Marian Romans under Jon invade the Iberian Peninsular for a historical match up against the Ancient Spanish.

The terrain was rough and hilly in places, unfortunately for the Spanish mostly round the edges. An area of rough ground and a steep hill was in the centre of the Spanish rear baseline and a more promising hill and rough area on the Spanish right around the centre line of the table.

Outscouting the Romans the Spanish General pushed his two main bodies of scutarii to the centre and another to occupy the high ground and surrounding area on the right. The Spanish cavalry were kept well back with a small command of caetrati in support as the Spanish expected to be outnumbered in good quality horse.

With commands flung pretty far forward spotting soon revealed enemy dispositions. As expected the main Roman mounted command were on the right facing the Spanish horse on the more open flank. A large body of troops were behind them as yet unrevealed but strongly suspected to be the Roman cohorts. The Roman centre was a brigade of light troops; German LS, Balearic SL and veteran Cretan bowmen. The left flank was a mixed command of 2 Cohorts, Thracians, Greek LC and some Spanish cavalry from another tribe.

The Spanish moved their cavalry quickly forward to stop the Equites, Gallic and German mounted from flanking the scutarii who were closing with the Romans as the previously hidden cohorts moved from behind their cavalry. Similarly on the Spanish right loyal Balearic slingers and Spanish LC closed the Roman left with the initial shooting going the Roman way. On the Spanish left centre the first Roman cohorts charged the scutarii who evaded away having dispatched a shower of ineffectual javelins. This would be the pattern in this area as the Spanish refused to let the better armoured cohorts close. Tragedy struck the Spanish early as their right flank commander was badly wounded but his Spanish Balearics made up for their previous shooting by shaking the Thracians with a couple of volleys of slingshot and a base of Spanish LC delivered a successful charge against the Greeks in revenge. True Devotio! 

A slight tactical error was made by the Roman general as he allowed the Spanish LC supporting their nobles to close down the Roman horse against a steep hill so that when the initial charges came a base of Gauls was forced to drive off the LC and the initial fight was the nobilty vs Equites and Gallic nobles, neither side gaining an advantage in the charge. However, the Spanish had LC and caetrati support and these moved up to see if they could swing the melee in their favour but the Romans replied by bringing up the elite German cavalry. The main body of cohorts continued to press forward, the scutarii all the time evading and picking off the occasional victim. The Spanish could not do this right of centre as the Roman LI were there ready to catch any evaders in the rear so a base of scutarii was forced to charge and drive off the Balearics who nonetheless inflicted casualties. The two cohorts on this flank had halted nervously eyeing the Thracians who had disintegrated under a withering hail of slingshot and promptly routed as did the Greek LC under attack by Spanish LC. All the supporting Spanish MC could do was charge fruitlessly the evading LC opposite them. The Spanish nobility were still doing an excellent job against the Equites and Gauls but now their commander too was severely wounded.

The German cavalry were distracted by a base of caetrati allowing another to attack the flanks of the Gauls fighting the nobility. Similarly a base of LC attacked the flank of the Equites and both Gauls and Equites were shaken by these attacks and subsequently routed but not before the Spanish commander was killed. Although the bases testing for morale all passed, this now left this command leaderless but the Spanish general was already heading over to take control. The other base of Gallic cavalry had left the field in pursuit of Spanish LC so the Spaniards were doing well to absorb all the pressure but both bases of nobles were badly depleted as they pursued their enemies. The scutarri who had charged to drive off the slingers found themselves isolated and unsupported and were whittled down and annihilated by the slingers and Cretan bowmen.

On the far side things were going the Spaniards way as German LI were routed by sustained shooting from the Balearics and the Spanish cavalry were charged in the rear by Spanish LC as they pursued the other evading LC who promptly turned back to catch them in a sandwich. One of the two cohorts decided to take offensive action and charged a base of scutarii who promptly evaded. The second cohort now had two more scutarii bearing down plus Balearics lining up against the Roman Balearics.

The Spanish caetrati and LC who had charged into the cavalry melee were now taken in the flank themselves by a cohort and German cavalry and despatched quite effortlessly. The Gallic warband charged and routed a base of scutarii and the Praetorians caught another, who could not change their orders in time, but were surprisingly held up by their opponents. The lone cohort was hit by two scutarii and disposed of as the Spanish LC and their wounded commander began to regroup in their area. The Spanish centre continued to fall back as did the other scutarii pursued by the surviving cohort from the Roman left.

The Spanish nobles had recovered from their pursuit and turned just as the Gallic base that had pursued off table chose to return robbing the Iberians of their chance to  destroy the Germans. In the ensuing charges the Spanish, already badly mauled put up a stiff fight but were soon routed by their fresher opponents. With the Praetorians routing their opponents the Spanish centre was fast running out of room and effective bases with their remaining troops regrouping in the hills and rough going in the rear.

The Spanish right was pushing forward to exploit their success sending LC to outflank one base of enemy slingers and more LC to chase off Cretans and more slingers. Another base of LC charged some German LI who promptly worsted them causing the LC to become shaken!! More successfully Balearics and a base of caetrati combined against the Gallic warband recovering from its rout of scutarii and routed it through shooting; the Balearics were behind them causing most of the damage. The main force of Cohorts had halted outside the hilly terrain to their front occupied by the remaining Spanish and their general trying to rally some routing and shaken bases.

The German LI now routed their LC opponents but as they pursued were badly shot up by slingers and routed in turn. The enemy slingers attacked frontally and in the flank were also seen off and pursued to destruction which left the pursuers vulnerable to a counter attack by the remaining Gallic nobles who destroyed them in turn despite the rough terrain. The two remaining scutarii bases on this flank had been advancing against the remaining Roman LI; the first was ridden down and destroyed by the Germans who then reformed and attacked the remaining base which had been fixed in place by enemy slingers to the front. This flank, which had looked promising for the Spanish, had been destroyed by the remaining Gallic and German cavalry.

Back in the centre the Spanish general had succesfully rallied a base of caetrati and sent them to support the lone scutarii base retiring from a Roman cohort. They arrived too late to save the scutarii but attacked the Romans in the flank, routed and destroyed them. The other Roman cohorts now advanced into the rough terrain, driving caetrati off the board and pushing back one base of scutarii, destroying another. One cohort was badly mauled and about to rout but the successful scutarii were about to be flanked by more legionaries.

At this point the Spanish decided further resistance was futile; over half their army was destroyed or routing. The Romans had also suffered heavily, losing three of their cohorts and most of their support troops. However, by retaining two good quality cavalry bases they retained the ability to ride down both Spanish scutarii and caetrati.

Conclusions 

Hardest fought and bloodiest battle yet. Spanish were skirmishing all the way back to the rear but ran out of room. That said their weakness in cavalry, as suspected, was their Achilles heel and the terrain fell too open to compensate for the lack.

Done in a few times with Jon's ability to roll way too many sixes in that first combat round putting the Spanish on the back foot virtually every time. Having more light troops for those crucial flank attacks bailed me out of a couple of losing situations.

Also true to form was dead and wounded leaders leaving command and control in tatters from very early on. Jon had one leader wounded, another badly but that was the last turn of the game with his command destroyed.  Typical!

Hittites vs Assyrians

 

After the Hittites rolled up the Egyptians at Kadesh they found that the Assyrians had taken the chance to pounce on their Easternmost vassals, the Mitanni, swallowing it once and for all after a century of struggles.

This placed the Assyrians in striking distance of the great Isuwa copper mines, one of the sources of Hittite wealth and power. As a key constituent of bronze it was essential that a Superpower control such an area. Last night saw a play for the mines.

The Isuwa battle saw two aside with the city of Isuwa about 2/3 along the table away from the short edge on which the Assyrians entered. Apart from the levy garrison inside the medium works of Isuwa itself, all Hittite forces started off table as a flanking force arrival to represent the rapid gathering of the frontier defences light column.

The Assyrians split into four commands, two advancing straight up the road towards Isuwa, the light company worked their way over the gentle hills to the North and the charioteers and asharittu moved along the Southern plains to the left of the river than ran alongside the road.

The battle started badly for the Hittites with their flank attack from the North arriving ahead of the rest of the army. The flank commander, however, played a blinder of a game. Seeing that the rest of the army had not turned up yet and that Isuwa had a bunch of miserable and unreliable levies, he managed to throw a screen across the front of the Assyrian advance and slow it for 2-3 turns. At one point his veteran suti managed to cut their way through not only a chariot squadron but also the archers behind them and get into close combat with the Assyrian turtan himself for one turn before being swept away.

To the South the Hittite chariots were getting the better of the Assyrians who refused to support their horse troops with the infantry.

As the 12th turn ended, the Hittites had suffered heavy casualties, having lost the entire left corps but they remained clearly in possession of Isuwa...for the moment. A win for the Hittites.

My thanks to the four players who made it such a cracking game.