Another big game at PAW. This time Hail Caesar in the time of the Diadochi Wars, the struggle for dominance following the death of Alexander.
The battle pitched the forces of Seleucid against the might of Ptolomy. The armies are the ones I have been collection to refight the Battle of Raphia, I'm nearly there but have a lot more elephants to do. You will have to excuse the lack of basing, as you can imagine it's a massive task which i have still not decided how to do.
As stated we used the Hail Caesar rules, the only change being centimeters instead of inches. It seemed to work very well.
And to the pictures.....
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| The mighty armies deployed, Seleucid to the left and Ptolomy to the left. Over a thousand figures on a 12 foot by 4 foot table. |
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| Ptolomy's left flank's starting position. Companion style cavalry, elephants with escorts and Egyptian Levy Phalanx |
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| Ptolomy's Phalanx block |
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| Ptolomy's right flank elephants |
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| The Seleucid left, heavy cavalry, pike phalanx all fronted by 'dubious' Arabs |
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| Seleucid's center. Elephants, peltasts and Agema Pikes, the elite of the army. |
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| Seleucid right, Thracian light horse (black cloaks) and elite cavalry |
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| Seleucid's Agema |
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| The elites collide. Seleucid Agema calsh with Ptolomy's Basilikai, his elite pike who fought in shallower formations. Ptolomy's guard made a good show of the fight despite being out numbered. |
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| Seleucid's mercenary Greeks advancing towards the Egyptian levies |
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| A view over the far side of the battlefield, lots of action going on. |
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| Top of the picture the two main phalanx blocks come to grips with each other. In the foreground the Ptolomy's greek mercenaries advance on the elephants. |
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| And on the Ptolemaic left the cavalry clash |
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| From behind Ptolomy's line, the Egyptian Levy pike and the Basilikai elite phalanx. |
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| A view form Ptolomy's right |
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| As seen from Seleucid lines, yours truly rolling terrible dice.....again! |
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| A general view of the field | | | | |
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The battle was not fought to a result, although the Seleucids had broken two of Ptolomy's commands.
There were 5 players in the game, it went quite quickly despite non of us being Hail Caesar rules experts. We did not make a few mistakes, missed the 'Break Test' on a 6 from missile fire, initailly and we used the Black Powder moral calculator not the Hail Caesar one, this last one would have have made a difference and the battle would have been a little more bloodier.
But all of us enjoyed it and we will play more large HC and BP games. I do love games on this scale, to me this is wargaming.
All the figures are Xyston Miniatures (http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Xyston/ and available through Colonel Bills, http://colonelbills.com/). The bases are from Simon Miller, Big Red Bat, (https://bigredbatshop.co.uk)
I will be collection the Achaemenid Persian armies to fight against the conquests of Alexander himself.
