The Battle of Gaugamela

Last night a few of us got together at my uncle's house to try out his TWO new 28mm ancient armies, his Alexandrian Macedonians and his Persians in a Hanibal at the Gates scenario for the battle of Gaugamela.  The Persians have a wing of Greek mercenary phalanx, but otherwise their infantry is somewhat lesser in quality than the Macedonians. What they lacked in quality they more than made up for with quantity. We all know what Stalin said about quantity.

The core infantry for the Persians are classified in HATG as 'Rankers'. Think Auxila in DBx, or generally medium infantry that don't use missile weapons. There is ample cavalry and skirmishers in the army as well as scythed chariots and elephants. We had good luck with our chariots as one of them took out a Macedonian companion cavalry unit. The rest of our expendable troops were mostly, well, expended. When push came to shove, our superior numbers of cavalry came to bear as did our abundant skirmishers. When we called the weeknight game the Persians were in possession of a healthy lead, although there was plenty of fight left in Alexander's army, as they had only lost one phalanx unit with only one other significantly damaged.

This was a fun game, and the first with both of these new beautiful armies, which Ralph has painted in the last six months or so. This feat is something mortals should not attempt. It has taken me nearly four times that much time to paint one army of this size.