The initial deployments of both armies. Alexander is on the left and Porus is on the right. The are based on those in the scenario from Lost Battles by Phil Sabin with some additions to the Macedonian army. Except for the chariots and elephants all units had two bases per unit. This required recruiting some of the Achaemenid Persians to fill out the Indian army.
View from the other end of the table. Start of battle. The Indian army had 1296 figures representing 27,000 infantry, 72 figures representing 3000 cavalry, 6 chariot units representing 150 chariots, and 18 elephant units representing about 85-90 elephants. Most of the infantry on the Indian side is Baccus with some Heroics and Ros and some Rapier Miniautres. Elephants are from all three of them and some Irregular Miniatures.
The Macedonian army had 640 pike figures from Rapier Miniatures representing about 8000 phalangites and hypaspists, 16 figures representing 1000 archers, 16 figures representing 1000 Agrianians, 60 figures representing 2500 companions, 16 figures representing 1000 horse archers, and 40 figures representing 2500 light horse. Cavalry is a mix of Rapier, Heroics and Ros, and Baccus. The Companions are the new Prodomoi figure from Baccus.
The armies meet. The Indians commanders did not elect to shift any units from the right flank to the left.
Although the Macedonian cavalry was able to defeat their opponents on both wings their light infantry evaded when charged leaving both flanks of the phalanx exposed allowing the Indians to advance and eventually attack both flanks of the phalanx. Also, the companions on the Macedonian right had taken quite a beating due to some very good die rolling by the Indian commander and were too exhausted to continue the fight. Almost all the elephants became enraged with most attempting to flee and attacking the infantry behind them. The morale of the Indian infantry held otherwise they would have fled and Alexander would have won. Instead several of the pike units broke after the phalanx had been hit in the flank and Porus claimed victory. For this battle the Indian infantry had a higher morale rating than they should have. If they had been rated correctly they would have routed instead of standing. Also, the Indian commanders would probably not advanced them and left them standing where they started as they did historically.
The second game was the battle of Asculum
This one started at 1:30 and ended too soon.
Initial deployment. Romans on the left and Greeks on the right. Pyrrhus elected to send his elephants and lead his guard to his right flank. The infantry advanced in echelon. His plan was to overpower the Roman left flank.
The Italian infantry advances and shifts towards the left to attempt to outflank the Roman right.
The fight on the Roman left. The Roman cavalry was able to inflict more damage on the Greek cavalry than they received
The Roman legions advance into contact with the Phalanx. For this battle the phalanx formations were treated as double width bases per the optional rules.
The infantry battle began on turn three. On turn four the Romans won the initiative and elected to have the Greeks move first. The morale checks for the Greeks resulted in a disaster. Their cavalry on the right flank had been severely hurt during their fight with their opponents. Previous morale tests had resulted in a couple of their units becoming shaken. When they tested this time the shaken units routed taking the unit between them when it failed its morale check also. Though the other units near them passed, the three routing units fled directly into Pyrrhus and his guard, sweeping them along. Pyrrhus' flight would have caused all of his army to check for loss of the army commander. Though most units probably would not have fled, Pyrrhus fleeing from the field gave the Romans the victory.
2 comments:
Terrific looking games! The smaller scale and numerous minis gives a a great impression of mass...
I played in the Hydaspes game and it was great fun. Lots of very tense dice rolling.
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