea and land, plus a bit of Tolkien for good measure, and from the banter and chat during the day and after, much fun was had by all.

In previous years I have tended to excuse myself playing in one of the sessions to allow me time to get around and showcase each game individually, but this year I was running my own game of Kiss Me Hardy in both the morning and afternoon sessions, so decided to change things up a bit, by looking to capture the feel of a Lardy show and particularly Clotted Lard, where we have a regular group of friends turning up year after year, which adds to the relaxed atmosphere, now set off perfectly with our luxurious surroundings in gloriously beautiful East Devon.

Below is a short video that I put together, capturing Clotted Lard 2023 being set up and a few pictures of some of the games to give a feel for the event.

I also grabbed a few pictures on my way around the tables in the morning of a few of the games practically set up and ready to start, and I'm sure there are plenty more pictures of the other games on social media, should the impulse take you there.

Midgard, 28mm, Dave Hunter

28mm Middle-earth War of Dwarves and Orcs. Third Age 2794. 

As Grumblin, Lord of Damâmkar-dûm, or Nárli, heir of Snoti Longbeard, lead your dwarves boldly forth against the foul orcs of lâshbûrnzbûm. As Bolog, Tyrant of Gûlâshbûrnzbûm, or his captain, the fell orc, Nâstirâsh, bring an unstoppable host of orcs, trolls (and maybe an unexpected surprise) to crush the pitifully small army that stands between you and all the fabled riches of Damâmkar-dûm. James Morris' Midgard is the perfect vehicle for recreating the history of Middle-earth as Tolkien intended.

Chain of Command, 28mm, Chas Carter & Vince Hyland

Ice Station Zebra, it's the 1960's, somewhere near the North Pole. As US marines & sailors from USS Tigerfish search for the downed satellite, Soviet paratroopers land round the ice station. Whilst the main characters and spies search the base, the US and Soviet troops duke it out, as the ice flow breaks up around them?

Dux Britanniarum, 28mm, Mike Cloake

Raid on a wagon convoy' - The British are escorting a convoy of wagons laden with provisions, weapons and filthy lucre. The Saxons are determined to relieve the British convoy of their cargoes and have set an ambush. Will the British reach the Fort at the end of their journey with their goods intact?

With regards to my own day, as the video revealed Kiss Me Hardy was in its room from last year, or the 'Chairman's Suite' as I like to call it, where age of sail aficionados can enjoy the game in civilised chat without having to cock an ear to hear what ones neighbour is saying, very civilised.

Devon Wargames Group - Bantry Bay-1796, Kiss Me Hardy

This year I was running the 'Bantry Bay-1796' scenario that I featured on its debut at the Devon Wargames Group for a trial run in August, link above, leading up to Clotted Lard, and a game I have recently run at the Naval Wargames Society show at the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton and once I have topped and tailed the briefing will publish the scenario together with the required ship-sheets for others to have a go should they wish.

Kiss Me, Hardy 1/700, Jonathan Jones

The Battle of Bantry Bay, Dec 1796. A ‘what if encounter’ that imagines the arrival of elements of the French fleet, under the command of Commodore Jaques Bedout, carrying troops for the invasion of Ireland and bound for a landing in Bantry Bay, intercepted by the Inshore Squadron under Sir Edward Pellew and the vanguard of the Channel Fleet under Commodore Sir James Saumarez.

I've had a lot of fun running this scenario, and I think it is a real test for both sides, but especially for the French who need to have a clear idea of what they need to do to win the game, and that requires a complete dedication to getting at least two but better still all four of the transports across the entrance into Bear Haven, simulated by the two land promontories, irrespective of losses to the warships, which inevitably will have their hands full keeping Messrs Pellew and Saumarez at bay.

As I write this overview I now have the game played at Yeovilton together with the two played here at Clotted Lard to go by, and at the latter the French managed to get one transport across the line before their fleet morale broke, but I think with careful application, in making sure that the lead British warships have to ideally tackle two French ones at any one time, with a focus on trying to tie those lead British ships up in lengthy boarding actions, thus stopping them manoeuvring, I think a good result for the French is possible.

That said the British have a formidable squadron on the table and can win by taking out the transports or breaking the French fleet morale before any transports have crossed the line, but it has been surprising to hear the different British command teams pondering over their doubts about their ability to stop the French in all in the games played so far.

I will expand on my thinking about Bantry Bay when I complete the NWS Meeting AAR, but in the meantime thank Geoff, Frazer, Paul G, Paul O. and John in the morning game and Andy, Sam, Simon, Ioan, Lawrence and Adam in the afternoon game for providing two very interesting and fun KMH games - Cheers Chaps.

Below is our team picture for Clotted Lard 2023 and thank you to Bob Connor, our retiring Clotted Lard Cat Herder in Chief, who stepped down from the job, with this his sixth Clotted Lard completed and a tribute to all the work he has put in to making the show something everyone involved in them has looked forward to each year.                                             

 

Here's looking forward to Clotted Lard 2024, and the club looks forward to welcoming fellow Lard enthusiasts on the next one.

JJ