My Metal Meneken: December 2020

Tuesday, 29 December 2020

The Battle at Flummoxia around 429 BC

It was this time of the year that we needed a contrast programme to the cold outside, so we decides for: Ancient Greeks, Hail Caesar, 28mm, a simple flat out battle on a dry and dusty land!

Bart took, as tradition commands it, the feisty Spartans, even though he never won a battle with them. He also never lost one, as his Spartans were true to their cause, always dead before they would know the circumstance.

So I took the side of the Delian empire, the set up was quite traditional, one line of hoplite moras from the best on the left to the worst on the right, flanked by peltasts and a dash of horse (or men on horses). The Athenians had more light skirmishers (peltasts) as the Spartans, because the Spartans had the better hoplites ... the terrain was flat but flanked by difficult ground and a extremely difficult gnarly olive tree orchard.

I took the 1st turn as the Spartans were busy praying (which was a mistake, I should have burned frankincense and myrrh to good old Fortuna ... but read on!), and more or less advanced in good order to the middle and at least my flanks were able to actually keep in phalanx (house rule was that you could loose phalanx at the end of movement if one failed a check for it). my best troops smashed into his unarmored hoplites and mauled them. My skirmishers more or less picked his cavalry and helots one after another ... but my cavalry was beaten by his Spartan (the worst) cavalry ... what a shame!

On the other side a little miracle happened on its own - his Kings bodyguard was NOT able to break my unarmoured phalanx of hoplites! For a very long time! In the centre it was more 50-50, so it looked like I would sooner or later mob him off the table as our mora ration was more or less the same BUT I had plenty of slingers and peltasts to wither him down - victory was near!

But only so far, as my General and his elite troops rolled a blunder and were off the table.

The gods intervention, a miracle for the Spartans, or maybe the Athenians just got bored and left the battlefield for home ... already the myth building is on its way:

http://asienieboje.blogspot.com/2020/12/if-you-mess-with-gods-gods-will-mess.html ...

We will never know the truth, and for sure no one in Athen wants to.

Initial set up

The King and his bodyguard

The Athenians and allies

The Spartan cavalry (?)

The Athenian elite hoplites

The first advance

Lets pelt them with stones!

The general of the Athenians and his hoplites

Somehow the Athenian skirmisher advance

The lines are closing in

The Peloponnesian allies crash into the Delian ones

The battle lines veer to the oblique ...

The spartan weakest mora is doomed!

While the Spartan King decides to wait!

Charge! Attack the helots!

At last the King attacks - into a formed phalanx!

The Spartan allied gets thrashed and shaken!

Same on the other flank, but my phalanx still stands!

The Spartan horse and a shaken mora is all they have left!

One Spartan allied unit in the centre breaks!

The Spartan Horse is broken too!

And the shaken mora!

The Athenians are a bit in dissarray but overall ...

... my unarmored hoplites are still fighting!

But then the General and two! moras vanish off table!

All the Spartans see is, one mora in the distance that quickly leaves for good too!

Where did the General go? - we will never know!

Friday, 18 December 2020

1515 - The Battle at Exhaustingo

Renaissance again!! ... aaand Welcome to another bash at the green chimney!

This time we had a little Imperial camp with lots of guns that was unfortunate enough to be attacked by a French force consisting of the infamous swiss pike blocks and the feared French Gendarmes d'Ordonnance. All in Pike &Shotte incl. some house rules. Bart choose the French as he loved to play cavalry charges and the minimal set up left no room for subtleties! The Imperial had more guns but weaker pike blocks less small units and lack in cavalry in quality and quantity. The Swiss and the gendarmes were better quality and had more and even had light guns ... not enough for Bart‘s taste ... well, as the Stones were singing somehow along these lines: ... you can‘t always have, what you want. Commands were all at 8, the CinC were 9.

So in line with their reputation the Swiss charges forward in a rush ... but the the gendarmes seemed to have some reservations ... hmm, interesting! I moved my regular landsknechts pike blocks to the flanks behind my weak cavalry for good old gendarmes trap. (One house rule: we gave the gendarmes the galloper rule (albeit 9")... that if they sweep away my light horse they would have to follow and crash into my pikes! Downside of this plan was, Bart knew that too well (from previous games), haha!

The Gendarmes finally got the jist and charged, the Swiss finally got in, the battle ground was the ditch and the German guns - a lot of arquebusiers perished! The Cavalry clashed - chaos reigned - the re-ordered and clashed again! A Swiss block got hacked to pieces, German Men-at-Arms got ridden into the sand by French gendarmes ... the gendarme trap set, sprung and didn‘t deliver as the gendarmes were fighting extra ordinary and the pikes response was poor!

After hours of battle and an equal amount of units lost on the field (French 8 vs Imperials 9), the attack was repulsed at a high cost. Both gendarmes needed rest, the Swiss and French blocks needed to retreat urgently, but only had few light horse units to screen them. The Imperial horse was in no better shape, all the guns were destroyed, too few Shotte left, the pikes were in no better state than their adversaries ...

Would they "pursue" the retreating foe in a "frantic" pike block chase??? Maybe that would be an idea for another scenario ... but both sides seem to have lost their appetite for destruction for this day and we both agreed on a raw draw - the fields of Exhaustingo were drenched in enough blood!

It was an tremenduosly thrilling battle, with all the toeing and froeing you would expect from such an renaissance tohuwabohu! We both agreed to rinse and repeat, as the rules worked a treat, and more and more, we seem to let lose the inner "Napoleonic-line warefare" complex, we all have in our minds, and descend into a more checkered renaissance model.

Stone, paper, scissors never seemed so appealing! ;)