Wargaming: Is It A Hobby Or An Obsession?

Background

I used to run small wargames business here in the UK. I ceased trading in April 2021, and began, what I hoped would be, a serene and relaxing retirement playing toy soldiers.

Naturally, it didn't turn out that way. Moving house didn't help. Now that's over, and I've finished the bulk of the decorating required, things have improved. I've now got more time for painting toy soldiers and wargaming.

Retirement goals

My wargaming dream is to play in half a dozen Art de la Guerre competitions a year and make inroads into my small stock of unpainted miniatures. That's it for my hobby: nothing more ambitious.

ADLG: King In The North (York, 19 - 20 Oct 2024)

Introduction

After months of preparation, I set out for my third KITN competition on a decent October day. At one point I didn't think I'd make it this year, but I did thanks to some good friends. The trip across the Pennines went well and we found our B&B easily enough.

Unlike previous years, where we stayed in Haxby, we stayed very close to the centre of York on the Haxby road. The location was ideal for my wife and her friend. I had a 15 minute drive to the venue each day, but came to hate the number of traffic calming measures. So many on such a short road.

ADLG: Northern League Round 4 (Manchester, 08 September 2024)

Introduction

Once again I braved the northbound M6 on a rainy Sunday morning. Fortified by the mandatory bacon buttie (sandwich), the journey there wasn't too bad.

ADLG: BHGS Mid Year UK Rankings (*)

I have finally achieved a long held ambition: a BHGS ranking in the top 100 UK Art de la Guerre (ADLG) players. Even better, I have just scraped into the top half of the rankings.

ADLG: Northern League Round 2 (Manchester, 19 May 2024)

Introduction

Sunday, 19 May saw my first competitive outing of 2024. After the usual early start, and a trip up the M6, I arrived at Eccles for the second round of the 2024 Northern League.

ADLG Stats Are Broken (For Now)

I have a penchant for data analysis. I blame my scientific background, but as a wargamer it comes in handy sometimes.

One such occasion was when I investigated the myth of "Super Armies" in Art de la Guerre (ADLG) in 2018. I've continued my interest in this area, but I recently uncovered a significant problem with the data I've been using.

ADLG: V4 Army List Writer - Major Update (*)

Important update (31 July 2025)
I've decided make the versions available below (4.04.03 with & without macros) the last to be publicly available.

Revisiting The ADLG Mega Table: Redux

In April last year I posted a second article about the Art de la Guerre (ADLG) Mega Table (or the table on page 22 as it's otherwise known).  In it I described my reverse engineering of the combat factors in an attempt to hammer them into my head.

This afternoon I was musing on how complex the first round of combat is compared to the subsequent rounds.  Whilst using my reworked table of combat factors to check a few things I spotted something amiss.

AI, ADLG And The Madaxeman

I'm sure we have all noticed the torrent of news about AI. I've remained sceptical, but I've found some of the AI image processing tools to be well worth the trouble. Many of my recent images have been processed with the help of such tools. But that's not the subject of this post.

Background

I recently, stumbled across www.perplexity.ai: billed as an AI assisted search engine. I started using it to research costume details for my Hellenistic project and I was impressed. The results are delivered in sentences with reference links and images (if appropriate). It also says if it doesn't know the answer; a nice touch.

ADLG & the Madaxeman

Being curious, I created a few other searches including some related to Art de la Guerre (ADLG). Of course, they all contained a reference to the hub of Tim Porter's burgeoning mega-media-empire: www.madaxeman.com.

Much later, I was looking at Tim's latest battle reports when I spotted a link to his 2021 appearance on the God's Own Scale podcast during which Tim describes the history of www.madaxeman.com. So, whilst painting, I listened to the episode again. The portion where Tim describes the somewhat random (haphazard?) genesis of his site was particularly interesting as was the description of his scatter gun approach to content creation and social media adjuncts.

Now Tim's been very influential in promulgating ADLG both in person and through his website. So, putting two unrelated topics together, I wondered how the AI would go about rating the influence of www.madaxeman.com on ADLG and whether it (?) could identify any important factors underpinning Tim's influence.

ADLG: A Personal FAQ?

Hervé Caille, the author of Art de la Guerre (ADLG), his support team run a list of official clarifications for V4. The latest version is dated August 2022. The lack of a more recent version reflects well on the stability of the new version (V4).

Even so, every once in a while something crops up during play, or on the ADLG Forum, that isn't covered and should probably be in the next official version. Here are five common situations that have been clarified recently but aren't in the official version (yet?). For ADLG nerds only.

[1] Disengaging and Exiting a ZoC ¹

The first question deals with a basic omission from the rules.  The answer is simple but isn't given as general rule and should be included in the "General principles" on page 41.  The second tackles an issue brought about by the ambiguous, and confusing, layout of page 37.

[Q1.1] During these moves the rules say stop when meeting a new enemy.  The question is: do they stop in contact or if not how far away do the stop?

[A1.1] Contact is not allowed and for all the cases that specify "just before contact", the unit must stop a few millimetres before the contact.

[Q1.2] When does the special case (page 37), for mounted with a ZoC to their rear, apply)?

[A1.2] This only applies to mounted that cannot evade. Mounted that can evade must use the evade procedure to leave a ZoC.

[2] Charging in groups #1 ²

This arose during a game against a very experienced player. We played it his way which turned out to be the wrong way.

[Q2.1] When conforming after contact during a charge, does the whole group conform or do units not in contact remain where they are splitting the group?

[A2.1] Other units in the group may conform (up to 1 UD) to remain aligned as a group.  This is covered by the final bullet point in the definitions section on page 50.

There's an important exception: only units (of a group) that start within charge range of the enemy can conform to one another (page 42, second bullet).

[3] Charging in groups #2 ³

The following situations only arise when the units are closer than the minimum charge move for the charging unit (1 UD for foot and 2 UD for mounted). The difference between the two is subtle, at least in my view, but I can foresee important consequences arising from the difference during a game.

[Q3.1] When charging an enemy where none has evaded, must units not in contact move the minimum required for charge movement?

[A3.1] No.

[Q3.2] When charging an enemy where not all have evaded, must units not in contact move the minimum required for charge movement?

[A3.2] Yes and the group may split.

After the first contact in both Q3.1 & 3.2, units not in contact must consider continuing their charge. Whether this is mandatory or optional depends on whether the units are impetuous or not. In both these cases movement distances are not adjusted:

• The units may choose to advance up to their maximum movement allowance (see page 43, section 8, 1st bullet point).
• Impetuous units must do this but only if they are in pursuit (as in Q3.2) or will contact another enemy (see page 43, section 8, 2nd bullet point).
• If they continue their charge, their total movement (initial & optional) must be at least their minimum charge movement (this applies only to Q3.1 as in Q3.2 this has already happened).

[4 ] Diagrams for charging in groups #2

Here are some animations that may help with Q3.1 & 3.2. Click for larger, full colour versions. The units start 1 UD apart and, in the first two, are not impetuous. Firstly, the answer to Q3.1:

Next the answer to Q3.2:

Both the above diagrams feature units that are not impetuous. If they are the answer to Q3.1 is the same (not in pursuit and no other target in the example) but, Q3.2 is different. So here's another diagram for impetuous units ⁴:

Close all

Rankings! What Are They Good For?

Introduction

This is a follow up to my report on 2023's King In The North (KITN) competition. In it I noted that KITN attracted a lot of players with high UK BHGS rankings. However, whilst preparing some tables for publication, I noticed something unexpected concerning the rankings: hence this (rabbit hole) post.

Going into the competition, my expectation was that I would struggle against significantly higher ranked players and that the top places would all be taken by the highest ranked players. I certainly found the former to be all too true at KITN 2023 but did the latter turn out to be true too?

ADLG: King In The North (York, 14 - 15 Oct 2023)

Introduction

For the second year running I attended this excellent competition. When the theme was announced I was relieved to see that my recently completed Arabs just sneaked into the "Vikings!" theme thanks to the Andalusian Arabs list (ADLG list 133).

As it turned out this was a very popular choice with three other players opting to pit Arabs against the even more popular Irish and Viking armies.

Travel

On Friday the 13th my wife and I set out for darkest Yorkshire in the pouring rain. To make matters more interesting it was the first long journey in our new car: new control layout and computer beeps a plenty. Three hours later the rain had stopped and we had reached our B&B in Haxby. We were staying in the same place as last year so finding it wasn't a problem.

ADLG: Complex Movement Options

Way back in the days of Art de la Guerre (ADLG) V3 I tried tabulating the various processes involved like movement, shooting, melee etc. I found the exercise useful but the tables were somewhat cumbersome in use. Nonetheless the exercise helped my understanding the rules.

With ADLG I have found understanding is not the same as learning. So, when V4 arrived I decided to use a different approach and play with just the play sheet if at all possible. So far I am doing better during games but afterwards I still can't resist digging into the workings of ADLG.

I find this post game, reverse engineering helps my understanding as it often exposes the complex variations and plain old quirks of the rules; something I've enjoyed doing since I played DBMM. My reworking of the ADLG mega table is the most recent example of this.

ADLG: Northern League Round 4 (Manchester, 03 Sep 2023)

Introduction

Eccles is normally the venue for the 5th and final round in November and last year it was absolutely freezing. Thankfully, this year the second Eccles round was held on a beautiful sunny day in early September. I even decided to wear shorts!

I arrived nice an early, got a good parking spot and helped set up the tables before making the first of many cups of tea.

Tournament Preparation

I have a two-day competition in October: "The King in the North" held in Haxby, a small village outside York. As the day draws near I've begun getting things ready. To be honest I've been getting ready for a while now.

I've been surprised at just how much preparation is required so I thought I'd record what I've been up to. I suppose one of my former professional roles, as a project manager, is well to the fore in what follows.

ADLG: Northern League Round 2 (Manchester, 07 May 2023)

Introduction

It's fair to say I had to force myself to attend this round: I have a lot going on at the moment. Not least the residual upheaval surrounding my recent relocation.

When this year's themes were announced I thought I'd be able to field a new Arab army in this round. No chance: I've still got to finish the heavy cavalry. I had to borrow four bases of heavy cavalry from Gareth Jones: thanks Gareth.

Kevin Johnson at the day's organisational nerve centre. Thanks Kev.

I was surprised by how long it took me to get ready on Saturday. Nothing was in its usual place. I'd unpacked things in new places and everything took longer to find.

Of course I forgot a few things (play sheets etc) which was annoying. Then I ended up with one too many army lists (see below). To cap it all, I didn't realise that my camera wasn't set up properly until right at the end; so apologies for the quality of some of the photos.

The match to decide first place. Or was it?

Revisiting The ADLG Mega Table

Way back in mid November 2021, I wrote about my latest attempt to:

".. hammer the combat factors [of Art de la Guerre] into my head and the quirks I encountered along the way."

I listed a few wrinkles; many of them stylistic and some logical (shooting factors in a close combat table for example). I closed with this comment:

"Having done it myself many times, I appreciate that laying out a set of rules in play sheets or tables is a hard task ..."

I ended thus as I had promised myself not to re-invent the mega table. If you haven't guessed by now, I have now attempted just that.

If you don't want to read about how I reconstructed the table here's a link to a pdf for you. At first sight it may not look significantly different, but close examination should show numerous small changes and improved readability. Let me know what you think in the comments.

All other brave souls read on.

ADLG: BHGS Year End UK Rankings (*)

I'm writing this during a break in the seemingly endless decorating and is about as close to wargaming as I'm going to get until the end of February.

ADLG: Northern League Round 5 (Manchester, 06 Nov 2022)

Introduction

Three weeks after my trip to York for "The King In The North", and three weeks closer to moving house, I ventured in to darkest Manchester for the final round of the 2022 Northern League. It was my last event before all my hobby stuff was packed away prior to the move.

A busy hall late in the day. DBMM on the left front and ADLG everywhere else.

I've played many a game at Eccles in the winter and Sunday was exactly what I expected: cold! I didn't take my padded gilet off all day. My feet got so cold I had to go for a walk between the second and final game just to warm them.

ADLG: King In The North (York, 15 - 16 Oct 2022)

This post is slightly longer than my normal competition posts so it's split into sections so you can skip any boring bits.

Background

As I noted last month we're trying to move house. Six weeks on and we're almost at the stage where we can think about dates. Please note the almost in the last sentence. In an attempt to escape the stress I decided to enter the "King in the North" ADLG competition organised by Macro Baroni ably assisted by Paul Dawson.

Marco & Paul (centre) discuss the coming day's games.

After entering I got cold feet. Why did I ever think entering my first two day competition, with no practice and little wargaming since July, was a stress free way to spend a weekend?