ANCIENTS VOTING RESULTS:
Voters, By Period - Decline of Rome

The last round of the BHGS competition in Leeds. Due to a lot of bad luck and some poor play I was in last place going into the last round. I was using a Hindu Indian army designed to beat the kinght armies that I expected to be there. Up till this point I had not me a knight army, this tine I did and the Feudal Spanish had no chance and what little they had was not helped by a late arriving flank march. The Hindu Indiand won 10-0 with the loss of 2 and a half elements [25 Sep 1999]

DBA: EIR vs. Galacians. EIR won 4-0 with a good terrain position and poor chariot play by the Galacians. [23 Sep 1999]

Camapaign game from the Antiquity Campaign I run at the Humberside Wargames Society. I take the part of independent provinces when invaded by players. Yesterday I was Rhoxolani Sarmatians against the player controlled Sarmatians. I lost.... [19 Sep 1999]

DBM Ch'in vs Indians at 400pts, Ch'in spear centre rolled over the Indian centre of Bows and Elephants into the Indian camp whilst Chariots and cavalry of both sides skirmished indecisively. [17 Sep 1999]

Phalanx & Legion. Club rules of the Bundaberg Wargames Society. Byzantines vs Arab Conquest. 15mm. Played on a 5' x 9' table. No terrain in the centre, but hills and some woods on both flanks. The armies are divided into 4 wings each, each moving when its card is pulled (like OTR). The terrain helped the Byzantines, since they had fewer, if heavier, units initially. By mid game, the Arabs had worked themselves around the Byz. left, allowing them to get behind that flank, which quickly collapsed. The Byzantine centre was unable to crush the arab centre before it also was engulfed, and the battle over. [15 Sep 1999]

I played a game of Legion & Empire against James Manto(rules designer) that involved a force of Sassanid Persians against a Late Roman army. Since I usually play the Sassanid persians, I decided to switch and try the Roman army for a change. The Romans were unlitmately victorious as the Sassanids over exteneded themselves after a successful carge against my line, they were surrounded and hacked down! Glory for Rome! [08 Sep 1999]

Last ancients game was a 25mm meeting between Carthago and Rome, and it was glorious. There were stampeding elephants, skirmishers doing "rude" things in the scrub, and legionaires who (led by their commander) stood in the line until the last man died of blood loss!! By the way, the rules used were Might of Arms, which I highly recommend as a very fun rule set.

Exploits of this and other battles can be seen at http://www.netcolony.com/members/odms under "After Action Reports". [03 Sep 1999]

Romans vs Carthaginians, a training/teaching game for a frienbd using Might of Arms rules. Romans won by cracking the Carthaginian main battle line. [02 Sep 1999]

A friend of mine & I played a game of Classical Hack 24 hours ago between a Hellenistic Greek force vs a Later Macedonian force of about 500 points each. The Macedonians won on the front & the left flank. No terrain to speak of but we had fun in about 2 hours. Francis Reed [20 Aug 1999]

Fought my son James (12) to a standstill with my Byzantines against his Vikings using Warhammer Ancient Battles. A small encounter battle with no terrain, 1000 points, using the fantastic Gripping Beast figures. This was a major ploy by me to wean him off ridicuosly expensive 40K gaming (because I pay for it). He loves ancients now and we plan early Imperial Rome versus Ancient Brits armies next; now for his little friends.... [19 May 1999]

Roman Civil war with 3 legions per side (25mm) legions being about 150 figures strong in a fairly rough terrain with key objectives set for each side to obtain by set moves. A very hard fought battle over about 6 hours one Saturday. Result I acheived my objectives but suffered very heavy casualties so really a pyrric victory in that sense. My opponents failed to hit their objectives and also suffered heavy casualties (we only had about 2% difference). Using Athena ancient rules [19 May 1999]

My last game was a small one using the Archon rules - a battle between the Romans and Carthaginians. [3 May 99]

Might of Arms - a great game between carthagians and seleucids. The battle appeared to be a rout at one time. The game then swung back to the other side before eventually returning to the seleucids. As always, lots of fun. [17 Apr 99]

The last game wasn't Entirely Historical. I pitted my Late Roman Army (15mm) against my friend's, Rick's, Early Imperial Roman Army. We played using Warhammer Ancients Battles. It looked as if I might have an easy victory (with the use of Hun allies; they are great in this set) until one of my legions failed moral. At that point most of my army followed. [4 Apr 99]

Fought against Gary Comardo's superbly painted Gauls, I used Caesarian Romans with supporting ranks to wear the Gauls down before dealing with them. As predicted, the Gauls swarmed all over the Roman vanguard, but were unable to break any of the Roman units. The Gallic cavalry did have some success against the Roman horse, but the hardy Roman infantry in reserve had by then closed upon the Gauls and beat them soundly.

In AW, you must tire (disorder) the legionnnaires before simply charging in. A good game and an historical outcome. [4 Apr 99]

Currently, my Late Imperial Army is fighting a pitched battle against a horde of Alammani in 15mm to play-test my own rules "Legion & Empire."

My left wing, containing the bulk of my cavalry is sweeping in on the Alammanic skirmishers. In the center the first line of Auxilia and allied feoderati are advancing on a hill.

My right wing which is rather weak (only 4 vexilationes of cav and some Lanciari) are facing all of the barbarian cav and are very worried. They'll probably get squished next weekend (sigh).

Last weekend I played a terrific "Classical Hack" game with Phil Viverito at a convention. I ran a few cohorts of Auxilia in a border outpost getting overrun by the Dacians while waiting for the Legions to come to my rescue. Ended up as some pagan sacrifice in a Dacian sacred grove, but it was fun....! [3 Apr 99]

last campaign using avalon hill's 'hannibal' with armati rules and 4-5 players. generated 6-8 games [2 Apr 99]

Two days ago. I took my 6mm travelling DBA set (everything in a small toolbox) to visit a sick wargaming friend in the hospital. I'm sure the docs must have thought we were insane. Anyway, we laid it out on two hospital patient tables side by side and had a couple of rounds of Romans (Middle Imperials, but masquerading as Eastern Later Imperials) against the Sassanids, since I haven't had much of a chance to use the little elephants. I'm afraid that I couldn't manage to lose, though, even for a sick friend. [1 Apr 99]

DBM - 400AP - My Patrician Romans versus Tang Chinese. I over-committed my Fast Knights, trapping my Hunnic allies and messing up my own command and control. This lead to a disappointing 10-0 loss. My PRs are now hold a 1-1 record in this incarnation.

I am familiar with a number of rules sets - and am not particularly fond of any. The best - with reservations - is DBA. The worst are Tactica and the pre-DBA WRG offerings. Right now, I am in the process of analyzing GLUTTER OF RAVENS and MIGHT OF ARMS. [31 Mar 99]

My last game used Piquet/Archon and was a scenario in which a rebel Egyptian army with Athenian hoplite allies were attempting to break out of a besieged island in the Nile. Their opposition was a Spartan-led Persian army which started out in a scattered position. The Athenians easily over-ran the Persian infantry opposing them but harrassment by Persian horse archers and command indecision on the part of the Egyptians allowed the Persian heavy cavalry to hit the rebel flanks and a small unit of Spartan hoplites broke the Athenians. [31 Mar 99]