Hanibal at the Gates Campaign Game - The Battle of Thebes

We played this game a few days ago, but with so much going on over the holiday break, I'm a bit behind in posting everything. This was a battle between Charlie (Levant) and Mike (Greece). Mike had his allies, Bob an I along with his 2iC, Earl helping him on his side, but this night Charlie was alone. It reminded me a bit of the chess master in the park playing several tables at once.

Like the chess master, this game was a showcase of Charlie imposing his will on us. On my flank he out-maneuvered my less nimble spear phalanx. In the middle he weathered the charges of Earl's phalanx, and against both of our warrior wings he got the better of the exchanges. We had to call the game due to time, but even at that Charlie ended up losing only one army point worth of troops in the campaign to Mike's three. Not bad considering Charlie was fighting out-numbered 8-10 to start the game.  Well played Charlie.

The Battle of Adrianapolis

This past weekend we got together to play another game of Hanibal at the Gates. This was another fight in Greece between the invading forces of Levant, who used a Macedonian Successor model army against the defending Greeks who chose a Roman model army. You can read the campaign master's official account of the game in Sallusto's History starting on page 16. For the first two photos, I've stitched together the photos using some on-line panorama software. Getting a single-photo of the entire tabletop was not possible from my position at the table.

The Levant army was comprised of two cataphract divisions and four large pike block wings. With some woods and dense hills on one side of the battlefield, the Levant army covered the entire open area of the battlefield. Their plan was simple - roll straight forward and crush the Roman army with sheer numbers. The plan worked very well. Assigned the Roman center my orders were to tie up the left two pike wings with my legion while Bob used his Veteran legion, and some reinforcements from my Extrordinarii division to attack the Cataphracts and Mike would use his two legions to try to overwhelm the right most pike wing by out flanking it in some woods. For my contribution I only successfully slowed down one of the two pike blocks, the other split off into two smaller groups and continued to harass Bob's command. The cost of the delay was the majority of my legion with no significant damage to the pikes they opposed.

Bob had some early success on the left, but then Charlie stabilized things there and the Cataphracts held firm, their heavy armor proving difficult to attack. By the end of the battle Bob had lost his legion and only eliminated two stands of Cataphracts. Some of our cavalry had managed to squirt through the Levant lines, but it was too little, to late.

On the right, Mike's command was able to finally eliminate the Levant flank guard, but by then the two Levant pike wings had done their damage, killed a few legion stands and turned around to nullify the turned flank. On his flank Mike was able to eliminate a single pike stand with concentrated skirmish fire and a few attacks from his legion stands.


As the night got long, Mike chose to end the battle as a fighting withdrawal. This saved him some casualties in the campaign, but also let the Levant invader off with less total casualties than a completed battle. I expect more unrest in Greece in upcoming turns. Greece seems to be where all the action is so far in the campaign.

Below are some more photos from the game, including some eye-candy shots of the figures.

Carthaginian Generals (2)

Recently it became apparent to me that my Carthaginian army has reached a size that has out grown the number of command stands that I had previously painted for it. Rummaging through my unpainted ancients lead box I found the last unpainted Carthaginian figures that I own - a pack of Old Glory Carthaginian Generals - perfect!

I've painted these up as two army level commanders with two figures per stand, and two wing/division commanders mounted one figure per stand. Some of these figures are obviously from Old Glory's Carthaginian cavalry molds, so I painted them up as runners/assistants and attempted to match the Carthaginian citizen cavalry I previously painted. I wanted them to look like they were pulled from those ranks.

The brown horses are my first try at a new painting technique. They were white primed and then 'painted' with successive ink washes. This includes the base color, hooves tails and manes. Only the tack and one white blaze on one horse's face were applied with traditional acrylic paints. I have to admit, they painted up very quickly this way and I'm just as happy with them as other horses painted using the traditional method.

With half of a Roman army left to paint and a whole Pyrrhic army to paint, I'm happy to finally once and for all to call the Carthaginian army finished. At some point in the future I may array the entire army on my table and make a short video to review all the troops. It should make for an impressive sight. Next up on the painting table are some British WWII infantry. I needed a break from ancients and some British Tommies seemed like a good choice.

The Battle of Epirus - Part I

Last weekend a group of us got together to fight the next battle in our Mediterranean Tyranny campaign. This one is taking place in Epirus and pits the ever aggressive Egyptians, using a Roman model army with local pike mercenaries against the Greeks, who recently also adopted a Roman model army. Pictured to the left the Greek monarch Mike (in orange) and sub-commander Bob. I also helped bolster the Greek ranks as the right flank commander. Below the Egyptian monarch Rob (middle) with his ally the Levant monarch Charlie on the right, and Byron on the left as the Egyptian right flank commander.

As the Greek right flank commander I was given a fine Greek (Roman model) legion, to defend against the opponent's legion, converged Triarii and a couple of soldiers from their allied Greek command. My orders - hold out as long as I can while we hopefully could attack on our left flank were we had the superior numbers.

I had some early successes and failures. My cavalry chased down some enemy skirmishers, but then got mired behind enemy lines and ended up being destroyed. My legions gave better than they got early, but in the final two turns of the evening, Charlie reversed his losses and punished my legions heavily. If it weren't for Bob's skirmishers and Pilum attacks eliminating one of Charlie's over aggressive cavalry, the latter turns would have been all Egyptian successes on my flank. As we broke for the evening, my flank is looking quite sparse and weak. Hopefully our fresh legion on our left flank can capitalize there before my flank collapses. We'll find out when we resume the battle in a couple of weeks. At this point it's anyone's game.

Roman Praetorian Guard

My painting output always slows way down during the summer, this year even more than most. I have R/C flying, camping and yard work all to compete with the painting table. It doesn't help that I'm still getting almost as many games in as I do during the colder months! This is a small batch of Roman Praetorian guards. They're from Warlord's Cesarian line, and include one command pack of lead figures, one sprue of plastic command and one sprue of legionaries. I've tried to choose heads that look the most 'republician' since these figures are really meant for the tail end of the period. In Hannibal at the Gates, these will be used with two soldier stands (extraordinarii) to make up a Roman elite division.

Next up on the painting table, some additional Carthaginian mounted officers. My Carthaginian army has become large enough that my original batch of mounted officers can only command a little over half of the troops! First world problems I guess.....

Egypt vs Carthage - Punic War Campaign Game

Two Saturday's ago I got together with Rob and Ralph to fight a battle in our Punic War campaign. Rob, playing Egypt is using a Republican Roman army model and I'm using a Carthaginian army and playing Carthage.

I had a solid battle plan and used my hoplite battle line well to push the Romans to their baseline, but in the end Roman reinforcements spoiled this plan and I ended up with the loss. Well played to Rob. Usually our epic campaign battles feature lots of players, but Rob and I had to each push huge armies solo during this busy time in everyone's schedule. I had always theorized that games would go faster with only one player on each side, but this is definitely not the case.