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 Flodden 1513 using Neil Thomas rules.

 

So for the latest game we did the battle of Flodden which was fought in 1513. historically this was a disaster for the Scots who lost most of their nobility and their king in the battle.

in the re fight the Scots had 18 units to the English 15. all of the Scots were infantry the English had two units of border horse.

most of the Scots were pikeman, with four units of Highlanders. the English infantry or either bill or Bowman.

Flodden is not a battle with a great deal of tactical finesse!

The Scots decided to push on either flank and not attack in the middle, they lost a lot of bases to English archery fire in the first three turns. once it came to close quarters they were at an advantage against the English Archers, the billmen were a tougher nut to crack. as before the victory condition was that the first side to lose over 50% of its bases was declared the loser.

after a tough fight on either flank the Scots just managed to squeeze it, the English losing two bases over the 50% mark, for the Scots or two bases under the 50% mark. so it was very close.

we did make some changes to the rules to take into account how the battle was fought on the day. so we did not use the schiltron rule, instead we said that the leading Scots pike blocks would count as having heavy armour to reflect the fact that there were heavily armoured nobles in the front ranks and also they used pavises. this proved to be decisive when the Scots moved into melee.

the Highlanders were a glass hammer, very vulnerable to archery, while their ability to move fast meant that they could do a lot of damage once they got close. I did not have any suitable figures so I had to use some fantasy Vikings to represent them.

the game did make me think that longbow is too effective in the rules, certainly for this battle. historically the longbow was not decisive in this in this battle, but in the refight the Scots lost nearly a quarter of their army to longbow fire before they got into close combat. and that's with the heavy armour rule described above. in future games I think we will try reducing the effectiveness of longbow, either removing the armour modifier or ruling that it hits on a four plus flight most other missile weapons.

General view of the battlefield

English archers

And billmen

And guns

Highlanders

Scots King and nobles

Scots pike blocks

Scots attack English right

A desperate melee ensues

Scots attack on the left.