Seleucis and Alexander

It's been a quiet week and same again next week with nothing on the cards and real life getting in the way of wargaming. I did have a weekend trip to Darlington where my son took me on a run ashore and a meal, and quite superb it was too, we found an old fashioned pub which had a varied mix of clientele, no televisions, no drunks, no shouting and where we could sit and sup decent beer and have a conversation, where the barmaid, no spring chicken, could remember our order each time.

I did however have one game sorted today, it was a trial of On Bloody Ground, a ruleset written by a good friend of mine and his son, Dave has been at me for ages to try them out and as he could sell ice to Eskimos it has been hard to resist. My opponent Stuart had played the rules but some time ago, he also had his Macedonian army ready for the table so it was time to come off the fence. My army was Seleucid so slightly later than Stuart's but otherwise both had basically the same troop types, I took pikes, mercenary Hoplites, skirmishers, horse archers and Companion cavalry, I felt obliged to take an elephant so Nellie came along as well. Stuart faced me with Hypaspists, pikes, Hoplites, skirmishers and Peltasts, he had two units of Companions and some light cavalry.

My boys.

Stuart’s lads.

Seleucid on the left, Alexander on the right.

Looking from Seleucid’s line.

Thankfully Stuart put his cavalry opposite my horse on his right, I had been a bit anxious that he might threaten my right which had only a skirmish unit to guard the flank, but I was quite sure I could match his mounted troops on my left. Sure enough my Skythian's and slingers managed to wipe out the light cavalry and eventually do the same to the Peltasts, I took advantage of this and moved my Companions and the elephant towards the enemy household cavalry, the rest of my line went forward to engage the Macedonian infantry in echelon against their left.

The ‘heavies’ move off.

The first clash.

The enemy right suffers.

Slowly does it boys.

As the dust settled from the initial charges my Companions and Hoplites had beaten their opponents and as the enemy fled turned in against their main line, both flanks now looked very shaky. The second group of enemy Companions were now hit in the flank by my own elites and frontally by the elephant, they were pushed back. Time was getting on and with both his flanks gone and now outnumbered Stuart offered his sword.

It’s all over.

If you read this blog you will know I am pretty set in my ways and it takes a lot for me to change from what I like, I like War and Conquest and it does what it says on the tin for me. OBG has a faster play style and certain rule mechanics offer enough complexity for interesting tactics to keep players coming back for more, they are also very well supported by Dave and Dan and they have plans to keep this up during the next year with possible weekend events. I wish them well, me, I'm just an old fossil.

Royal Mail are still struggling to deliver my support weapons for the BEF as 1st Corps posted them almost a week ago, so in the meantime I finished off some NCO's and Soviet tank riders, the latter I got from Mardav Miniatures and am really pleased with them. I also managed to paint up my Nashorn this morning, I still have the crew to paint but the new tank killer will be ready to roll by the weekend, will it ever see the table, who knows, but I'm happy, and you can take that to the bank.

I gave up with the 'Last Yorkists' and did indeed jump to the Battle of Pavia, the book was too much like a novel and read as such, I also think that the author overplayed much of the supposed influence the Yorkist pretenders had with the Holy Roman emperor or the French king. Anyway I am now back on the Eastern Front with Prit Buttar's 'Bagration 1944'. I have watched several pieces by Buttar on WW2TV and he knows his stuff.

I was taken in by the rave reviews of the BBC comedy, and I use the term loosely, 'Small Prophets', I don't get it. I find the main character a drag and when I watch him I know he is acting and trying hard, I long for him to lose his job. Thankfully a German spy thriller called 'Unfamiliar' is streaming on Netflix, and, wait for it, I like it.

 I notice that no less an august establishment as the British Museum is touting the 'fact' that 50% of all Samurai were women in its new exhibition, a blatant lie, but what does Joe Public know eh?

 Can I end on a high, eh, I really did enjoy that weekend.