Thursday 29 May 2014

The Battle of Megara 25th May 432 BC, Sparta vs Athens........

..........or don't upset the Oracle or trust Ray in a wargame!

"As normal in Ancient Greece peace never lasted long, Sparta has accused Athens of breaking the thirty years peace pact that had been agreed in 445BC. Both sides have gathered their forces with various allies looking for glory and plunder, both armies have met just outside the town of Megara on the Corinthian peninsula.
                                                                 The Game

Both sides can deploy up to a maximum of 20 inches on to the board and you will be allowed only 10 minutes to deploy and discuss tactics. No fart arsing about please you have been warned.

The Oracle will be consulted before battle!"

Kind words supplied and read out by Postie before the game started!
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contractual "Zeus" Picture...........


Six Rejects (Myself, Ray, John, Surjit, Dave and Richard) turned up on Sunday for an Ancient Greek game between Sparta and Athens, names were drawn out.......

Richard: Spartan
Me: Boeotian
Dave: Tegean/Corinthian

vs

John: Athenian
Surjit: Phocian
Ray: Theban

There were some Postie shenanigans before the start of the game, you had to roll for the quality of your general, I was lucky and got a brilliant one, some others weren't so lucky, we also had to roll two dice to see if the "Oracle" favoured us...........we were mostly lucky except for Ray who upset his "Oracle" and had to remain still for the first two turns of the game:D


The other side or the Athenian rebels.......

Ray upset the Oracle, how we laughed.......

All about the Phalanxes, we had 10 to their 11 but 3 of ours are Spartan........

We started to move forward but the Athenians remained firm............

We gave all our skirmish troops to Dave on our left flank........

A picture of Ray not moving...........

Ever forward, ever forward, six inches at a time, bloody Athenians......

Dave was also doing some grading work by this stage waiting on Ray.........

The Spartans...........

These are killing machines if you let them get close, they threw 10 dice in close combat and got 10 kills.......

The action on the left flank starts to hot up with skirmishers skirmishing with each other.....

Life could be over quite quickly...........

Nice piece of scratch built terrain by Postie.......

Light cavalry clash, this would continue back and forth for several turns until Rays luck ran out......

Ever forward, ever forward......

Aerial shot........

Any moment now.........

Finally..........

What happened next was a little one sided with some outrageous dice rolling on our side with a 70%+ kill rate and a 100% rate from the Spartans for nearly two turns, there were some small setbacks but not enough.........

This picture summed up what the Athenians thought of our dice rolling.......

One of the Spartan phalanxes in trouble and would retire but not destroyed......

Things were starting to get a little confusing.......

More charges but we remained lucky with the dice.......

I show this just to show a triple disordered unit..............

The game was called at this point due to Ray withdrawing his troops from the Athenian army and then joining the Spartan army, his colleagues were not impressed, how we laughed.......

Dave won man of the match for gaining the most personal points throughout the game.......

Ray, now on the winning side takes some pictures as he gloats over his former comrades.......

Good game, over by three( it would have been two if Ray had had his way or the Athenians had moved forwar), still we gathered for tea and cake and had a chat among the boys.......... 

The rules used were Posties "Let the Gods decide", the bloody dice Gods maybe..............

110 comments:

  1. Soooo Ray is a turncoat?

    Bloody battle! But then again...Most of your games seem to make the rivers run red.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If some had their way we would fight to the last figure!

      Delete
  2. Nice batrep Fran! But why oh why did you have to get a pic of Ray that close up? I'm getting ready to go to bed and now I'll be plagued by nightmares too hideous to speak of.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great AAR, Very funny. How you got to love a turncoat!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Glad to see a report written by the other side...Bloody, beautiful and funny! Long live to the Oracle!

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Ray upset the Oracle, how we laughed......."

    surely you mean "how we expressed our deep sympathies for the poor dice luck" ?

    It's good to see this battle from the opposing viewpoint as I only recall Ray retiring his Thebans, not switching sides. Was the shame too much to admit?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great looking armies and another very enjoyable battle report! Thanks Fran!

    ReplyDelete
  7. A great report mate, good to read the other side of the battle. My oh my, that picture of three glum faces of your opponents....that made me laugh. And Rays dice rolling...double ones. I'm suprised he didn't throw in the towel at that point and have a strop! Lol.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Excellent battle! Snake eyes for Ray was hilarious. I'm sure you also had many, many pictures of him taking pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  9. A very nice report young man. It is clear that Ray is Cursed by the "Dice Gods!" Do not sit too close to him it may rub of, Like it has onto Lee.
    As for him changing sides, no excuse for that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I passed the curse onto Ray by rubbing up against him. Phnar phnar

      Delete
  10. Sounds like it was great fun... except for the loosing side eh! :) Curse the dice gods!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Very nice array of troops and entertaining AAR!

    Christopher

    ReplyDelete
  12. Fantastic looking game Fran!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Great game for at least one side, I trust you were as magnanimous in victory as ever.
    The picture of the three Athenians is priceless, but the report does seem to lack a contrcatual pic of the dice-god himself.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Are you sure you weren't playing a Viking game? What with Ray playing The Trickster and all! Oh well great AAR in any case.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Great batrep, lovely photos. What a turncoat that Ray is.

    ReplyDelete
  16. The Dice Gods are a fickle mistress. When they team up with Lady Luck someone is getting screwed.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Great battle report, thanks for sharing all the pics.
    Maybe Ray should next time consult Madame Olga and not the oracle...

    ReplyDelete
  18. Great report Fran and trust Ray to be a turncoat

    ReplyDelete
  19. Looks like a great game, but the figs are really nice!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Great looking battlefield and minis, kudos to Postie! ;) The long slog to the scrum probably made you regret dispatching your skirmishers to the flank and another General. That plan did work for wrecking Ray's troops and making the Oracle debacle worse! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Marvelous looking game with equally fine figures. Nice run down of the play action too -- seems the Spartans were true to form and a terror on the battlefield.

    ReplyDelete
  22. haha snake eyes must have thrown him for a loop

    ReplyDelete
  23. So Ray turned his coats after he saw who would win... The dastardly dog...great write up Fran.. I notified our "hero" forgot that little snippet ..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If he had done it properly mind he would have also nicked the army pay chest!

      Delete
    2. Strangely enough we are missing it?

      Delete
  24. Nice report. it all looks fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  25. I'm confused (more than usual) as there's no mention of Ray's deflection to the winner side in the final seconds on his blog. Did Zeus have a funny turn at the end to allow this?

    ReplyDelete
  26. So he had longer to think about turning his own side over.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Ray and the Gods.... but in the ends, he won! Great AAR and game.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Great write up Fran!
    My two commanders wanted to carry on the fight, it wasn't worth the agrow, I begged them to through the towel in but they wouldn't here of it....so in typical Greek fashion I withdrew my battered troops, the Spartans offered me the honour of leaving intact, then asked if I would be willing to switch sides.......so I did! But the game was really already over.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have to agree, Surjit would fight to the last figure if he could and still think he was winning!

      Delete
  29. Great report, Fran. Poor Ray, it was just not a good day for his dice.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I very nearly didn't get past the second picture due to the tears in my eyes! "Ray upset the Oracle, how we laughed…" Priceless.

    ReplyDelete
  31. If only Ray had been wearing pants when he consulted the Oracle, things would not have gone so badly.

    Great pics, story and figures! I do love a good Peloponnesian smack down.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Now here's a war I can relate to! Fantastic figures and I really loved Postie's columns and ruins. May the Oracle be with you!

    ReplyDelete
  33. we had 10 to their 11 but 3 of ours are Spartan........

    I knew your side was going to win the moment I read that. :)

    Great report!

    ReplyDelete
  34. Good to see you out and about Fran. Nice AAR.

    ReplyDelete
  35. The Dice Gods are fickle, they murder us for their sport...

    Helluva game there, that's why ancient Greek warfare is the stuff of which epics are made!

    ReplyDelete
  36. Sounds like a great time and a good game with lots of fun.

    Cheers
    Stefan

    ReplyDelete
  37. wish we could see figurines from Ancient history more often!

    ReplyDelete
  38. Great report and of course you won because "YOU ARE SPARTANS!!!!!!"

    ReplyDelete
  39. Great looking game! That's exactly how an ancients game should look!

    ReplyDelete
  40. I think you're having too much fun with Ray!

    ReplyDelete
  41. Very impressive looking game !

    ReplyDelete
  42. Looks to have been a good day to be a Beotian! Well done my man. Fabulous AAR and a wonderful looking game (those blocks of hoplites are very impressive).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Curt, they did look good and well painted.

      Delete
  43. Looks like it was a fun game! And no matter the game, those bloody dice Gods have never been on my side. Not even in Monopoly.

    ReplyDelete
  44. "This picture summed up what the Athenians thought of our dice rolling." What a priceless piccie, lol. Man, I would love to play.

    ReplyDelete
  45. The Oracle should always be consulted before battle.

    You guys should do the Trojan War next. That was a good one.

    ReplyDelete
  46. The Athenian reaction shot is priceless. Always a little envious of these big games, they look great!

    FMB

    ReplyDelete
  47. Hope you had a good time at Broadside Fran!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not bad, long day, too little funds, hot as fecking hades.........and Ray was there too!

      Delete
  48. Thanks for sharing this with us Fran! Great report and pictures!

    Don't throw a one, and then he doubles it! :-D

    Greetings
    Peter

    ReplyDelete
  49. Is it normal to allow for defectors like that? How convenient for Ray...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not very often as traitors are usually dealt with.......severely!

      Delete
  50. I like your new header Fran, it's very cheerful.

    Congratulations on your first place at Broadside. Are you going to do a post on it? I'm not commenting right now, but I've been checking you blog every day as I'll come in for you if you do post.

    ReplyDelete
  51. I was thinking, this post is missing just one thing. Rayolla wearing red stripes and a hat. Then it would be like a game. Only instead of Where's Waldo? We can play, Where's Rayolla?

    ReplyDelete