The Dividing of Hosts

East meets West

(and no it doesn't look like they're about to play for Lord Grey's Cup even if their are lines painted on a flat green field)

When I resurrected my 25mm ancients after their long slumber, the plan was to reduce every thing to 2 armies of around 20 units totaling around 500 figures each. When I reduced that in 1/2, I added a 3rd army and was contemplating a 4th. Now that I have reduced the forces again to double Basic Impetus armies, or around 100 figures each. I just split the 3rd army into 2 and am adding a few more units to bring it up to scratch. Naturally, since I have all these figures kicking around, I started planning  more armies. Four became six then eight, then........laying out some figures and focusing helped. I'm back on track to finish converting 200 or so miscellaneous figures into opposing Bactrian armies, one Hellenistic in nature, raised primarily from Greek colonists (from RAFM) and formed around a phalanx, the other Iranian based on cavalry backed by mercenary and levied light infantry, (largely from Garrison). 

Antirossus rouses his men.

 The native Bactrian rebels, looking suspiciously Sassinid-ish. I don't have my peasants done yet so some Achamenid Persians are standing in for now.

There's only a half dozen new figures to paint, a dozen or so to fix up and a dozen or so more bases to cut and populate. Then I can start the campaign and also start planning the next pair!

Back Tryin' (Bactrian) Again

Today my Greco-Bactrians regrouped and took the field again as the Chinese pushed farther West. The scenario this week was Reinforcements Off Table  from Scenarios for Wargames. Ron has loaded a list of scenarios into his PC with a random selector and as so often happens. the scenario rolled up seemed to carry on from the last one with the Bactrians trying to gather their forces to hold back the invader.

The  rules were once again a hex based adaptation of Basic Impetus. These are starting to come together nicely. After the last game, we decided to let go of the partial discipline rule which we had lifted from full impetus. The added complexity seemed to have slowed the game without really adding anything, actually for me, it detracted from it, making the more powerful units even more powerful. The game today using BI straight up, (apart from the hexes) seems to have confirmed this as a smart move.

We have also refined out "U"s (measurement units) to hexes conversion. In essence each hex is 5 "units". After some trial and error we have ended up rounding movement so that heavy infantry and missile troops move 1 hex and pretty well all others move 2 hexes with the skirmishers and light cavalry being much more mobile due to their ability to move in any direction. Javelins and slings have a 1 hex range, 2 hexes is close bow range and 4 hexes long bow range.

Units must face the corner of a hex and a straight move can be into either of the hexes to the front (these also being the ZOC) with the 2nd move bringing the unit into line (that is left then right or right then left). Two moves to the left would be considered an incline with requisite penalties. A wheel is one 60 degree rotation.

The variable moves have been a bug bear but we finally got them sorted out today. Taking the principle of needing to move more than 2.5 units to cross into the next hex and applying it to the charge bonus and retreat/pursuit moves, we calculated that infantry needed to roll 5 or 6 (halved to 2.5 or 3 as per the rules)  to move an extra hex while cavalry only needed to roll 3. However, for retreats after melee, we needed to know not only where the units end up but whether or not the retreater had broken contact. This meant comparing the the infantry 1/2 die to the cavalry full one. This is not difficult math but we found it bothersome, not to mention we kept forgetting the 1/2 so we ended up allowing the infantry a full die and cavalry 2 dice with both looking for a 5 or better to move an extra hex. This is not an accurate translation of the odds but its close enough, easy and intuitive.

Doing away with the Discipline value meant that the points values of the Beta and published lists became irrelevant. The full lists have more options than the Basic ones so we are using the guide lines to convert the Beta lists to Multi-Basic Impetus lists. The guidelines are for a single BI army but we are now playing  Multi Basic Impetus  so we need double sized armies. What we are now doing is drawing up double armies from the lists including just the options and troops that we have the troops for (or intended to paint shortly) this  will be our "campaign" roster. From this we will draw scenarios/TT Teasers at 1 unit per scenario unit or gun. If we don't have enough of an appropriate troop type in our list then we may substitute something we do have (eg if a scenario calls for 3 heavy infantry units Parthians may field horse archers or cataphracts or skirmishers ).  Not perfect but easy and it seems to give about the right size of game for us, usually in between 8 to 16 units.

I wish I had remembered  to take pictures today, other than the quick cell snap above. It was an interesting game with some gallant charges, some devastating shooting (not by me), some clever generalship and some solid generalship. There were also an amazing number of 5's rolled for reinforcements. (For those not familiar with the scenario, and unit rolling 5 or 6 is lost). Ron was nice enough to let the lost units roll again after a delay. 1/2 of the defaulters including my King rolled 5 again!  I smell a revolt in the air.

If you refer to the picture at the top of the page you will see my army hiding out on the open steppe, tucked down behind a low rise. Ron's army laid out with 6 units of infantry flanked by light cavalry and supported by 2 heavy chariots which were able to pass through. Four of these units are double units with crossbows in the rear and halbardiers in front. I had hoped that Ron would advance on a broad front, straight up the road with light cavalry on the flanks, and had deployed light troops on my far left and an elephant, pike block and cataphracts on my far right. I left the middle unoccupied, relying on reserves or on flanking and breaking his army. It almost worked, I came close to breaking his right hand cavalry but the dice refused to do me any special favours and eventually it was my light infantry that had the worst of it. Late in the game some of my heavy and light cavalry showed up here and finally broke his cavalry but took damage and were then shot to pieces  by massed crossbows before they could exploit.

On the far side, an early arrival of heavy cavalry drove back his lights and began to turn his flank. As his infantry topped the rise I sprang my trap and came forward with elephant, pikes and cataphract. I didn't have the speed to hit him in 1 move from hiding but I did manage to move last. If I had won the toss and moved first on the next move I might well have been able to catch him but the gamble didn't pay and he had just time to readjust his line. The ensuing fight was close and could have gone either way. If his chariots had broken, my heavy cavalry and elephant would have been let loose behind his line and I might well have carried the day but it was not to be and a hail of fire from the chariots broke up my attacks and then routed my infantry and elephant. At least my heavy cavalry survived to retreat off the table and fight again!

Call up more levies! We need to rebuild!

The Other Side of the Pass

The Ron Emperor sent this picture of his army occupying the pass after the Bactrians had collected their dead and wounded and gone home and an account of the battle from the other side. He had actually had his camera to hand but the game we were both too "into" the game to think about pausing for pictures. 

  Overview

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The clever Graeco-Bactrians had laid out their position hiding most of their troops behind the crest line of the pass and in difficult ground. It was going to be up to the Chinese -Light Horse archers and the spear armed Light Cavalry to penetrate the Scythian Light Cavalry screen. The Chinese marched bravely down the road lead by the Light Horse archers (2 stands) and spear armed  Light Cavalry (2 stands). The order of march then had the Medium Cavalry (2 stands) and War Chariots (2 stands) behind them. This was the first command. The second command consisted of the infantry. Two stands of Spear & Sword armed light infantry, followed by two composite stands of spear and crossbow light infantry. These were followed by two stands of spear armed Heavy Infantry, then 2 more stands of spear & sword armed light infantry in the rear.

Unfortunately for the Chinese the units arrived on table and could not deploy off road until their second turn on the table. It would take about 6 turns before the Chinese had completely deployed into some semblance of order, in fact the Heavy Infantry were never to make it into contact with the enemy. On turn one only the Light Cavalry and the light Horse made it on table. In the following turns the rest of the troops arrived at 3 or 4 stands per turn on the road.

The Chinese managed to cover the deployment with the light cavalry to the fore. As they approached the Scythian scouts, the Scythians fell back tempting the Chinese to blindly go where no Chinese had gone before. But the Chinese maintained their discipline as they moved forward. The Chinese commander had studied the enemy Commander over many months and was well aware of his penchant for ambuscades, taking advantage of the terrain and sudden charges especially when faced with a larger enemy force.

As it turned a unit of skirmishing arches appeared at the northern edge of a wood that stretched half way across the battle field and opened fire. A second unit made an abortive attempt to leave the wood to get into archery range and revealed its position for little gain.

The Chinese troops continued to arrive, then deploy into multiple lines of infantry. Two units of Light spear & sword armed infantry headed towards the enemy archers in the aforesaid wood, supported by two composite units of spear & crossbow armed troops. The remainder infantry deployed as soon as possible off the road and advanced towards the pass.

Meanwhile the cavalry command had forced the enemy light horse back towards the crest line, actually the enemy light horse were feigning retreat yet again. The light cavalry finally crested the pass and got a clear view of the enemy line waiting patiently behind the crest. The cavalry was in contact with the enemy elephant and long bow men before they could react. The chariots plodded steadily forward followed by the medium cavalry. The cavalry and chariots managed to impede each other and get to close to the light horse screen to their front. But their was nothing for it but to go ahead, expecially as war chariots once moving have to move at least half a move a turn, even before declaring a stop.

As the southern wood was being cleared of the enemy skirmishing archers, the remaining infantry deployed in line behind the cavalry screen. The cavalry screen became embroiled in a bitter struggle for mastery of the crest line in the centre of the pass.

Finally the Chinese infantry on the broke into the long wood decimating the enemy skirmishing troops. But the Bactrian Cataphracts and cavalry then moved up to face them off. Meanwhile the massive fighting in the centre continued the elephant continuing to charge while the war chariots attempted to contact the elephants. The cavalry was in front, and even though not the best troops to face elephants (especially when the elephants are supported by long bow fire, they had no choice with the war chariots pressing continuously forward behind them.

Eventually the chariots managed to contact the elephant, and after a multi turn melee, defeat it. The end was finally approaching as the Chinese now moved forward in a steady line of infantry that stretched from north to south across the battlefield. But the cost to the cavalry had been high. The cavalry command was within one point of breaking. The infantry forces were desperately trying to cross the open ground of the pass and contact the enemy line which was holding the gap.

In the end the Chinese luck held while that of the enemy took a quick and downward spiral. The results the Chinese lost 2 stands of Light Horse archers, 2 stands of Light cavalry spears, and one stand of medium cavalry (7 out of the 16 morale points in the command), while the infantry command managed to retain all its stands they were highly damaged at the end of the battle. The Chinese were had lost 7 out of  the 17 morale break point.

The Chinese had cleared the pass, but lost the element of surprise  As the Chinese continue their push to control the trade routes across the middle of Asia the Graeco-Bactrians are preparing for another encounter as well, this time with full knowledge of the new enemy they face.

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Preparing? Indeed!

And a closer view. Infantry and cavalry by Ral Partha. Chariots by Hincliffe if I'm not mistaken.

They shall not pass, or well, ok, maybe this time.

Well, my Bactrian army has been bloodied, very bloodied as it turned out.   My cell phone battery gave out so no pictures I'm afraid.

The scenario was Pass Clearance from CS Grant's Programmed Wargame Scenarios. The rules were modified Basic Impetus on a hex grid. The enemy was Ron Dynasty Chinese (That's Han to you). I had a rough idea of what sorts of troops I might face since I'd seen them on the shelf over the last 20 years but I avoided looking at the army lists since I figured that a new arrival on the scene, an army they had never fought before, might have been a surprise to the Greeks, Bactrians and various others who made up my army. It turned out to be a bit more of a shock than a surprise!

Whoever wrote up the Beta Han List was very generous with VBU and Impetus factors and the superior firepower of their crossbows was staggering. To overcome this army I was going to need the get the best out of my motley crew. Unfortunately, since it was my first time fielding it, I really didn't have a good handle on its strengths and weaknesses.

The position I was defending had steep hills on either sides with several patches of woods. I deployed my upgraded skirmishers, from whom I expected much given how well their plain Jane cousins did for me in the last game, in an advanced wood on the left hand slopes with light cavalry filling the plain. My main battle line was posted just behind the crest of the pass, archers in the woods to the right, then elephant, pikes, Thracians and lastly cataphracts.  Initially the Thracians were supposed to accompany the elephant but I switched and decided to have them provide a link between the phalanx and the cataphracts.  Despite finding my javelin armed peltasts most useful in previous games,  I decided that I needed more high VBU troops so upgraded the Thracians from VBU 4 to 5 which seems to remove their javelins, presumably indicating Rhomphai armament. They are useful troops but not strong enough for 1 unit to launch attacks and to make matters, worse, I kept maneuvering them into positions where they could launch javelin assaults, only to remember that they didn't have any! ARGGHHH! Luckily Ron was generous enough to allow me to take back such moves several times. General, Know thy troops! Next time I'll field proper peltasts and  leave the shock charges to the big boys.

The game began with some harmless insults being traded between my light cavalry  and the Chinese. The game is unfriendly to missile fire at light cavalry and a close look at his shock light cavalry indicated that they had twice the combat value of my Arachosians so basically, after a few maneuvers to try to disrupt Rons's march and deployment and to draw him into my ambush, I started to fall back at full speed to get my light cavalry safely out of the way. The first shot of the game came from my foot archers, disrupting a chariot but neither harming it nor slowing it down (we had drafted the discipline rule in from Impetus and Ron's well disciplined troops only occasionally failed their rally).  Ron deployed a mass of light infantry to flush me out at which point I was close enough to have a look and discover that these were a combination of elite shock troops that made my Thracians look puny, and massed crossbows with devastating firepower. I made a new plan. Skeddadle all my out classed light troops to safety and launch an assault with elephant, pikes and cataphracts, once he was through the gap.

Unfortunately there was a wrinkle. Basic Impetus is a game  which calls for an initiative roll each turn to see who would move first. I had successfully rolled low and moved second so far, being able to react to enemy moves and scoot out of the way. On the turn of the ambush, that flipped, allowing me to get my shot in  but on the next turn it flipped again giving Ron a double move at just the wrong moment for me and allowing his aggressive light infantry to reach my skirmish line before it could pull back. At the same time his light shock cavalry was able to also sweep forward to catch my skirmishing ones.  This was unfortunate but not necessarily a disaster, protected by the woods, odds were that my skirmishers would take some damage but stood a good chance of escaping and might even get lucky and win some of the combats. By the end of the turn my skirmish line was wiped out and my light cavalry reduced to a single stand. Five units destroyed in the blink of an eye. Nearly 1/2 way to my break point and I hadn't put a single hit on him. It looked bleak.

 There was an awful jumble in the middle of the table as the war chariots rolled up the road and deployed flanked by cavalry. The supporting infantry was somewhat held up by the woods but they would be up soon with those deadly crossbows and  hard charging halbardiers. One of Ron's horse archers topped the crest and sounded the alarm. There before him was the main Bactrian army, bronze helmets and shields and iron horse armour gleaming in the sun. From the woods my Saka bowmen (using the mountain Indian stats) strode forward from ambush and opened a frightful barrage (who knew so many dice had 1 or 2 marked on them?).  The elephant, a 40 year veteran, trumpeted wildly and rushed forward, trampling panicking horses beneath her feet.  Charge followed counter charge as the chariots, unable to stop and without room to maneuver, rolled forward. On the left, my Cataphracts maneuvered for a clear charge at the Chinese infantry as they cleared the wood. Then the crossbows twanged and my nobles back peddled desperately while I searched for a new plan. The score now stood at 7 army morale points lost per side. (Ron could lose 17, I could lose 13)

With unlimited time and an array of machine guns, crossbows, facing me, it was just a matter of time before he shot me to pieces. At this point, the question arose of how long I needed to hold the pass in order to claim a victory. Initially Ron had said 11 turns, and 11 turns were done, but the table was 24 hexes across and even if I had retreated off table on turn 1, he couldn't have made it. I suggested we roll 2d6 to see how many additional turns he could have but with two "new" armies on the table (most figures on both sides were 20 to 40 years old), we decided to just play it through.  There was only way, to avoid destruction, rally my shot up phalanx and cavalry and charge! If the charge worked, there was a good chance I could blast a hole in his army but if the attack was repulsed, then it would be all up. Do or die!

Even having to make piecemeal attacks, my shock troops proved their potential, inflicting buckets full of hits on the enemy. Ron's troops proved that their morale was good. (Now he rolls a 1!)
His line was battered and within a pip or 2 of having broken but it had held and now the counter attack was coming through. Shock infantry charging into the phalanx, crossbow bolts following up my cavalry as they rallied back for another charge. Then the battered chariots whipped their  horses up to speed and rolled forward into my Thracians and a battered phalanx and both crumbled, bringing me to my break point.

A hard fought game and one which reinforced my choice of army. As Phil Barker once wrote, pick an army that you can love, even when it loses.  

Ready for the Fray

Sooner than expected, the combined armies of all the factions have pooled their troops to face a new threat. Tomorrow, weather permitting, they march East to confront an army of Ron Dynasty Chinese. 

Like the typical, closely related Seleucid wargame army , this army has a little bit of everything and not enough of anything: Cataphracts, light cavalry, pikemen, archers, skirmishers, light infantry, and an elephant.

Given any situation, it has at least 1 appropriate  unit. Thrown into battle, there are not quite enough core troops. Oh well, perfect for Table Top Teasers.  Its going to take a bit of getting used to after all those Greek hoplites! 

Next step is to cut a score more bases, refurbish a few more old units and add a few new ones from the lead pile to make two opposing armies, 1 Hellenistic based around the pike phalanx and mostly RAFM troops, the other more Kushan-like, cavalry heavy without any pikes, and based largely around Garrison Persians of various stripes. Then the contest for control of Syr Daria can commence!  

The Wargame of Thymbra

Garrison Phyrgian Infantry closing on the enemy with malice aforethought. 

Since this battle hinged on the Lydian's attempt to out flank the Medes, I figured I should maximize the width of the table. Unfortunately I came up hard against two bits of reality. First, when playing with hexes the axis of the game matters. With my current configuration, my options are basically along the long axis or on a diagonal. Secondly, when I reassembled my table, I put one side on backwards so there is a fault line of  incomplete/mismatched  hexes in the middle. Must fix that but in the meantime, I went back to playing on basically half the table like I did for Marathon.

The armies as fielded were more than double the size of Basic Impetus armies. The game was big enough, in terms of units, to push my  battle fatigue limits but not breech them and there was just enough room to maneuver so all was well. I think I can mark this as a comfortable maximum for me. I could have  abandoned the hexes but if I stayed with the 15mm unit footprint and ranges it wouldn't have made much difference. If I had gone with standard 25mm unit foot prints and ranges, I would have used a few more figures but about  2/3 the number of units. The game would probably have been shorter with each combat being more critical. I'm not sure that would have been better.    

Columns of Lydian troops push forward on the left and right, planning to turn inwards and attack once in position.

As usual when playing a solo game based on an historical battle, I started by following the historical plans to the best of my ability. Essentially, the Lydians were advancing with columns of infantry and cavalry on the left and right and a phalanx up the middle. The idea was to pin the Medes while the cavalry turned the flanks and crushed them. The Medes, based largely on Xenophon's account,  were deployed with refused flanks, reserves of their best troops and some gimmick troops designed to disrupt the enemy attack or in the case of the tower, to provide additional missile support.

Scythed chariots are tricky things, especially in the defence. I decided that the best plan was to lose the initiative on the 2nd turn or win it on the 3rd. The fall back position was for the enemy javelin fire to miss. Yeah, not the soundest plan and it worked about as expected. Two of the three chariots were destroyed by javelin fire while the third was launched onto a hoplite phalanx and destroyed after causing a bit of disorder. Ok, no surprises there but I soon realized that I had a more serious problem. (Please excuse any apparent bias, but I was sitting behind Cyrus the Great).

The idea of the camels was to rob the Lydian shock cavalry of their charge bonus but the Lydians screened them with peltasts and bypassed them. Camels are only slightly more resistant to a shower of javelins than the chariots were.  Since I had given them an Impetus of 0 meaning that they couldn't charge, their options were limited. The right wing camels were destroyed but the left wing managed to extract their's and eventually redeployed them farther down the line, opposite the cavalry as intended. Watch for the resulkts of this move later on.

The lines close as javelins and arrows darken the sky. The Mede camels can be seen retiring in the upper right hand corner on one side while the ones on the left mill in disorder waiting for the final hit. In the center massed bowfire has panicked one of the phalanx units. 

In the center, the phalanx that had been disordered by the chariot was now hit by massed bowfire which added to the confusion, in short, the rear 1/2 of one big unit panicked and ran. The rest of the phalanx charged forward but must have been a bit rattled as they were repulsed with losses all along the line. The levied hoplites and native spearmen are rated only slightly lower than the "real thing" in this game but it is a game where a little can mean a lot. Croesus rallied his center despite a continuing barrage of arrows, well most of it anyway, and prepared to renew the fight.  

On the Mede right, the cavalry decided that with the camels gone, they might as well seize a moment and charge. The elite cavalry was immediately routed by the Lydians despite the brief advantage but the second unit got lucky, followed up its advantage on the next turn and eventually broke one of the Lydian cavalry squadrons, before being destroyed in turn. By now, Mede reserves were rushing to bolster the flanks.

The Lydian center slowly crumbles under massed bow fire while the Medes are forced to commit their reserves early on the flanks.

For the next few turns there was little scope for maneuver and the only decisions to be made were stand and shoot or charge. The Mede infantry got excited at one point and charged a supposedly inferior unit of Thracians who cut them to pieces. A unit of Immortals suffered much the same fate (OH fickle dice!). The Medes restrained their ardour for the rest of the game and plied their bows and javelins to maximum effect.

On the Mede right, there was desperate fighting and Cyrus and his bodyguard were themselves driven back. Eventually both sides here were virtually exhausted though  the fight never quite ceased. In the center, the rallied phalanx drove forward on the left, driving back 2 units of Medes and breaking a 3rd. Only the bowfire from the tower managed to disorder the phalanx long enough for the line to be restablished.

On the right of the phalanx however, the arrow storm was too much and slowly the units faded away. Farther to the right, not all of the Lydian peltasts had been able to get into the fight and now some were recalled to plug the gap in the center. A fatal move, just as they left, the front line units finally gave way under the arrow storm leaving gaping holes and allowing the Mede archers to turn their bows on the cavalry. The Lydian cavalry who had had to ride farther since the Mede cavalry had not rushed to face them, found themselves with a choice of stand under a barrage of arrows or charge the mixed formation of camels and Mede cavalry. The fight was severe but eventually the Lydian cavalry broke taking the army with them.

Just off the screen above, the battered remnants of the opposing left and right wings still face each other with not a single fresh unit on either side. In the center, the Lydian infantry melts under a hot stream of arrows from a bloodied and dented but intact Mede infantry line. On the near flank, the Lydians have collapsed in rout and are being swept. (The unit show retreating in disordered bring the army to their break point).

It felt awfully close at times, especially when little things would happen like the Immortals charging with 7 dice and getting no hits while the opposing Thracians threw 4 dice and got 3 sixes! In the end it was a solid victory however with the Mede's being barely 1/2 way to their break point though, to be fair, they had only 2 fresh units left so this was no walk over.

By and large, the rules worked well once again. There were a few turns where it was all combat and the turns were clicking over so fast my head was spinning, with very little to show for it on the table but I was tired after all the holiday stuff and still, somehow I found myself repeatedly replying "in a minute" to various requests to do various chores or watch some movie as I started just one more turn, again, and again. (Apparently both chores and movie managed happily without me.)

There were moments where it seemed like the dice and troop quality might be more important than Cyrus's deployment and his gimmick troops but on sober reflection, while the reserves didn't get to ride around the enemy phalanx and charge it in the rear, they were vital for holding the enemy's successes while allowing the counter attack on the winning wing, all without weakening the line anywhere like the Lydians did, and the camels, once properly deployed helped stem the tide on the winning flank while the tower's fire support may have tipped the balance in the center.

The camels didn't do the job initially, but I deployed them too far forward and there was only 1 unit on each flank. I had been unsure that the rule would work right. The usual description is that the Lydian horses wouldn't close so the Lydian cavalry dismounted and attacked. At a low level this isn't shown, the rules don't  force or allow the Lydian cavalry to dismount, they just remove their charge impetus but upon reflection, this is just about the right effect if you considered the Lydian cavalry as having dismounted to attack on foot without the minis being changed. It does mean that only units immediately faced by camels were effected but since units are never aligned in Impact and thus always over lap when 2 lines meet, it is next to impossible for the Lydians to avoid them all together. I would be tempted to deploy 2 units on each flank though.

 Small but stinky!

One other OB decision almost upset the game. I had forgotten how powerful light infantry can be in some situations. Since javelins, spears and bucklers seem to be popular Anatolian infantry weapons over the centuries, and since I had  lots, I threw in a dozen units to make up numbers, I'd have gone with more if there was room. Not only did they shoot up the chariots, they were able to more or less keep up with the cavalry, screen them  from missile fire, drive back the camels and hold the Mede infantry at bay long enough for others to force a decision (or try to). If/when I run this again, I think I would trade in about 1/2 of the peltasts for more spearmen and skirmishers. This would increase the odds of the historical gaps opening between the flanking columns and the center and decrease the offensive missile power of the Lydian army while increasing the staying power of the center.

A good game and a fitting end to my Lydian campaign.  In the new year, the focus will shift to the Eastern frontier of the Persian Empire.

The Wargame of Thymbra The Deployment

The Medes deploy for battle, cheesy gimmick troops to the fore.

Having decided to play this out using our Hex version of Basic Impetus, I set out to design the armies by crossing some Persian Beta lists with the accounts of the battle crossed by what I had ready to go. The results are roughly equivalent to double Basic Impetus armies.


BATTLE OF THYMBRA ORDERS OF BATTLE


Cyrus King of the Medes and Persians

3 Units of Elite Medium Cavalry (with spear and horse armour as per Xenophon)
2 Units of Medium Cavalry  (with spear)
2 Units of Immortals with bow & spear
7 Units of Persian Infantry with bow & spear
1 Unit of Light Infantry with javelins
2 Units of improvised camel riders.
3 Scythed Chariots
1 Mobile Tower full of archers.

Since the camel riders were supposedly a last minute improvisation, I decided to not allow them to charge.

Croesus King of Lydia 6 Units of Heavy Cavalry 2 Units of Light Cavalry 4 Big Units of Subject spearmen and hoplites 12 Units of Light Infantry with javelin 3 Units of skirmishers with bow or sling I followed the army deployments from the Wargamer's Digest article which gave me something like: The Medes on the far side are formed in a sort of crescent with camels and chariots to the front. The Lydians are formed with a phalanx in the middle and columns of cavalry and peltasts moving to envelop the enemy wings. Tomorrow, how the battle went, what worked and what I would do differently.