Eumenes 2 vs Antigonas 0 part one

I ran the battle of Paraetacene at the South Bay Game Club and the Miniature Wargaming Society of Sacramento meetings this past weekend using Scutarii from Hoplite Research.  Paraitacene is the battle chosen for the Society of Ancients 2018 Battle Day.  In both actions the Silver Shields were the ones who brought victory for Eumenes.   Phalangites are from Rapier.  Elephants and other figures are from Irregular, Baccus, Rapier, and Heroics and Ros.

The first round was at the South Bay Game Club on Saturday.   The second round can be viewed at  http://18clovehamhock.blogspot.com/2018/04/eumenes-2-vs-antigonas-0-round-2.html  Order of battle for both sides is listed in part 2.  Scott commanded the Eumenid right wing.  Robert was Eumenes and commanded his bodyguard and the phalanx.   Manny was the Eumenid left wing commander.   On the Antigonid side Kent commanded the right wing,  John the left wing, Greg had the phalanx, and Bill had the mercenaries and Lycians. 

The Antigonid players decided on an aggressive attack by their left wing cavalry.  Having won the initiative they opted to move first and by staying outside of 12 inches (300mmm) of the opposing troops moved their left wing cavalry 40 inches to the flank.

{Each turn in Scutarii is 15 minutes.   Normally troops move at a reduced speed in order to maintain formation.   By staying far enough away their cavalry was able to move at the walk/trot rate of a horse (4 to 6 mph) and move 2000 paces (one mile/1.5km).}

The Euminids reacted by shifting part of their cavalry from their left wing to their right.   This would take them two turns as they had to move more than one mile to reach the other end of their battle line.  The Antigonids intended to hold back their infantry center and advance to contact with their right wing cavalry and elephants.

The commander of Eumene's right wing moved his cavalry to counter the Antigonid horse.  The elephants,  light infantry, and phalanx advanced to engage the opposing infantry.   (Eumenes had 18,000 light infantry.   Their disposition during the battle is not mentioned.  About 6000 of them would be escorting the elephants.   If the other 12,000 had been with the elephants they would have formed a solid close order line.   Instead for the re-fight they were placed to the right of the phalanx in a similar fashion to what the Seleucids did at Raphia with their light troops.  In this case they were backing up the elephants in the center and on the right.)

The elephants on the Eumeinid left wing prevented the Antigonid cavalry and elephants from breaking through on that flank.   About 1000 Eumenid cavalry were driven from the field on the other wing, but the arrival of the cavalry from the left wing stabilized that flank.  The cavalry combat saw fortune swing from one side to the other as the cavalry battle swirled back and forth.

In the center Eumene's elephants engaged the mercenaries and Lycians while Eumene's phalanx advanced to engage the opposing phalanx.   At first the pantipodoi  withstood the impact of the Silver Shields, but then one units morale faltered and then broke.  This caused the other units of pantipodoi to flee and Antigonos army fled.  (Gary had extremely bad die rolls when he made the morale checks for the other pantipodoi units due to the one unit routing.   At this point the Antigonid players conceded the battle as morale checks for the Lycians and mercenaries would probably have resulted in additional routs.   Though the Macedonians held the large hole in the center of the Antigonid battle line would have allowed the Argyraspids and Hypaspists to envelop the remaining infantry.)

Eumenes had won the battle losing about 500 men.   Antigona's had over 10,000 men routing at the end of the battle with possibly more joining the rout.  Photos of the game follow.

 The Antigonid commanders Kent, Greg, John, Bill

 Bob (Eumenes), Scott, Manny

 The armies deployed.  Viewed from the hills

 Antigonid left wing cavalry moves to flank Eumene's army

 View from behind the Antigonid army

 End of turn one.  View from the hills

 The cavalry engage on the other flank.

 Fierce fighting that would lead to several units of Eumene's cavalry breaking.

 The opposing phalanxes advance.  View from behind Antigonos' line.

 Mercenaries and Lycians engage the elephants supported by light infantry.

 Inconclusive fighting on the flank by the hills

 The opposing phalanxes make contact as Eumene's holds back the Pantipodoi

 The mercenaries and elephants exchange blows.

 The cavalry battle swirls around as Eumene's left flank cavalry arrives to stabilize his right flank

 The Argyraspids and Hypaspists engage the opposing pantipodoi.  The pantipodoi caused a few more casualties than they received, but one units resolve faltered as it became shaken.

 The following turn the shaken unit broke and Greg had a very unlucky series of die rolls as he checked morale for the rout, making five out of seven checks with the worst possible die roll. 

 The battle on the flank by the hills remained deadlocked.

 The Lycians and mercenaries have been battered by the elephants and their morale checks for the routing pantipodoi would have led to most of them fleeing also.

The cavalry battle on the other flank was still in a state of flux.

Tank Drifting

Drifting cars has become a completion sport.   Drifting tanks in the snow and ice is part of training in Norway and the US has taken part in that training.   Some tank crews have also done it for fun and to demonstrate the abilities of their tanks.   The following link is to YouTube videos documenting these and also some failures.   The one with the Chinese driver is quite impressive.  drifting tanks

The battle of marconi

The war between La Union Federal de Buena Vista and La Republica Democratica de los Pueblos de La Cucaracha continues.   A recent engagement occurred at the border town of Carmichael between two brigades of UFBV and two brigades of RDPLC.  Reports from the battlefield are contradictory with both sides claiming victory. 

Forces involved were the 2nd and 9th brigades of the UFBV and the 6th, 9th, and 10th brigades of the RDPLC.  UFBV uses German equipment while RDPLC uses Russian.  The UFBV brigades had only one company each from the engineer and recon regiments.   For organization information and links to both sides forces see  Buena Vista army

This was a meeting engagement between the two modern imaginations and came to a halt when two participants had to leave about four in the afternoon.  It looked like the UFBV was gaining the upper hand, but the RDPLC still controlled more of the towns when we halted.

This was a learning game for us.  We had decided to try Fist Full of Tows 3 to see how it compared to other rule sets we have tried.   The rule book is rather large and somewhat expensive, but it covers everything from post WWI to almost the present day.   With a discount coupon from LULU it costs the same as purchasing both Blitzkrieg Commander and Cold War Commander and a lot less than flames of war..  Much of the book is devoted to equipment data, instructions for how to determine statistics and point values and some organization examples along with ratings for World War II nations and most of the modern day nations.  The rules are well laid out with a basic outline of each rule at the beginning of a section and a more detailed explanation with examples following.   The mechanics of the rules are easily understood and after a turn or two do not require checking the rule book for clarification.   We did not include aircraft for the first game and will be adding additional items as we play further games.

 Start of game. Brian moves his brigade onto the table

 UFBV commanders Hal and Mike move  their brigade on while Chris watches.

 Gary moving his brigade onto the table

  Brian's mechanized battalion takes up a position on the ridge after his advance is halted by UFBV forces.

 DRPLC forces defend positions as UFBV advances.  Chris was able to cause more losses than he received.

 both sides were able to get troops into the town at the center 

DRPLC tank battalion in center of picture is destroyed by UFBV tanks on hill in the background.

Naval Gaming at South Bay Game Club

For the past few months I have been participating in age of sail games run by Bob at the South Bay Game Club.  These were squadron level games with each person commanding three to six ships.  Attendance had been low over the winter months and the games usually had me playing against Bob in two of the three games.   I ended up losing one of the three and winning the other two.  For the March meeting I ran the Battle of Cheetos (Chios) using modified Corvus rules from the Society of Ancinets.   Cheetos are corn chips and when Manny's son heard saw the bag of chips and heard the name of the battle that is what he called it.   Manny commanded the Pergamon fleet, Bob commanded the Rhodian fleet, and Craig commanded the Macedonian fleet with my assistance.  I used the scenario from the GMT board game War Galley, but scaled them at one to one instead of one to three as in the scenario with the Lembis being scaled at one to two and a half.  The Macedonians were also given the one twelve that I had, the Astro Thanatou. 

The Pergamon fleet had thirty-six ships, mostly fives with three threes.   Rhodes had forty-two ships with thirty-three fives and the rest threes.   The Macedonian fleet had three tens, one nine, four eights, three sevens, three sixes, eighteen fives, eighteen fours, three threes, and sixty lembis representing the 150 present at the battle along with the twelve.  The Rhodian fleet was well trained while the others were average.

Both sides were allowed to deploy as they wished, up to six inches in from the table edge with the only restriction being that Pergamon was on the allied left flank and Rhodes was on the allied right flank.

The first two turns saw the fleets approach each other.  On turn three the allies moved first and decided to attempt bow to bow rams against the Macedonians.  This did not turn out well.  Only four Macedonian ships were wrecked, while twelve of the thirty-six Pergamon ships were wrecked.   Under the game rules this would have been an immediate rout for the Pergamon fleet with a third of the fleet lost except that the Pergamon admiral's ship had not been involved and counted as two ships for a total of thirty-seven.  On my flank the two fleets only approached.   On the fourth turn there were some bow to bow ramming attempts by the Rhodian fleet.   These were not as destructive as the earlier attacks by the Pergamon fleet.  On my half of the turn the lembis passed through the gaps between my larger ships and attempted to shear the oars of the opposing fleet.  Ten of the attempts were successful with only a few failures.  On turn five Craig was able to sink an additional Pergamon ship winning the battle.   At this point victory went to the Macedonians as the Pergamon ships that were not crippled fled.   Only part of the Rhodian fleet was able to escape as almost half of their ships had been crippled by oar shears and many others were wrecks.

We used a 30 inch (75cm) by eight foot (2.4m) table.

 Bob, wearing red cap, Manny, and Craig 

 End of Allies' first turn.  Macedonian fleet on the left.

 End of second turn. 

 The Pergamon fleet attacks

 Contact.

 end of turn three

turn five.  My lembis have passed through attempting oar shears on the first line during turn four.   On turn five we moved first and the lembis attempted oar shears on the Rhodian second line, often having two of them ganging up on one Rhodian ship. Ships with a square blue marker behind them have been crippled. Those with the larger rectangular markers are wrecks.  The ships have been removed.  I did capture one ship with a boarding action.  

JWW2 Japanese Army and Visitors

Just complete another project.  This is a WW2 Japanese infantry regiment with a supporting tank battalion.  Test of Battle games has released a scenario book for the war in the Pacific called "Road to Tokyo".  Hoplite Research has also released a scenario book on the same subject called "The Emperor's Finest".  While the formation is scaled at one base = one platoon, I can upscale it to one base = one company for "The Emperor's Finest" scenarios.

 The tanks.  Lights on the left.  37mm medium next then the 45mm mediums.

 The infantry.  Three infantry battalions in front.  Supporting guns and engineers in back.

After putting everything away, I noticed that a flock of migrating birds had arrived.   They pass through in the early spring/late winter and late fall.

Restructuring of the Federal Union of Buena Vista Army

A while back I had posted the organization of two fictional modern era countries:  The Federal Union of Buena Vista  and The People's Democratic Republic of La Cucaracha   The new organization of the Federal Union of Buena Vista's army will consist of ten brigades.  These will be as follows:

1st Presidential Guard Brigade: 8th Lifeguard Tank Regiment, 14th tank regiment (Dragoon Guards), 11th,12th mechanized regiments, 18th reconnaissance regiment (Hussars), 4th engineer regiment, 34th artillery regiment, 40th logistics regiment,

2nd Mechanized Brigade: 20th Tank regiment (Dragoons), 24th mechanized regiment , 1st motorized regiment (Rifles), 7th reconnaissance regiment (Light Dragoons), 48th engineer regiment, 25th artillery regiment, 47th logistics regiment

3rd Light Infantry Brigade:  21st, 22nd, 23rd motorized infantry regiments, 16th reconnaissance regiment, 3rd engineer regiment, 45th artillery regiment, 28th logistics regiment

4th Mechanized Brigade: 44th, 46th mechanized regiments, 43rd motorized regiment, 6th reconnaissance regiment (Light Dragoons), 38th engineer regiment, 32nd artillery regiment, 42nd logistics regiment

5th Artillery Brigade:  52nd, 53rd MLRS regiments, 56th air defense regiment, 41st logistic regiment

6th Airmobile Brigade : 36th attack helicopter regiment, 26th, 31st airmobile regiments, 10th, 30th transport helicopter regiments, 15th reconnaissance regiment (Hussars), 27th engineer regiment, 60th ground support regiment.

7th Mechanized Brigade:  5th tank regiment (Cuirassiers), 2nd, 37th mechanized regiments, 13th reconnaissance regiment (Hussars), 17th engineer regiment, 35th artillery regiment, 58th logistic regiment

8th Artillery Brigade:   51st, 54th MLRS regiments, 57th air defense regiment,70th logistic regiment

9th Training Brigade: 39th tank regiment (Carabiniers) (training), 33rd mechanized regiment, 29th mechanized regiment (training), 19 motorized regiment (training), 9th reconnaissance regiment (Uhlans) (training), 49th engineer regiment (training), 59th artillery regiment (training), 69th logistics regiment (training).

10th Territorial Reserves Brigade:  63rd reconnaissance regiment (cadre only), 61st, 62nd motorized regiments, 64th motorized regiment (cadre only), 50th artillery regiment, 55th engineer regiment (cadre only), 65th logistics regiment

All regiments are single battalions with three combat companies except for airmobile regiments, artillery regiments, and MLRS regiments.  Air mobile regiments have three combat companies, a weapons company, two commando companies, a medical company, a training company, a reserve company, and a logistics company.  MLRS regiments have two batteries.  Artillery has four batteries of four guns.  Tank regiments have Leopard 2A6.  Mechanized Regiments have Puma IFV.  Motorized Regiments have Boxer IFV except for the 3rd Light Infantry Brigade, which has Boxer APC's in the 22nd and 23 regiments..  Brigade Artillery Regiments have PZH2000.  Attack Helicopter Regiment has Tigre. Transport Helicopter Regiment has NH90.  Air defense regiments have two Gepard companies and two Roland companies.  There has been some discussion regarding separating the infantry formations from the helicopters of the airmobile brigade, creating two separate brigades, and placing them with the 10th territorial brigade under a third division command.

The army has two division headquarters that serve as administrative commands.   The first division has the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th brigades.  The second division has the 2nd, 4th, 8th, and 9th brigades.

Chaos at Chios

Having assembled enough ships I decided to run the Battle of Chios 201BC at the Miniature Wargaming Society of Sacramento meeting.   Phillip V of Macedonian had been forced to retreat from the siege he was conducting and was intending to flee to the island of Samos.  The combined fleets of Rhodes and Pergamon caught him and brought his fleet to battle near the island of Chios.  Polybius is the main source for the battle.   Phillip lost about half of the lembis and 28 of his larger ships.  The allied fleets lost seven ships.   There were two events of note during the battle.  One was Phillip's flagship accidently ramming one of his own ships when it crossed his path, getting stuck, and then being sunk by two opposing ships.   The other was Attalus flag ship running aground and being captured by Phillip along with the treasure on board.

I used the order of battle from the War Galley scenario converted to 1:1 scale except for the Lembi's in the Macedonian fleet.  As I only had 60 small ships they were scaled at 1:2.5 for the 150 Lembi's in the Macedonian fleet.  This gave Rhodes and Pergamon thirty-three "5's" each along with nine "3's" for Rhodes and three "3's" for Pergamon.   The Rhodian fleet was rated as well-trained giving them slightly more movement and a +1 for ramming.   The other fleets were rated as average.   The Macedonian fleet had three "10's", four "8's", five "7's", three "6's", eighteen "5's", eighteen "4's", three "3's", and sixty Lembi's representing the 150 Lembis that were present.  I also added a couple of  extra ships.  Rhodes got a "9"  and Macedonia got the "Katastrofea Ploion" a "12".   I may purchase a Navwar "16" and name it "Astro Thanatou".

The rules that were used were The Society of Ancient's version of "Corvus" with some modifications which I will cover later.  Mike O'brien commanded the Pergamon fleet, while Gary commanded the Rhodian fleet with Aaron as his subordinate.  Dave commanded the Macedonian fleet.  Both sides were allowed to deploy as they wished with the restriction that Rhodes was on the right and Pergamon on the left.

During the battle both sides conducted missile fire causing a few casualties.  The Lembis were considered to be destroyed if they suffered any casualties from missile fire or were rammed.  Both sides also attempted oar shears with mixed results.  There were quite a few ramming attempts.  A couple of times the rammers sank.   The Rhodians engaged in a few boarding actions and captured two Macedonian ships, one of which was rammed and wrecked by another Macedonian ship.  The Macedonians did capture a Rhodian ship.   Following the initial contact the fleets no longer maintained ordered lines and the ships sought individual targets.  I did not keep track of the number of turns that the game lasted, but after setup and explaining the rules it lasted a little over four hours.   The fleets spent three turns approaching each other before engaging in combat.   After several rounds of combat Macedonian losses exceeded their morale threshold and they fled.   The Macedonian right flank almost broke the Pergamon fleet which would have won the game for them.   The allies lost more ships than happened historically while the Macedonians had about the lost more lembis and fewer large ships.

Photos of the battle follow.  Though they are hard to see in the photos the Rhodian fleet had red markings, Pergamon green, Macedonia blue and grey with ship sizes on their bases.

 Initial deployment Macedonians on left, right-front to back Mike O'Brien Pergamon commander, Gary b.  Rhodes commander, Aaron M.  Rhodes sub-commander

 First turn  On the left from front to back Mike W., Dave R. (the Macedonian admiral).  

 the fleets approach

 from the other end.

Initial contact as Aaron attempts oar shears.  Aaron was plaqued by bad die rolls for most of the game

 The action continues as fleets become interspersed. 

boarding action near center bottom of picture

 Action in the center.  Macedonian flag ship at top center.  Rhodian ship near top right about to be rammed by four Macedonian ships.  Macedonian Lembis sneaking into the rear of the allied fleets in the gap between the two.

 Pergamon fleet engages Macedonians

 Battle devolves into a free-for -all  Allied right flank

 The center

 Pergamon flank maintains order as they opposing sides were the last to engage in combat.

Then the fleets engage.

 chaos on the Pergamon flank as combat continues

Allied right

 allied right flank

view from behind Macedonian center

 end of game center

 end of game Pergamon flank Rectangular blue markers are wrecks, square blue markers are crippled, H and white are temporary halt markers.  Small counters with numbers indicate ships that have taken missile casualties and their current boarding factor.  Original single-sided reference sheet at bottom right.  Ship with red and black marker at rear near the center of the photo is the Pergamon flag ship.

end of game center and Rhodian flank  I used the graphics program to divide the reference chart into two parts and enlarged it to fit on two sides of the paper.  I also made half-sized turning templates from the larger scale turning templates instead of using the smaller turning templates that came with the rules.

Bottom three photos by Mike O'Brien

The table cover is the back side of the space cloth I had purchased from JOANN Fabrics.  I was going to use it to photograph some spaceships and noticed that the back side looked like water, so I no longer needed to purchase an ocean table cover.

I used my computer to reduce the full size 1:600 turn and movement aids to half size instead of the included smaller turning and movement aids.   This allowed the more agile triremes to make an attack and turning maneuver they were capable of as mentioned in a previous blog post.

As I noted we used some house rules for the game as follows

HOUSE RULES FOR CORVUS

INITIATIVE – At the beginning of each turn after the first both players roll one die.  High score has choice of which side moves first or second that turn.  If the dice are equal, the side which did not have the choice on the previous turn gets to choose which side moves first or second for the turn.  Helps to avoid the tendency to stand off facing each other

SHIP SPACING – Ancient ships did not deploy oar-to-oar.  They usually kept far enough apart to avoid entangling their oars.   Though not mentioned in the rules, ships must keep about ½ unit  apart.  If friendly ships make side to side contact treat it as a collision per the rules.

MOVEMENT – A ship that is not crippled and is halted may pivot in place and face any direction.  Crippled ships may only pivot up to 90 degrees.   Ships that have rammed another must back up on the following turn to disengage their ram.

RAMMING – Change rule from having to move straight 4 units to ram to 2 units to ram.  This matches the movement chart.

DISTANCE SHOOTING – While ships sometimes used fire weapons for shooting, most of the time they did not.   Engines could shoot large bolts capable of piercing four inches of wood or stone/concrete balls weighing ten pounds (think cannonball).  If a hit is scored reduce the close combat factor by one.  Also, use the shooting factor for the class of ship with the equivalent of the reduced close combat factor.  For a close combat factor of 5 the shooting factor is 4.  

FIRE WEAPONS – If shooting fire missiles the range is halved.  If equipped with fire pots and the ship rams an opposing ship the fire pots may be dropped.  For missile fire the missile hits as it normally does.  Roll again and on an odd roll the target ship catches fire.  For fire pots the target ship catches fire on an odd roll also.

CREW QUALITY – (Optional) Well- trained crews cost 1 point extra and add 0.5 units to movement rate.   Poor crews cost one point less and deduct 0.5 units from movement rate.  

Other possible modifiers:                       

Ramming – Better quality crew than opponent add +1 to ram modifier.                                                    Oar Shear – Crew quality two levels higher than target also shear on a 5.   Crew quality two levels lower than target only shear on 4 or 6.  

One additional note.  We copied the 1/600 movement and turning aids and reduced them to half size for the 1/1200 ships instead of using the 1cm in place of an inch.