Conference Special: The Sword of God - Khalid ibn al-Walid (part two)

Khalid ibn al-Walid ... strategy, tactics, battles

Picking up where we left off in Part One ...

  ... Mobility and use of concealing terrain were signatures of Khalid's generalship, and he would regularly find himself outnumbered.  Using what you might call an army-level version of traditional Arab raiding tactics, he would often attempt to pin the enemy into position without fully engaging ... in order to outmanoeuvre and envelop the enemy - compensating for numerical weaknesses with local advantages.  We see this in the Arab civil wars, and in the wars against Persia.  It should come as no surprise that this is what we see at Yarmuk ...

Early career: Uhud ... the battle of the mountain ...

March 625 ... the Arab Wars: the Muslims were fighting the Meccans for supremacy.  Khalid is commanding the Meccan cavalry wing.  A lot of the details of this battle seem mythical, but it is clear that, though outnumbered, the Muslims were able to drive the Meccan main divisions backwards.  The Muslim left flank was held by a body of archers on a hill.  As victory neared, those archers, rather than hold their position guarding the flank, instead chose to take the opportunity to raid the Meccan baggage, leaving the flank open.  Khalid was able to move his cavalry unseen and unopposed around the flank and fall on the rear of the main body.

Legends recount how, before this battle, a number of duels occured around the Meccan standard bearers, costing many of them their lives.  The victories of their champions bolstered the morale of the outnumbered Muslims - and dulled the enthusiasm of their enemies.  It is evident from the accounts of battle in other theatres in this period, as well, that the duels were more than just romanticisations by story tellers.  The men in the ranks were clearly affected by these challenges such that commanders could not simply pass over them (it seems a challenge had to be responded to ... and that the outcome was important).

I have borrowed this plan from Wikipedia.  As above, the accounts of the battle don't allow me to verify much of the detail on the plan, but it may help you understand the broad position ...

 

 

... it probably means that Khalid left a gap in trying to gain an outflanking position - and the archers obligingly rushed through it.  How deliberately this came about is not clear, however, I suspect Khalid saw something happen that day that informed many of his later battles.

 

Arguably, Khalid should have fallen on the archers and protected his own army's rear zone - but he was clearly (then and later) prepared to sacrifice the camp for the chance of taking a battle-winning position beyond/through concealing terrain into the enemy's rear..

 

The key elements: a large mobile cavalry reserve/wing; the opportunity to attack/loot the camp pulling the enemy out of position; pre-battle duels taking out enemy commanders; willingness to expose the camp; encirclement hidden by terrain; victory out of the jaws of defeat.

In 627, Khalid embraced Islam and was given high command in the Muslim armies.

In the subsequent Meccan campaign, he commanded the Muslim Bedouin contingents, which probably gave him the opportunity to to perfect his art of rapid movement, especially in barren and desert areas with minimal supply. Mobility and supply was enabled by large numbers of camels ... the Arabs then dismounting or transfering to horses for battle.

 

The Destruction of Persia

 

The battles of Khalid's campaign against the Sassanids are marked by his clear superiority in manoeuvre over larger but more ponderous enemy forces.  Swift movements allowing Khalid to choose either to hit unexpectedly or to draw battle out over several days to wear the enemy down and strike when the advantage was secured.

At the Battle of the Chains (so called, because we are told that the men of the Persian centre were linked together by chains), April 633, Khalid made a series of marches and counter marches in the days before the battle in order to tire and confuse the enemy.  Marked by Kazimah on the map, battle was joined only when Khalid was satisfied with the propects for victory.  As he would do in later battles, Khalid deployed with the desert forming a safe zone behind him, and repeatedly attacked the fatigued Persian flanks until they were forced to withdraw, exposing the immobile centre.  The centre was destroyed.

Next, at the Battle of the River (near the Euphrates at Uballa), April 633, Khalid was able to strike more rapidly than the Persians expected as they assembled a new army in the aftermath of defeat at the Chains.  The Persians had the river to their rear, on which they were transporting recruits and supplies for the army.  Khalid moved quickly to battle this time while he had the opportunity to trap the enemy against the river.

The duels that preceded the battle are interesting to consider ... all 3 Persian commanders were apparently killed .. Against the commander of the enemy centre, Khalid allowed his place to be taken by a champion swordsman*, following his victory, the commanders of the wings rode forward and, again, we are told both the Persian leaders fell.  Assuming the stories to be true, and judged with knowledge of the outcomes, to describe this bravado by the senior Persians as foolhardy seems an understatement.

The Battle of Walaja: May 633 .. the Persians were able to regroup, and massed 2 armies to defeat the Arabs ... each nearly twice the size of Khalid's expedition.  Khalid moved quickly to prevent the armies combining - intending to take out the army at Walaja first.

Realising that he needed to anihilate the force at Walaja, Khalid risked weakening his outnumbered force by separating 4,000 of his best cavalry from the army, 'disappearing' them into the undulating landscape so that when he had drawn the Persians into an attack, they could appear from concealment behind the enemy's flanks.  A hybrid double envelopment by ambush, if you like ...

 

(Map by Mohammad adil at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

This mastery of the landscape seems remarkable, given that Khalid was operating on enemy territory (however, the Walaja army was arriving by ship, so may largely have been, in reality, no more 'local' than the Arabs are) ...

As the battle pressed on, Khalid is said to have ordered the centre slowly to fall back, while the wings held their ground, drawing the Persians into a killing zone.  This is very reminiscent of Hannibal's tactic at Cannae ... It is normal to wonder whether such subtle movements are really so controlled - or whether fortuitous effects are recorded as planned and commanded with victor's hindsight.  However, allowing the enemy to press forward, feeling they are on the brink of victory does seem a Khalid trademark.

Three further battles were fought in this phase of the conquest of Persia before Abu Bakr recalled Khalid and deployed him against Byzantine Syria/Palestine.  At the battle of Ullais, Khalid defeated and killed Christian Arab tribal chief Abdul-Aswad in a duel.  Reports suggest that thousands of Persian soldiers were beheaded when they were trapped by the river as they fled.

With Khalid sent West, the final victory over Persia would not be until 651 and the death of Yazdegerd III (grandson of the great Chosroes II)

SYRIA

Abu Bakr died in 634 and his successor Umar seems to have confirmed Khalid as supreme commander over the forces in Syria.

After a march through the desert and a decisive victory at Ajnadayn, where he united his force with several other, including Amr al As, Khalid finally attacked and conquered Damascus on 18 September 635.  Learning from spies that the Byzantines were massing two huge armies to recover the lost teritories, in the Spring of 636, Khalid withdrew into the desert plateau above the Yarmuk river ..

Yarmuk

We have discussed Yarmuk previously, so this will be a summary.  Although, evaluated on its own, Khalid's victory seems unusual, surprising, very fortuitous etc. I believe, in the light of Khalid's previous victories, we should probably attribute more to judgement than to luck.

(my map of Yarmuk from the Great Battles of History book)

The pattern has a familair ring ... having drawn the enemy to a battlefield he has chosen, the fighting itself is drawn out over several days.  Although the Byzantines try to avoid being pulled out of position, they find the battlefield opening up and are able to attack the Muslim camps, which pulls them forward.  Fighting with the open space of the desert behind him, only when the Byzantines are fully committed, does Khalid deploy some of his reserve to hold the line.

The battle is preceded by a number of duels which go the Arab way, and in which the Byzantines lose a number of high-ranking officers.  Khalid allows this to go on, and it forces the Byzantines to attack.

Although heavily outnumbered, Khalid had massed a significant proportion of his cavalry into a mobile reserve under his direct command.  After several days of intermittent fighting, duelling and repositioning of forces, the mobile guard somehow disappeared into the landscape, and when the enemy was fully committed, they reappeared behind the enemy's open flank and were able to engulf them, isolating the infantry centre.  

Attempting to withdraw, the mass of the Byzantine army found that Khalid's men had taken the key passages across the Yarmuk and have trapped them against the river (in this case, the steep ravine edge that descends to the river). 

The road back to Damascus was open ... the Byzantine armies were smashed, as was the empire in the Levant.  

Shortly after his epoch defining victory, Khalid was removed from command and, effectively, retired by Caliph Umar - apparently for fear of the development of a personality cult around the veteran war leader.

Khalid died in 642, and had remained undefeated in over 50 battles ... his victories were cornerstones of the rapid expansion of Islam in the Middle East and around the shores of the Mediterranean.

* according to legend, Khalid spurred up his horse to accept the challenge, but Maqal bin Al Ashi charged forward determined to get there first - recognising both his zeal and his status as a swordsman, Khalid chose not to recall him.  Which seems very prudent ... especially if Khalid made enough of an effort for it to be clear to the soldiers that Maqal got there first due to his exceptional courage and fervour, rather than any reticence on Khalid's part.  Or am I starting to sound cynical? At Walaja, Khalid himself is said to have fought the main duel, and won ... so he was clearly capable in this respect.  I imagine, at Walaja, that Khalid was happy to run the clock a bit, in order to bring his flanking forces into play ..

Conference Special: The Sword of God - Khalid ibn al-Walid (part one)

 PART ONE: FLATS, BATTLES and PROJECTS

(slides from my SoAC talk)

My fascination with Khalid started some years ago, with the arrival of some new recruits to my ancients collection. 

  

(The Phil Barker flats unpacked)

Phil Barker had joined in one of the Tony Bath sessions I had put on using the 'Derryck Guyler' flats*, and, appreciating my interest in the origins of the ancients wargame, offered to add his 1960s flats to the collection (they were, by then, just stacked away in shoe boxes, and he was aware that I would get them onto the wargames table).

In addition to a large number of Tony Bath originals**, the bulk of Phil's donation was, as we see in the picture, an Early Imperial Roman army.

 

(the Romans, on show in Reading)

But in amongst them were a fair number of what I would consider (what today we would probably identify as) Byzantines, Sassanids and Arabs.

 

(refurbished - the Arabs and Byzantines)

 

I would configure the Romans and related figures into a Bath rules wargame - but it was obvious to me that I had a second project here: a Dark Age/Flowering of Islam collection ... maybe another DBA spin off (just as the Guyler flats spawned both the Plataea game and Lords of the Nile, this new addition would give me a classic Bath rules Roman game and a clash between the Byzantines and Arabs.

 

(Lords of the Nile: a DBA V3 sample game at Vapnartak)
  

The Lords of the Nile was a game we took to shows as a participation game while V3 was being playtested (I had declined to be a playtester but had told Phil that I would be happy to receive development versions and use them at shows so that people could see how things were going).  

 

It went very well, so I was looking for a Byzantine-Arab battle that would make a suitable scenario which could replicate the LotN effect for the later period.  Ideally a battle a flat open battlefield from the Rise of Islam featuring Arabs, Byzantines, Sassanids etc. Well, something like Byzantines, Armenians, Persians and Arabs on both sides - that would be Yarmouk, perhaps.

 

(the DBA V3 Yarmuk game in the hands of Society luminaries Paul Stein, Duncan Head and LVP Matt Bennett)

To understand Yarmuk, you need to know more about Khalid, and that is where my journey began. Yarmuk is conventionally described as a collossal battle fought over 4 or 5 days in which a vastly outnumbered Khalid manages to rescue his army from the brink of deteat - repeatedly - until finally being able to pull off a stunning victory (appearing behind the enemy's lines and swallowing the whole army up).  It is a lot to get your head around.

    

(cavalry action at Yarmuk from SoaC 16: the Arabs are driven back onto the line of their encampments)

An  analysis, though of Khalid's career and previous battles can make sense of this.  Mobility and use of concealing terrain were signatures of Khalid's generalship, and he would regularly find himself outnumbered.  Using what you might call an army-level version of traditional Arab raiding tactics, he would often attempt to pin the enemy into position without fully engaging ... in order to outmanoeuvre and envelop the enemy - compensating for numerical weaknesses with local advantages.  We see this in the Arab civil wars, and in the wars against Persia.  It should come as no surprise that this is what we see at Yarmuk.

KHALID IBN AL-WALID  خالد بن الوليد بن المغيرة المخزومي

Khalid was born in Mecca of the leading clan of the Quraysh.  He opposed the preaching of the prophet, and had lost many relatives in the struggle.  However, in around 629, Khalid and Amr ibn al-As convert to Islam and join the Prophet.  Khalid took control of the army in Jordan and was rewarded by the Prophet with the title Sayf Allah - the sword of God.

Khalid led the Arab armies for 9 years on all fronts and was undefeated in over 50 battles.  A career warrior, he died in his bed in Medina in 642. 

The following slide shows how his life and times fit within the context of the Middle East:

His major victories were .. 625, Uhud;   629: Mu’tah;   630: Hunayn;  632: Buzakha, Yamama;  633: the battle of the chains, the battle of the river, Aqraba, Ullais, Walaja;   634: Marj Rahit, Bosra, Ajnadayn, Fahi;   636: Yarmuk,  637: Quanasrin.

In the second part, we will look at what we can learn from these battles.

(the battle of Uhud from a later Ottoman manuscript volume)

* the first collection of flats, coutesy of Steve and the Salford friends (Gentlemen Pensioners), which had originally been bought from TV star (and former SoA President) Derryck Guyler.

** i.e. unlicenced copies Tony had made for himself in plaster moulds.

Ancients Stuck at Home #n: 22-23 May, Virtual SoAC 02

(Surely one of the most flipped Ospreys of our period: Nick Sekunda on the army of Alexander) 

14 Months on, we have the prospect of lockdown being fully eased within a few months ... but for now, our 13 year journey following the Shows North team on the move is still stuck at home.

Last year's Virtual SoAC I was, of course, a response to this - the annual Conference I have supported from the start back on 1986 (and co organised in the 90s with Ian Russell Lowell) had to be cancelled, and that year's content (including my presentation on Khalid ibn al-Waleed) was delivered online.

You will be able to see the 'Sword of God' material in a forthcoming issue of Slingshot - but I should probably put a few slides up here to keep the information out there.

So, this year, we hope there will be 2 conferences ... in addition to our second online event over this last weekend, the 'face-to-face' conference, now at Madingley Hall, should be back in the Autumn.

And, assuming the feedback is positive, I imagine the plan is to go forward with 2 conferences a year: an online one in the Spring, and a residential one in the Autumn.

ONLINE CONFERENCE II (line up)

Saturday 22nd May, 4 til 6: 

Prof Michael Fredholm: The Early History of the Goths, from Berig to the Battle of Adrianople 378AD.

Dr Gareth C Sampson: Never Mind Mithridates - Lucullus, Pompey and the Armenian Empire.

Sunday 23rd May, 4 til 6:

Mark Fry: Sassanid Infantry - a re-evaluation 

Prof Nicholas Sekunda: The Army of Alexander - then and now (where “then" relates to the publication by Professor Sekunda in 1984 of the Osprey Men-at-arms book “The Army of Alexander the Great”)

The hot news from the conference is that Adrianople will be the BattleDay in 2022, so this all hangs together rather nicely.  Michael's talk on the Goths follows Simon MacDowall at SoAC 2019 and further enriches our understanding.

Gareth Sampson's talk took us East, to the last gasps of the Republic, and to Tigranes the Great, one of Rome's most resilient opponents.  It nicely set up Mark Fry's Sunday session on the successors to the Armenians and Parthians, the Sassanid Persians.

I was fascinated by this talk, as Mark attempted to understand, to reconstruct - and to some extent rehabilitate - the Sassanian heavy infantry ... regular, armoured archers ... heavy, mail-shirted swordsmen etc.

 

 

 

Some of the suggestions were quite convincing, and go some way to explain one of the points I had made in the Khalid talk last Autumn: the Arab sources are quite clear that Khalid's advantage against the Persians came from exploiting the mobility his cavalry gave him over a relatively ponderous and static enemy. 

This doesn't hang well with the traditional wargamerly perception of the Sassanids as a cavalry army.  However it falls out, large numbers of solid infantry were certainly employed against the Arabs - and Khalid's cavalry were able to defeat their wings and envelope the centre.  

So Mark's ideas certainly have some credibility with regard to the Arab wars. 

 

 

I was particularly fascinated by Nick Sekunda's thoughts on methodology.

 

Nick reflected on his training in history and archaeology and how he was taught to give equal value to the archaeological evidence as to the textual record - bemoaning how frequently the textual is given precedence, even if the result is nonsense.  As many of you know, with me, that's preaching to the converted (in my academic days, I switched from History to The History of Art for a similar reason ... to be able to give proper value to the material evidence - and so as to gain a stronger understanding of that specialised source material) ... 

And I think Sekunda's work, along with Duncan Head's, was part of a shift which took our impressions of the ancient world (then mostly understood through the texts of ancient writers) closer to the visual and archaeological record.  I think that still informs how we see the military cultures of the past today.

 

 

What was particularly interesting (arguably controversial) was Nick's assertion that evidence from monuments - in this case, particularly, say, the Alexander sarcophagus - was archaeological evidence ... pretty much the same way an excavated helmet was archaeological evidence.

I'm not sure this is the case (well I'm sure it isn't) - recovered sculptures, paintings, monuments etc. are very interesting, particularly where they are contemporary, or near contemporary, to the events/people they depict.  But they are still artist's impressions, they aren't the real thing.  In some ways they may be better (a Macedonian helmet on a sculpted figure is quite likely to be what the sculptor though most of the soldiers would wear - but an actual helmet that's been dug up might be any old random variant or 'one off' that just happens to have survived) ..

So artistic evidence isn't the same as archaeological evidence, however close to the events depicted (unless there are other reasons to explain that) ... 

Anyway, fascinating and a privelege to be taken through the steps used to reconstruct helmets, pikes, shield blazons and the like.  A classic work.

 

(slides from Nick's online talk)

The conference was 4 talks of an hour's duration including Q & A run over the 2 days, 4pm to 6pm.

It worked very smoothly and was easy going for the participants (say compared with the medieval warfare one I just ran for the Battlefields Trust, which was 5 sessions run on the same day - more rewarding, perhaps, in a number of ways, but you did have to commit to being with us all day*)

I'm looking forward to Shaw House for the BattleDay and to the next 'live' conference at Madingley Hall.

Great stuff.

 

*the again, we did get it done on the one day - so it's swings and roundabouts to some extent ... discuss *wink*

1st to 3rd November, Kenilworth

 

In which the Shows North 'on the move' blog shifts to Kenilworth for the annual Society weekend:

The 2019 Society of Ancients Conference

This was probably the last time at the current venue, Chessford Grange ... excellent for a number of reasons (less than ideal for others).  It will be going out on a high.

This report will have more than the usual number of pictures as I participated in a number of splendid sessions and wanted to do them justice.

But after a Friday evening of pick up games, board games and chats in the bar, Day One began with a talk by Mike Ingram.

SATURDAY

 

There was a preamble by me on why you need to abandon all your old books on Bosworth and base your interpretation on someting written since the 2009 archaeological survey.

Basically, 200 years ago, an influential antiquarian moved the battlefield to the wrong location based on local anecdote but no facts or artefacts ... 10 years ago, a major archaeological survey was commissioned by the Battlefields Trust which - after a lot of searching - finally found unquestionable evidence of the location ... and strangely the location ties in with references on early maps etc. before the late 18th century shift to the wrong location ... (in a nutshell)...

Bosworth is the 2020 BattleDay topic and the single biggest challenge Richard faces will be to get game designers to abandon their old Osprey and L&L Soc books (which have fictional reconstructions tied to landscape features that are not on the battlefield) and embrace the new, much simpler story of what unfolded on the flat land straddling Fenn Lanes (no Ambion Hill on the real battlefield).

(the real Bosworth: the penultimate phase as seen by Mike Ingram: the French engage while Northumberland departs - Richard now needs to make a decisive intervention)

Mike went on to explain the campaign, orders of battle, troop origins and probable weaponry etc.  The likely deployments (as given, at least, in the contemporary accounts) and how these led to Richard's downfall.

He also explained how Bosworth formed part of overt French foreign policy - and only really happened because the French (or Madame, at least) decided it was time to intervene.

If you are interested, Mike's book is available on Amazon:  Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth

Anyway ... great talk.  Other presentations included Harry Sidebottom on 3rd Cent. Rome; Graham Evans on the Battle of Edgcote; Simon MacDowall on the Goths and Matt Bennett on William Marshall and Medieval Tournaments.  That's a great line-up in itself

Games ...

This Weak Piping Time of Peace

 

(a Bosworth inspired skirmish game from Simon MacDowall using Swoppets) 

Simon's game was actually quite quick to pick up and rattled through a couple of actions that resulted in my Richard III being able to charge and topple the upstart earl of Richmond.  Good stuff, then.

 

(melee)

(Richard wheels away wounded - rolled a 1 -  from the combat where he killed the earl of Richmond - Henry Tudor)

The mechanisms were quite (shall we say) 'traditional' but had a lot of merit and might well have been a good way to do the tournament game that followed after lunch ...

History changes ...

In no particular order, here's a collage of other games going on ...

 

(Chariot warfare, Gangs of Rome, Adrianople - To The Strongest - and Sumerians)

 

(Simon gave an interesting summary of what we know about the Goths)

Tournaments

Then Matthew Bennett gave a brief appraisal of the Norman and Medieval tournament scene and the deeds of William Marshall.  Followed by game in which bands of Knights and men-at-arms picked fights with each other to win money.

 

(Medieval prize fighting: the tournament ground was more than just a tilt yard)

 

(some of the players put their heaped winnings on the table)

 

(to the victor the spoils) 

As a surprise to the players, punctuating each flurry of combat, Matt awarded a prize (books about the Marshall) to the player topping the money stakes at the time.

Food for thought.

Dinner ...

More thought ... more food ...

This year, academic, author and wargamer, Harry Sidebottom gave us a fascinating look at Rome's forgotten era - the third Century AD.  Valerian being made prisonner by the Sassanids; appeasing the Germans; fighting for the Imperial crown, Civil War and fragmentation.  Rome, said Harry, repeatedly sowed the seeds of her own eventual fall.

 

I was fascinated by all this as it addressed the unmentionable: even a great, classic guide like Warry's Warfare in the Classical World follows the military history of Greece and Rome though, epoch by epoch, until the age of Augustus (around 1,000 years in just under 200 pages) then wraps the whole story up in a couple of chapters (500 years in less than 30 pages): not a lot, given how profusely illustrated the text is.

Harry gave a flavour of how rich the missing stories can be. 

... and after dinner ...

 

(more games from SoAC 19 ... Mongols, Commands and colours, Northampton 1460 and Rome on the march)

Telamon

My contribution to the late entertainment was what I expect to be the final run at Telamon - the 2019 BattleDay feature - with the current version of DBA (V3): this time 'Big Battle' DBA.

 

(BBDBA at SoAC 2019: Papus and Regulus trap the Gallic host)

 

(the Gauls fought valliantly and outscored the Roman infantry in repeated charges)

 

(Telamon at the Society of Ancients Conference: part of a Roman camp)

The game was hard fought but, on both fronts, the Warband inflicted frontal losses on the Romans.  Eventually the Gallic prowess (aka luck) in close combat demoralised all three Roman commands.

This was the most decisive win in a series of games in which the Romans have generally been victorious.  Indeed, previously, it had been looking unbalanced.

History changes ...

Sunday morning

 

Sunday kicked off with Graham Evans talking us through the evidence for what happened at Edgcote in 1469 (NB, again, Wikipedia is useless on this battle), re-evaluating the evidence and making sense of it (such as, e.g. it was fought on the 24th July, very clearly not on the 26th) ...

... followed by a 4 player run at our reconstruction of the battle with 28mm Foundry figures and Hail Caesar rules.

 

(The battle of Edgcote on Danesmoor on July 24th 1469)

 

(Edgcote at SoAC 2019: an eager earl of Devon moves his archers onto the battlefield)

In this playing of the battle, an eager Humphrey Stafford (earl of Devon) was quickly up in support of Pembroke's Welsh array (i.e. good early command rolls).  Meanwhile, whilst holding most of the line on Edgcote Lodge Hill, William Herbert (earl of Pembroke) sent off a party of mounted Men-at-Arms to ride around the rebel left.

 

(Pembroke had the part of his force mount up to outflank the rebels.  He chose not to lead it personally) 

Once he had taken a few hits from the rebel archers, Herbert went in hard on the rebel centre, cutting down Robin of Redesdale.  3 times, Robin was hit.  Twice, he popped up somewhere else.  Meanwhile, first Richard Herbert, Pembroke's brother, was killed in the melee, then the earl himself was cut down and captured.  Nevertheless, the retinue around them, well-harnessed - the best men in Wales - fought on, undaunted.

 

(Edgcote at SoAC: the battle for the centre) 

The Conyers contingent broke and fled.

 

(Edgcote at SoAC: despite the loss of their leaders, the Herberts chase the Conyers from the battlefield) 

The rebel reinforcements (Gates and Parr) eventually collapsed but not before repulsing the cavalry attack and breaking Herbert's main battle (leaving just Herbert's own, now leaderless, contingent hacking at the fleeing rebels).  At the same time, the main rebel battle broke and the battle was won.  By Humphrey Stafford.

 

(Holding the field of Edgcote at SoAC 2019: Humphrey Stafford, earl of Devon)

So .. a result we had not seen before ... We rolled dice to see whether Herbert's men were able to recover their leader (who had fallen captive earlier in the fighting) but the dice said he was dead.  Likewise Robin of Redesdale, though it had become unclear who, indeed, was Robin of Redesdale.

The Welsh will mourn the loss of the Herbert brothers but King Edward will be pleased with the recently appointed earl of Devon.  So not quite what really happened.

History changes ...

Sunday afternoon

After a roast lunch and the Conference wash up, those with further to travel started to take their leave.  I had less far to go, and with my work for the weekend done, I settled down to be a player in one of the final sessions: a 6mm Hydaspes using Hail Caesar.

I thought this would be useful and entertaining as, with the Edgcote game, I pretend to know my way around HC these days.

This Hydaspes game is the one run at the 2015 BattleDay. 

 

(SoAC 2019: 6mm Hydaspes game from the BattleDay of 5 years ago)

Great panoramic battlefield but, ever trusting in my mobile phone, I tried a gratuitous close-up (which I think flatters both the phone and Pete Berry's figures) ... Click on the picture for a better view ...

 

(Hydaspes: splendid Indian Chariots by Baccus) 

It was a very grand and formal affair (lots of units and lots of space) compared to my shambling medieval methodology - and it was useful and entertaining to get to use the mechanisms 'properly'.

I commanded the left wing of the Indian array and although the wargame, as wargame, still had plenty left to run, we wrapped up when Alexander rescued his shattered Companions one too many times and succumbed to the dreaded death roll.

 

(Hydaspes: the Indians heap pressure and misfortune on Alexander)

Again, history changes ...

*******

All in all, a great weekend and an event the Society of Ancients can be proud of.   We explored Ancient and Medieval warfare with talks, boardgames and figure games (and over pints in the bar) ... we wargamed from Ur to Bosworth, from the heart of Europe to India and the Asian Steppe ... and with figures from 6mm to 54mm (and with commercial rules, self-published rules and experimental homegrown mechanisms).  A truly representative mix.

Thanks to everyone involved - I am looking forward to next year and a new venue.