Prufrock's Wargaming Blog

Prufrock's Wargaming Blog

Friday, May 21, 2010

Cynoscephalae

Here are some shots from a recent solo refight of Cynoscephalae. (Note the new hills in use - I'm not very pleased with them: I need to improve my flocking techniques!)
The first shot shows a scene from about the fourth or fifth turn. Philip has reinforced the ridge after some early hits by the Romans; Flamininus have been forced to delay his advance in the foreground to press the attacks on the left.

The next shot shows the situation two turns later. The Romans are under a lot of pressure facing Philip's veteran phalanx on the ridge. They have won the cavalry battle, but the cavalry flank attacks are not proving very effective in dislodging the phalangites. The Roman troops in the foreground are all spent. In hindsight, these should have retreated at this point, forcing Philip to come down off the ridge and press the attack. Note also the Roman zone (with elephants and Flamininus himself) in a pocket (flanked on both sides).



This is a shot showing the entire battlefield. The Romans are taking heavy casualties assaulting Philip on the ridge. In the foreground they have come to grips with the other phalanx units and are having the better of it. Unfortunately for Rome, the hour is getting late (as Bob Dylan said in another context...).




The last shot shows the phalangites (painted by Fernando Enterprises) in the centre thumbing their noses at the Romans, who have been forced to call it a day. The phalanx has held its ground and inflicted a bloody nose on the legions. Although the battle has been inconclusive, Flamininus has had the worst of the exchange, and will have to do a bit of creative reporting to keep the senate off his back...

The points tally is Macedon 97 vs 57 to Rome for a solid victory to the fellows with the pikes.

The battle was good fun and a bit of a puzzle for both sides. The Romans suffered from poor command rolls early in the game vs strong ones for the Macs, which allowed Philip more options for deployment and cut down the Roman chances to make optimum use of the veteran legions' ability to manoeuvre trickily. Again, Lost Battles proved a most enjoyable way to spend an evening.

8 comments:

  1. Looks good- we played Kyno around 10 times in connection with the SOA battleday in '07. Interesting battle!

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  2. Thanks for popping by, BRB. You're not alone in noticing that I'm always about two years behind the times ;-)

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  3. Hi, Just noticed your report of the battle on the Lost Battles mailing list. What size table are you using? How many 40mm wide elements are used to represent an average unit?

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  4. Hi TWR, the table is my painting table, & only 1050 by 700mm. For games I put a cork bulletin board over it which increases the size to 1200 x 800. That gives me 250 x 200 per zone, which works pretty well.

    For this battle I used 4 DBx bases per average unit of infantry & 2 bases for average cav. I don't have huge amounts of successor phalangites or horse, so for successor v successor battles would halve those numbers.

    hanks for your interest, and if you have any more questions feel free to fire away!

    Cheers,
    Aaron

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  5. If you were using two stands for average infantry would you reduce the sector size a little? I was considering 160mm or near to these dimensions.

    I see you have been using Vassal. I should have a look at this at some point as well.

    Regards - Keith

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  6. Hi Keith,

    How are you? I hope you're keeping well and still enjoying a bit of Spearhead with Brian and co. I pop in for a look at your blog every now and then.

    To your question, I think you might be pushing it at 160mm per zone, as you need a bit of wiggle room around the units. Assuming a frontage of one base, you'd be able to fit 9-12 average or 6 levy units in a zone (fewer if cav) at this size. You could certainly manage with that for many of the battles, but it would get pretty tight if you're playing a game with lots of levy or cav. And of course how the thing looks is important as well.

    If you're just making do for the time being, or wanting to try the game out, 160 x 160 should be fine for most battles; but if you're going to invest time and money into getting a board together specifically for LB, I'd go bigger.

    Before making any decisions though I'd give it a try at 160 x 160 and see how it goes.

    Regarding VASSAL, if you're keen for a game post a message on the LB yahoo group and I'll get in touch with you.

    Cheers,
    Aaron

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  7. Thanks for your comments Aaron. I can understand the wriggle room factor so I probabbly should have written just over 160cm. I've played Lost Battles, or Strategos, only twice and the biggest issue I have is the visuals, including too much open space.

    I think before I try Vassal I should really try some solo games to get the hang of the rules.

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  8. Yes, the battlefield does look quite different from (say) DBM or FOG, so it takes a bit of getting used to. It can look sparsely populated if you're using a 6 x 4 ft table & 15mm troops.

    Anyway, best of luck with it!

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