Lost Battles - Postscript

I really enjoyed our recent foray into the world of Lost Battles. Previously my 15 mm ancient figures had sat unloved and forlorn, in their boxes for a good 5 or 6 years. Not that I don't have a soft spot for said figures but this was simply a consequence of having too many other projects on the go. With the advent of the club campaign, not only did the figures get a protracted outing but I was also inspired to get a few more to fill in the odd gap in the collection.
First up were a couple of troop types that have been on my 'to do' list for at least a decade; namely Romans and Carthaginian Sacred Band. An additional 4 bases of Romans will allow me to field slightly later Roman armies without wheeling out the slightly anachronistic Triarii and 'Penal' legions every time. Similarly, an extra 5 bases of Sacred Band will allow me to field an early Carthaginian army to play the wars against Syracuse.
For these figures I wanted to match the existing figures in my collection, which meant Donnington Miniatures. I was pleased to find that these are still available, although they come with the ominous warning that their older figures may need more preparation due to older moulds. I do remember that some Donnington figures, in my original collection, did suffer from a good deal of flash but in the end I need not have worried as the figures I received were perfect.

Marian Romans (Donnington)

 As this was a bit of a side project, I went with speed painting and finished them in gloss varnish to match my original collection. Bearing in mind that they were never intended to be viewed close up, I think they look fine on the tabletop.

Carthaginian Sacred Band (Donnington)
The base with the lighter bronze colour are the original 30 year old figures

I really like these figures as they are good solid wargames pieces with no extraneous sticky out bits to get bent. In fact I chose the Marian legionary wielding sword, rather than throwing pilum, for this very reason. They are also really easy to paint. All of which makes them some of my favourite 15 mm ancients figures.

A slightly blurry rear shot - Carthaginians on the left, Romans on the right.

If I want to field my early Carthaginians against a Syracusan army I need a few more units of hoplites; another 8 bases worth to be exact. Two of these units were composed of Gladiator Miniatures (some of my favourite Hellenistic figures) and actually made it into our campaign.

Hoplites (Gladiator Miniatures - heavy and medium hoplites)

The final two units were a late addition and a chance find. These are from Outpost Wargames Services and are cracking good value. Not only are the figures really nice but they are also some of the cheapest that I have found. One problem though - they sent me phalangites rather than hoplites. However, as I didn't realise this until I started painting them I just decided to go with it. If I originally thought they were hoplites then that was close enough!

Phalangites posing as hoplites (Outpost)

Hoplites rear view
From the left; Gladiator medium and heavy hoplites, Outpost phalangites

So all in all a nice addition to my collection and 144 figures painted and based in about 3 weeks is pretty good going for me.
Looking forward to the next campaign now - anyone for hoplites?

Lost Battles 200 BC Campaign - The Final Countdown

This week we played the final round of the 'campaign'. On the face of it, Gaul and Numidia were vying for first place, Rome and Syracuse for second whilst Carthage and Macedon were trying not to be last. Strangely, it didn't turn out quite like that.

After the battlefields were generated, the Numidians were to face the Gauls on a plain.

The Improbable Encounter - Gauls face Numidians in a very yellow desert

This was to be the quickest game of the evening; no doubt due to the simple nature of the Gallic army and the lack of terrain. Not surprisingly an army of largely heavy infantry facing one of mostly light cavalry resulted in a draw. This lack of a decisive result made the outcome of the remaining battles very interesting!

Fighting for second place, Rome faced Syracuse on the Granicus battlefield.

Rome struggles across the river in the face of Syracusan opposition

By all accounts Ellimedes had, once again, sacrificed to the dice gods, resulting in a decisive win for Syracuse.

Down at the bottom of the table, Macedon faced Carthage on the field of Delium. The central hills were going to be a problem for the Macedonian phalanx but at least the two flanking streams should restrict the more numerous Carthaginian cavalry.
Antigonus' plan was to keep his cavalry in the stream zones, hopefully protracting the cavalry fight. The phalanx were to be deployed in the 3 centre zones with a slight preponderance in the left centre zone; the only zone where the phalanx could be deployed to best effect. However, with a command roll of one, the centre of the Macedonian army failed to deploy.

Macedonians push ahead on the left whilst the centre fails to turn up

The only house rule that we used for the whole campaign was that, as we were not fighting historical encounters,  each side could choose their own key zone (obviously chosen from the left centre, centre and right centre zones). For this battle Antigonus chose the left centre; being the zone where the bulk of the phalanx would deploy.
Somewhat surprisingly, Nellimedes chose his right centre zone, directly opposed to the Macedonian key zone. The mass of the Carthaginian heavy cavalry deployed on their right wing facing the Macedonian cavalry, whilst their main fighting power, consisting of veteran infantry and elephants, deployed in their right rear. The remaining Carthaginian line was lightly held by average infantry and light cavalry. These, probably sensing an opportunity arising from the Macedonians difficulty in deploying, advanced to attack. Oddly though Nellimedes chose to hold back his veteran infantry and heavy cavalry on the base line leaving his key zone unoccupied.
Seeing this, Antigonus sent forward the cavalry and phalanx, completely forgetting the plan to anchor his flank on the stream. Not only that but another command roll of one meant his centre was still unable to deploy.

The Macedonian centre finally arrives whilst the left flank battles it out. In the distance, the right wing is harried by Numidian cavalry

On subsequent turns the missing phalanx eventually turned up but all the Macedonian effort was put into their exposed left wing. Eventually this paid off with the more numerous Carthaginian cavalry breaking. Now assailed from two directions, the Carthaginian infantry were soon to follow. An interesting battle that could have gone either way; mainly decided by an error in the Carthaginian deployment.

So how did this affect the campaign outcome?

The Final Scores

In the end Alanix held on to his lead but a late win meant Ellimedes rose to joint first! More surprisingly, Antigonus' only win allowed Macedon to rise to joint third. As for the favourites, Rome and Carthage, - ...........nuff said.

So all in all a good campaign and I feel the format worked well. Hopefully, we can revisit this in the future.

Rediscovering 'Lost Battles'

At the moment we're having a bit of an 'ancients' resurgence at the club. After our jousting diversion I offered to put on an ancients game and dug out my 'Lost Battles' set up.

This has long been my favourite set of ancients rules but has languished unused for several years now. Not that there is anything wrong with them, it's just that nowadays we're spoiled for choice and there are just so many great game systems out there. That said, it was great to reconnect with an old favourite. As none of the players has played LB before (and one was a complete ancients newbie) I put on 4 historical battles straight from the book, designed to gradually introduce new concepts until all players were reasonably confident with the rules. It must be said that, in my experience, 'Lost Battles' is a 'Marmite' set of rules in that players either love or hate them. Luckily our new players took to the system straight away and I was encouraged enough to suggest a campaign.

I say campaign but it's actually more of a tournament but .......shh.......we don't use the 't' word.
The campaign rules are very simple and are designed to produce a number of battles with random terrain and everyone plays everyone else once, in a sort of league set up. All armies are about the same fighting value (ca. FV 66) with average troops and sprinkling of veterans. I provided six armies for the campaign, namely; Rome, Carthage, Macedon, Syracuse, Gallia and Numidia. We drew cards with the highest card getting first choice of army and working down to the lowest card. Once armies were chosen, players keep the same army for the whole campaign.

Each round there is a bit of a pregame that involves everyone being dealt 3 cards (inspired by the Blood and Plunder pirate rules). Cards are ranked as follows:

The first step each round is to generate 3 battlefields. These are  not only taken from the 'Lost Battles' rule book but also it's predecessors, 'Strategos' and 'Strategos II'. There are 36 possible battlefields but each battlefield can only be used once.

Possible battlefields - shaded battlefields are on a plain

Players then play a card from their hand and choose one of that round's three battlefields, in initiative order.
Similarly, the second card decides who gets the choice of deployment table edge and the third card determines who gets choice of deploying first or second.
Finally, each tabletop encounter checks for weather.

As all armies are about the same fighting value, the handicap system is not used. The winner is the side that holds the battlefield at the end. Battles are all 10 rounds and the attack limit is set at 4 for all battles.

This week we fought round 3 with the following match ups:

Rome vs Macedon (Bibracte)
Syracuse vs Gallia (Crimisus)
Carthage vs Numidia (Leuctra)

Macedonians advance over the stream whilst Romans struggle to deploy

Gauls struggle to cross the River Crimisus

Carthage begins to deploy

Numidians swarm across the plain

So with two rounds yet to play, the scores look like this: