1. The Roman Revenge (Republican Romans vs Seleucids)

2. The Society of Ancients Games Day 2005

(Egyptians vs Babylonians and Sassanids vs Successors)

3. Half A Battle Report from Huntingdon

(Gauls vs Romans)

4. Republican Romans vs Seleucids

This afternoon, almost 600 points of Early Republican Romans took on the strength, might and glamour of the Seleucid empire. The Romans under Maxocephalus Destructos defended an un-walled border town against Sell-u-Cheapis, the new Seleucid King.

The Romans had 2 victory conditions: kill or capture the Seleucid king, or destroy at least 50% of their army. The Seleucids had to take the town. We unfortunately ran out of time, within 2-3 more bounds the Seleucids may have taken the town because of a big outflanking move by all their heavy mounted troops supported by slingers, but as the Romans always say "we won through valour and the might of our arms" -  even though they sometimes lost battles!

The Romans lost no bases, but a brave leader was sacrificed for the glory of Rome  i.e. got taken out by javelin fire. With more time the hard pressed right flank of the Romans would have been very hard pressed to hold the heavy Seleucid cavalry. If that flank collapsed the town would have been lost!

The Seleucids lost all three of their elephants, one base of Thracians, and one base of Greek peltasts (expendables:  lots more available across the border for the next campaign!) and two bases of Skythian light cavalry and two bases of Asiatic light cavalry.  All the cavalry actually died unnecessarily - they charged skirmishers that evaded, and impaled themselves on the legionaries behind the skirmishers! Not quite the right way to use skirmishers, I think!

The Romans were very successful in breaking up the pike phalanx's advance by using light infantry to lure them out of formation! Within 3-4 more bounds the Romans might have ripped the disordered pikemen to shreds if bad weather (too little time) hadn't interfered!

All in all a very close run thing but still a long-awaited victory for Rome.

Next game we will deploy closer to one another to get into melee faster and upgrade the elephants a bit - I do think they need to be a bit more effective! All in all a very enjoyable game!

VB gives the most realistic effect of all the rules I have ever played. This IS the rule set for historical gamers that wants realistic tactics to work the way they should!

Petrus :Maxocephalus Destructos" and Corrie "Sell-u-Cheapis"

The Society of Ancients Games Day 2005

Just back from the SoA Games Day and AGM in Harpenden: and a great day it was too!

As last year, I brought enough terrain and figures to run two games simultaneously. Unfortunately, as it was just me (!) I could only run one game at a time. No matter, as both the day's games were really, really good!

In the morning, two lads and their dad playing the Egyptians fought Gordon, who had bought the rules but never got around to playing them, playing the Babylonians with a strong Lydian allied contingent.

The Egyptians put all their infantry on their right flank, and all their light troops on their left flank. When, therefore, thing came to the crunch, the battle neatly swung around until the two sides were playing left to right rather than the usual back to forward!

In the end, the Babylonian cavalry spent too much time disposing of the weak Egyptian left flank and, by the time they got back to the centre, all that was left of both sides was a line of four Egyptian CO archer bases. Not fancying being turned into pin cushions, the Babylonians withdrew!

One amusing fact of the battle was that at one point there were so many spare Egyptian officers (they having lost all their center and left flank troops) that five of them were gathered together in the centre of the field doing nothing...except being ridden over (for no casualties) by the Babylonian cavalry!

A win to the Egyptians, despite some Pharonic arguing between the two lads as to who controlled which bases!

The second battle saw me, myself (and I) fielding my favourite Sassanids against a Successor army full of men with nasty sharp sticks and disordering elephants. My opponent was Matt, who hadn't played the rules before (cries of "shame" from the gallery), but used the Sassanids regularly under another game system (that shall remain suitably nameless) and was currently engaged in writing a long and learned article for Slingshot that would neatly render my troop roster incorrect! Surely his insider knowledge of the Sassanid war machine would count for something?

The field was fairly featureless except for a large wood right in the middle. As neither side wanted to get tangled up in it, on the first turn, the only troops that moved were my ally horse archers! On the second turn, however, the Successors started their line forward, splitting their army in half around the wood. Not only this, but rather than advance in a full line, they split their four phalangite and four heavy cavalry bases into four mini lines of two bases each. Their light troops and elephants were far on the right flank.

That was all I needed. Quickly changing the Clib's orders (they were in a long line across the bottom of my end of the field), four of them shot to the right and smashed two heavy cavalry bases off the field. Meanwhile, one set of Sassanid Levy engaged the Companions (briefly, let me assure you: almost a case of "did you feel a bump, Stavros?") but this gave the Clib's time to re-order and smash them off the field too.

On the left, my Levy had got rid of his light troops, leaving the elephants to be disposed of in a Riders of Rohan like charge. This left only his phalangites on the board in the centre, now verses about six bases of Clibinarii and three of horse archers. Rather sensibly they decided to down pike for the Successors and offer their services as mercenaries to the Sassanids!

The battle was less one sided than the above suggests, I hasten to add: at one point I was a bit worried about getting trapped against my baseline!

Two great battles on a great day out!

R

Half A Battle Report From Huntingdon

Visited Huntingdon last night, where Chris and Steve kindly put on a 6mm Vis Bellica game for me to play in.

This is only HALF a Battle Report, because we only got to fight half the battle! But I enjoyed myself anyway.

The fight was between (if I remember rightly) a whole Republican Roman Legion complete with cavalry, and some revolting Gauls, all on an 8 X 4 table.

The number of Gaul infantry numbered slightly more than the Romans, (about 3:2) and they were of fairly high quality with a good proportion of Veterans, also two groups of Elites. In addition the Gauls were strong in mobile elements with plenty of Chariots and Cavalry.

Up to now, all the VB games I have played have been historical refights, but this was a "made-up" battle, which gave me a chance to experience some of the other aspects of the game, i.e. the leader base and spotting rules.

The Romans deployed from their long side (and from the Gaul point of view) about 2/3 along from our left. The terrain was interesting. In front of the Romans, and between them and our Gauls, a semi circle was described by a variety of rough and difficult terrain pieces, hills, a large marsh and woods. The spaces between these natural obstacles were not large enough to pass bases through so all had to be crossed over. On the extreme right, a small fortified town with a small wood in front of it (on the Roman side). A road ran around the outside of the semi circle of hills and woods.

I was given the left flank with a group each of cavalry and chariots plus two warbands each of five bases, and a sub-general. All had to be deployed behind the road. Chris had two warbands plus two bands of Elite Gaestati and a group of chariots under his sub-general, all on the right hand side. All were initially deployed as leader bases so Steve and Paul did not know the real bases from the dummies. However, as the Gallic plan was a simple "keep them busy at the front while we send the chariots and horses round the back" Steve could make a shrewd guess where my mobile bases were (the extreme left) and deployed most of his Velites to guard his flank and rear as his main force advanced onto the table.

I must admit I placed my dummy leader bases without much imagination.

Chris placed some Gaestati in the town with some more behind it, with everything else directly in front of the Romans but behind the road and the large hill in front of it. (I wondered, what do naked Elites actually DO in a town when they are waiting for battle? I imagined them idley cutting their toenails and holding pubic hair-counting contests).

The game began. Everybody moved forward on Attack Point orders.

Second turn some of our bases started to be within spotting range and after the neccessary Dice were thrown our bases started to be unmasked as real or fake. In this particular game, this feature did not seem to have much value, but in a different scenario, maybe? On the right handside there was some debate between Paul and Chris as to just what was visible of the town, there being the wood in the way and the raised ramparts, but by the next turn his Elites were all exposed anyway.. My cavalry bogged down in a wood, got all disordered. Steve moved his two groups of velites forward and placed one lot on the hill and the other in a wood directly behind it. These were both in between me and the main body of Romans. He also turned his cavalry round and aimed at me. My marching infantry were still a long way off. I didn't want him to get his cavalry on the hill.

Chris was now on top of the hill with his chariots. He charged down the hill and hit the Roman horsemen in the flank but did not achieve the complete annihilation we hoped for. Still, it stopped him getting on the hill. Chris' Elites were now advancing out of the town and preparing to fight Paul in the small woods to the front.

My infantry were poised to charge the hill. My mobile bases had poor dice rolls and could not remove all their disorder as they came out of the wood so the cavalry became split as some bases raced ahead.

Next turn I charged the hill. Took light casualties, the velites gave way. On the other flank, Elites met Paul's Velites and pushed them out of the woods. In the continuing melee inside the "ring" of terrain, the Roman cavalry were effectively destroyed, the survivors routing. But the brave Gaul chariots that had bought me time were
also no longer worth much.

Chris by now had all his warbands in line along along the top of the large hill to the Roman front. Steve's Hastati began to fan out into a line with the Triari in column behind, to meet them. The main battle was brewing.

My Chariots and cavalry, at last in good order and moving fast, were wheeling around the small hill where my Gauls were fighting and approaching the roman rear. My infantry had pushed down the other side of the hill and preparing to charge into the second group of Velites in the wood behind, where some of the first lot had taken
refuge without fighting.

My second warband would have no option but to follow them over the hill, rather than travel through the large marshland between the small hill and the large hill at the front. Everybody had avoided the marsh.

Paul didn't seem to have much to do on the extreme right corner but had been holding all this time at the edge of the wood with fatalistic determination.

Next turn I charged the wood behind the hill and Steve's Velites surprisingly countercharged in a very Un-Velite way. They held, I took more casualties and fumed in frustration.....

My mobile bases approached the Roman rear flank. Steve had assembled a line of Hastati to face them. At the front, Steve's main force was advancing in line towards the large hill. Chris was preparing to charge down the hill.

In real life we were fast running out of time. We had completed maybe 6-7 turns, there was only time for one more.

The last turn, and everyone charged. I could only get 2 chariot bases and 2 cavalry bases into his flank troops. Oh, what carnage!

Chris charged down the hill, Steve countercharged. They met at the foot of the slope. Both lines held but not without losses. Gratifyingly heavy casualties all round. That will teach those Romans a lesson....we never had time to even resolve the melees, it was closing time.

So that's it. This battle raised many points and let me see a side of VB I had not seen before. There were many instances where interpretation was in doubt and we just worked through these sensibly in the way we all agreed was most likely. I could see that some folks would not like that approach but that is VB I guess. I like it.

James Forrest

Chris Lowe adds:

A quick note is that although the troops were deployed as per a single legion vs some Gauls, the figure ratio was about one 6mm figure to about three men, so there were around 1200 points per side. That's 2½ times the size of a standard evening game!

Seleucids vs Republican Romans

We had a great battle this afternoon between two very evenly matched Seleucid and Republican Roman armies. Both armies was about 600 points a side with a sub-general and five leaders in each army.

The Seleucids had four light cavalry bases (two bow armed, two javelin armed), two heavy cavalry bases, three elephants, two archer bases, two slinger bases, two veteran pike bases, four pike bases and two peltast bases.

The Romans had eight legionary bases, four velites bases, two Italian medium infantry allied bases, one slinger, one archer, two medium cavalry and two heavy cavalry bases.

The battle field was very cramped with terrain, with two thick woods, a marsh, a impassable cliff, a town and a few gentle hills.

The Seleucids ambushed two light cavalry bases in a wood as well as placing the other two light cavalry bases in the same wood visibly at the rear. On that same flank the Romans ambushed two velite bases with two visible velite bases in the open. The ambush was behind the crest of a gentle hill a few hundred meters from the wood with the Seleucid cavalry. The Romans obviously deployed their heavy infantry in the only open patch on the battle field being opposed by a very deep phalanx, two bases deep across their front. The Seleucid phalanx was supported by two peltast bases, three elephants and all their cavalry. The other flank of the battle field, opposite to where the woods were, was limited by a marsh containing the 2 archer bases of the Seleucids protecting that flank. These were supported by the 2 slinger bases forming the extreme left flank of the battle line. The Roman Italian infantry opposed the archers, supported by the slinger and archer base. The Roman cavalry (four bases) were kept back to the rear in support of the light troops and covering that flank: it's difficult to describe this without pictures!

Any way, the battle commenced with the velites taking on the light cavalry in the woods on the one flank and on the other flank a early shooting match started between the Seleucid archers and the Roman archer and slinger base. After a long struggle the Roman velites broke three of the light cavalry bases, after losing a base themselves! They could not prevent the remaining light cavalry base charging the rear of a legionary base already in frontal combat against Thracian peltasts. The peltasts were destroyed in melee while the Roman legionary base just evaporated from the rear impact of the light cavalry in the same combat.

On the other flank the Romans succeeded in eliminating the two archer bases with a combination of missile fire and pressure by the Italian infantry and cavalry support. The Seleucid slingers were forced into the wood by two Roman cavalry bases and "contained" while the other two cavalry bases went right around that end of the Seleucid flank unopposed. At this point the centre phalanxes and Legionaries were in heavy melee combat. The Romans managed to break through the elephants, routing most of them as well as a heavy Seleucid cavalry base and some pike bases.

At this point the Seleucids surrendered with about eight bases destroyed or routing and the Romans lost about three bases. A well deserved victory for the Romans!!! The entire battle took about four hours and was excellent!!!!! A much better game than WAB or DBM or DBMM etc. etc. I have tried them all!

The only criticism I have is a few unclear situations not covered by the rules! We managed to use our own initiative to resolve this but I do think some points need more clarity, illustrations or descriptions!!! I will later on bring some of these points up for discussion.

But, all in all, it was great!

Petrus Jansen