Slingshot 334, January/February 2021
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Guardroom
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Available in web store.
Click on 'read more' to see a list of the internet links appearing in articles in this edition.
The Society of Ancients is a long-established international amateur society for the promotion of the study of ancient and medieval military history and wargaming the period 3000 BC to 1500 AD. It is run by volunteers for the benefit of its worldwide membership.
The Society publishes a bi-monthly journal, Slingshot, containing a wide range of items related to Ancient and Medieval military history and wargaming contributed by Society members. It organises various events, including an annual games day and members' conference, and runs a wargames championship. The Society also publishes a number of games and booklets which are available from our web store.
An introduction to the Society is also available on YouTube.
Membership is open to all, and lasts for 6 issues of Slingshot.
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Guardroom
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Available in web store.
Click on 'read more' to see a list of the internet links appearing in articles in this edition.
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SLINGSHOT, the bi-monthly journal of the Society, is the most admired publication in its field. This USB stick includes every Slingshot produced from 1965 to 2020. It constitutes an invaluable resource of over 13,000 pages about ancient and medieval history and wargaming. The collection is fully indexed and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader version 7.0 or later. |
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Over the TopNick Harbud analyses the last battle of the Hundred Years War, at the very end of the Society’s historical period, and discusses how to game it with some popular rulesets. Does Armour Matterby Mark Wilson. Armour is important, obviously, but just how useful were the different pieces of armour as fighting men with more means were better encased? Do rulesets accurately represent this? And do they accurately represent anything about warfare at all? And should they? And... Once more into the Breachby Ray Briggs. Wargamers, naturally, cannot help themselves when it comes to not liking everything about their favourite ruleset. And fixing it. And turning it into a new ruleset. Seleucid Elephants in 150BCThe Seleucids are commonly believed to have had no elephants between 162BC and 145BC. Jim Webster brings forward evidence that this was not the case and suggests tweaks to DBMM army lists for the Seleucid Empire that could be adapted to other rulesets. Absent GeneralsCreating an authentic fog of war joined to an equally authentic command structure has always been a big problem for wargamers. David Kay comes up with a creative solution, producing a trial scenario that got a thumbs up from his playtesters. CharaceneCharacene, as a distinct and sometimes independent political entity, existed for three and a half centuries and was an important regional power. Jim Webster suggests some amendments to army lists that better reflect its capabilities, especially its naval strength. How to Use Elephants in Tactica 2Before Xanthippus used them as a steamroller at Bagradas, elephants were usually deployed by Indians and later by the Successor States as an infantry screen. Simon Watson looks at why this was so, using Tactica 2 to demonstrate the efficacity of the elephant screen. |
Available in web store.
Click on 'read more' to see a list of the internet links appearing in articles in this edition.
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GuardroomNews and views Every Man's Handby Matthew Bennett and Roy Boss Garamantesby Jim Webster Going Back to Gaugamelaby Chris Hahn The Sound of Battleby Anthony Clipsom An Armati List for Cyrus the Greatby Rodger Williams Counting the Enemyby John Hastings Telamon in Anaheimby Andrew Gledhill T’angoed!by Nicholas Harbud Warfare in Antiquity Conferenceby Rodger Williams Slingshot Figure ReviewsSlingshot Book & Game Reviews |
Available in web store.
Click on 'read more' to see a list of the internet links appearing in articles in this edition.
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As Roy Boss has announced his intention to stand down after many years of service, Dr Simon Elliott recently became the President elect of the Society of Ancients, and will take over on the 1st of January, 2021.
He is an award winning and best selling historian, archaeologist, author, broadcaster, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent, Trustee of the Council for British Archaeology, Ambassador for Museum of London Archaeology and Guide Lecturer for Andante Travels. Simon has a PhD in Classics and Archaeology from the University of Kent, an MA in archaeology from UCL and an MA in War Studies from KCL, where has was most fortunate to study conflict simulation under Professor Phil Sabin.
He currently has nine books published on a variety of themes regarding ancient warfare, one an Amazon number 1 best seller and one a Military History Matters book of the year. He frequently appears on broadcast media as an expert on the Roman world. Simon is also a PR Week Award winning, highly experienced communications practitioner. Most importantly, Simon is a passionate lifelong wargamer who is very keen to continue to promote our fantastic hobby to the whole community.
Over his long gaming career he has played a wide variety of rules, beginning with WRG 5th edition in the late 1970s and following with 6th and 7th edition, DBA, DBM, DBMM, Armati and most recently Mortem et Gloriam. In terms of scale Simon enjoys playing games in a wide variety, including 28mm, 15mm, 10mm and 1/300, and also enjoys PC and board games.
Simon is also very active on social media, reflecting his career as a public relations practitioner. Members can read about his exploits in the world of history, archaeology, broadcasting and wargaming on his website at www.simonelliott20.com and follow him on twitter at @SimonElliott20.
In the meantime, Simon is keen to engage with the on-line membership via the forum, so a new forum board has been set up called 'Society President Q&A', under the existing Announcements board. Simon will be answering questions on here from Monday.
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The indefatigable Richard Jeffrey-Cook has updated the Slingshot index so that it now covers the whole of the period from 1965-2019.
It is available as a free download - just click on the 'Add to Cart' button below and you will be given a link to download it. Don't worry that its the same interface as the store - you on't be charged, but it enables us to manage the bandwidth from Cartloom and also track how many of these get downloaded.
Dear member
You will not be surprised to hear that we must now follow the latest government guidelines and postpone Battle Day 2020.
My current plan is to run Bosworth Field in 2021 on Saturday 27th March at the usual venue Sycamore Hall, Bletchley – many groups have put a lot of work into preparing their armies and terrain, and we cannot see that wasted. The Spartans and Thebans will have to wait another year….(there’s a hint for 2022…)
Clearly very frustrating for us all, but these are unprecedented times.
As we speak today, the Society Conference is still expected to go ahead October 31st/1st/2nd November, fingers crossed we are back to normal by then.
Stay safe.
The 2109 Battle Day took place at its usual venue, Sycamore Hall, Bletchley, on Saturday 30 March. This year we had 16 games – just one off the previous record of 17 – but more to the point we had a lot of big games on big tables. This meant that we were very snug in the main hall, and had to have two games staged in the “small room” and two large table games set up after the initial pre-battle talk had taken place in the “mid-sized room”. Fitting games in is inded a nice problem to have!
The day started with Duncan Head giving a talk on Telamon, the battle and campaign. This was a shorter version of the extensive presentation he had made at the Conference last November, and of course readers of Slingshot will have seen the detailed article on which it was based. Nevertheless Duncan held us entranced as he went through the pre battle manoeuvring and then his analysis of the battle itself. An excellent start to the day.
The games then got underway. We saw a number of different ways to address this battle. Most were set up in a traditional way with the Gauls in the middle and facing them back to back against the two Roman armies. A couple of the games (one of the two “To The Strongest” games, and the “WRG 7th Edition” game) actually had a walking gap between the two halves of the battlefield, effectively making two separate battles. One of the DBMM games did something similar but had a connecting table for the cavalry battle on one flank, so forming a U shape. These designs certainly aided the movement of the figures, though of course lost something in the visual effect of the Gauls fighting back to back. A challenge for those taking the standard single table approach was ensuring there was enough depth for the effective deployment of four armies across that depth, rather than the usual two. There were other variations and ideas: the “Warlord Advance Guard” game lost a player the evening before due to illness, so the two players each took a Gallic and a Roman army each and fought each other that way. Another group chose to focus on the cavalry battle as the key feature, and using the “Lion Rampant” rules with groups of 10mm figures on each base had a very visually striking game of a massed cavalry engagement. Yet another variation: the cavalry engagement was fought out first in the “Piquet: Archon” game, with the resulting victors being able to enter the subsequently fought infantry struggle at a given point later.
As you can see, there were many different ways employed to tackle this battle – as we have come to expect now after many years of Battle Day and a lot of regular groups attending.
For the record, the games that came were:
Armati | 15mm |
Ancient Batles by Paul Colebrooke | 15mm |
Command and Colors: Ancients | 15mm |
Command and Colors: Ancients | 28mm |
Command and Colors: Ancients | 15mm |
DBMM | 25mm |
DBMM | 15mm |
Impetus | 28mm |
Lap of the Gods | 15mm |
Lion Rampant | 10mm |
Mortem et Gloriam | 15mm |
Piquet Archon | 28mm |
To The Strongest | 28mm |
To The Strongest | 28mm |
Warlord Advance Guard | 28mm |
WRG 7th Edition | 15mm |
The day was attended by 78 people in total. We were glad to see among them Sue Laflin and Phil Barker attend for part of the day – as an aside Sue showed me the final proof of a new edition of Ian Heath’s classic WRG book “Armies and Enemies of the Crusades, 1096-1291”. I am unsure quite what new material has been included, but this is one to look out for in the coming months.
As usual, prizes were awarded. A voting slip system was used for each individual being able to vote for Best Game and Best Terrain. The results were very close, but in the end the winners were:
Many thanks to both Perry Miniatures and Magister Militum for their support and generous prizes.
The more spurious prizes painted and awarded by myself based on heresay reports of significant events in the games were as follows:
Note the Romans were generously provided by Keith at Aventine Miniatures, a great supporter of Battle Day so thank you to Aventine. The Gauls came from my own lead mountain, the foot chieftain from Black Tree and the cavalryman from Foundry.
So that’s another successful Battle Day over with for another year. Now it is time to take up your Yorkist or Lancastrian colours and march to Bosworth Field for the 2020 Battle Day…
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