The Battle of Kutná Hora, 1421- To the Strongest! AAR

A not-so-decent night's sleep (it turns out city center is fairly noisy, and my rental was right next to some sort of municipal building that really wanted me to know it was 3am with its bells) was fixed with a decent cappuccino and an Italian sausage and egg bagel from the Italian bakery next door. Somewhat revitalized, I rocked up on Saturday morning for my morning game; refighting the Battle of Kutná Hora with To the Strongest.

James, the GM, changed the scenario to a defensive siege rather than the charging column that historically saw the Hussites win the battle.

As a fun coincidence, Ted (from the New Jersey gaming group) had also signed up for the game. 

Jan Žižka and his Hussites were deployed atop a hill, their armored war wagons bristling with handguns and crossbows. Supporting the war wagons were a few units of infantry, cavalry, and light artillery.

Surrounding the Hussites was a sea of Catholic forces, with a mix of infantry and cavalry. The most dangerous units were the lance-armed, heavily-armored knights of the nobility. 

The game began with the Catholic forces advancing. The two commands facing the Hussite center had the furthest to go, while the flanking forces were relatively closer. 

Thanks to the seating arrangement, Ted was commanding the Hussite forces opposite my Catholic battalions. 

While the war wagons didn't have traditional flanks that could be attacked for an advantage, the Catholic commanders agreed that the weakest part of the Hussite positions were the spaces where the wagons could be charged on the side. 

Combat started with some desultory fire on both sides. I was hoping to place some Disorder markers on the war wagons before engaging in close combat. 

The Catholic commanders on the other side of the table had the same idea; try to crack the war wagon line where it intersected

While I was able to put a few hits on Ted's wagons, they were able to rally back to normal. Their guns, armored cover, and supply of ammunition meant that I was likely to lose a longer ranged engagement, so I instead decided to charge in. My Noble command (with four units of knights) began shifting to the right. 

And in a stroke of luck, one of the war wagon sections was demolished by a charging unit of Nobles!

Their charge was immediately halted by a failed flank attack on a group of Hussite spearmen.

Another breach was made in the wagon line in the Hussite's center, but the attackers had taken casualties and lacked the heavy cavalry to exploit the exposed position.

Hussite spearmen and Catholic cavalry clashed in the corner of the battlefield. Hussite reinforcements hurried to cover the two breaches made in the wagon line. 

My commands were quickly losing troops as they broke upon the Hussite rocks. 

And not too long after that realization, the game ended! It was a solid Hussite victory, with the Catholic Germans losing too many troops to continue.

All in all, a very fun game, and it was great to roll dice against Ted. 

'One' for the History Books - To the Strongest! AAR

At this month's SJGA meeting, Bill ran a game of To the Strongest!

This was a refight of his Romans vs Germans scenario which I wrote a blog post about three years ago; what a different world that was!

The previous battle ended with a decisive Roman victory. Could the Legions find repeat glory in another win?  

For this scenario, the Germans had the larger force and so would be on the attack. Each side had three commands, split up into three separate battles. 

Phil and Tim clashed by a small stream, commanding Germans and Romans respectively. 

Sam was the center Roman commander, while I controlled the German center. 

And Dick and Bob fought on a relatively open flank, with their German and Roman forces. 

Tim's command contained all of the Roman cavalry, which mean Phil was hard pressed to defend against the more agile force. 

In the center, Sam quickly shifted his legions to block my light cavalry, stopping them from going after the Roman camps. 

Poor chit pulling from both sides kept much from happening, however. 

On the German right flank, Bob and Dick fought a grinding action, shield against shield. Both sides waited for an opening to exploit. 

While Phil and Tim were mostly managing to do damage to their own units by attacking, eventually the scrum broke in Phil's favor as Tim lost a unit of cavalry. 

The fight in the center also decisively swung in favor of the Germans, with same losing two legion units without causing any lasting casualties. 

And around the same time, Dick finally broke through Bob's lines and turned the flank.

With all those losses, the Romans finally reached their breaking point, fleeing the battlefield. This was a crushing victory for the Germans, a complete reversal of the previous time I'd played. The Germans hadn't lost a single unit over the course of the game. 

This was partially due to really bad command pulls from all sides. Despite having an even distribution of chits numbering 1 through 10, it seemed like both sides couldn't trip over their own feet, leaving attacks or reformations half finished. 

Foes East and West - To the Strongest! AAR

After a two hour trek from the barren, pine-filled lands of South Jersey, I arrived at the Valley Forge Casino result for my first in-person convention in almost two years: Fall In Historicon!

I unfortunately missed my chance to head down to Barrage in Maryland this year, so I made sure I had plenty of time (and money) to spend at Historicon. I had originally planned to play in nine games over four days, but I ended up cutting my attendance a little short and played seven games over three days. Not bad!

My first game was early on Thursday, and featured eight-players sitting around a massive table. 

I was one of four Egyptian commanders, tasked with winning glory for the young Ramses II. Arrayed against us on either side of the Nile were armies of Libyans and Canaanites. 

Both sides had armies of mostly the same troops - light chariots, medium infantry, and skirmishers. The Egyptians had more formed infantry compared to the Libyans and Canaanites. 

The game was using To the Strongest! for its rules, which is why I had decided to sign up. I haven't had a bad game of To the Strongest yet, and this was a chance to try a different flavor of Ancients. 

The other two Egyptian commanders had their hands full dealing with plenty of Libyans. The game broke down into two separate engagements as the Egyptians had lots of targets on either side of the Nile. 

My poor performance as a cavalry command in To the Strongest (and by extension, For King & Parliament) seemed to continue through this game, with my chariots clashing with their Canaanite opposites and losing. 

As the chariots fought on the flanks, the Egyptians and Canaanite lines clashed together. 

And without much of a fuss, my chariots were routed, giving free the Canaanite free rein over the Egyptian rear. 

The Canaanite commander was in a prime spot to hit the Egyptian camp, which would further deplete our quickly diminishing supply of Victory Medals. 

The lone unit of Egyptian Archers were able to keep the chariots off the camp for a turn. 

However, that didn't matter when a unit of Egyptian infantry was harried into a rout by Canaanite skirmishers, which placed us over the medal limit and sent the whole Egyptian force into retreat!

I didn't stick around to see how the other side was doing, but I couldn't imagine that having their backs exposed to the Canaanites while also trying to deal with the Libyans was going to end well. Looks like Ramses II was going to need to find a different target to demonstrate his military prowess. 

This was a great first game and really got me excited for the rest of the convention. And as ever, To the Strongest remains my preferred set of generic Ancients & Medieval rules.

Bashing Byzantines! - To the Strongest! AAR

Last month's South Jersey Gamers Association meeting featured a game of To the Strongest! put on by Bill Perry. The scenario was based on the Battle of Manzikert, where the Byzantines faced of against the Seljuks. Little did we know that Bill had implemented a few hidden mechanics that would help recreate the disastrous abandonment of various elements in the Byzantine army during the fight.

The Seljuk force largely consisted of either light or medium bow-armed cavalry and light infantry with bows as well. The Byzantines had some light infantry and cavalry, but also had more formed infantry with bows and spears, along with a deep unit of two-handed weapon wielding Varangian Guard.

The Turks had the initiative and advanced together for the most part, not wanting to close too quickly with the Byzantines and lose a change at loosing a few arrows. The Byzantines also moved forward cautiously, and then discovered Bill's nasty surprise. Each command had to roll a cup full of d10s. If the right colored die matched up with a unit on Bill's hidden sheet, the unit was removed and their Victory Medals awarded to the Seljuks!

While it only happened during the first couple turns, the Byzantines managed to lose a few critical units, which let the faster Seljuks run rampant around their lines.

That was the major advantage of the Seljuk's right flank, when a unit of Armenian spearmen decided to quit the battle before the enemy had even approached. 

The Seljuk's light cavalry darted behind the Byzantine's lines and raided their camp. While the Byzantine center held for a little while longer, they were eventually demoralized and unable to fight back.

The Byzantine center had fared a little better with its desertions, and even had a couple units in reserve. Their Seljuk opponents had their best cavalry in the army, accompanied by light infantry. 

The Byzantines did their best to avoid the axes of the Northmen, while targeting the Byzantine cavalry and archers.

The Byzantine right had the worst of the desertions, and their delay meant the Seljuks were able to advance across the table and pick their engagements as they liked.

The Seljuks plinked away at the inheritors of the Roman Empire for a bit, and skirmished with their cavalry.

Eventually, enough units had either deserted or routed that the Byzantines were forced to quit the field, following the historical outcome close enough! And while the Byzantine commanders certainly had the worse of it, they took the hits on the chin and kept fighting as best they could with their dwindling numbers.

Danube Blues - To The Strongest! AAR

This past weekend was the monthly South Jersey Gamers Assocation meetup. Having no game to run myself, I took part in two games. The first was run by Bill, and was a good old Romans v. Germans bashing using the To The Strongest! ruleset.

While I have a copy of To The Strongest! as a pdf, I picked it up on a whim and never did much with it, mostly because the Ancients/Medieval game of choice in the local area has been ADLG. I decided to use this game as an opportunity to see how the rules worked. 

The commands deployed around their camps, with the Roman and German forces looking exactly like you'd expect - Legionaries on one side, Warbands on the other, with a smattering of cavalry and skirmishes to taste.

A large hill and a stream helped to separate the battlefield into three sections, meaning each command was going to remain unsupported as long as there were enemies to the front.

Thanks to some poor command chit draws on the German side, the Romans had the initiative for most of the game, quickly moving across the table and looking to engage.

As the only Roman commander with cavalry units, I decided to move even faster, getting around the flank of the opposing German forces and pinning them down.

While disorder tokens were being exchanged back and forth, my cavalry were the first to rout an enemy warband, putting the German's rightmost command into peril with Roman cavalry in their rear.

It seemed as though fortune favored the Romans as the German commands kept drawing low on their chits and cards, failing activations and losing combats.

Ultimately, the almost-complete loss of the German right command, along with casualties from their center and left, was enough to break their resolve. The barbarians fled, leaving the Romans in command of the field and with a solid victory.

It turns out I'm a big fan of how To The Strongest! plays. One of the biggest complaints I have about ADLG and other games like it is how fiddly movement is, and how players can get away with some pretty heinous looking shenanigans if they muddle their commands and start sliding units left and right. TTS! does away with this completely using its grid-based movement. And as you can see from the pictures, the game still looks like an Ancients battles, with lines of infantry clashing, light troops skirmishing, and cavalry flanking.

It would likely be a longer term project, but I may be a convert...