Battle of Taplaea

My original plan was to follow up my Micro Marathon battle with Micro Plataea. I had even jotted down some notes using Lost Battles. When I found time to do a battle this morning, I did not feel like pulling out my notes. I decided to do a fictitious battle instead.

The mighty empire of the Sherpians (blue) has invaded the independent city-states of the Kreeg peninsula. The Kreegs (red) form an allied army and march out to meet the invaders on the plain of Taplaea.

The initial Kreeg line forms between some woods and a vineyard.

But the archery of the Sherpian infantry forces the Kreegs to advance. One phalanx of infantry is decimated by bowshot.

The left phalanx smashes into the Sherpian Eternals but are in turn surrounded by cavalry.

The middle phalanx comes to help and drives off the light cavalry.

The left phalanx rolls over the Eternals but is in turn overrun by the Sherpian heavy cavalry.

The remaining Sherpians converge on the remaining phalanxes.

The right phalanx gets scattered by bowshot.

The remaining Kreegs retreat from the field.

The Sherpians can now advance deeper into the Kreeg homeland.

Notes

• I am planning to run this as a 5 game campaign. So now the Sherpians are up 1-0.

Micro Marathon

I've been on a LARP kick recently but that hobby will have to go on hiatus for a while, as South Florida is battening down the hatches against the coronavirus. My company, for example, has now gone to full-time telecommuting for the time being. Given that I am a high-risk individual, I am social distancing, which means no more LARP. Well, that gives me more time for miniatures at least.

I saw a post on the Wargames Website featuring an Athens vs. Sparta battle. It whet my appetite for some ancients battles. I decided to dig out my MicroBattle rules. They are very simple rules for big battles in small spaces. They may not be the pinnacle of historical accuracy, but they give me short, fun games.

I decided to play out some historical battles using my rules. I pulled out Philip Sabin's Lost Battles and started with the first battle - Marathon. I modified his scenario for my smaller armies.

The Persian Empire (blue) has invaded Greece. The Greek city-states (red) have allied to drive out the invader. The Greeks field 5 units of hoplites (Heavy Infantry) while the Persians have 5 units of bow-armed massed infantry (classified as Missile Infantry) and a unit of Heavy Cavalry. I had to borrow some infantry from my all-black army of evil to fill out the Persians.

The armies line up on the plain.

The Greek left wing advances. Persian cavalry sets up a flank attack.

The Greeks advance. The Persian horse attacks the hoplites. They cause some casualties but the infantry holds.

The battle lines clash.

The Greeks rout Persian infantry in the center and on their left.

After an extended melee, the hoplites on the left drive off the cavalry.

The victorious center unit of hoplites hits the flank of the Persian bows. The Persian unit breaks.

This puts the Persians over 50% losses. The Persian army loses heart and routs from the field. Despite suffering some heavy casualties (3 of 5 units suffered serious casualties), the Greek infantry refused to leave the field. A hard won victory!

Storing Armor

No, not little tanks.

Sorry if it seems that I am turning this blog into a LARP blog, but that's what I've been up to lately.

I now have some nifty "plate" (actualy plastic) armor (pictured here), but needed a way to store it. The manufacturer recommended an armor stand.

I did a little research and found some useful videos on YouTube

Armor Stand from PVC Pipe

How to PVC Stand

As the titles indicate, these stands were made from PVC pipe. I figured it would be an easy way to build. So last weekend I ran to the hardware store, picked up some supplies, and went to work.

Here is the result, with armor strapped on.

I am very pleased with the final result. As a bonus, I had to clean up my garage so I could find space for the stand. Win! Of course, it did not give me any gaming time.

My Evolving LARP Kit

Much like my gaming, my LARP career has suffered from sporadic outbreaks of GADD (Gamer Attention Deficit Disorder). As a result, my kit has been changing over time. I thought I'd share a few pictures.

~2008. I started LARPing several years prior but can't find any pictures. Here I wear a blue tunic with natural-colored pants that are way too loose. Rather ragged chain vest.

~2009. Same soft kit, but I upgraded my armor to some nice leather, and added a helmet. I was going for a Dark Age Arthurian era look.

~2011. Changed the tunic, removed the cheek plates from the helmet, and upgraded to a kite shield. The Chi Rho shield in the background was also mine but I lent it out for this event.

~2012. I then went for a fantasy paladin look. The armor is leather but designed to look like plate. Here are a couple of pics.

~ 2013. Here is a slap-together kit I made specifically for practice, so I could reduce wear and tear on my regular event kit. Really just a surcoat made from a bed-sheet over a long-sleeve shirt topped by a martial arts mask.

~2014. I then started playing Amtgard, but in those rules I was not eligible to play a paladin. I switched over to a ranger look.

~2019. I was never really satisfied as a ranger and started gravitating back to a paladin look. I picked up an aluminum hauberk although I am still wearing my ranger greaves. The hood was from my SCA days; it's not really authentic but keeps the sun off my head and neck. The tabard is borrowed.

2020. Now I am back to a full-blown paladin look, Here I am in a gambeson and cloak. Still have the ranger greaves.

2020. Here I am now, with a new set of armor (plastic). I really love the look, even though the armor does not fit perfectly. I need to add a cross to the shield.

Another LARP Picture

A picture of me with my new polyurethane armor.

It's Been Quiet

A short status report.

Last weekend was a LARP weekend so no gaming.

Here is my current kit, sans armor. I am wearing an old pair of greaves from my ranger kit, but I am moving back to a paladin-y look. I just purchased some plastic armor in nice, shiny, paladin-y silver.

I am working on a 15mm sci fi project. You can see some minis in various painting stages. The red ones are some Rebel Miniatures Earth Force Marines, which will become Imperial Marines.

The others are from Khurasan. The photos below are from Khurasan's website (I wish I could paint that well).

Tigrids

Insectoids

Intruders

Robots (I haven't started painting these yet)

I still need some minis for my heroes.

Rangers in Action

With some free time this morning, I decided to play around with my sci-fi skirmish rules. It also gave me a chance to try out my 6mm miniatures. I mapped out a cavern complex and sent my heroes through - dungeon crawl style.

Here they run into 3 mechanoids. Ace (bottom blue figure) smashed one with his rifle butt while Spades blasted the other two.

Then they ran into a space monster. It knocked down Ace but Spades blasted it.

And that's where I stopped. For the life of me, I just could not get good photos. I'm thinking that 6mm may be too small for skirmish action.

So I pulled out some 15mm figures I have lying around ( a very early blog post covered my purchase of these minis). Once again, Ace (left) and Spades (right) take on a space monster.

Our heroes blasted it repeatedly as it closed, to no effect. The monster attacked Spades and knocked her down.

As it tried to finish her off, a surprising turn of events occurred. Spades dodged, jumped up, and blasted it at point blank range. One of the shots penetrated the monster's thick armor, killing it!

In game terms, the monster hit but Spades scored a critical success on the pluck / survival roll. In such as case, I've been giving the defender a free counter-attack. Spades then scored a critical success on her counter. This forces the target to make 2 survival rolls. The monster passed the first but then failed the second!

Anyway, you can see that the photos are much better quality. I think that 15mm is the way to go.