Lost Battles Ilipa 206BC

In honour of The Society of Ancients Battle Day 2024 I set up the battle of Ilipa using Lost Battles by Philip Sabin, the successor rules to Strategos II which is still offered on the society's store page. It's been a very long time since I was a member and hope to re-join one day in the not too distant future.

The scenario was set up as per the book, but when I set the battle away I realised I mixed up the Roman commanders so they swapped wings in comparison to the published scenario. I took a few photos of the Roman deployment with the back scene before swapping them for the Carthaginian pictures.

Ilipa pitches a Carthaginian army of roughly 70,000 infantry, 4000 cavalry and 32 elephants versus the Roman army of about 45,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry. A significant numerical advantage to the Punic army and Scipio took measures to equalise the fight. It involved Scipio deploying for battle day in day out, with his best Roman troops in the centre and his Iberian allies on the wings only to not commit to a fight that day. Hasdrubal mirrored the deployment, his best African troops in the centre and Iberians on the wings until one day they were roused earlier to form up for battle, so like every other day they deployed as before, but without being fed or watered. 

However on that day Scipio was going to fight and his troops made sure they were prepared, furthermore Scipio's legions were opposing the Iberians on the wings and his allied Iberians were in the centre opposing Hasdrubal's African infantry. Now Scipio waited some time so that the Carthaginian infantry would feel the pang of hunger and being parched beyond human endurance. It was then when Scipio attacked. 

With the Carthaginians on the back foot hoodwinked by Scipio deployment, he then further troubled Hasdrubal's army by flipping the turn order, this after deploying in a position to attack, allowed Scipio to launch the first strike. The Roman allied Caetratii struck the first blow against the Balearic slingers. On Silanus' wing the Romans caused a hit against the Elephants and Scipio's wing began to press the Carthaginian Scutarii. Both cavalry wings began to attack and the Roman allied Scutarii in the centre advanced to further pressurise the wrongfooted Punic army.   

The Punic allied Iberian skirmishers are quickly brushed aside allowing Scipio's wing to rapidly apply pressure on the Punic right rear zone.

The isolated elephants brace the Roman assault taking a hit. 

Despite this aggressive and vicious Roman advance, the Carthaginian army was not too battered. The Iberian cavalry unleashed a thunderous charge against the veteran Roman cavalry shattering the unit, a very early blow but it barely caused the Roman army to flinch.  

The Iberian Cavalry swing around to threaten Scipio's wing

Fighting in the centre ensues, the Carthaginians hoping to break Rome's Spanish allies.

The Elephants, despite being spent, continue to cause concern to Silanus, while avoiding being shattered themselves.

The Iberians opposing Scipio, gave the legionaries much trouble, however become very fragile, but the Iberian cavalry operating behind the Legions becomes a distraction helping to prevent the Romans from inflicting that next hit, even with the personal leadership of Scipio. 

The Punic Right Wing holds its own and inflicts hits on the Romans.

The Iberian Cavalry descend on the Romans inflicting a double hit on the spent Velites, they break but Scipio manages to rally the Legionaries taking the second hit. 

The attack on the Elephants cause them to panic and inflict devastation on the Iberian Scutarii. 

After inconclusive fighting the Roman cavalry inflict a double hit on the Numidians but owing to their nimbleness the light horsemen manage to avoid being shattered outright. This continued for a few more rounds before the Romans eventually prevailed and would go onto threaten the Punic left wing.

The Liby-Phonecian infantry in the centre pressed home their attacks, becoming spent themselves to inflict double hits. However because of fatigue this would make their future attacks more difficult.

Two units of Liby-Phonecian heavy infantry become shattered and the Punic light troops rout with them but the centre holds and continues to fight but owing to their fatigue struggle to land any hits.

The Iberians manage to inflict hits on the Legions across the field but Scipio keeps the line intact by rallying the troops and a morale boost by his mere presence.

The Punic centre collapses after two further shatters, Scipio figured them to be his biggest liability but they proved themselves resisting the Punic attacks, with help from the fatigue suffered by Hasdrubal's army. He tried to rally his troops but was himself struck down.

Silanus' wing was under some pressure from the relatively fresh Iberians, he did manage to prevent a unit from breaking by rallying them.

The tired Iberian cavalry struggle to hit home with their attacks.

The victorious Iberians begin to march around the Punic rear, if the Punic allied Iberians had been fresh they may have prevailed against Scipio's wing, Scipio feeling relieved that his underestimation of the Iberians didn't end in disaster. Despite rallying away hits previously eventually a unit of Roman veteran Legionaries were shattered. The Romans counter attacked and shattered a unit of Scutarii sending the remnants of the Punic force into flight.

The fighting became more desperate on the Roman right, a veteran legionary unit was shattered also on this wing however the Iberians were taking hits themselves and with the looming threat of Roman cavalry they routed when they realised that the Punic Right wing fled, leaving them the last remaining troops on the field, so took to flight leaving the Romans to finally expel Carthage from Hispania. 

Victory points worked out from the book version:

Carthaginian losses: Shattered; AHI x 5,  AEL x 1,  ALC x 1, ALI x 1, Hasdrubal Killed.

Routed: ALI x 2,  AHC x 1, AHI x 7. 

127 VP for Rome

Roman losses: Shattered; VHC x 1, ALI x 1, VLE x 2.  

Routed ALI x 1. 

Spent; ALE x 2, VLE x 2, AHI x 4, ALI x 1.

71 VP for Carthaginians, a Major victory for Rome.

+46 VP for handicaps pushes it to a Narrow game victory for Rome. 

As ever Lost Battles provided a tense and interesting solo re-fight. I didn't expect the Roman cavalry to be shattered so quickly, but Scipio's greatest asset was the fatigue suffered by Hasdrubal's troops. With spent heavy infantry needing to roll an 11 to cause a hit there were quite a few 10s which would have shattered lots of Scipio's units had they have been under normal circumstances. This affected the cavalry also that kept falling short of a hit and despite their initial breakthrough were unable to capitalise on it. There were some hits landed that would have caused shatters but Scipio rallied 2 units and Silanus rallied 1, however they couldn't rally them all, the Carthaginians managed to cause quite a bit of damage to the Romans and fought well. Overall the best fighters on the field were the Iberians on both sides, the Romans and African infantry attested to that, as well as the Roman cavalry. 

Mithridates VI

I had never heard of the Kingdom of Pontus until I had played Rome Total War again I was fascinated, they were a faction that had both Hellenistic and Eastern style units and Roman imitation Legions. I soon learned of Mithridates VI who was a constant thorn in Rome's side. I read Philip Matyszak's Mithridates the Great: Rome's Indomitable Enemy over a decade ago and there are not many characters of the Ancient world much like the Poison King. Mithridates would take a very small amount of fatal poisons, making himself very ill of course, in turn building up a tolerance against poisons. Another favourite anecdote was how the paranoid king hid under a couch to eavesdrop and uncover a plot against him. His Kingdom gave Rome some trouble across three wars also so I felt that I had to create a 20mm version of him.

There is a bust believed to be Mithridates showing him as Herakles with the lion pelt cap, along with presenting himself as an Alexander type character and as a grandson of Antiochus IV Epiphanes I tried to combine aspects of these heritages. I used Newline Designs 20mm Kappadochian Cavalry Commander with Alexander the Great's Lion helmeted head and horse with Leopard pelt to create the King.

I haven't yet made any specific Pontic forces yet or their late Republican Roman enemies, but many of the Seleucid units and mid Republican Romans can do the job just as well. I do have plans to make some Pontic units basically in the form of pikemen and legions in a different paint scheme. Like wise I have Late Republican Romans in stock for down the line. However my goal currently is to finish the stuff for Lost Battles Magnesia (just archers left to rebase) and then move onto working towards Raphia, with Strength & Honour Skirmisher markers to knock up as well. With mainly having Punic wars stuff done I was fancying fighting a solo Punic wars campaign, possibly with Strength & Honour as I feel like that is a set of rules that will lend itself brilliantly to resolving campaign battles (once I have practiced more and I am competent with it).  

 

Velites skirmisher markers

I decided after playing Strength & Honour a few times that if I were to play 1 x 80mm base per unit, that it would be handy to have some individually mounted figures to show the presence of attached skirmishers. I've done this already for some rebased units with the spare figures that couldn't make up a full 6 man base. Also as I generally play via gridded games the individual bases wouldn't impact rules if they were to be used as a multi base.

I enjoyed making individual character as well out of these 20mm Newline Designs Roman Velites. The pack comes with 4 variations of velites and crucially not all are presented with the famous wolf pelt. The 2 velites in helmets and the bare headed skirmisher in a cloak apart from being useful for other armies allowed me to do some simple head swaps for a bit more variety. Below is a few examples of those swaps and 1 also has a sword that was shaped out of a crushed bristle that I use for spears.

I'm hoping to get some posts up soon of another ancient character I made and some Iberian warriors. I'm currently trying to power through another 2 bases of Iberians in the hope to set up a solo Lost Battles game and playing the Ilipa scenario in time for the Society of Ancients Battle Day. 

2d6 Ancients Play Test

 I invited my friend round for a miniatures table top battle, being like me a fan of Rome Total War and of ancient history. I had a bit of time before we could meet so I had set to picking up where I left off with my home brew rules. For quite some time, on and off, I have been working on the rules but the prospect of hosting a game I thought I'd better get a playable set written. There are a few hasty snaps that have been cropped to try to avoid the background furniture. Its not so much an AAR as some musings on how we found the rules. 

The main driving factor behind my homebrew rules is a way to fairly simply and satisfyingly resolve a battle within a campaign system. Its in essence a very derivate set with ideas plucked from various sets. The main being Lost Battles, the refights from that set give a very satisfying battle even as a solo play. Sabin's analysis of ancient warfare has always compelled me ever since reading The Face of Roman Battle, so Lost Battles provides the main inspiration for troop interaction and I like the use of 2d6 to resolve things. The troop types are broadly the same as Lost Battles also but units have 3 hits before they are broken and removed from the game. 

It should go without saying that it uses a grid which I have now marked out on my gaming cloth. When set up on the table it provided a 17x9 board. Its a 1 unit per space game currently and units have a simple how many spaces they can move, keeping it as simple as possible and only worrying about facings with certain troop types. Each unit also has a discipline rating and units represent large amounts of soldiers in the 1000s.

I decided that I would set up a fight based on the battle of Magnesia, that way I'd be able to get the Legions, Pikemen, Elephants, Cataphracts and Chariots. I made most of the Romans veterans with their allies being average (total of 24 units),  while I made the Seleucids mainly Levy with some average quality (29 units in all). Both sides had a skirmish line. I wanted the skirmish line to be able to close quickly have some decisive combat and then disperse not long after to allow the main fighting to occur. As a consequence Light Infantry are highly likely to take hits, and units can take up to 2 hits in a combat (unless they are cataphracts) and light infantry could easily take 2 hits.

With it set up I gave a brief overview of the units and rules. We diced off and winning the that I opted to go for the Seleucids and took the role of Antiochus. My friend therefore took the role of Scipio and had the first turn.

I opted for of a more DBA esque "PIP" system, along with command figures who provide command points in their vicinity. In essence the command points (momentum points or MP in the current version) allow the movement of troops and spares can be used for an attack bonus. If units are adjacent to each other in orthogonal spaces they can be activated as a group for 1 MP so the whole army could be moved forward which was the case for Scipio's army but he held his cavalry back. The light infantry surged forward this however while they are fresh can move without MP. There was no enemy units in reach for combat so whilst the Seleucids will get the first chance to strike the Roman advance provided the army with some breathing room for push backs. 

The Seleucids sent their levy light infantry forward using their MP free move to get into combat, the rest of the army advanced using a generals MP and the left wing cavalry could advance with their captains MP. The spare MP could be used for Attack bonus, an army also get a number of commands to be spent anywhere on the battlefield from a 2d6 roll, halved and rounded up. The Seleucid skirmishers inflicted a few single and double hits along the line but decided that to make the skirmish lines clash more decisive they wouldn't have to deal with push backs. Meaning the Roman skirmish line was in a position to retaliate from the start of the Roman turn.

The Seleucids had a couple of scythed chariots that were able to combat, again Lost Battles provided the inspiration for dealing with this, as once they attack or are attacked they are simply removed. In this instance they were a useless novelty.

Over the next few turns we got into the flow of the rules, and the skirmish lines save for a few hold outs melted away, the legions came to grips with phalanxes, elephants, cataphracts and heavy and light cavalry. Legions and phalanxes get a bonus (against heavy infantry) for being fresh and legions maintain this bonus when they have taken 1 hit (worn) but lose it when the second hit is taken (spent).  The infantry lines wore down slower but the Romans were doing well against the elephants and phalanxes. The left most veteran Legion was assailed by various light and heavy cavalry but held well. 

Scipio was hesitant to commit his cavalry and after both sides took hits eventually a unit of Seleucid Galatian horse remained but Antiochus was unable to make use of the victory, as losses were mounting against the poor quality levy troops. Firstly the use of attack bonuses and fighting levies was paying off, the poor morale meant that they were being pushed back and in the Seleucid turn their command points were being used to get back into combat instead of attack bonuses. 

As they lost heavy units and elephants (every third unit) the Army Morale was tested, 2d6 were rolled, then that score was compared to each units discipline rating any unit that didn't pass takes a hit, the first Army Morale roll didn't cause too much damage but a further rout, causing a discipline test to friendly units in the routing unit's vicinity again caused further hits and that in turn caused further routs and another army morale roll. After the morale drop cascade there was a couple of Seleucid units left so Antiochus called the retreat the battle was over. 

The battle from start to finish took 2 and a half hours but that included getting used to the rules and sequence, tweaking things, food and chatting. It would have probably lasted a few more turns if the Seleucids were better quality and the morale collapse were not so severe. 

I will have another tweak and trial of that system but, it may be redundant as it just compounds an already dire situation. The other option is to add complexity so that the first Army Morale roll is not as devastating, but complexity is what I'm trying to avoid as much as possible. I do like the Strength and Honour setback system and army morale being a set number, mainly as that system can lend itself to a campaign setting where an army's morale can increase or decrease depending on the strategic context.

Another question that came up with combat was about Elephants. I was wondering if elephants were able to retreat in order then be herded back into combat? Some of the rules that I have at home seem to allow this and it's a given that elephants have some form of stampede into your own line sort of disadvantage under certain conditions. However the impression I have of Elephants in combat is they were not just trained elephants but the family heard funnelled into combat and that would make giving ground in good order very difficult. It's not a subject I'm well informed on. Maybe making them more likely to stampede but more hard hitting might be worth trying.

Although nothing in game was negatively affected I need to tighten up the zone of control rules, they can be simplified and clarified better. Overall it felt like how an ancient battle might have unfolded. The dice threw enough uncertainty into the game and there was a Levy Skirmisher that was a thorn in the legionaries' side which provided some entertaining dice rolls! Overall for its first outing they were successful. They provided an enjoyable game with very little rules checking, save for using a QRS and gave a plausible outcome.

Philip II of Macedon

After spending time as a hostage in Thebes Philip would have seen the height of Theban power and undoubtedly took what he learned in his time their to make Macedonia what it became. Iphicratean hoplites, lighter equipment, smaller shields but longer spears, easier and cheaper to equip, and the lessons of the Theban column inspired Philip to take his poor countrymen and create a infantry backbone that would dominate the eastern Mediterranean for the next few centuries. With this Macedonian Phalanx his son Alexander was able to become "Great".  

I was inspired to make this simple conversion when I got hold of the 20mm Gladiator set from Newline Designs, it featured a gladiator with a head that could pass as the Macedon King! I simply used the body of Newline Alexander much like Ptolemy to achieve what I wanted. Then it became a simple one for one head swap, the counter figure with Alexander's head became Tigris of Gaul. The only other addition was the creation of the sword, a squished bristle trimmed and shaped into a blade.

I also got hold of a backscene for model railway, the hope was to find something suitable for the ancient world, so these Welsh hills seem ideal. The odd modern build is easy to cover. I'm hoping to employ them for in game photos also.   

"My son ask for thyself another kingdom

For that which I leave is too small for thee"