Happy New Year!

 

Terrain Pieces for "rough" terrain

You want to play a minature game? Then you need minatures, that's obvious! Yet - almost as important as your gang of wild west gunfighters, your pack of orcs or your Spartan Hoplite army is a collection of terrain pieces to play the game. While you may start with pieces of coloured felt representing woods, hills and rivers, most of us miniature gamers are looking upon terrain pieces not only as a necessary part to play the game but also as a means to enhance the visual appearance of it. A nice looking battlefield populated by beautifully painted minatures sets the icing on the cake of an exciting game:

Happy New Year !

The year 2020 is finally coming to its end. It has been a difficult time for miniature wargamers all over the world with personal meetings severely restricted. I have tried some online gaming instead, which is ok but nowhere like a live friendly game or tournament. But I don't want to whine! I think of all those who have lost their job or a dear person.

Better times are just around the bend - I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year!

  

another Wargaming Moment

For all armies in Triumph! games there has to be a camp present on the battlefield. The camp serves for no purpose other than being a possible objective for your opponent. You have to protect your camp to prevent it from being sacked. Taking your opponent's camp gives you half the points needed for winning the game.

In my Triumph! games camps are seldom sacked, and when it happens, it is usually done by light cavalry swiftly moving around the enemie's flank and taking the camp before the owner can react to this action. To better protect your camp you may choose one of your fighting units as a garrison, but then it has to remain there and will not participate in the field battle (choices, choices ..).

Now the year is 235 AD and an arabo-aramean army from the city of Hatra is fighting arab nomads on a flat piece of land at the seashore. The Hatra player has deliberately placed his camp at the extreme left of his battleline (using a Battle Card), thus gaining space in the centre for the development of his formation:

arabo-aramaean Hatra at the top,

arab nomads at the bottom of the picture

Medieval German Army for Triumph Rules

Sadly the Covid crisis did not give me more time for painting miniatures. Nevertheless I have adapted my existing DBA Medieval Germans to the Triumph Medieval German Citstates/Princes armylist:

To my existing DBA Medieval Germans I had to add
- six stands of Bow Levies
- three stands of Archers/Crossbowmen
- one stand of Cataphracts
to let me choose most options in the Triumph army list.

Some years ago when I paid a visit to the city of Prague, I bought me a nice ceramic model of the Old Town Bridge Tower. He had to rest in my parts box for some time but finally it became the main part of a Camp element for my medieval miniature armies.

The Triumph Medieval German Citystates/Princes army is now ready to be played:

Setup and Scoring Template for Triumph! - Games

Setting up a standard Triumph! game is not a big deal:

1. choose the battlefield topography (based upon the armie's invasion ratings)
2. find out which army has the tactical advantage for this battle (based upon the armie's manoeuvre rating)
3. find out if either army qualifies for a flank march (again based upon the maoeuvre rating)
4. dice for number of terrain pieces. The player with the tactical advantage may modify this number.

You just need the armie's ratings, two D6 and a scrap of paper to take some notes. Just follow the process in the official Triumph! setup guide. To further aid the process I have created a simple template which guides you step by step: Fill in the army ratings, the diced numbers and the resulting attributes for the game:

completely filled in Triumph! template at the end of a game 

The template lets you take note of the names of the players and their armies, the date of the game and the year of the battle should you wish to do so. Additionally, there is a scoring row for each player where you may keep score of your points during the battle.

You may download the template in pdf format if you want to give it a try. The backside of the pdf explains its use step by step. If you like my template or if you have suggestions to improve it, please leave a note in the commentary field below.

Triumph! - End of Year Tournament in Switzerland

There is a small wargaming community in Switzerland, each player with his favoured rulesets, periods and scales. What links us all is playing Triumph! with 15mm armies. To strengthen this link once again, we met in the old infirmary of my home town for a four round open for all armies Triumph! tournament.

the old infirmary in Solothurn, Switzerland

We had nine participants, two of them playing their first wargame tournament. To assist the newcomers and in general to give quick advice whenever questions would arise, my dear wargaming buddy Korbi and I played as a team, taking the roles of player and guide/umpire by turn.

• four games
• 75 minutes per game
• each player scores the number of points equal to the enemy stands eliminated
• if the game ends within the 75 min. timeframe, the winner gets extra 15 points