Blog Update

Apologies to everyone for the lack of new content.  The real world has been in the way of any gaming since September really which has caused things to slow down and practically stop.  I have been able to paint a little bit and get some things flocked so hopefully I will be able to post something new for you guys in the near future.  If not, I hope everyone has a safe and joyful holiday season.

Land of Reeds Correction Plus New Biblical Lists

I found a typo in the Land of Reeds sector map and have made the correction.  The revised map is below:

Additionally, I have gathered the extra lists I put together for both the Lord of the Four Corners Sumerian Campaign and the War of the Two Brothers (Late NKE) Campaign in one place.  The link below will let you see what I have so far.

Biblical Extra Lists

Let me know if you have issues with the link.
 

More from Egypt

 Here are the next two sector maps for the new Egypt based campaign.

Kush

Movement will be very dependent on the Nile River.  Once I get the campaign rules in a presentable form, I will post them up as well.  Eventually, everything will be available through a dedicated campaign page.

Retjenu - Syro-Canaanites and Early Nomadic peoples will fit in on this map with a possible Hittite presence in the far north.

Egypt - Maybe (Updated)

Went back and revised the original draft map of the theatre of operations and completed several of the sector maps. The Nile will be very important in the campaign as movement by water will be very important as it was historically with very few roads/tracks. The campaign rules (when they are ever finished) will fill in the gaps on how this will work.

The green areas along the river are just for reference and to break up the otherwise white field.  I thought about adding desert symbols but the few test pieces I tried ended up with way too much yellow on the map.

Here is the Tsakhet (or Lower Egypt) sector map.

Here is the Tjehenu (or Libyan) sector map.

Edit 9.12.21 - The sector map for the Land of Reeds had an error on it so I have removed it for now.

The sector maps for Kush and Retjenu are still works in progress but hopefully I can get them completed in a week or so.

Battle of Lubeck 1396 AD

As promised here is a FOG 300 AAR from the Battle of Lubeck.  This was the first time I have tried a remote game so there are few pictures (and no action shots).

The Irish mercenary Earl Thomas Worden has descended upon the hinterlands of the Hansa with Queen Margaret of Denmark's Swedish levies to try and take the titular capital of the Hansa League, Lubeck.  In true monied fashion, the merchants of the League have secured the services of the wandering Flemish mercenary, Anders Notger and his Flemish spearmen to defend Lubeck.  Just south of the city on the banks of the River Trave, the two armies meet...

The Later Low Country Army of Anders Notger

Med. Scandinavian Swedes of Thomas Worden

The battlefield south of Lubeck from two angles.

The Swedes won the initiative and opted to fight in Developed.  The Flemish took the enclosed field compulsory and the Swedes took the village.  The Swedes also took a river.  The Flemish took a gully and an open field.  The river ended up being uneven (must be a dry summer).  Both camps were unfortified and the Swedes placed the 4 stands of field fortifications in front of their camp which was placed beside the river.    

The Swedes moved first.  The two Levy battlegroups together moved straight forward stopping just outside of 5" of the Flemish spear line.  The lone Levy BG behind the enclosed field moved to just short of the enclosed field.  The knights moved forward 4" with a slight wheel. There was no shooting as the only Swedish BGs in range had double moved.  The Flemish leader moved to the lone 8 BG of spear and the Swedish leader moved to the lone Levy BG in the Joint Action Phase.

In the Flemish 1st turn, the two spear BGs together did not move.  The lone spear BG moved forward 4" and the knights wheeled forward 4" angling towards the gap between the enclosed field and the river.  The range was long for shooting and the Swedish crossbows were ineffective.  The Swedish leader moved into the enclosed field so that he could join his knights in the following turn.  The Flemish leader moved to his own knights.

In the Swedish 2nd turn, the two Levy BGs moved as a group to 4" of the Flemish spear line.  The Swedish knights moved up 4" placing them at the corner of the enclosed field.  The Swedish crossbow fire against the 10 stand BG of spear was ineffective and not enough shots were available against the other spear BG.  In the joint action phase, the Swedish leader moved to the Swedish knights.

In the Flemish 2nd turn, the Flemish knights passed a CMT not to charge. The Flemish spear line held position but the 8 stand BG of spear between the 10 stand BG and the village expanded two stands.  The Flemish knights passed a CMT and expanded 2 files.  In the shooting phase, the Swedish missile fire continued to be ineffective.

In the Swedish 3rd turn, the Swedish knights charged.  In impact, the Flemish leader decided to fight in the line and the Swedish leader did so as well.  The Flemish knights scored 2 hits to 6, lost a base to the death roll and then disrupted.  Both leaders survived their rolls.  The two Swedish Levy BGs moved foward to 3" of the Flemish spear line. In the shooting phase, more futile crossbow fire ensued.  In the melee phase, The Flemish knights again rolled poorly and lost.  They last a stand to the death roll and broke.  The spear BG disrupted for seeing friends break.  The Flemish knights were caught in the pursuit and lost another base.  The Flemish leader survived the pursuit.  In joint action, the Flemish leader moved to the spear BG by the field.  The Flemish knights routed off the table.  The Swedish knights pursued to the table edge.

In the Flemish 3rd turn, the Flemish held steady along the line.  The Swedish crossbow fire was for naught and in the Joint Action Phase, the disrupted Flemish Spear BG by the enclosed field rallied to steady.

In the Swedish 4th turn, no charges were made.  The lone Swedish Levy BG by the enclosed field moved 2" into the enclosed field.  The Swedish knights wheeled 4" towards the Flemish camp.  Shooting continued to be ineffective.  The Flemish general moved to the 8 stand BG of spear by the village in the Joint Action Phase.

In the Flemish 4th turn, the 10 stand spear BG charged.  The 8 stand spear BG opted not to charge but failed the CMT even with the general attached and charged anyway.  The two right hand stands trundled into the village severely disordering.  In impact, the 10 stand BG of Flemish spear took 11 hits and lost.  The 8 stand BG won (the general was fighting again).  The Flemish 10 stand BG lost 2 stands but passed cohesion.  The two Swedish Levy BGs suffered no ill effects.   As there was no shooting, the turn moved into melee.   This is where things started getting blurry.  This melee continued back and forth with the Swedes losing 1 stand of Pole Arm troops facing the 10 stand BG of Flemish Spear but never losing cohesion.  The other 6 stand BG of Swedish Levy lost combat multiple times but never lost a stand to hits or failed a cohesion test.  The 10 stand BG of Flemish eventually lost a base to hits and dropped to fragmented.   The Swedish knights, eventually overran the Flemish camp breaking the Flemish army.  

All told the game took less than 1.5 hours (closer 1.25).  

I made several questionable decisions in tactics that had a significant effect, one being expanding the average knights.  

I also made a glaring rule error where the village is concerned.  The Flemish spear BG should not have charged without orders as the village is severely disordering terrain to heavy foot.  It is what you get for never playing with villages.

Otherwise, it was fun to get to try out FOG 300 against someone new.  Thanks to Tommy Worden of Ireland for trying out FOG 300.  Maybe next time I will be able to get pictures of the game in progress.

New AAR Coming

This weekend I will be attempting to do a remote FOG 300 game against a friend from Ireland.  Never tried one before but we shall see how this works.  

The year is 1396 AD and Northern Europe is the scene.  The Queen of the Three Kingdoms, Margaret I, has turned loose her Swedish hounds against the Hanseatic League.  Using a captured Hanseatic Fleet, an army of Swedes under Earl Worden has descended upon the northern German coast. In typical fashion, the Burgers of the league have hired an army of Low Country Mercenaries to rid them of the Swedish menace.  The Swedish force has landed between Lubeck and Rostock and are heading towards Lubeck, the titular capital of the league.  

See the map below for more details on the area.

Blog Reorganization

 In the coming months I am going to reorganize the Blog.  All of the campaigns will still have their own page but their pages will be accessed through a single Campaign Page.  The individual campaign pages will not be visible in the list to the right but rest assured I will NOT be deleting any of the content.  Stay tuned for more developments.

In the meantime, here are a few random pictures from Round 5 of Bayou Wars 29ish's Hybrid FOG/ADLG Ancients Tournament  in which my Parthian horde took on Dan Henderson and his Southern Han Army in FOG v3.  Gino Agnelly and Hab Sietze were on the next table playing ADLG v3.

Reinforcements for the Broken Rays of the Sun

Been busy getting another battlegroup painted and others flocked as Round 2 of Broken Rays of the Sun gets ready to begin.  One whole group shot and then I will give details for each BG below. 

The Bulls of Babylon have now been added to the Parthian/Early Sassanid host.  It just so happens you can have 24 Cataphracts in this list.  These are a mix of Old Glory 15 Cataphract models (Parthian Cataphracts, Sassanid Cataphracts, Palmyran Cataphracts, Sarmatian Cavalry).  Sometimes there is a mix when you order ready made FOG BGs from Old Glory but I also had these laying around and wanted to use a mix as kind of representative of the transitional period of the end of the Parthian Empire.  I painted all of these and made the flag using a bull's head I found online somewhere and then filling in the blue color using Pantina on my Mac.

Next up there are three battlegroups of Scythian/Saka Cataphracts that will form the strike force of the Early Central Asia Steppe Nations (such as the Dahae and the more settled Chorosmia) in the Broken Rays of the Sun campaign.  See the Extra Lists Addendum for the campaign found here for more details on the lists.  These figures are all from the Forged In Battle WE-SK01 Skythian Armored Cavalry set.  Mark Kernan of  The One Tree Miniatures (but his website is FieldofGlory.net) painted all three battlegroups.  Their armour is really too early for this period but Old Glory 15s does not make a suitable figure for this time period and the Khurasan Miniatures figures I am just not sold on and they do not match up with other figures in my collection.

The last two battlegroups are part of the foot contingents for the Early Central Asian Steppe Nations.  Chorosmia is required to field the minimum foot in the Broken Rays of the Sun Campaign if more than 300 points are fielded.  I have three more foot battlegroup of these but they are not ready for photographing yet.  The majority of the figures are Forged in Battle WE-SK05 Skythian Skirmishers, WE-SK04 Skythian Light Infantry and some of the axe wielders from WE-SA06 Alan Infantry.  Mark Kernan painted most of these and I painted about a quarter.

I have a nice Forged in Battle leader figure that I hope to add soon so the Chorosmia horde can have their own dedicated leader.  He is straight out of the Osprey on the Skythians but he is way too cool to let languish in the box.  

Broken Rays of the Sun V2 - Pre-Campaign News

 In this run, there will be the same three starting Kings vying for the throne of the King of Kings:  Vologases VI, Artabanus IV and Ardashir V.  These three begin the campaign with 8 VPs, 7 VPs and 8 VPs, respectively.  They will each start the campaign with the prestige equivalent to a Minor-Sub King giving 3 commands per campaign turn to start (see the campaign rules for more information).

I have added some new troops to the stash for the campaign and will be adding more as things progress.

Two 8-stand battlegroups of Greek City Militia [in this case, I used Maccabean Foot in Captured Equipment & Maccabean Spearmen from OG15s - not perfect but (IHO) very close].  Thomas Demers of Mad Monkey Painting did these for me several years ago that I just got around to finishing the basing on.

One 8-stand battlegroup of Hatran Light Foot Javelinmen (Hellenistic Greek Javelinmen from OG15s - again not perfect but close).  I painted these some time ago and forgot I had them stuck in my Successors box.

Broken Rays of the Sun Again (Maybe)

In the Spring of 2020 as everything ground to a halt due to Covid-19, I launched into a test campaign using the Broken Rays of the Sun Scenario (see Campaign Page here).  The ensuing test run saw 7 campaign turns with 5 miniature battles generated and a sole King of Kings arise.  The Babylonian Sun Times chronicled the events of the campaign which also prompted a spur in painting of new figures.  

Since that time, the campaign rules have been revised to incorporate lessons learned and the map has been redrawn to focus more on the land under the Broken Rays of the Sun.

Furthermore, a new book by Uwe Ellerbrock, The Parthians:  The Forgotten Empire, has prompted a renewed interest in the campaign.

I hope to restart the campaign later this week as painting progresses on a new battle group to serve under the Broken Rays of the Sun.

Even though No Gaming - Army Building Continues

 Finished up flocking on some odds and ends that have been on the desk.

8 stand battlegroup of Sabir Hun Heavy Foot - Forged in Battle 15mm figures using a mix of Scythian and Alan foot.  Most painted by Mark Kernan of The One Tree Miniatures Painting Service out of Northern Ireland.  I added about a 1/4 of the figures to round them out to 32.

8 stand battlegroup of Skythian medium foot spearmen - Forged in Battle 15mm figures again using a mix of Scythian and Alan foot.  The majority of these were also painted by Mark Kernan.  These will also double for Hill Tribesmen for Parthian and Sassanid armies and will be a stand in for Caucasian Hill Tribe foot in my Broken Rays of the Sun Campaign.  I have a boat load more of these (spearmen and archers) that have not been flocked that I will add to the blog at some point.  These are for the most part the same figures as used for the Sabir Huns above but with more spearmen and fewer axemen.

Two 8 stand battlegroups of Dilimite Foot warriors - all but a handful are Forged in Battle 15mm Dailami foot with some Eureka Almughavars thrown in for variety.  These have all been painted by yours truly.  The Dilimites are an early name for the Dailami before they became famous.  They have an allied list in Field of Glory.  I need at least 16 more stands of these.

4 stand battlegroup of Arab light horse archers - these are all Forged in Battle 15mm figures that will be part of my Hatran allied contingent for the Broken Rays of the Sun campaign.  I painted all of these.  I have 16 stands of foot archers, 4 stands of camelphracts, 4 stands of cavalry horse archers and a camp also done for these that have been pictured elsewhere.

2 command stands: one on the left is a Hatran Allied General and the one on the right is a Dilimite Allied general. 

The Hatran figures are Old Glory 15s cataphracts from the Parthian and Sassanid range.  I painted these and added the flag.  The flag uses a sun disk associated with Shamesh, God of the Sun.

The Dilimites are a mix of figures:   Two figures are Forged in Battle 15mm and one is an Eureka Almughavar.  I painted these.  The musician is a FIB Sassanid just for variety.  Unfortunately, the lighting was off for these.

April Update

 It has been quiet in the land of Blood, Sand and Steel but not for lack of desire.  Time has been at a premium with work and the boy.  Work continues in my spare time on several projects including three separate campaigns.  Hopefully, things will slow down some when summer arrives and I can get back to posting.  

The Birmingham Bunnies last communicated they planned on running Brewer-Sailors as a 800 point FOG Tournament at the end of April/Early May.  Unfortunately, the city of Birmingham, Alabama extended the city-wide mask mandate into May which creates issues for one of the venues the Bunnies hoped to use.  I have offered up Casa de Anders as an alternate but no news as of yet.

The Bayou Wars Ancients Tournament will be an Open tournament.  I will accommodate both ADLG V3 and FOG V3.  So what does that mean?  If you prefer FOG, send me a list by the deadline and I will match you up with as many FOG opponents as possible.  If you prefer ADLG, I will do the same.  After the uproar created by even mentioning FOG as an alternative at Bayou Wars, one of the ADLG adherents has already bowed out.  Below are the details I posted in several places with information about the Bayou Wars Tournament.

Bayou Wars will be an ADLGish open ancients tournament using V3 rules. However, anyone who would prefer to play FOG v3 can submit a FOG list and I will match you up with as many opponents as possible. The general rules are as follows:

Bayou Wars 29ish will host an Open Ancients Tournament on June 11-13, 2021, with 1 round Friday, 3 rounds Saturday and 1 round Sunday.

Tournament Rules and Format

This will be an Open Ancients Tournament and lists may not have more than 200 points for ADLG or 800 points FOG V3. 

Rules:
ADLG V3 rule book and current ADLG rule interpretations will be used/FOG V3 rule book and current FOG rule interpretations will be used.

All judge's rulings are final.

Referee will be Christopher Anders. Send lists and questions to shadypage@att.net. Lists will be due by June 4, 2021. Late lists give opponent choice of terrain before initiative is rolled.

Format will be the same regardless of rules played.
Five rounds. 2.5 hours with 1d6 minutes of random time per round. When time is called, players will finish the CURRENT phase.
Round 1 – Friday at 6:30 PM
Round 2 – Saturday at 8 AM
Round 3 – Saturday at 11 AM
Round 4 – Saturday at 3 PM
Round 5 – Sunday at 8AM

We will use the French 100 point scoring system.

Venue is D'Iberville Civic Center, 10395 Automall Parkway, D'Iberville, Mississippi 39540 

Convention fee is $40 USD for the weekend but there may be a reduced Tournament rate at the door. Tell them you are playing in the Ancients Tournament. $5 USD fee for the Tournament paid to referee at tournament. 

Trophies for 1st-3rd place will be provided (Maybe).

UPDATE - Henry Brewer-Gus Sailors Memorial Ancients Tournament 2021

Due to city of Birmingham Mask Mandate and projected limitations on capacity, this year's Brewer-Sailors Ancients Tournament is postponed.  The hope is to hold it in July.  Stay tuned for more information.

The Birmingham Bunnies (of Birmingham, AL) have announced the Henry Brewer-Gus Sailors Memorial Ancients Tournament will return in 2021 and will be an 800 point Field of Glory Open Tournament.  The plan is to hold the event in late April/early May.  Vince Solfronk will referee and is working on a venue.  Details will be posted as soon as things are finalized.

Cold Iron VI Final Results

 Cold Iron VI Average Joe is in the books.

With three players unable to return for Sunday, we decided to call it a day after 3 on Saturday.

1st Place - Gino Agnelly (he edged Joey by 3 points)

2nd - Joey Miller

3rd - Willard Moore

4th - Scott Allen

5th - Vince Solfronk

Referee - Christopher Anders

Each player still present at the end received a colorful pin I found on Ebay.

Gino took a Roman one, Joey took a Teutonic Knight one and Vince grabbed a harry barbarian one.

2021 Cold Iron Champ - Gino Agnelly

2nd Place - Joey Miller

5th Place - Vince Solfronk

Full round by round results are here.

Round 1 Pictures

Round 2 Pictures

Round 3 Pictures

No much in the way of action shots as I was playing as well as refereeing.