Legio Wargames

Another cracking Battle Day put on by the Society of Ancients last weekend. The only downside was that it was held on the Sunday after the clocks went forward! The battle was Cunaxa in which Cyrus, aided by 10,000 Greeks challenged his brother Artaxerxes for the Persian throne. Our game was played with 20mm figures using Alala! rules. We concentrated the action on Cyrus’ right/Artaxerxes’ left given that the other wing saw little or no action in the historical battle. Artaxer

With the preparations for the Society of Ancients Cunaxa Battle Day I have been in a bit of a Greco-Persian mood. With all the units we need for Cunaxa painted and ready, I still have some unpainted Greeks in my lead pile and so decide to get to work on them. I have painted them as Thebans or other Boetians — identifiable as such by the distinctive club of Hercules shield design. At Mantinea some Thebans were also distinguished by white painted helmets. I am planning to tr

Time for one more play-test before we take our Cunaxa game with Alala! to the Society of Ancients Battle Day on 29 March. The game opens with Artaxerxes’ chariots surging forward against Cyrus’ Greek hoplites. The hoplites are unable to open ranks to let the chariots through as they do not hold an open ranks card (more on this later). Proxenus’ hoplites suffer a fair amount of disorder before the enemy chariots crash. Not to be outdone Cyrus sends forward his single chariot a

It is 1239, somewhere in Gaza.  Rukn al-Din al-Hijawi’s Ayyubid army has set a trap to rid the holy land of the invading crusaders. Using a caravan as bait he hopes to draw the crusaders out into the desert. Al-Hijawi’s plan is to use light cavalry to harass and break up the crusader formations and then converge to pick off isolated units. With the Ayyubid caravan (led by Al Muzaffir Umar) on table, two of the crusader players deploy their vanguard. Amaury de Montfort command