Ancient Battle! ADLG Assyrians versus Hyksos!

 

A couple weeks ago we finally got to try Eric's Assyrian list (#9) versus my Hyksos list (#13) in an ADLG chariot battle. It was a fun game, but my Hyksos were overmatched from the beginning. That makes sense to some extent. 

The Assyrians were over 700 years after the Hyksos, and were a much more successful army and Empire. Moreover, this specific Assyrian list had a lot of heavy chariots, heavy infantry, 1/2 sword / 1/2 Bow, and cavalry. It was a small, powerful army. 

The Assyrian army list

Still, I didn't do myself any favors with my list organization, my deployment, or my game play. It was a fun game, but for me it was very much a learn from my mistakes game! Fortunately, Eric is a great guy to lose to. 

The Hyksos are dominated by light chariots, medium sword, and javelins (both LMI and LI). That can make for an odd list - the foot like lots of terrain, the chariots prefer a wide open plain.  

The Hyksos army list

I just think my Corps organization was at fault. I think I need to go back to two corps mixing javelinmen and light chariots, and move the bow into the corps with the swordsmen. 

Anyway, on to the game! :)

Happy with how the dunes and the gully came out.

As I mentioned in the last battle report, I needed some more desert terrain, so I refurbished some and created some new dunes, brush, an oasis, and a desert gully. I'm reasonably happy with how they came out. I do need to figure out how to add some texture to the game mat though. 

The Hyksos initial deployment was poor. The corps of archers and javelinmen faced off against the Assyrian cavalry, while the line of medium sword were faced with heavy infantry and chariots. But the light chariot bow were neutered facing the archer/sword combo elements, especially since they started very far away.  

The heavy chariots charge was deadly, destroying half of the
Hyksos medium sword impact elements in one round of fighting.

It was a dominating performance by the Assyrians. Much of that was simply good play by Eric. But I contributed to my own defeat, I never found away to bring my chariots into the fight, and so I was effectively fighting with 2/3s of my army. 

I look forward to facing the Assyrians again. The Hyksos list cannot change much, but with better organization and better play on my part I think I can give the Assyrians a better run for their money. 

Ancient Battle! ADLG Hyksos versus Numidians!

Image from the Egyptian Museum. 

On the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend it was just Rob and I at the club, we played a game of Art de la Guerre. Rob has only played a handful of games of ADLG, and I am somewhat rusty, so we took our time, it was a friendly game. 

This is the second ADLG battle report I've done recently but it won't be the last. I really want to expand these reports to other games like Blood & Plunder or Black Powder. 

I supplied both armies, Rob loves chariots so he played my Hyksos (#13) list (which was previously spotlighted here). I didn't have a perfect match, so I played my Numidians (#56) list. Light chariots with a mass of infantry versus light horse with javelins, some elephants javelinmen. I felt the Numidians were a decent substitute for a tribal attack from the Sahara into Egyptian lands. 

Still, huge chronological distance between these armies, 1236 years. Imagine a modern U.S. Marine force (2025 AD) versus the Islamic warriors of the Abbasid Caliphate (789 AD). These two armies, despite the time difference, are not far apart. The biggest difference being being mounted cavalry versus chariots. The list of differences between a modern force and the Abbasid's is far more extensive!

Please Note: If you click on the images they will expand and the battle report text will be easier to read. 

As I mentioned, Rob's only played a couple games of ADLG. He made a mistake with his deployment I didn't realize until much later. The single palm tree in the gully is an ambush marker, in game it might or might not have units there in ambush. Rob in fact did have 4 light infantry stands there in ambush. That was fine, but those light infantry stands were part of his center corps, the medium swordsmen in front of the dunes. In ADLG you cannot mix up Corps when you deploy. So technically that was an illegal starting position. But it really made no difference to the game and we just payed it as it was. 

So, I managed to pull a victory out in the end. It was a fun, relaxing game. Rob is always a pleasure to game with. 

This was the first game on my new duck cloth desert game mat. I need to do some more work on it, probably make the boundaries more obvious, and also I'd like to break up the color a bit so it looks more like real ground. And I need to get the edges hemmed. 

And I need to make new terrain myself I never realized I have no dune terrain, yet my Hyksos army has desert as a terrain type. 

Comments and suggestions welcome!

Dark Ages fight at the Richmond Open!

The Byzantine center charges the foe...

 On 2 May 2026 I tried to run an Art de la Guerre tournament at the Richmond Open. I ran a successful tournament there in 2024 - Strategos: L'Art de la Guerre at the Richmond Open 2024 - which you can read about at the link. 

This year, I waited too long to decide and it was announced only a few weeks before hand, and so I only had one player, my fellow club member Eric, who should up. Nonetheless, we enjoyed an excellent game of ADLG set in the Dark Ages. I played the Justinian Byzantine list, my favorite list since much of my Master's thesis covered it. Eric played the Carolingian Franks. These two arimies are roughly two hundred years apart, so it is not a historical match up but they are still fairly well matched. Both are primarily cavalry forces with heavy infantry in support.  

A fun, well played game. I am going to try again next year!

Strategos: L'Art de la Guerre at the Richmond Open 2024

Trophy painted by Ren Westermeyer.

On 4 May 2024 I ran a L'Art de la Guerre Tournament at the 2024 Richmond Open.

It was a small,  3 round L'Art de la Guerre tournament. It was a semi-open format, 15mm scale, 200 points\ army lists. Any army from the Ancient, Classical, or Roman period lists in the 4th edition book ADLG book was permitted. 

The tournament was run in a round robin tournament, with 2 hour rounds. First round match ups were chosen at random, for the second and third round the opponents were chosen based on who won in the previous rounds, in order to determine a clear tournament winner.  The winner was determined by number of victories, draws, and defeats. The winner was given a trophy and earned the title "Strategos" of the Richmond Open 2024. 

1st Place / Strategos Walter Burgoyne [#55 Carthagnian] 2 wins, 1 draw

2nd Dutch Adams [#79 Classical Indian] 2 wins, 1 defeat

3rd Jeff Wiltrout [#59 Meroitic Kushite] 1 win, 2 draws

4th Michael Kelley [#109 Sassanid Persian] 1 win, 1 draw, 1 defeat

5th Paul Bellerive [#60 Classical Greek] 2 draws, 1 defeat

6th Lawrence (Alan) Wright [#39 Alexandrian Macedonian] 3 defeats

It was a fun, friendly little tournament, and I think everyone had a great time, and got three decent games of ADLG in. I will most likely run this tournament again next year, hopefully I'll get an odd number of entries so I can play as well. 😀

It has been described, tongue-in-cheek, as the "mean old man tournament" 😄, referencing  the relative age of most ADLG players but honestly, the players were all gentlemen, IMO. 

I award the Strategos trophy to Walt Burgoyne (L).

L'Art de la Guerre in 2023

 I've decide to end the year with a series of posts on the various game we played at SAG this year. 

We once had a large contingent of L'Art de la Guerre players, we even sent a team to the the team nationals years ago. But most of the club has lost interest in the game sadly. 

I'm still very interested, and I worked to try and spark more interest but all I managed was a few games with other members humoring me. I also tried running a tournament at the Your Hobby Place - Fredericksburg, and it was a bust, just myself and two others showed. 

I haven't given up all hope but I'm not optimistic that ADLG will regain its previous spot at our club. Which is a real shame, it is one of my favorite games and periods. 

The sweet trophy I designed for the 
"Strategos 2023 tourney. Sadly it will
never get used now. 

#44 Pyrrhic Greeks versus #56 Numidians

#238 Medieval Germans versus another Medieval army.

#61 Hellenistic Greeks versus #56 Numidians

#44 Pyrrhic Greeks versus #77 Sarmatians

#146 "King Arthur" Post-Roman British versus Picts!

#238 Medieval Germans versus #221 Samurai.

Army Spotlight: Paul's Hyksos Army

I decided to finally spotlight one of my own armies, the Hyksos.

Back in the mid-1990s I took 2nd place in a De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) tournament, at Capcon, a small gaming convention that was then run annually at Ohio State. The prize for 2nd place as aa full, unpainted DBA army, #8a Hyksos 1650 BC-1546 BC from the DBA 1.1 lists. At the time, I was focused on building matching DBA armies, I didn't have a foe army, and the list changed for DBA 2.0 and after so my Hyksos army lingered unpainted.  

Cut to 20 years later, when I've gotten back into miniature war gaming after a 10 year hiatus, and my new new club has finally started shifting from Flames of War, and some of the members are interested, finally in 15mm ancients. 

But not in DBA, they want to play L'Art de la Guerre, which requires more figures.  But I want to run this army, so I find some interesting terrain for a camp, buy the additional needed infantry and cannabalize some figures from an ancient Egyptian Hordes of the Things army i also have sitting aorund unpainted. I paint them all up now this represents ADLG list #13 - Hyksos  (1650-1546 BC). 

I ran it at the ADLG National Teams tournament in 2018, freshly painted. The tournament was a bit of a bust as my truck died permanently that weekend, but the Hyksos did okay, 2 losses, 1 win, and 1 tie, if I recall correctly. 

It is a tricky list to play. The chariots require a lot of open space, but the medium and light infantry work best with a lot of terrain. Overall, I'm sure I've lost more often then won with this list, but that's true of all my armies!  It's still fun to play.  I'd like a chance to play Eric's Assyrian Army, maybe that army's bad luck would give me an even chance. 😁 

The heart of the army is its light chariots, whirling about the battlefield with its archers.
About half of them are elite troops, so I painted some with red plumes and some with blue.
One of the blue chariots is one of the 'newer' model chariots, coming into vogue at the time and
represented by a New Kingdom Egyptian chariot, most often, that represents the Chariot Corps'
general, Khyan, who is generally an 'included' general.

Three Hyksos generals, including Sakir-Har and Yanassi. 

I found a cool skull-headed Sphinx building for the Hyksos camp,
and the palm trees are the two ambush markers the army needs.

Canaanite javelinmen are a mainstay of this army.  

The heart of the army are its warriors, medium swordsmen impact. 
Not much staying power against heavy foot, but still dangerous. 

I find the two stands of bowmen pretty useful for this list. 

Libyans with javelins and Aamu with slings make up the skirmishers.

I would like to add more warriors and more javelinmen,
as well as some Egyptian levies to give the list more options. 

Again, a fun list to play, and one of my more decent painting jobs. I probably need even more javelinmen and warriors for this army, it might work better fewer chariots. But I just love the look of the chariots sweeping across the board. 

The army list I usually play for this army.