Another great game at Mike's

A hearty Hail Caesar to all. Here are a few pictures from our game at Mike's yesterday. Rome vs Phyrus.
Sorry to say that my Tactica mojo is very rusty and I lost as one of the Roman commanders (this is twice in a row! May the Gods forgive me.).

This is a shot of the enemy's right flank. Note all of those nasty rows of pike.

Here is a closeup of the Greek heavy and light cavalry.

These are some of the Romans Italian allied forces.

One of Mike's many many Roman cohorts.

Our Italian allies advance on our right flank. We were hoping to break one flank or the other and then sweep the board. But this was not to be. The Greeks forces (Wendel and Phil) held their flanks and broke the Roman center.

A picture of our left flank during the second move.

A closeup of some of the elephants we were trying to deal with. Our light infantry was massed and used to break up the elephants attacks.

Mikes new Italian allied chariots and the allied command.

One of Mikes Italian allied units. And yes, every shield pattern is hand painted.

A staged picture of the Italian allied cavalry.

One of the many pike units we encountered. Again all shields are hand painted.

Finally a shot of our Roamns trying to fend off the attack of all those pikes! Our thin white line.
Thanks to all who participated and especialy to Mike for hosting the game and letting us play with his fantastic figures. Maybee next time I will sacrafice a goat instead of a chicken.

A surprise ending

Hello to all who partake of our gaming adventures.
We had another Tactica game at Mike's house yesterday and boy oh boy we did not expect it to play out the way it did.
We were gaming a very early Roman battle that involved barbarians from the Alimani area vs very early Romans when they still used the Greek pike formations. Historically this battle took place near Rome by a large stream and the Romans got their clocks cleaned. Our game had a slightly different ending.
The players were:
Mike, the Roman commander and our host.
Larry, The Roman second in command.
Greg (myself), the Barbarian commander.
Bill, the Barbarian second in command.
And please forgive me but we had a third Barbarian commander who's name I find that I can not remember. This in no way detracts from the fact that he was a great gamer and a good sport.

Here is how the game started with the Romans set up with a strong defensive plan and the Barbarians ready to strike.

The Barbarian plan was to sweep the Roman left flank and roll up their line to the right while the rest of the Barbarians held their attention.
The flank attack was going very well.

But then the Romans decided to get aggressive and smashed into the Barbarian center.

This caused the destruction of two important war bands for the Barbarians and broke open the center of the line for the Romans to advance.

The Romans had snatched certain victory away from the Barbarians by marching most of their heavy infantry off the board into the Barbarian baggage camp and away from the destructive attack of the Barbarian war bands. THE GAME WAS A DRAW! In all of our years (22 of them) playing Tactica we have never had a draw. Mike had played a very good game and I fear that our over confidence may have caused us to see the victory slip from our grasp.
As always, everyone had a very good time and especially enjoyed getting together. Sadly though Mikes energy was directed at salvaging his army and not used for his expansive knowledge of ethnic humor.

Again I have added some eye candy of Mikes figures.

Thanks again Mike. Until we game again.
Greg

Flames of War game at my house.

Hi to all!
Well we had a fantastic Flames of War game at my house Saturday morning. Five players participated and I hope that all had a great time, I know I did. The game was Russians vs Germans and represented an attack by a German armoured company attempting to take a Russian rail head early in the Barbarossa campaign of 1941.
The Russians were played by Bill (Joseph's distant relative) and Mike (our ethnic adviser).
The Germans were played by Greg (myself) Wendel (a great cavalry tactician) and Jamie (hopefully a new addition to our gaming group).

Jamie had the German left flank, Wendel had the German right flank and I managed the center.The Germans were to have the first move and fire and in taking advantage of this, they managed to take out almost every Russian heavy (KV-1's and KV-2's) and medium (T-34's) tank in the game! Those vehicles that were not destroyed were bailed out. What a fantastic opening. Now we thought all we need to do is advance into the rail head (a very built up area with many houses), push out the defending infantry with our armour and win the game.

Well the Russians had other plans. They delayed our right flank advance by the gallant sacrifice of an entire armoured car platoon (about 8 vehicles). Then they delayed our left flanks advance by the sacrifice of an entire light tank platoon (again about 7-8 vehicles). Such bravery. In the mean time those lucky Soviets were able to get some air support and evade our fighter cover. By utilizing their air and artillery(handled very nicely by Mike), the Russians were able to take out most of our anti tank guns and delay our Panzer Grenadiers moving in to the rail head from our right center.

Now time was running out for the Germans as they had to take the rail head before more of those damn Russians arrived to stop them. It was also getting late in our day and some of the players were forced to withdraw to fulfill other commitments. This left Bill and I to finish up the game. Left without the best generals on my side, I was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!!! We had to call the game a Russian victory as the Germans could not take their objective within the prescribed number of turns. Good work to the Russians!

So now in my recent gaming, I am 0 for 4. This is a dismal record for me. And I will be up nights trying to devise a way to win the next battle I will face. This looks to be an Aerodrome game at Bill;s house so I will report on that one also.

Below I have added some pictures from out game.

The rail head as seen from the German left flank.

More of the same.

Burning Russian armour on their right flank.

Another shot of the Russian right flank.

A view of most of the table from the Russian right flank.

Part of the rail head with the staunch Russian defenders.

The advance of the German Panzer Grenadiers and Scout platoon.

Another perspective on the rail head.
And now just for some eye candy from Bill's fine collection.

Notice the hand made ammo boxes and shell casings. Just fantastic!!
Take care to all.
Greg