Three Featherstonian Battles #1: The Battle of Trimsum

As part of my desultory quest to play all the...iconic? foundational?...wargames scenarios...I had a go at the first battle in Don Featherstone's Wargames. The first battle is an Ancients affair - although amusingly enough it is really more like a battle from Conan than anything strictly historical (for similar reasons presumably - it wasn't so easy to create good matching armies in 1962, so the iconic armies of ancient history were allowed to fight each other!). So the armies of Hyperborea (with chariots and war engines) and Hyrkania (with elephants and war engines) faced off in the 'Battle of Trimsos'.

 

 

 

I am not quite so constrained, so I redesigned the scenario into the Battle of Trimsum, to feature Romans against Ancient Britons. The elephants have disappeared, but the chariots stayed, so obviously the Britons took the role of the Hyperboreans. 

 

The rules used were Polemos:SPQR. It was quite a small battle for this set, typically a small battle for SPQR would be 20-bases/side, rather than this game of 10-bases/side.

 

The Forces:

 

Britons:

4 bases of Tribal Foot

1 base of javelin-armed skirmishers

3 bases of Light Horse

2 bases of Chariots (Elite)

 

Rome:

 4 bases of Legionaries (Formed, Armoured)

1 base of sling-armed skirmishers

1 base of Light Horse

2 bases of Cavalry (Armoured)

2 bases of Artillery (Scorpions) 

 

I adopted the same deployment as the original, more-or-less, although I slightly re-aligned the terrain; I found the relationship between the two a little odd in the original, with the Hyperboreans moving at an angle to the river. This won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't read or played the original, but hopefully it is clear to anyone who has.  I also added in another river to mark the 'end of the world' in the original scenario, so it would have the dimensions I use for a typical One-Hour Wargame-type scenario.

 

Eagle-eyed readers may notice the photos are distinctly darker/worse than in the recent past. This is because I have had to move to a new gaming space within the house, which is not particularly photography-friendly, and I haven't had time to work out how to ameliorate the situation a little. I wanted to test the playing ergonomics a little first. 

 

The Set-Up: 

 

View from behind the Romans - essentially in 3 columns, with legionaries and slingers in the left-column, legionaries and ballistae in the central column, with some Numidian Light Horse and some Roman cavalry on the Right.

A closer look at the massed ranks - the general is leading the central column, the Legion's commander is taking the left column.

The Britons' Left (right) and Centre - two bands of warriors, one supported by some javelinmen, the other by some Light Horse

Light Horse and Chariots on the Britons' Right

View from behind the Britons' Left

And looking towards the Romans

The Battle:

The Romans took the initiative and advanced; the Britons have moved their Light Horse to skirmish and delay them.

The Roman Cavalry push forward over the hill; the Britons have become slightly mixed-up in bringing their Light Horse back over the bridge.

The Roman Cavalry has seen off the first element of the Britons' Light Horse on the hill

Meanwhile, the Numidians and remaining Roman Cavalry engage the Britons on the hill on the left.

The Numidians throw back the Javelinmen with loss, then engage the main body of the Britons on the Left.

To try and restore the situation in the centre, the Britons' chief leads more tribal warriors onto the central hill to battle the Roman horsemen

Initially honours are even on the Left, although the Javelinmen run off; but the British warriors have been pushed off the central hill again

And then all of a sudden, the Roman (and Numidian) Horseman just put their opponents to flight and the sword, just as the first legionaries are coming into action also

The Britons are in full retreat - although their right was barely engaged, so most of those warriors will escape

Game Notes:

It was quite a fun game, although there is always a slightly fiddly element with these rules that I can't seem to eliminate (i.e. hold in my head confidently without checking), to do with combat outcomes and pursuits and so on. But it was basically fine as a game. It was quite swingy though, as a function of the way that the tempo points (similar to PIP points for DBx players) work - with very small numbers of bases it is more likely that everyone will be able to do stuff...but also it is more likely that no-one will be able to do anything. And this is more or less what happened to the Britons. They brought back the Light Horse over the bridge (just as in the game of the original scenario), got disordered, and then could not rally in time, so there were a lump of troops that could not help at the crucial time. Not unrealistic perhaps, but very annoying for the Britons. The Romans look was generally replicated in the combats too, so it was relatively quite a straightforward victory for them. Attacking over the bridge was so low odds that I didn't do it: they did do it in the original game, to relative predictable and well-deserved disaster. I think what I am saying is that I really, really disagree with the Hyperborean deployment! If I do a bigger version of this to completion, expect changes...

Figures and models from Baccus 6mm. 

 

 

31st December 2025 - Hobby Update

 The main update is that there isn't much to update. All the painting has been for the bairn, finishing off his Warlord Gauls...

 

 

...and some Perry Miniatures' English Army of Agincourt set. The archers are finished...

The knights are nearly finshed also:

 

Both sets are really nice and come with plenty of variation, and paint up well. I think  

 

No painting for me recently, very unfortunately, since I have lots in the painting pile. There are some WW2 bits and pieces first, then some WSS and Napoleonics, then some Byzantines and Carthaginians. Amongst other things!

 

There really hasn't been much gaming, although I have tried , without much success. I will go into the whys and the wherefores of that in my review of the year but suffice to say, not much has happened despite the desire being there. I did even get into the set-up and play a few turns stage a few times, as in this game below (can you tell what it is yet?), but nothing completed. 

 

Romans (bottom) face off against a Pontic Army (top)

 I am going to come back to this one!

 

A lot of my 'gaming energy' has instead been spent on having another go at developing the Portable Air Wargame rules further; examining some Vassal modules to see if they might be suitable for gaming possibilities; and on converting old Call of Cthulhu and Dungeons & Dragons scenarios into WFRP 1st edition scenarios. I think that I have mentioned before that as work-life gets more busy-stressful, my creative urges seem to be drawn to role-playing games more than battle games, for some reason.

 

 

 

Battle of Charonea: an Ancient & Medieval Warfare refight

Since my first game wasn't entirely satisfactory, I decided to replay Charonea immediately with the Neil Thomas' Ancient & Medieval Wargaming rules, with an improvised scenarion based on the previous game. I supposed that the much simpler and more intuitive Neil Thomas' rules would probably suit my brain state much better!

 

 

 

I used the following forces:

 

The Pontic Army:

1 unit of Pike (Elite, Medium Armour)

4 units of Pike (Raw, Medium Armour) 

2 units of Auxiliaries (Raw, Medium Armour)

1 unit of Heavy Cavalry (Raw, Medium Armour)

1 unit of Light Cavalry (Raw, Light Armour, Javelins)

1 unit of Heavy Archers (Raw, Light Armour)

1 unit of Light Infantry (Raw, Light Armour, Javelins)

1 unit of Scythed Chariots (Special) 

 

The Roman Army:

3 units of Legionaries (Elite, Heavy Armour, Javelins)

1 unit of Auxiliaries (Average, Medium Armour)

1 unit of Heavy Cavalry (Elite, Heavy Armour)  

 

So some heavily outnumbered but stronger Roman units facing a variety of weaker Pontic units.

 

One side of the board is the slopes of Mount Thurion, whereas the other side is the bank of the River Cephisus (not represented, but keep in mind that that flank was fixed for both sides). 

The Set-Up: 

Pontic Army to the left and bottom, Romans to the right, with the Thracians on their left, slightly refused (i.e. right of the photo); the Pontic camp is to the top-left.

Another view

And another of the main Pontic host

Looking past the Pontics towards the smaller Roman force

The Battle

The Pontic advanced forces (chariots, cavalry, stratiota detachment) advance on the Romans and Thracians.

Another view

The Roman Cavalry takes the initiative on the far flank (bounded off-table by the River Cephisus) and charges the Pontic Light Horse; ordinarily the Light Horse would have avoided being in charge reach of the heavier Roman cavalry, but they are somewaht boxed in by the Stratiota and the archers.

The scythed chariots did their work well - note the damage done to the centre unit of Roman Legionaries (right); now the Javelinmen are moving up to take their turn

On the far (Pontic Left) flank, the Pontic Light Horse have inflicted more damage than might have been expected; they are still getting the worst of it, however.

Meanwhile, the Stratiota are fighting the Thracians on the Roman left (centre-bottom); the Thracians might be thought of as being ahead on points, at this stage.

The left-hand Pontic phalanx is moving up, to try and get at that disrupted Roman centre

The Roman leginaries have taken additional casualties from the Pontic archers and javelinmen in the centre; on the other hand, the Thracians seem to have gained the upper hand on the Roman Left (centre-bottom right)

Taking a calculated risk, the right-hand Legion attacks the leading Pontic phalanx in the flank, exposing its own flank to the Pontic bowmen; its rear is still protected by the threat of the Roman cavalry, who retired to regroup (top-right); the flank attack has been somewhat successful, but the phalanx is still intact

Proving once again that fortune favours the bold, the Pontic archers ran off!! The left-hand phalanx is therefore in a sticky situation; with the defeat of the Stratiotas imminent on the Pontic Right (bottom right), the Pontic Cavalry advance in support (centre)

And in short order, the left-hand phalanx (see gap near Roman L-shape, top-centre) and the stratiotas (centre-right) have been defeated and run-off; the Pontic reserves move up to compensate

The battle has run on a little here; the Pontic Right (bottom-centre) sees the Pontic cavalry engaging the Thracians; two more phalanxes have engaged the two central, and quite weakened, Roman legions (centre); the stratiotas on the Pontic Left (top-left) are facing off against a Legion and the Roman Cavalry; the Pontic javelinmen have moved to the back to get out of the way (bottom-left); the Pontic reserves (a Phalanx and a group of Stratiotas) are moving towards the centre to assist.

The main fight in the centre is weakening both sides equally; in the bloody struggle in the foreground, both Thracians and Pontic horsemen are falling in droves, but slighly more of the latter than the former

However, that Pontic Cavalry unit seems to be fighting down to the last man!  This was matched by the heroism of the Stratiotas on the other flank (top) who have seen off the Roman Right in its entirety - just!

Can't be long now for the Roman centre...

And another legion goes down! The Romans are defeated, with only one legion and the Thracians still in viable units, and both of them heavily understrength

Game Notes:

A nice, fun game with a distinctly lower level of complexity than Polemos SPQR. Because of if, Neil Thomas' Ancient & Medieval Wargamning is really easy to pick up and play from the shelf after a period of absence, because there really is not that much to remember; in particular, there are very few exceptions and special rules. It does probably lead to an unrealistically 'zippy' game, with the mighty phalanxes easier to start and stop; but on the other hand it didn't seem to make that much difference: in this game, maybe some of the actions on the Pontic Left (top of the board) were slightly more complex than a set which focused more on command would allow, but apart from that, it wasn't so jarring. Neil Thomas' rules are generally fairly attritional, and these are no exception, although the possible of cascading unit morale failure is always there and happened a few times in this game.  Light troops are much easier to use and more effective than in other games, although other troops will crush them if they can catch them. The 'no interpenetration' rules do ensure that there are significant control, if not command, problems. Of course, given the emphasis on attrition, the Romans in this scenario were always going to be in for a thin time, it is extremely difficult to win in these games unless a force is at least 75% strong as its opponent, with some morale or tactical advantages to assist.

But genuinely really nice to get these rules to the table again.