A sorry spectacle for these mere novices, but now they have
been blooded, I’m sure they can redeem themselves in future tabletop battles.
Battle of Delium 424BC
A rendition of the notable defeat of the Athenians by the Thebans (at that time allied with Sparta). The actual battle witnessed the first recorded episode of ‘friendly fire’ when The Athenians broke through the Theban allied lines in several points only to encounter and fight one another in the Theban rear - at this time there were few visual indicators of which side you were on!
The battle also saw clever use by the Theban general - Pagondas - of light troops and a deeper phalanx, to break the Athenian left and swing round to defeat the rest of the Athenian army. The Thebans really were quite the innovators of ancient Hellenistic warfare....
In our refight, the Athenians completely failed to make any impact. They did break a block of Theban allied hoplites in the centre, but had their flanks stripped of light troops and their own elite phalanx was hit in the flank by some Boeotian peltasts and routed.
Seven Years War
Great to see the SYW make an appearance at the club with the French squaring off against the Prussians. Some clever conversions on display. Not sure which rules were played, but I'm sure we will see the SYW represented again in the coming weeks.
Flames of War
Some great tank-on-tank action with Achilles and Churchills squaring up against Panthers and Tigers. Wrong date on the establishment of the club though!
One of the games from Monday night was a refight of Freeman's Farm. We set the troops up on the table, marched them forwards, then started chatting about old times......You know - days at the Raleigh Factory in Nottingham in the 1970s; going to university in Wales; a discussion as to why John Lennon and Paul McCartney insisted on bringing their bloody wives to work; and other important issues. Then, without achieving any result on the tabletop, we put the toys back in the boxes and went home!
