Battle of River Bagradas 255BC

 

This was the climactic battle of the First Punic War. The Carthaginians hired a Spartan mercenary General named Xanthippus, who with the help of 100 elephants, trampled the Roman army of Regulus into the dust.

We used the excellent Neil Thomas Rules, except as usual we upped the number of units to around 20 per side, the Romans had one extra, and played until only side had lost over half its bases at which point it was deemed to be broken.

Deployment was historical, with the Romans forming a compact mass, and the Carthaginians despite smaller numbers attempting to encircle them.

As the armies closed, the Roman velites opened up on the elephants much to the annoyance of the Carthaginian general, who countered by charging them with warband Spanish who made mincemeat of them.

On the flanks the outnumbered Roman cavalry refused to be drawn out and oiutnumbered by Numidians, who had to be content with largely ineffectuve javelin fire.

Meanwhile in the centre the warband hit the legionaries and after initial success were being worn down. The Roman maniplar line extensuion rule paid dividends in close combat.

The Carthaginans unleashed the elephants and met with mixed results - head on with leginaries both sides suffered heavily, one elephant went berserk an shattered a unit of Carthaginia heavy infantry, another hit a Roman ally unit in the flank and destroyed it in one turn!

Gradually the superior morale of the Romans began to tell, and the superiority of legion vs plalanx wore down the Carthaginian heavy infantry.

Most of the elephants had been destroyed and the cavalry had proven ineffective.

It was a very exciting game withe the advantage swinging from one side to the other, but it became clear that the Romans had on this occasion changed the course of history.

The armies line up

Elephants - the pride of Carthage

The elephants are from Poundland, one is an old Britains model, howdahs made by my wife.

Serried ranks of Romans

Pesky velites

Roman allies

Elephants trample legionaries

Romani eunt domum!

Infantry clash in the centre

Elephant in the flank - 16 attacks with no save rolls!

Cavalry charge elephant - bad idea.

Romans grind down the opposition.

Battle of the Black Gate

 

So Ed and I decided that it was a high time that we played another Lord of the Rings game, and of course we used now favourite rules, War of the Sundered Realms.

the battle we chose is the final battle of the third age when the forces of the West March into Mordor.

if you are reading this you will know the story well so I won't rehearse it, suffice to say that the forces of the West take up defensive positions on two hills against overwhelming odds.

the forces of the West set up with a mixture of men of Gondor and men of Rohan, with Gandalf in charge on one hill and Aragorn on the other.

they were surrounded by a horde of orcs, goblins, Easterlings, trolls, led by the mouth of Sauron.

the westerners chose to mount an active defence and the men of Rohan and the Knights of Dol Amroth charged turn off the hills into the enemy ranks. 

The Rohan horse spent the rest of the game rampaging around the table knocking over orc units, however the smaller unit of men of Dol Amroth was quickly surrounded and overwhelmed.

we gave the defenders of the hill an extra point of defence to reflect the fact that they were on the hills and this prove to be very significant in the determination of melees.

on the hill held by Aragorn, the assault of the Easterlings was met by tough resistance, and although one unit of Rohan infantry was wiped out by Easterling archery, the unit of 1970s Citadel Guard polished off another unit of Easterlings without a single casualty! the Easterlings then failed to get on the hill.

the troops under Gandalf's command had a much tougher time of it, orc archery whittled them down, and the early loss of the Knights of Dol Amroth left a gap which the orcs could exploit.

On the other hill, Gandalf intervened with a couple of fireballs which devastated one of the attacking orc units. at this point the Mouth of Sauron decided to lead the charge, unfortunately Gandalf  cut him down in short order.

The Mouth of Sauron is a really old Asgard figure which has led the forces of Mordor since the 1970s! The Gandalf figure is of a similar age.

at this point in the game forces of Mordor were spent, we rolled for the arrival of the Eagles, but they refused to turn up. Despite heavy losses on both sides it was clear that the forces of the West had a slight advantage.

it was actually a close fought game, great to get the figures on the table, many of which are old casts from the 1970s and 1980s.

And another triumph for these excellent rules!

Vintage Trolls

1970s Minifigs Citadel Guard