Ruspina 46 BCE

"Caesar once again returned to the town of Ruspina, drew up his camp there, and then set out himself with thirty cohorts in light order to forage."

Yesterday I ran an extended version of the Ruspina 46 BCE battle that is one of my favourite ancient engagements. NB all photos are clickable! 

Below are the massed Numidian cavalry, thaaaasands of them (well, 120).

The miniatures are almost all Foundry Numidians or Caesarians, with a degree of admixture of Crusader and conversions from other ranges. 

Above, lines of grim-faced legionaries. Below Caesar surveys the situation. In To the Strongest! terms he is a brilliant general, and very handy, too!

  

More Numidians, above and below.

Above, I based some palms with the minis, just for fun. Below, you can see how well the BatBases blend in with the Sagebrush Steppe design mat. Look- no straight lines!

We played the first part of the battle, twice, with novice players; everyone seemed to have fun, especially the kids, one of whom played for the third year in a row. SELWG is always a fun show! Huge thanks to chum Ian for the beautiful photography and to Mike Brian and his son Alex, and Robert, for helping with setup, and to the SELWGers. Thanks also to Foundry for the nellie and hippo and 1st Corps for all the sheep!  :-)

PS We have one place left on Saturday for a rerun of the battle at the Wargames Holiday Centre, near Basingstoke,; I'm also running the battle of Gaza with Demetrius Poliocretes, elephants and a forest of pikes.  If you are free drop me a line, i believe the day's gaming costs £75.

With Ruspina to SELWG!

The annual SELWG show (Crystal Palace on Sunday week) is now just ten days away and I'll be putting on a rather grand game of To the Strongest!

Ruspina is one of Caesar's less well known battles, but one of my favourites because the great man came within a whisker of defeat. It is also an asymmetrical battle, with legionaries matched against masses of light troops. Here are some shots of the game as run earlier this year at the Wargames Holiday Centre; I hope to have a couple more units finished by Sunday week. All photos are clickable!

There will be Romans, Caesar and baggage...

...there will be elephants... savage Germans and proud Pompeians....

...and probably more Numidians than you will ever have seen on a gaming table!

If you are coming and want to play or help or both, please mail me or post in comments!

Fun at the Wargames Holiday Centre

The Metuarus

Last weekend I decamped to the WHC "Annex" with a fair proportion of my collection, for a jolly weekend's gaming. I call it the "Annex" because there were too many games to fit in the WHC proper, so Mark and I hired a suite in the hotel where the gamers stayed. This proved very comfortable and convenient, and maximised both gaming and drinking time! Some of the gamers took full opportunity of this and looked a little ragged on day two, mentioning no names, Andrew.  ;-)

Above is the pre-game packing, and below the fully-loaded BigRedBatmobile. Minis and terrain for four games (AndrewBrentnall brought the fifth).

Here are photos of the games, in no particular order.

The largest battle was Ipsus 301 BCE (above and below).  This had over 2000 miniatures and was 18' long, played on a special mat which Deep-Cut tell me is their largest they have ever made. I've just sold another one, so there are two of them, now! Below is a new elephant in his first battle.

Above is a view of the central sector of the Ipsus battlefield.

Chum Andrew Brentnall ran a splendid Edgehill battle in 12mm, above and below. This was very popular- we will be running it at Partizan in May, and for the Uxbridge boys (who missed out on the chance to play) if I can think of a way. The new ECW rules worked seamlessly.

Flanked!

More shots of Ipsus, above and below.

Above, scythed chariots inflicted terrible blue-on-blue casualties in several of the Ipsus games. Ipsus is so large it can take up to a dozen players at a time- most of the other games took six.

Above my new Persians, painted by The Shauns (Watson at back, McTague at front).



This battle above and below is Ruspina, 46 BCE. It's a an interesting, asymmetrical game with hordes of Numidians surrounding Caesar's recruits. It was very popular- fought four times I believe, with victories to both sides.

Above- Romans attack at Ruspina- you can see the playing cards that most people use with To the Strongest!

Ruspina- the Romans glimpse the cornfields beyond the ridge-line, and a mass of Numidian reinforcements (including elephants, below)!

Ruspina again- Roman baggage can be seen, below. I have lots of pack mules now.

Above and below- the Metaurus. Velites above race Gauls (below) for the ridgeline- the velites take it! I am very proud of my heather.

And last but not least is the Frigidus, the Eastern and Western Empires slog it out to see whether the Christian East or resurgent pagan West would triumph.

Above, the Leones Iuniores defend the valley for the West. Below, there were lots of Goths in this battle.

...and lots of cavalry!  The unit in the left foreground, below, is on my 20cm grid deep base- the back strip has been placed at an angle, to show that it is disordered.

So these are the only photos I managed to take, I hope you enjoyed them! I now have a relative lull until the next WHC event*, which will probably be in October. I'm thinking about games for this- one will be definitely be Leuctra with a super-deep Theban phalanx.. If you fancy coming along drop me or Mark Freeth a line and we'll let you know dates.

*(Aside from finishing the ECW rules and basing my ECW army).

Ruspina 46BC

I fought the battle of Ruspina 46BC, with mate Ian, tonight (all pics clickable).

Ruspina is a really interesting engagement, as the forces were asymmetric; Caesarian Roman legionaries fought against very large numbers of Numidian light troops, under Labienus, who encircled them on a featureless plain.  I wanted to see whether the rules I am developing would work with this unusual engagement, and they did, rather well.  I set up a relatively large table with open flanks and a complete lack of terrain.

Initially the Numidians moved forward, but a bit too fast; they were soon pushed back by Roman charges, and several units were caught and destroyed. It wasn't going at all well!

Later, however (as shown below), gaps emerged in the thin Roman line, and Numidian units penetrated through these, and lapped around its left flank. The consequent flank and rear charges, and Numidian superior numbers, told, and we judged Labienus and Petreius would have been victorious in a turn or two. 

Learning points were that the Caesarians need to be in a double line (rather than a single one), the next time we try it. Reading between the lines of the Caesar's Civil Wars text, I really do think that they must have been in a double line, on the day, rather than the single line suggested in my translation. 

'Twas an enjoyable game, which threw up a few ideas that I'll build into the rules, tomorrow.

Ruspina 46BC Part IV; To the Green Fields, Beyond?

Here we are for the fourth and final installment of this After Action Review.  The previous part is here if you've not already read it.

Here's a view of Casear's right wing.  The poor Caesarian archers are completely isolated and surrounded by light cavalry!  Labienus, in the middle distance has moved down the hill, and out of Caesar's charge range.

 

Above is the situation in the centre.  The main Roman force is inclining to the right, and Caesar was thinking that the schwerpunkt of his thrust would be near the central palm tree.

 

Labienus' body language is looking a little stressed as the Caesarian Cohorts converge towards the palm on the hill.  The newly arrived Numidian army under Petreius has been trying to move to block them.

 

And it's not improved on the following turn either, as the Caesarians pile forwards! 

 

Argh!  General Petreius plays a double time and hurtles down from the hill into the Caesarian line. 

 

He doesn't inflict great casualties on the Romans, but is in a position to hit them again, next turn.

 

In the Caesarian turn, they encircle and subsequently destroy two Numidian cavalry units (above).  In his next turn, Caesar only needs to move a unit or two off the table (towards the elusive granaries) to win.

 

But Labienus has one turn left befor that happens.  To win, before Caesar is able to win next turn, he needs to be able to kill 4 units.  His best card allows him to activate only three units so it is very difficult to achieve this... However he is lucky in that his first three attacks are successful and each kill a unit, wiping out two low-strength Roman formations and the last survivors of the Caesarian archers.  The third attack was with a unit including his general, which is therefore entitled to a momentum attack.  Can General Petreius roll three hits on three dice, to kill a fourth Caesarian unit?

 

He shoots, he scores!   Labienus/Petreius win by the narrowest of margins, 8 blocks to 7. 

 

Final view of the battlefield.

Of all the rule systems I've played, Command and Colors comes up time and time again with the closest, most exciting finishes.  Although defeated, I particularly enjoyed this game, and hope to replay it this week as the Numidians.