L'Art De La Guerre - another double dunter with Romans and Sassanids

Ever the glutton for punishment I had two games again of LADG at Stephens today (just as well this is such an enjoyable set of rules).

First game saw my Early Republican Romans face historical Carthaginian opponents under Hannibal.

This was a very close contest that went to Carthage in the end after my Iberian Ally was crushed on my left.

My Legionaries had pretty poor rolls throughout whilst two lowly units of medium Javelinmen rolled nothing but sixes and fives !! 

"Its a game of skill !!"

Second game my Sassanid Persians faced a contemporary Late Roman force as Stephen wanted to use his newly painted Forged In Battle figures and very nice they are too (think this is 3rd version of figure manufacturers he has painted up for this army !!).

This game was pretty much decided at start by the terrain set up which saw most terrain we have ever had on a Plain (A coast line, 2 fields 2 plantations, a hill and a marsh) and with several centrally placed pieces really cramming my mostly mounted force into middle (I of course failed to move or remove any with my 2 attempts)

This one took much longer than I expected to complete but Sassanids succumbed in the end as the Roman Heavy Infantry just take too long to defeat, I did manage to punch a hole with 2 Cataphracts but not quickly enough as flanks imploded.

L'Art De La Guerre- two games with Punic Romans

Two fun and interesting games of LADG today at Stephens with my Republican Romans taking the field.

First opponent was Gallic with lots of mounted troops.

The terrain worked out pretty well for the Romans with cover on both flanks despite my failing to place a river on a flank.

Whilst I choose to attack the numbers of Celt mounted meant that I knew that advancing too aggressively would see me outflanked on both ends of my line as Celt foot hung back from legionaries.

And so it turned out as I ended up vainly chasing the Chariots with Legionaries on my right whilst my left bore brunt of charges by the Gauls elite heavy cavalry as warbands held back until near the end to defeat the Romans. 

The Gaul Soldurii with an embedded General proved very effective.

Romans just cant field enough mounted of their own to support flanks effectively. 

Roman Legion faces the Gauls

Romans have good terrain on flanks at set up but Gaul mounted dominate the more open areas

Gaul elite cavalry bear down on my left

And Chariots invest my right with no real counter to their 'skirmishing' ability

Second game was a much different affair as Stephen fielded Later Macedonian.

This was much more of a slugfest and really came down to my Elite legion failing abjectly against the pike whilst their average compatriots dealt with Macedonian right.

A couple of key combats decided the matter for Macedonians but this was a bloody battle !

Getting two games in is certainly very feasible with LADG even with our discussions of all sorts unrelated stuff including 'could the Germans have actually won WW2 ??' and other waffle :-)

Romans deployed to met the Macedonians

Clashes all along the line with my Elite Legion beginning to suffer already in center

Right wing supports chasing off some cavalry

Macedonian General survives a flank attack on my extreme right.

L’Art De La Guerre - back at it

Game with LADG with Stephen who has just recovered from a nasty bout of pneumonia (Covid not the only nasty thing around!) in our first gaming session since beginning of October last year.

We decided to give new edition of LADG an outing as small quick style game and therefore good to get us back into swing.

We had a nice historical match up with Carthage (Stephen) versus Romans (moi).

After usual waffling about new amendments, list changes and suchlike we quickly got into game as of course not drastically different to last edition (a few changes bit mainly a lot of clarification).

A nice bloody encounter with Carthage coming out on top after crushing my left wing and a diabolically poor set of dice rolls (moi) at same time as a run of sixes (Stephen) against my Legionaries meaning I was unable to turn tide (despite decent match ups and a couple of overlaps.

But as ever with LADG a fun game easily completed in an afternoon and with us keen to try again with different armies (Avar vs Carolingian next up) and great to get back to our gaming. 

Still a close run thing as to wether we prefer LADG or MEG.

Armies arrayed at start

Legionaries hug the coast on their right wing

Hannibal (on Elephant) leads his foot

Carthaginian right wing

Roman Auxiliary types hold the left wing

Roman left being overwhelmed as Legions fight on right

Legions fail to sufficiently damage Carthaginian lines as flank turned

L'Art De La Guerre - new version a solo outing

New version (4th Edition but only second English language version) of L'Art De La Guerre arrived and after a good read through (found this tough on fudged brain cells despite already 'knowing' the set) I decided to try a quick solo game.

I used my Punic Wars Romans against a Gallic force (both the standard 200pts).

Thankfully once I got going the basics of the system came back to me and not really that many changes to the unit types I was using.

Terrain set up is a tad different with 1 or 2 (?) more terrain pieces potentially on table but nothing drastic.

A few amendments to troop interactions such as Spearmen vs Mounted, and a few changes to some Light Horse activities, but all easily found on the ever excellent QRS.

However upon browsing through the copious Army Lists (300 separate listings) I did note several changes to the armies I can field.

Some changes to points with some Medium Inf a point cheaper for instance, but some more significant (?) changes to troop types.

My Mycenaean heavy infantry no longer get Missile Support (ie a back rank of bowmen) for reasons unknown and other lists have some changes to minimums and suchlike.

But no doubt as and when (soon !...soon !......he cries !!) I get back to gaming (and relentless drubbings I expect) with Stephen more changes will become apparent but in the main I found only small amendments to rules with a goodly part of new text in rules being by way of clarifications.

Am torn between this set and the also excellent Mortam Et Gloriam as my go to Ancients rules as both generate very fun and playable games, despite being of more complex fare (their competition friendly pedigree shows through) than many recent rules sets I have taken to.

My game was rather bloody with both sides suffering significant losses.

Romans defended and managed to get decent terrain to form around, however their right wing was crushed very quickly before Legionaries got into main action.

Once they and the Gallic warriors (a mix of Medium and Heavy Impetuous Swordsmen) clashed the body count rose swiftly.

Romans succumbed soonest but Gauls were only 2 unit losses from defeat themselves.

Romans await the barbarian onslaught

Gaestati ally heavy types flank their medium cousins as Velites try to stall them

The Roman right about to be overwhelmed as Numidians face an oncoming horde

Light chariots support another line of warriors

Stoic Legionary Hastati and Principes await supported by Triarii and Extraordinarii (in woods)

Calm before the storm....................

Mortem Et Gloriam first try with new edition

Game with Stephen using new edition of Mortem Et Gloriam.
We last played MEG back at start of 2018 so pretty much starting afresh with rules.
I fielded trusty Punic Romans and Stephen had Hannibals chaps.
We tried the new Magna sized game (essentially 2/3rds scale) which uses a 4' x 3' table.
This was mainly due to my Romans not having enough Triarii or Legionaries for full sized game (now termed Maximus).
My Romans having been re-based as 'doubles' for L'Art De La Guerre not optimal for MEG which allows for unit expansion and suchlike (like Field of Glory) but doable with a few pipe cleaner markers.
Thankfully the cards and dice from first edition are still perfectly usable with new set.


Game was great fun despite our having to re-learn even the basics.
The card 'activation/orders' system is great linked into its colour coded system and similar dice system.
Moves are large (base widths) and armies get into action in at most 2-3 turns.
Shooting (we had few shooting types) and Combat all very easy to relearn.
The QRS is comprehensive and clear but maybe a bit small in it print for aging eyes on either side of the table.

Game saw a clash of Infantry type all along the table with Cavalry on flanks.
To and fro with dice rolls although for some reason rolling a 'blank' seems less traumatic than rolling a 1 :-)

Carthaginians were in ascendancy when we finished (game not completed) but no bloodless victories in MEG as both sides taking a lot of casualties.

Fun stuff and we will be trying these again.

Stephens comment of game being Ancients "how Barker intended" seemed apt but we are novices with intricacies of tactics.

Interested to try the Pacto version (single file units) as a direct comparison to LADG scale.

L'Art De La Guerre - three (yes three !!) games played

Played LADG today at Stephens managing to play a full three games (200pt standard versions) including a game with 'Biggies' (25mm).

I brought Galatians and Punic Romans and these faced Carthaginians and Early Germans respectively.
As these two games went so quickly we tried Stephens 25mm Sassanid Persian (the Elephants are immense !) and Hunnic 25mm forces (played on a 6 x 4 table).
The 25mm version was interesting but does seem to suit foot armies better as with big moves and ranges (ie 60mm per UD) its hard to manouvre or evade.

No time to outline games bar stating that first with Galatians was another dicing disaster !
The other two games also lost but much closer affairs with more averaged dice rolls including a few sixes !!