Game - Sword & Spear - 6mm Pontic vs. Early Imperial Romans

 Last Sunday I played a game of Sword & Spear against Torben with our 6mm ancients armies.

I fielded a Pontic once again, and almost exactly the same as last time we played.

Pontic army:

1 General and 2 Captains - 105 pts.

2 Phalanx, heavy foot(L) - 84 pts.

2 Thureophoroi, medium foot - 36 pts.

1 Slingers, light foot - 9 pts.

2 Javelinmen, light foot - 18 pts.

1 Javelinmen, medium foot - 15 pts.

4 Imitation Legionaries, heavy foot(D5) - 72 pts.

2 Archers, medium foot - 24 pts.

2 Heavy Cavalry, armoured - 64 pts.

1 Light Cavalry - 15 pts.

1 Scythian Horse Archers - 18 pts.

1 Sarmatian Cavalry - 40 pts.

1 Camp - 0 pts.

I alt 500 pts., 68 army value (23/34)

 

Torben's army had the following in his army. I can't remember his breaking points but they were smaller than mine:

1 General and 1 Captain

4 Legionaries

2 Veteran Legionaries

2 Auxiliary infantry 

2 light Archers

1 Slingers

2 Heavy Cavalry

2 Bolt shooters

1 Camp - 0 pts.

 

That meant 20 die for me, and 16 for the Romans. When we placed terrain, Torben tried to stack a lot of terrain on my left flank to force me to advance on a more limited front. Unfortunately for him it didn't quite work. He did, however, get a nice hill in the center of his deployment zone, which were ideal for his bolt shooters.

Deployment:

Pontic army from right to left: Light cavalry and horse archers behind them, 2 heavy cavalry, the Sarmatian cavalry (cataphracts), 1 Thureophoroi with slingers behind them, 2 Phalanx with light javelins behind them, 1 Thureophoroi, with light javelins behind them, 4 imitation legionaries with one of them behind the other 3, and behind the woods were 2 medium foot archers and 1 medium foot javelinmen.

Roman army from left to right: Heavy cavalry with slingers in front, 1 Auxiliary infantry and 2 legionaries with light archers in front, and again 1 Auxiliary infantry and 2 legionaries with light archers in front, 1 heavy cavalry and the 2 veteran legionaries out on the Roman left flank. And the 2 bolt shooters on the hill.

The Pontic army started the battle with a cavalry advance on their left flank, as this seemed like the weakest point in the Roman line.

On the Pontic right flank the medium foot archers and javelinmen took positions in the woods in case the Romans decided to advance here. The Roman cavalry on this flank began to make a move around the woods to hit the Pontic army in the rear.

Combat erupted on Pontic left flank as their Sarmatian cavalry charged into some legionaries and 2 heavy cavalry units faced off as well. While the Romans began to shift their central legionaries towards this flank, the Pontic light skirmishers moved in to harass their advance.

The Pontic cavalry was locked in combat with the Roman infantry, and then the Sarmatian cavalry was hit in the flank. The Pontic phalanxes move up to support, but the heavy foot is too slow to rescue the cataphracts. They do, however, catch one of the legionary units in the flank.

On the Pontic left flank the Roman cavalry is continuing its advance around the woods. The Pontic archers move to shoot at the cavalry but unable to stop them.

The fight on the flank has created a nice line. Despite some heavy losses in some of their units, the Romans are beginning to get the tactical advantage. Then disaster happens as the Roman general tries to rally the heavy cavalry but ends up getting killed in stead. Suddenly the battle turns in favour of the Pontics instead.

Since the Pontic units in the center remain still, partly due to not wanting to advance in front of the bolt shooters, more Roman legionaries are sent to help on the flank.

The Roman cavalry that tried to advance behind the Pontic lines are caught by archers and killed.

The Romans manage to form a new line on their right flank, but it is too late, as the Pontic Thureophoroi infantry loots the Roman camp, which finally breaks the Roman army and they retreat.

A very interesting and fun battle that shifted back and forwards. The key moment, however, was when the Roman general was killed. This meant that the majority of the Romans on that flank was out of command and thus harder to activate and maneuver. 

I really do love the command & control and activation aspects of this ruleset. It does stand above everything else. The rules would be even better if they were more tightly written and edited, but of course it doesn't help that we only play a couple of times a year, so often forget things in between.

6mm American War of Independence armies

Some years ago a couple friends and I talked about doing the Seven Years war. I decided to the English and immediately ordered some figures from Baccus. They duly arrived and were subsequently put on the shelves and the project forgotten again.

A couple of years later I wanted to do some 2-armies projects for various periods that I could solo game. At this time I had become quite interested in the American War of Independence and so I decided to get an American army to face the English. Now, I quickly found that the English army looks slightly different between the 2 wars, but in 6mm I believe it's acceptable to ignore. 

I didn't want to paint the Americans so for the first time I decided to try and buy a painted army from Ebay. The result and price was okay, but unfortunately history repeated itself and once the painted Americans arrived, they were put on the shelves and the project abandoned. 

This year I wanted to finish the project, so I found someone on Facebook to paint the English, as I knew I wouldn't get them painted anytime soon myself. And this time they did not end up on the shelves. I got them based and bought flags and finally finished both armies.

The American army was bought as an army pack. I basically based them using the Black Powder unit types from the expansion book 'Rebellion!'. I have used various forms of bases and number of figures on the bases, so that I could do different types of units. The flags are also from Baccus, and I have used them randomly, so no particularly real-life formations.

For the English army I bought a bunch of line infantry, and some grenadiers, skirmish infantry, horse and artillery. As with the Americans I tried to base them, so I could field various forms of formations and unit types. And again the flags are added randomly, so not trying to do any specific real-life formations.

I am very pleased with armies and look forward to try them on the field. I will probably start out light with some smaller games with the One-Hour Wargames rules from Neil Thomas, and then try the full collection with Black Powder later on.

Update - terrain and 6mm Pontic imitation legionaries

 Although my painting endeavors are limited by a current shoulder injury I do still try to get something done. At the moment terrain and bases are the easiest things for me to do.

First up are some 6mm Pontic imitation legionaries from Baccus. In January I painted some other Pontic troops and I had painted 6 out of 8 bases of the legionaries, except for doing finishing the bases which is something I usually do when I have painted all the figures. However, because of the shoulder I never got to paint the last 2 bases, but eventually I decided to at least finish the 6 bases I had painted. With these figures I tried to use mainly contrast paints over a metal spray and it worked out nicely.

Back in February I showed some 6mm latex fields/rough ground I had made. Now I have finished them all and here is a photo to prove it. These are very simply done with a brown spray, some shading and drybrushing, and few areas pained with contrast paints.

The fields/rough grounds are from TimeCast and with them I also purchased some fords and bridges which I have also finished. These are painted enturely with contrast paints.

Over time I have bought various 6mm buildings for different time periods. So I decided to make one base which could be used with the different buildings. Here is the base with first some ancients houses and then some ACW houses. The idea is to use them as a village/town and you can move the houses around to accommodate the figures.

Back in November when I was browsing a ton of webshops for Black Friday I came across a Polish shop, terrain4games.com that sold various terrain, including painted stuff. I was very curious about it, but didn't buy anything from at that time. But I kept coming back to the page, and a month ago I just decided to try it out. So I ordered a Rocksy terrain set with 16 pieces for 61 $ including shipment. It actually took a little longer for them to send it than expected (I had ordered a 'Ready to ship' item), but as a bonus they had added 3 more pieces to the set. I'm very happy with set and can recommend the webshop.Here is the set with a couple of 28mm fantasy figures for size comparison.

So although I don't get to paint as many figures as I would like (and need) to, at least I get something done. Unfortunately I also keep buying new stuff, but really comes as no surprise.

Painting - End of January painting challenge

 So January has come and gone. As mentioned earlier my friend and I tried to do a challenge where we had to paint at least 15 minutes every day. While my friend unfortunately had to drop it due to outside events, I actually managed to do it.

I did have one day where I couldn't paint because I was away on a small trip. Although I actually had taken some painting stuff with me, I had forgotten some things and so couldn't paint one day. I also had one day, where I only did a lot of priming, but I still accepted it as a good day.

My small box of painting stuff for my trip. Unfortunately I still forgot some important items

In conclusion the challenge was very good and worthwhile. It did show that even 15-20 minutes of paint will provide some progress. And even more importantly it actually proved to be motivating in several ways. There were days where I initially thought I wouldn't paint more than the 15-20 minutes but then ended up spending even more time.

Baccus Marian legionaries used as Pontic imitation legionaries

When my friend and I talked about the challenge we speculated on how much we would end up getting painted. In truth it was less than I imagined. But even so I will call this a great success.

I had planned to kind of continue the project, but extending what I could do in the 15-20 minutes to also include assembling miniatures or terrain, painting terrain or other relevant hobby activities. Unfortunately I have some issues with my shoulder at the moment, so this week all hobby work has stopped momentarily.

Here are the bases I have painted in the final weeks of January.

4 bases of skirmishers with javelins

4 bases of skirmishers with javelins

4 bases of imitation legionaries (bases not done)

Painted - 6mm Pontic Thureophoroi

 As part of my January painting challenge I have been painting some 6mm Pontic Thureophoroi, which is medium infantry. Most days I have been painting more than the 15 minutes a day I am required to. It was, however, very nice to have some days where I just painted the minimum 15 minutes, and still felt I made some progress.

I paint 8 strips at a time which corresponded to 2 bases. Normally I would do such a batch on an evening.

They are painted with GWs contrast paints apart from some small metal paint on the spear tips and on the shields. Although I look for inspiration various places I just try different colours and hope it looks good. I finished a total of 8 bases which is 4 units in Sword & Spear. Afterwards I actually realized that on the Spanish and Roman medium infantry bases I only had 12 figures on, so I made a small mistake putting 16 figures on these bases, but it doesn't matter that much.

Next on the painting cue is some Pontic skirmishers.