Gallic Noble Cavalry as they prepare to charge Pyrrhus' Agema.
Dave and I got started with Warhammer Ancient Battles after watching the WAB Doubles Tournament at Historicon a number of years ago. We had played Ancients way back when with 15mm figures, using WRG 6th Edition. When it shifted to 7th we moved on to Tactica with its huge armies, but things stalled and we moved on to another period. Looking to get back into Ancients and liking the doubles aspect of the WAB Tournament and the fact that WAB 28mm armies are big and impressive, we got hooked. Dave painted up a Viking army and I chose Anglo-Saxons from the time of Alfred the Great ( and his great hero Uhtred). Our first tournament was a real mix, the first of our two games was a disaster, but the second game went well, we finished in the middle of many teams.
Eventually, we improved our game and were ready to challenge the top tier gamers, until an unbelievable last turn at Historicon at Valley Forge when I managed to roll an 11, 11 and a 12 on two dice all in a row. That panicked my leader and two biggest warbands and that lost us the game. The guys who beat us won the Best General award, but we were voted Best Sports, I think because I didn't break down and cry. The next year we did get the Best General award, but by then WAB had suffered a near mortal abandonment, the publishers had come out with a new WAB2.0 and an updated army list book and many players disliked this and left the game. By this time, Dave, Eric (Dave's son) and I were working on our second WAB armies. We stayed with the much depleted WAB players at HMGS for a couple years, but the low numbers of gamers there (5-6 including us) and getting more into Carnage & GloryII has led us to give up WAB at the HMGS conventions.
We still like the game though, and last Tuesday we played using my new Carthaginian army that I finally finished (I was very late in getting it done) against Dave's Pyrrhic juggernaut. The picture above shows one of my units, Gallic cavalry armed with mixed weapons, light armor and shield. The entire army is by Gripping Beast which is a company in the UK that I really like. Our Vikings and Anglo-Saxons are also Gripping Beast and I normally get them through Architects of War. They are out of Maryland, attend the HMGS shows and give the best customer service, I highly recommend doing business with them. They are based using our standard basing system and the shields are all hand painted. They are about to engage the Pyrrhic lance armed guard cavalry wedge, ouch! The Gauls had a chance though, you always do in WAB because there are so many dice rolls, but the Greek gods were more powerful than those of the Celts that day. In fact the Greek gods favored Pyrrhus all over the battle field as my Numidian cavalry panicked in front of the Pyrrhic elephants and the Spanish scutarii failed to break a phalanx after charging its flank. Nothing went right for the defenders of Melkert and Astarte, but they will look for revenge in the near future.
We would like to start up an Ancients campaign game using the WAB model which pits opposing armies in a mapless system. I can help if you would like to see the WAB rules and army lists and we do have 6 armies, so if you don't have one you can use either Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Normans or Greeks. Hope you will join in.
Or you could Paint, Paint, Paint!
Rich
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