Thought I’d throw out a quick update on progress on various projects, I’ve never been one to sit and paint on just one project unless I’m really up against it for a show etc. So I usually have three or 4 things I’m painting at any one time, so depending on time, mood etc I can paint and make progress on something!
On Wednesday Steve came round for our regular gaming day, as we’d both been quite laid back about what to do I decided we’d do another scenario from the Great Battles of History series by GMT games. On this occasion I chose Heraclea a scenario the designers felt was the most balanced of all the scenarios they do.
The battle took place in 280 BC in Southern Italy involving Pyrrhus of Epirus and the Roman Consul P. Valerius Laevinus.
A short background - Pyrrhus had landed in Southern Italy but found that the much promised support from the Tarrentines and Greek colonists was significantly less than expected. However the Romans had likewise been caught off guard, one consul was in the North guarding agains a threatened Gallic invasion, an additional legion was policing the Samnites so Laevinus marched south into enemy territory faced with logistical problems of feeding his army Laevinus knew he had to bring Pyrrhus to battle quickly. Likewise Pyrrhus knew he needed a victory to bring more of the supposed allies to his banner and he was also aware of the supply issues facing the Romans. So Pyrrhus decided to take up a defensive posture set back from an inconsequential river near Hereclea. Lining the river with Light infantry and skirmishers Pyrrhus decided to let the Romans bring the fight to him.
The Romans obliged they had sent their right flank cavalry on a flank march and advanced along the line. The Roman velites gradually pushed the enemy back and the Roman flank march appeared and caused disarray amongst the Epirote skirmishers this allowed the main Roman lines to cross the river and attack.
The accounts seem to indicate that it was a hard fought affair along the line until Pyrrhus unleashed his 21 elephants. The Romans had never seen or encountered these beasts before and it tipped the balance with Romans losing the momentum and retreating, casualties on both sides were significant.
So an interesting battle to play. Key points in the game.
Seeing the elephant - where elephants initiate a combat the Roman player takes a quality check if it fails it takes casualties equal to the difference between its quality and the dice score!
The river penalises attacks ( melee and shooting ) from the river.
The Roman Triarii can’t move unless the enemy come within 3 hexes or all Romans are more than 6 hexes. Away. They can’t attack until the Romans have lost half or more of their break points.!
Taken from Pyrrhus’ side you can see Pyrrhus with his heavy cavalry on the left, the phalanxes in the centre and to their right Tarrentine MI and Heavy Infantry to their right light cavalry. The light infantry and skirmishers can be seen deployed along the river. The Romans are deployed in standard formation the cluster of counters top left are the Roman flanking force, they can come on two hexes either side of the river on any bound.
So as the Roman player my plan was to keep the flanking force off table until my main line was about to cross the river, Roman cavalry do not fair well against Heavy cavalry when attacking so they will not stand up to Pyrrhus and his cavalry. I would advance all the Roman infantry as quick as possible and cross the River, the main push would be on my left, the Roman cavalry have an advantage against Pyrrhus’ light cavalry on his right and I hoped to push through between the Phalanx and heavy infantry.
The first couple of bounds all went according to plan, the Roman cavalry on the left threw themselves over the river and went to engage the LC and as the Roman infantry advanced I drifted some Hastatii to my left to extend the line and had Princeps advance to cover the gaps, interestingly Steve seemed overly worried about my left flank cavalry and he sent the heavy infantry over to his right to hem my cavalry in he also sent some elephants to the right, although not in command and therefore can’t attack, my cavalry can’t move adjacent to them so again he was trying to shut me down.
So here you can see the Roman cavalry on the extreme left, ( we’ve both lost units) and his elephants and HI moving to close me off.His Tarrentine MI have advanced towards the river and there is now a gap opening between them and the Phalanx.
I got engrossed in the game and forgot to take a couple of photos but in summary my left flank cavalry were squeezed and eventually destroyed.All my commanders were focussed on the left and left centre and we pushed hard killing a number of Tarrentine MIforcing his skirmishers back I was able to launch and attack with Princeps on his end phalanx taking it in the flank, and extreme dice score saw it rout. On my right flank I had brought my cavalry on, they rode down a couple of light units but Pyrrhus hit them hard and destroyed more than 50% of the cavalry
Steve had also advanced with a phalanx engaging some Hastatii in a sluggin match. Because my commanders were over on the left most of my infantry on the right were out of command meaning they couldn’t attack but for some reason Steve didn’t press this thus allowing me to move troops to my right preventing Pyrrhus from coming round my flank!
About this time I could start to move my Triari within the rules they are restricted, being unable to move unless the enemy move within 3 hexes or there are no Roman units within 6. In addition they can’t attack until the Romans have lost 50% of their break point total. Again I split the formation the commander and half the units moving left the remainder moving right. Over the next two bounds Steve did start to move his heavy infantry back towards the left, they destroyed some Hastatii but were still some way off supporting his phalanx. He’d brought his skirmishers forward to provide some niggling fire on my troops who were forced to attack him and drive him away from the right flank of his Phalanx, The Princeps again launched an attack on the next phalanx in line and I managed to secure a second activation of their leader which saw another phalanx flanked and destroyed. I still couldn’t work out why Steve wasn’t pressing any attacks on hi left.
At the end of turn 6 the Romans had lost 97 points from a break point of 185, the Epirotes had lost 93 points from a break point of 125 and Steve conceded, believing there was no way could he stop me from taking down at least one if not two phalanxes and that would be effectively game over.
A couple of photos of end game
