Slitherine

I am keen to play in some themed tournaments (preferably using V1 rules).

What is the best way to find out about these? The tournament section of this board is very international in focus - I am looking for events in the UK.

Thanks

Good question. It used to be that the BHGS (www.bhgs.org.uk) had a good calendar of events. Unfortunately that has not been kept up.

Most UK competitions are announced in the tournament section of this site, albeit you have to search through for them.

Warfare is a themed competition coming up at Reading 17 and 18 November. I always find that a good competition and there's an excellent trade show and many demonstration games. Search google for "Wargames Association of Reading"

You can also keep an eye on Phil's summary thread:

viewtopic.php?f=55&t=31406

Thanks, the Reading one sounds good - just in time for my Ancient Brits probably.

Perhaps you'll find out how good V1 Romans perform in that case.

Indeed, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They were good in real life!

You might find that there are more Roman Auxilia in evidence than legions; the Dominate Roman manouvre swarm may be popular. And I'd expect a fair number of "lancer plus Light horse" combos. I suspect barbarian foot armies will be rare. It's not so much that they are slaughtered by 'proper' Romans - though they are - it's more that they seem to be weak against a lot of other armies as well!

The Ancient Brits are beter than most though - a bit of combined arms and the foot are at least quick.

grahambriggs wrote:
The Ancient Brits are beter than most though - a bit of combined arms and the foot are at least quick.

Genuine question: How does that differ from other barbarian armies?

grahambriggs wrote:You might find that there are more Roman Auxilia in evidence than legions; the Dominate Roman manouvre swarm may be popular. And I'd expect a fair number of "lancer plus Light horse" combos. I suspect barbarian foot armies will be rare. It's not so much that they are slaughtered by 'proper' Romans - though they are - it's more that they seem to be weak against a lot of other armies as well!

This will not be true on a 5x3.5 table Graham. And thats Warfare this year for Romans

Eques wrote:

grahambriggs wrote:
The Ancient Brits are beter than most though - a bit of combined arms and the foot are at least quick.

Genuine question: How does that differ from other barbarian armies?

Light chariots and masses of poor light foot.

I suspect Roman and Palmyran will dominate.

philqw78 wrote:

grahambriggs wrote:You might find that there are more Roman Auxilia in evidence than legions; the Dominate Roman manouvre swarm may be popular. And I'd expect a fair number of "lancer plus Light horse" combos. I suspect barbarian foot armies will be rare. It's not so much that they are slaughtered by 'proper' Romans - though they are - it's more that they seem to be weak against a lot of other armies as well!

This will not be true on a 5x3.5 table Graham. And thats Warfare this year for Romans

I'd missed that. Also, it seems the other tables have width but not depth - could be quick games. Will probably see more hardcore Romans with a 5 foot table.

dave_r wrote:

Eques wrote:

grahambriggs wrote:
The Ancient Brits are beter than most though - a bit of combined arms and the foot are at least quick.

Genuine question: How does that differ from other barbarian armies?

Light chariots and masses of poor light foot.

I think the LF are average, but you get a good number of them. The army also gets decent quantities of cheap LH. And the light chariots are fast and quite cheap for the ground they occupy.

All of which tends to mean that there are options other than just having monoculture impact foot. So plans such as "hold the enemy up with some impact foot while the chariots and skirmishers turn the flanks" are viable. You even get a unit of elite impact foot if you want.

In the other barbarian foot armies (Early Frankish for example) there's not that much to buy other than protected impact or sometimes heavy weapon foot. The difficulty there is that unless they get lucky at impact, the warriors tend to die quite quickly. And they've nothing that works the flanks quickly enough (or indeed blocks the holes caused by routing warbands).

In relation to Warfare I tried Parthians a couple of weeks ago against a Sassanid Persian as a practice.

I got my backside handed to me on a plate.

I have a feeling on this table size the Sassanid Persians have a great chance.

Elephants and Cataphracts, scary.

Rob

Both of those are dependant on having no terrain on this size of table. Though I would fancy the Sassanids to do quite well if it could co-ordinate a couple of BG of Cav Bw on the threatened edges.

I think the LF are average, but you get a good number of them. The army also gets decent quantities of cheap LH. And the light chariots are fast and quite cheap for the ground they occupy.

All of which tends to mean that there are options other than just having monoculture impact foot. So plans such as "hold the enemy up with some impact foot while the chariots and skirmishers turn the flanks" are viable. You even get a unit of elite impact foot if you want."
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Could you not use the superior heavy cavalry of other barbarian armies (eg gallic or german) to the same effect?.

There's not enough of them.

The light chariots get a huge amount of combat dice for a small cost and fill a large space. Even if they have to go in against impact foot they have so many dice they will survive and will win if they can isolate BG.

Also the chariots are more flexible. They fight in single rank and evade in single rank. The cavalry need to be in two ranks to fight. So the chariots don't have to waste time going from one state to the other.

As Phil says, the chariots get lots of dice. A unit costing 60 points will get 8 superior combat dice. Armoured cavalry will cost 64 and only get four. The cavalry dice will be better than the chariots, who'll be a POA down against most things, but on an open flank the chariots will often get to use all eight dice, and eight dice at a minus should get more hits than four dice at a plus.

There's also the problem that a lot of the barbarian cavalry are only protected, and that's not really good enough to punch through a flank guard.