The Battle Of Amphipolis - 422BC (Hail Caesar)

What a better way to start the year with some of the same you ended it? - So I put my Spartans and Athenians (28mm Warlord games and Victrix mix) on the table and we were going for the ancient battle late in the Peloponnesian War around Amphipolis.

In short, in real history, Cleon, the Delian empire general, strutted his forces in front of the city walls (just invisible on the long hill at the table edge in our illustrous case), while Brasidas went in for the kill, and lost his life but won the battle for the Spartans. So Bart (spartans and the King's Body Guard) and me (allies and Helots) stepped in for the Peleponnesian League while Mike (the Delian elite and allied hoplites) and Alisdair (the Thessalonian Riders and other rabble and peltasts) fought for Athens and his Delian Empire.

The Athenians were quite advanced as the Spartan King and his retinue went for a little Hoplidromos and charged the Athenians on the little hill! Whil I just advanced but kept my distance to the outnumbering Athenians. In fact both parties had the similar tactic, to block on flank, while the other should advance and outflank and roll up the other. You know what happens with plans!

Barts attack was soon quickly surrounded by more Athenians than he could think of and very early in the game Brasidas and his bodyguard got slaughtered! It looked like a walk over for the Athenians.
On my side my rabble was just tethering before the other rabble, avoiding clashes at all costs.

Soon in the centre something changed. The Athenians learned that the Spartan hydra had more heads than they wished for. On after the other Athenian hoplites were melting away before the last Spartan mora, while I kept (more or less because Alisdairs bad control dicing) the other flank away.

In the end many men and units were destroyed, both sides lost a lot and all cohesion to form anything formation wise let alone a charge, we called it a day. The Spartan king was dead and probably all Athenians would have retreated behind the city walls of Amphipolis, still in the hands of the Delian Empire – so we delared it an Athenian victory, but just about it, as the Spartans had give a good show for their money, but they lost a king ...

Initial deployment

The Athenian heavy hoplites

The helot rabble on Spartan side 

The Delian centre

all phalanges drew closer but we keep or formations

The Athenian allied Peltasts are far away

one unarmoured full mora joins my Helots for help

The Spartan king is surrounded on the hill!!!

The Thessalian cavalry attacks

just one mora dares vs 3 Delian morae, all in deep formation

a volte face as I withdraw and in the centre clashes the moras

the unarmored mora fans out her Lochons to a wide phalanx, but looses the tight formation

... nevertheless the flanks of the centre are covered once again!

my flat and long fanned out phalanx vs peppering peltasts

but the fight in the center stalls our deep phalanges getting beaten

and the king and his bodyguard die!!!

in an all out war cry we scream for revenge and charge!

the hippei clash and the peltasts join in

the last Spartan hoplites charge in anger!

the Athenians are melting away

my spartan horse wins!!! and  joins back to hunt peltasts

my unarmoured hoplites try to join in with the last spartans

... but they are too far away

the elan has gone the shields are heavy as the sun sets before the wall of amphipolis

At last ...and until the last ... the Greeks again

28mm, To the Strongest, me with some Romans and some against some Romans and Maccedonians ... the December Sunday game of the club. Well even though it wasn't entirely historic (Martian Romans, Spanish Romans, what not romans mixed with my Classical Greeks, you know!) game it was a fun game and my Spartan hoplites pressed onwards vs some Romans quite nicely just until my flank romans broke and them a little later the other flank and then the last part of the centre that just left me ... that was the whole battle. My force now never been defeated (directly) but somehow ending up on the loosing side! You could make a classical drama out of it...
As I forgot my camera, the more detailed rap under here:
http://asienieboje.blogspot.com/2019/12/big-sunday-ancient-to-strongest-wielkie.html

BUT
the last battle in this decade, was a battle with my wife. No - not what you think!
28mm, Classical Greeks, Hail Ceasar+, Spartans vs Athenians and my lovely, better half agreed to play the Spartans, while I was defending the Delian empire. In short, she took the rules, as well as my phalanx amends with strides and in no time, I was pushed in my flank from the unarmoured hoplite allies and lost a complete hoplite unit. That put me on the back foot.

Meanwhile, we had a little cavalry fight where ,I destroyed the spartan horse and some of our peltasts were going to hit the dust as well. That was before the Kings bodyguard (or shall I say Queens?) hit the stage ... nominally/unit wise it was a draw, but Isabella had me in a pincer attack and the bodyguard was just warming up ... I conceded defeat...

That was it from me everybody, a belated Happy X-mas and an wonderful Happy New Year!

The perfect scene set

The Spartans ready to defend her Queen

The Delian Peltasts

The first casualties, mine of cource

two turns into the game, the big clash

the skirmisher are fighting just in front of the backing phalanges

from the spartans point of view

and their General-King

My cavalry victorious but useless ever after ...

my left flank under Spartan pressure

And the Bodyguard (with red shields) gets counter attacked

still my left flank holds ... just on a thread

while my efforst of two holpites vs the bodyguard failes and get pushed back

the left flank is shaken

After my retreat, I sued for peace ... game over  - Spartan won!

1544 - The Battle of Ceresole - with a bit of Kerosine

It was the last weekly game in the club before x-mas and that should be something special!  So I carried my complete Italian Wars 28mm figures over and Me, Bart and Alisdair went for the historical Battle of Ceresole - but with a little bit more umpf (more guns and arquebusiers for the Imperials, more Horse for the French and more Swiss ...

This was the first time all of my new Swiss were coming out to play and so I decided to choose the French and conscripted Alisdair into my service and gave him the left flank and the Bande Neri (did I mentioned we umpfed it up a bit?). So Bart had to play the Imperials-Spanish his Highness Charles V. I had recently finished my second set of large hills, as we that would be the only dominating terrain feature. As with these games they are too big to finish for a club night, but you live only once, so we gave the "skirmishing" rabble a headstart and deployed them in the middle while the big guns, pike blocks and gendarmes were at the edges.

Each had 5 commands, including the king / emperor, and Bart won the initiative and started the advance. Basically you need to advance a lot before you even reach the enemy. My Swiss were crawling in snail speed and we had two blunder (Alisdair and Bart), but eventually we were in shooting range and the Spanish-imperials were peppering the French quite heavy.
Then I felt the need to charge with my Men-At-Arms two guns... also in this period not a good idea not a tin can reached the Germans.

Bart was advancing left right and centre and soon we had the usual cavalry fight on both flanks. I did quite well vs Bart, the title holder in the Club-Horse-Hussar and was fairly proud of me: until Alisdair charged Bart -  with his French Archers ... all through the game he swiped Barts Horse away, much to his chargrin. And I was so stupid to deny him, Alisdair, the French Gendarmes d‘Ordonnance!!! I just nearly lost all of them vs Barts Imperial ones. Next games Alisdair will get the Horse!!!

Then nearly to the ned we killed some units, mostly horse and guns, but at the last turn I made an all out charge and blasted Barts gendarmes away and nearly killed Barts mega Landsknechts pike block ... he just  messed up with the dice and had to re-roll and then just got away ... Any way final count was 1 unit more in the ditch from the Imperials, so technically a French victory, but Bart had the upper hand with the guns and still an operating unit of Gendarmes d‘ Ordonnance ... well if this would have been a Sunday game Me and Alisdair would have to work hard for the victory ... so you could argue and because its x-mas, it was a draw! But my new Swiss weren't defeated! (you know the curse of the new models...)

Well that was it all in all absolutely fun - next Sunday game will be the last in 2019 and a massive To The Strongest including my Classical Greeks ...

The Imperial right flank with mounted crossbows and argulets

The german centre with the large pike block

The Frech centre left with the Gascogne crossbows and in the back the Kings Horse 

The Imperial right flank Horse and Arquebusiers

the initial deployment

the two opponents closing in

Barts advancing the arquebusiers in the front of the pike are his minis ... he promised to paint more

my Swiss (Berner) contingent, light halberdiers in front of the pikes

The German gendarmes and the last seconds of my charging Men-at-arms in front of the guns 

the Borgia swordsmen charge! ... but fail short

... in front of some German Doppelsoeldner

The German Gendarmes d‘Ordonnance

the Holy Roman Empire in one line

The clash of the heavy metals both gendarme units clash in a charge

The French gendarmes even took it while disordered! King Francis I was watching!

but they didn‘t hold out for long!

Then the Germans swipe through to the light gun

the other gendarmes push the germans back, just about it while being shaken

 

while the heat goes on

the French men-at-arms get shot to by landsknecht arquebusiers

Then my french archer clash with German mounted crossbow men - no chance! 

A Landsknechts Pike block advances

The French Landsknechte arrive on the hill!

my final push of my Schwyzer pike into the large Landsknecht block

Former set up ... with more commands