"Suggest A Battle" Topic

We have an idea down the club to set up a small battle and refight it several times using different rule sets. BUT we need to find a battle with a little more interest than the "line up and go" variety. So Hastings, for example, is out.

So, suggest a battle with a little more interest that could be played on a 4x6 table with 15mm troops mounted on 40mm frontages.

And a battle, not a skirmish.

We have done the Teutoburg Wald – Romans marching down the road, Germans to the front and to the side

The Battle of Bibracte from Caesar's conquest of Gaul might be worth considering – Caesar guarding his baggage train, counter-attacking and then unexpected Gaul reinforcements show up

Anything from this book!

link

Joe Collins

Egypt vs Mitania

You could try one of these – soa.org.uk/joomla/battle-day – the previous Society of Ancients Battledays. But they are mostly not small. Alternatively this thread – link – in the Society of Ancients Forum is devoted to reproducing the original sources, with some discussion, for various ancient and mediaeval battles. Again, some of them are not small actions, but you cold look at Corinth, Alabanda, Delium or Mantineia for instance.

Moderate size rather than small but – Heraclea – link

2 different armies – Successor and Roman + river crossing

The Battle of Beneventum (275 BC) between the Romans and Pyrrhus two quite different style armies an attempted night attack, rough terrain and more importantly Elephants :)

Arsuf. Crusader knights on the march. Ambush by Saladin forces Richard to come back and rescue his rear guard. Features quality cavalry, quality foot, horse archers and skirmishers. Should be enough to test out most aspects of a game system.

Somewhat contrarily, I actually recommend a battle with an apparent "line up and go" format, but with somewhat asymmetrical forces. My thinking is that too much symmetry is just a slogging match (e.g. hoplites or pikes on both sides), but battles with too much asymmetry are ruined by hindsight (famous ambushes, cavalry vs. infantry, 100YW bows vs. knights). You want a battle with some symmetry so that you're testing the rules and not weird player gambits to exploit perfect hindsight that their ancient counterparts didn't have (i.e. "this time, we'll put all the cavalry over behind that hill and they won't be able to stop us…"). Ideally, both sides should have an even chance to win, both should be encouraged to use standard period tactics (two big lines, mobile wings, hard core), but both should have strengths to enhance/negate and weaknesses to mitigate/exploit.

Punic Wars battles are a classic matchup where the sides have rough parity but different strengths and weaknesses, and you can vary the composition of the armies by choosing different theaters. For instance: Zama and Bagradas both featured long lines of elephants; Dertosa (Ibera) and Ilipa featured large contingents of unreliable Spanish allies on both sides; battles in northern Italy (e.g. the Metaurus, the Trebia) featured large contingents of Gauls on the Carthaginian side (giving them a heavy fist and a glass jaw at the same time); and so on.

Legion vs. phalanx fights are usually pretty interesting. The battles against Pyrrhus have already been mentioned, and the later battles of Cynoscephalae and Pydna are also good contests.

- Ix

For my old club I had success running, among others, Crimissus (339BC Timoleon of Syracuse against the Carthaginians) and Browershaven (1426, English/Dutch vs. the Burgundians in an amphibious assault.)

Crimissus in particular you have to be careful about scenario design to allow the Syracusans a fighting chance. (On the face of it the Carthaginians had a big numerical superiority, but most of their forces never got engaged.)

I used 1st Edition FOG for both, but they'd lend themselves to other rules just as well.

I have done the Battle of Callinicum with 10 different rules sets that was quite interesting with different unit types on both sides. I have also done Heraclea with about 14 rulesets and Hydaspes with about 5. So I can recommended those three. I also concur with GurKhan to look at the SoA Battleday packs – Callinicum and Hydaspes are two of them.

Look at all of the battles listed in the modules available for GMT's Great Battles of History series. Tons of battles to consider.

Modules here -
link
link

Separate battles shown within links.

And of course those modules give to excellent starting place for OOBs.

You might look at the Battle of the Crimissus. The Carthaginian outnumber the Greeks but they have to get those across the river and risk being destroyed in detail.