Sunday 7 August 2011

Claymore 2011

Yesterday we put on Magnesia at Claymore in Edinburgh.  Photos of our game and of the show as a whole can be seen here: http://wappinshaw.blogspot.com/2011/08/claymore-pictures.html

Thanks are due to Michael for being so prompt with these.  Alan also took quite a few, which I'll post here at one point.

Our table was in a good location, being the first to be seen as folks came into the main hall.  We seemed to generate quite a lot of interest, although I'm not sure how much of it spilled onto Chris and Phil's Society of Ancients table right next to the game.  We did get an invite from the Falkirk club to come over and put a game on there one evening.  With Tactica II hopefully being released soon, they want to see a playtest because they've been looking for a good ruleset to play to conclusion on their club evenings, which are Mondays.  I'm thinking that we might take a standard-sized campaign battle through on the Monday of the September weekend, if they are on that evening.  Mick from 1st Corps came over to say hello too, which was nice - he knows my Romans are pretty much all from his range.

One thing that did please me was that the Han Chinese game from Carronade won best in show, or whatever they call it - 1st prize, anyway.  Well deserved, I thought.

Magnesia was a draw, which was a good result for the Seleucids.  Much better than last time, and certainly a lot better than they managed historically.  Simon ran the left of the Seleucids, against Paul.  Surprisingly, the scythed chariots did quite well for a change, mainly because half of Eumenes' skirmishers got too close and were dispersed as a result.  The chariots inflicted a few hits on the Roman/Pergamene cavalry before being routed, and only one of the Seleucid Galatian cavalty units was disordered.  This wing was more or less a draw.  On the Seleucid right, Billy attacked with the cream of the cavalry and the Argyraspides, and had a bad time.  I ran the Seleucid centre.  I deliberately sent the elephants forward to die horribly while inflicting a few hits on Hastati.  The good thing about this was that the rubbish morale phalanxes were not affected by routing elephants because they were too far away.  The Romans advanced aggressively, but a gap opened up between their centre and their left, which was in combat against Billy.  I was able to gain superiority at this junction against the left Roman legion.  Overall, the phalanx did well, probably because this part of the Romans (Gordon and David) didn't wait for their left to destroy Billy's forces.  So it was even honours on our left and centre, and not so good on our right.  We called it a day when we had lost 11/13 breakpoint units, and two legions were in trouble.

I was expecting more of our club players to take part, especially as many had said they were happy for us to put on such a large game.  Fewer of them went this year, and most wanted to see the rest of the show, so I ended up playing a major role rather than umpiring and talking to the interested folks (although we all did plenty of that anyway).  It was all very time consuming, which is why we didn't finish quite as planned.  I'd recommend that next year whoever is going should take advantage of the ability to set up the evening beforehand - that leaves more time for the game and show stuff in general on the Saturday itself.

2 comments:

  1. Fantastic looking game, Paul! That's what an ancients game should look like.

    Simon

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  2. Cheers, Simon, that was quick! More photos coming soon...

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