WRG Ancients 6th Edition Competition in Newcastle, Australia in 1984

Another blast from the past, thirty years ago in fact.  WRG Ancients 6th Edition competition in Newcastle, Australia in 1984.  

Some things were fairly rudimentary ...

These first two pictures look like my mate Myron's Tibetans.  I can tell by the crappy die rolls!

There's my boys!  Tin Soldier Greeks (with some borrowed Minifigs to fill them out).  This was in the days of "flat basing" (think "flat earth" is more like it).  The only consolation is that the bases matched my wargaming table which in those days was a table tennis table.

Looks like my guys are in trouble. 

 Not sure what the columns were for, probably trying to dodge the chariots or something.

My guys again.  At least the scenery was flat too.

The WRG reference sheet visible.  

I think this was the rules with the +1 for seeing the army standard advancing.

There I am, eighteenth row in the left hand column, one draw and one win amongst many losses.  

Looks like I beat Myron by one point.

What was special about this competition was the man himself was there:  Phil Barker.  

Probably why I'd made the effort to go to Newcastle 

Phil is the gentleman in white standing on the right hand side adjudicating.

And for my troubles the great man presented me with this little trophy.  And very proud I was too!

Canberra Games Society mid 1980s - Ancients

Ancient in more ways than one.  More photos too good to hide away.

The Tin Soldier figures are mine, I had to borrow troops from others in order to field an army for WRG 6th Edition.  The elephants aren't mine - my army was Later Hoplite Greek.  I did add in elephants later.

Yep, 6th Edition, just look at those wedges.

Looks like a competition game.  My apologies to the guy in the black jacket, but I can't recall his name.

More competition games, that's Myron reaching across the table.

My boys!  These guys are still going well.

My army in battle against Myron's Tibetans.  All my figures now except for the Peltasts.  I later went overboard on the Peltasts (LMI, LJS, LTS - the super troops of my army as I recall - doh!)

I would have been pretty proud when I took this photo - my first (metal) army.  Before this it was only Airfix plastics, Napoleonic and WW2.

From memory I won.  I have a photo of a particularly glum looking Myron that I have decide not to post that I think coincides with this game.  Mostly the Hoplites wouldn't win - it was hard to get them into battle, Irregular A armies like the Tibetans had a good chance of rolling high on melee, and missile fire was very low (in contrast to the Tibetans were everyone had a bow - and were bound to get a good couple of results sooner or later).

The Canberra Games Society as it was back in the mid 1980s.  Again I can't recall all the names, but the black haired chap seated facing towards the camera but looking to his right is Louie and he was one of the guys who lent me figures until I got my army finished.  The bridge club was a good venue and I recall the games were nearly all WRG 6th Edition at that stage.

25mm Metal Ancients - Javelinmen

This post was inspired by Tim Gow's post http://megablitzandmore.blogspot.com/2011/09/blood-sweat-tears-and-superglue.html

First up here is an old and sadly poor quality photo that I scanned in that shows what is a WRG Ancients 6th addition game (or possibly even 5th edition) from the early 1980s.

At a guess the bulk of the figures would be from my friend Myron's collection.  I never had enough 25mm figures to do more than a nunit of barbarian javelinmen ... and here they are:

All Hinchcliffe with one Minifig ring-in to make up the unit.  I was going for the "hairy chested" look.  I also did something I thought was a good idea at the time and had removed their bases.  Doh!

Here are some more 25mm Ancient Javelinmen from my collection:



From left to right they are Hinchcliffe and then Minifigs PB121, PB16, PB177 and PB163.  The basing style was to match in with my playing surface which was a table-tennis table.

Nearly all of them have had their spears redone.  In fact, in taking the unit photo, one of the guys dropped his spear so I need to go find the superglue and effect a repair.

Old photo of Ancients game

In going through my old photo albums I have a number of gems to get out here.

This one I’m pretty sure is of a WRG Ancients game from the mid 1980s. At a guess it was with Myron and his 25mm figures, maybe a few of mine.  It is my house as I recognise the lime green walls (shudder) and the pictures on the walls – line drawings from the Funcken books as well as a copy of the map for the SPI boardgame Wagram.

As for the terrain - half a table tennis table, polystrene hills (in a at least a matching green), some bushes and big white pebbles.  The pebbles added weight to the hills.