Sassanid Persians and Byzantines

I am in the process of replacing my Sassanid Persian and Byzantine armies.   I did have armies composed of figures from Heroics and Ros, but sold them to another club member a while back.  I would have kept them, but the figures were based on outdated information.  Currently only Baccus makes updated figures for Sassanid Persians.   Unfortunately they do not make Early Byzantine or Maurikian Byzantine figures.   However, with a bit of painting and adding shields to the armored horse archers and the lancers on unarmored horses the figures will pass for Byzantines.

The following pictures are of the 180 Sassanid Persian armored horse archers and the 72 Byzantine cavalry on partially armored horses.   I still have 180 armored lancers to paint for the Sassanid Persians, 144 armored horse archers for the Byzantines, and 144 lancers on unarmored horses for the Byzantines.

To distinguish the Byzantines from the Sassanid the Byzantine cavalry will have iron armor for the partially armored horses while the Sassanids will have bronze armor for their horses.  I also gave the Byzantine cavalry red standards and shields while the Persian standards and shields will be in multiple colors.   I did try reducing and printing shields from the Notitia Dignitaum, but the images would not print clearly.

 The Byzantines

The Sassanid Persians

Achaemenid Persian Cavalry

I completed the second set of figures this morning.   They are from the four different sets of Achaemenid cavalry made by Baccus 6mm.  There should have been a total of 180 figures, but six of them were from some other nation.

New Kingdom Egyptians

One of the clubs that I belong to has a painting "competition" for the month of April.  The option of the contest is to paint as many of unpainted figures as possible.

Today I completed one of the painting projects that I am working on this month.   The army has three "divisions representing the Amun, Re, and Suktekh divisions.   Each division was given a specific color to differentiate them. These are red, yellow, and blue.  In addition to the three main formations there is the Pharaoh in front center, two additional commanders, two units of guard infantry and one unit of Nubian archers.

Each Division has four units of archers, two units of close order fighters, one unit of Nubian archers, one unit of light infantry and 9 units of chariots.  The middle chariot in the front row is the division commander.  There are 176 infantry figures in each division, 18 charioteers plus one standard bearer, 18 horses and the 9 chariots.

The guards have 64 figures plus the 16 Nubians  The Pharaoh and commanders have 12 figures and
one mounted scout plus the chariots and horses.   Total figures painted for this army is 678 figures, 61 horses, and 30 chariots.  Except for the Pharaoh, who I purchased from Baccus, all figures are from Rapier Miniatures.

28mm Science Fiction Buildings and Vehicles

I recently found out about a website with free science fiction buildings and vehicles that can be printed.   They have  a variety of items available.   So far I have assembled some trucks, cargo items and several buildings.



The trucks are one of the vehicles available.  They can be printed in four different colors and  each has a choice of four different loads - Water, Fuel, Open, and Covered.   The chassis are all the same consisting of the main frame, cab cover, four re-enforcements, six interior wheel parts, and two additional parts.   The different payloads can be the same color as the chassis or can be different.   The open truck is carrying most of the boxes.

There are a lot of other vehicles, including drop ships, and a freight hauling spaceship. The buildings I have assembled so far are the water tower, wind powered generator, solar panel, a pair of storage tanks, a landing pad, a greenhouse, a storage shed, and two of the habitats.   The habitats have three different types of sidings and each type is available in four or five colors with a total of seven different colors.   The farm set has an additional habitat in one of the siding types with a different color pattern.  This gives a total of fourteen different color and siding combinations.  I left the bottoms off of the habitats so that they can be stacked.   Each habitat is assembled with twelve panels has six solid side panels, six window side panels, and two chimney panels to choose from.   These can be arranged in any order.   Additional items that can be added are the door, up to three dormers, and if desired a part to connect multiple habitats together.

The prefab habitats.  The one on the left has a dormer added above the doorway.

Landing pad, greenhouse, shed and large pallet of boxes.

Water tower, wind powered generator, solar panel, and two storage tanks.

I still have five of the habitats to assemble, ten service droids with four small parts vehicles, and a few additional items from the farm set.   There are some other vehicles I am thinking of printing and assembling and am still undecided about making the cargo spaceship.  There are eleven different versions of the spaceship to choose from and the model has a total of 42 pages of parts to print.

All the items that I have printed and assembled so far are fairly easy to assemble and fit together very well.  While not any particular brand the cargo trucks and some of the vehicles could be used for present day 28mm skirmish games.  The link to the free items is Free items

South Bay Gaming Club meeting March 14

There were four games at the club meeting today.   Form on the Admiral's wake (age of sale0 rung by Bob,  American War of Independence in 54mm run by nick,  WW2 air run by Chuck, and a fictional modern armor game run by me.

This was the battle of Salon de Companerismo had the Union Federal de Buena Vista first division fighting the first division of the Republica  Democratica Popular de la Cucaracha.   The UFBC first division had three combat brigades and one divisional artillery brigade.   The combat brigades had one brigade with two tank battalions, two puma battalions, an engineer battalion and one artillery battalion, one brigade with one tank battalion, three puma battalions, one engineer battalion, and an artillery battalion, and one brigade with three boxer battalions and an engineer battalion.   The divisional artillery brigade had three MRL battalions and one AA battalion.

The RDOC had a brigade with three tank battalions, one BMP battalion, and an raillery battalion.  The second brigade had two tank battalions, two BMP battalions and one artillery battalion. The third and fourth brigades had one tank battalion, one BMP battalion, two BTR80a battalions and one artillery battalion. The divisional artillery brigade had three artillery battalions, one MRL battalion, and one AA battalion.

The rules used were Lightning War - Red Storm, which are available for free from  LWRS group.io   We did use some house rules for the game as we kept the ground scale to one kilometer per 10cm (four inches) instead of the recommended doubling for the modern period and  changed the quality ratings by increasing them by 5 and using a roll of two dice instead of a single die roll for activating formations.  The table was 24km square.

View of the battlefield from the northwest

At the start of each turn two six side dice were rolled for each brigade and any modifiers are added.   For this scenario there were none.   Both sides were rated as good with a rating of 8 for all units except the RDPC artillery brigade. which was fair with a rating of 7  The die roll is used to determine the order of activation for each combat formation (brigades for this game). The score for each of the formations on both sides determines the order of movement for the turn.   The highest score can move first or choose to move later in the turn.  This gives the higher scores an advantage over lower scores as they can choose to move when it is to their best advantage.  The next higher score now has a choice of moving or deferring their move to later also.   The same applies to each formation in turn and can force the formation with the lowest score to move first.  This process is repeated until all formations have moved.

Indirect fire is then resolved followed by  direct fire.   It is possible for artillery fire to disorganize a formation which would then cause it to only fire with half its combat factors.   Artillery fire is not guaranteed as the unit calling the fire has to roll equal to or less than the artillery formations quality rating and calling divisional artillery has an additional negative modifier applied to its rating.  Artillery fire is very good at disorganizing units, but causing casualties on armored units is difficult due to the save modifiers.   Infantry in built up areas can also be very difficult to cause casualties on.

The UFBV used march and road movement to move quickly forward and gain a positional advantage over the RDPC.   At first casualties were very light.   The RDPC was advancing from the east and managed to occupy the town on the south center edge of the battle field.   The UFCV advanced towards that town and prepared to storm it with a pair of infantry battalions.  Artillery and direct fire had disorganized the DRPC defenders. If the UFBC could roll high enough for initiative on the next turn the two battalions would be able to move first and assault the defenders before they were able to recover from disorganization.  They were able to do so and their assault drove the defenders from the town.

View of the town on the turn prior to the assault on it.

Center of the battlefield on the same turn viewed from the southeast

Attacks by the RDPC to the south of that town were halted and driven back  In the center part of the table UFBV artillery and direct fire badly damaged another couple of RDPC battalions.

On the northern flank neither side was making much progress.   Artillery and direct fire from a Leopard 2 tank battalion damaged another BTR battalion.

Combat had taken a full rules day of six turns.  Both sides paused for the night and combat resumed in the early morning of the next day.  At this point UFBV artillery and direct fire took a toll on RDPC units. By the end of turn eight the two RDPC brigades on the southern half of the table had two exhausted battalions with possibly more by the end of the next turn.  It was judged a UFBV victory. We had played for about four hours with a short lunch break included.      

End of turn five.   RDPC tanks would occupy the hill in the left center and their infantry would occupy the town to the left of it.  UFBV infantry would advance up the road towards the town and the tank battalion on the road in the right center would advance through the town in the bottom center then deploy above it.

                                                                                                             
We have tried several different rule sets including Fistful of Tows, Spearhead, Cold War//Blitzkrieg Commander and others.   These played the fastest of all of them and were easy to comprehend and use.  The rules are available for free from https://groups.io/g/LWRS

Scutarii at MWS meeting

Dave Howard and I got together for a game at the MWS meeting on February 16.   The armies were Pyrrhus and Republican Rome.  Keith also participated on my side commanding the left flank.  While Rolf and Frank assisted Dave.     The armies totaled 420 points each.   The Romans had a full consular army of two Roman legions and two Latin Ala totaling 16,800 infantry and 2400 cavalry.   Pyrrhus had 2400 cavalry, 12 Elephants, 14000 Greek and Macedonian phalangites, 4000 Tarantine Phalangites and 1500 mercenaries.

I planned an echelon attack leading with my right flank and having Keith hold back the left flank.   The Romans spread out on the wings of the battle.   Keith was presented with the opportunity of attacking the two Roman cavalry units on his flank with all three of his cavalry units and charged into them.   Unfortunately his die rolls were not effective.   The Romans were able to bring up infantry units to envelop his cavalry and eventually destroy them along with capturing the general commanding them.   This left our left flank in a dangerous position with the Romans having enough troops available to overwhelm it.

On the right flank I was initially successful breaking some of the velites and cavalry opposing me.   However, Pyrrhus and a couple of other cavalry units became embroiled in a fight with several Roman cavalry units.   Eventually both my cavalry and Dave's would be destroyed, but Pyrrhus managed to extricate himself.   One of the elephant units broke and rampaged into my right flank phalanx unit causing little damage before eventually succumbing to wounds.

In the center the legions and the phalanx units were engaged in combat all along the front.  As Roman units became exhausted they were replaced by units from the second and eventually the third line.   The phalanx units were also being worn down.   One of the Tarantine units had become shaken and might have broken in another round or two of combat.   Having broken some of the velites on the Roman left I had a cavalry unit in position to threaten the flank of the Roman center.   the Romans countered by shifting some Triarii to counter this.  Because the Romans had spread their army out they had stripped some of the Triarii from back rank this left them without enough replacement units for the combat in the center.  At this point we called the game.  During the next round of combat several Roman units would have been destroyed and would have likely caused most of the remaining infantry in the center to flee.

The cavalry on both of our flanks had suffered severe casualties, but with the Roman center broken we would have been able to counter any flanking moves by the remaining Romans.  Roman losses were about 5000 or so as we did not have enough cavalry to pursue the 10,000 routers.   Our losses were about 1800 cavalry and several hundred infantry.   A Pyrrhic victory.

 Beginning of game Romans on the far side are advancing.

Our opening move.  On the following turn the phalanx units would move towards the left to more directly confront the Romans.  My right flank cavalry and elephants were heading towards the gap between the legions and the Roman left flank cavalry.  Dave on the right and Rolf on the left. (Photo by Mike O'Brien)

Battle of Arracourt 1944 at the Fresno Game Club

On February 1st the Fresno Game Club had their monthly game.   The rules used were Rapid Fire.   I commanded the American forces with Neal and James as sub-ordinate commanders.   Dave, Brent, and Jeff commanded the Germans.

My plan was to have the two armored infantry companies in forward positions to delay the German advance.  One company occupied the woods on the north side of the table while the other and the battalion units occupied the southeast village.  Neal deployed in depth further back at the other villages.   I put our Fire Direction Center and the on table artillery at the west end of the table behind the ridge.   I had three forward observers.  Two were placed with James' infantry companies and the third occupied the woods at the center of the table.   I also commanded the re-enforcing engineer and tank companies.

Visibility for the first five turns was limited to 12 inches due to morning ground mist.   The Americans had first fire when units came within spotting distance in the mist.

The Germans arrived in two columns.  One on the northern road and the other near the southeast village.  I directed three of our eight guns on the German forces that had advanced to the top of the hill just south of the southeast village on the first turn.   On the second the other five guns came down on the northern column.   The observers headed towards the rear after calling the fire in order to protect them from being overrun by the advancing Germans.   By turn five they had reached positions on the eastern half of the table.  The artillery continued to fall on the original target areas causing sporadic losses for the Germans and slowing their advance.   James' infantry in the southeast village was eventually overrun, but not before causing more casualties for the Germans than he received.

My observers lifted their fire and proceeded to re-direct it.  On turn seven all eight batteries fell on the leading formations of the northern German advance taking out a Panther  and forced the lead elements to fall back.

James' company in the northern woods was being assaulted by tanks, and multiple infantry units, but was holding on and inflicting more casualties than he was receiving.   As the mist lifted the southern German force could be seen advancing across the open ground towards Neal's forward positions.  Their fire caused several losses including Neal's headquarters element, but did take some damage.   On turn seven the engineers arrived and occupied the southwest village.  The tanks would be arriving on the next turn.

At this point the game was called due to time.   The Americans were declared the victors for preventing the Germans from advancing far enough to achieve their victory conditions.

While Rapid Fire is not too complex and fairly easy to learn the mechanics of the rules do not match the level of play the game is supposed to represent.  Each tank is supposed to be a platoon and infantry is organized as multiple figure companies.  When played with 15/20mm figures towns are represented by two to three buildings.   This would be okay, except that instead of being treated as representations of an area occupied by multiple buildings as it would be at the scale of the game, each building is a single building.   This prevents bazooka teams from firing from within the buildings per the rules.   As such the game plays like it is a lower level skirmish game with individual infantry, vehicles, and buildings.  Artillery fire also deviates more than it did historically and is less accurate.   The rules do take into account the American use of fire direction centers to direct artillery barrages and the ability of American forward observers to call multiple battalions of raillery on a single target.

 Beginning of the game cards represent real and dummy unseen units. The Germans are arriving from their start edge represented by the yellow cards.  American are the chartreuse cards.

 Rear area of the American deployment

 Hellcats ambush lead German unit on the northern road.   The white X marker is the aiming point of the American artillery barrage

 Destroyed vehicles on the north edge.  By the end of the game the Germans would only advance slightly west of the hedge rows where the Hellcats are located.  The woods at the edge were still being contested by American infantry.

Gamemaster Ron in background.  Germans are slowly clearing the village in the southeast.   It took them more than four turns to do so.  White cotton puffs mark smoke rounds from German mortars.