I don't have a lot of decent shots from the evening, but here is my line a deployment. Antiochos led the right flank cavalry who performed most nobly. Even with the borrowed commands, I was out-pointed significantly - around 400 points to about 550 points. Brett brought his Romans onto the table in line of march; three heavy infantry divisions and one cavalry division.
Antiochos very quickly dismissed the Roman cavalry who lasted only slightly longer on the field of battle than it took them to march on the table. In the centre though, the infantry didn't fair quite so well. That said, my Arab light infantry and light cavalry served most honourably and stood their ground for multiple turns against great odds.
My mounted divisions on both flanks held up remarkably well against the legions of Rome. I hate to say that my elephants proved (once again) seriously underwhelming. You can see from the abundance of counters that we had a really grueling - and enjoyable - slogging match. As the sun set on the gaming table, there was a great empty hole where my centre used to be. I had lost three units of phalangites and my elite agema cavalry from the right flank. The Romans were also seriously bloodied but in a much better position to continue the battle had time allowed. We called it a bloody draw but in reality Brett was just being kind.
Next up, I have my first pike phalanx to paint along with most cavalry, slingers and some lovely camels. More pike, more Asiatic light infantry and some thorakitai medium infantry are on their way from Rapier. The Rapier service can be a bit slow, but the quality of sculpts is, to my mind, quite a bit better than Baccus.
More updates to come but to finish off, here is a lovely Angus McBride painting of Tarantine Horse, elite mounted javelineers. Not sure why he has given them square shields as I've only every seen round shields used in depictions on South Italian red figure vases and Tarantine coinage. Still, I presume he had a decent source as his stuff was usually well researched.
The McBride "Tarantine" painting is from Nick Sekunda's Montvert "Ptolemaic Army", and like most of the plates in that book, the figure is directly based on one of the Sidon painted grave-stelae. This one is of a Greek cavalryman, from Perrhaibia near Thessaly. The inscription on the stele doesn't actually call him a Tarantine, but that seems to be the style of his equipment.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks Duncan. I suspected that he had a good reason. I must look up the Sidonian stele...
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