Macedonians v Late Greeks with Hail Caesar

 With my newly painted Macedonian army not doing so well (they lost at 'On Bloody Ground' against a Successor army then lost at Warhammer Ancient Battles against a Late Greek army) how would they fare today when using Hail Caesar rules against the Late Greeks again. With me commanding my Macedonians Ian and Charlie were joint commanders of the Late Greeks. 

The table was set up with quite basic scenery and the dice decided that I would deploy a division first then the Greeks etc... We only have enough figures painted for 2 divisions a side but on my 6'x4' foot table this is plenty with a little bit of room left for manoeuvre. My Macedonians were also awarded first turn. 

The Greeks assemble.

A view along the Macedonian line. 

View from above the Macedonian line. Note the quite open terrain. 

My light cavalry advanced quickly to harrass the Greek skirmishers sheltering in the wood. 

Ian and Charlie got caught re-arranging their hoplite units so I went crashing into a lone unit of hoplites and then threw really bad dice so that combat was a draw, I had hoped to break them and smash through the enemy centre. 

With the Greeks having more missile troops than me I had decided not to hang around but to get stuck in quickly, my dice throws for orders often had a different idea! 

Ian's new unit of Theban Sacred Band come crashing into my Greek Mercenary Phalanx's. This combat bolstered by the phalanx rule of they can only be defeated and forced to take a break test if they lose a melee by more than 2 meant that this lot were still locked in melee at the end of the game, although both were 'Shaken' by then.  

My central attack went slowly but eventually we forced one lot of shaken hoplites off the table then destroyed the other. 

My cavalry charge on the right flank failed by a few inches allowing Charlie to smash a unit of hoplites into my Companion Cavalry. With my cavalry supported b a Pike Phalanx to their left I was confident of the win...but lost!

It took a few turns but Charlie eventually broke the Companions, elsewhere Ian had broken my left division. On the last turn I still had a chance if my units would obey their orders...they didn't, my order throws were appalling. This allowed Ian and Charlie to mp up a few more of my units and claim a hard fought victory. This was a very exciting game where it seemed first one side then the other had gained the upper hand but sadly for me my Macedonians lost again. Three losses in a row and I can't see my Macedonians forging a huge empire that history will remember forever! We play again next week, I shall have my revenge. 

28mm Vikings plus a Macedonian elephant.

 I have just finished my 4th unit of 28m Vikings plus an elephant for my Macedonians that I got as part of a £20 bargain box of 28mm ancients from the Phalanx Show in 2024. There were 2 elephants in the box so I will paint the second one up soon. 

The Vikings are all 28mm Wargames Foundry. Foundry very kindly have a page of 28mm Viking flags and banners that you can download to use for free. I happily printed the page and chose the banner you see, painting over the printed version as my printer is not so good. 

All shields are of course hand painted.  

The elephant is I think an old Hinchliffe model that has had a plastic Britain's elephant head crafted onto it. Thus it looks a bit big and lacks tusks. The mahout is the original model but the crew in the howdah are a metal Wargames Foundry Macedonian with his pike arm raised a little and a plastic Victrix Greek archer.

I added the shields to the side of the Howdah to add some extra detail, the Macedonian stars are also hand painted. I tried to create a brownish grey colour for the elephant with some fleshy highlights on the ears. 

The return of 'Warhammer Ancient Battles'.

 Today, Ian, Charlie, Nigel and I played a 1,500pt game of Warhammer Ancient Battles, first time we had used these rules in over 20 years. Charlie and I were in control of my Macedonians with Ian and  Nigel commanding some Late Hoplite Greeks. I set up some simple, almost symmetrical terrain to keep movement simple as we were very much treating this as a learning game. 

Armies were selected from the Armies of Antiquities book. 

The Macedonians arrive. 

Macedonian deployment. 

Greek deployment. 

Note that our formed units were all in movement trays and we marked casualties with numbered markers rather than removing figures, far easier to do. 

I sent my cavalry off on a flanker.

Greek light cavalry on the left being defeated by their Macedonian counterparts. 

A good start for the Macedonians. 

My wedge of companions surge through the gap, get shot at by the Cretan archers in the wood then charged by a unit of hoplites. My flanker failed miserably. 

The Greeks had taken the central hill but Charlie was pestering them with some peltasts. However, the Greek slingers proved to be very effective at short range, I had forgotten how nasty they were.  

Charlie advanced our Hypaspists and Nigel took the bait and charged them with his hoplites.  With their heavy armour and large shields giving them a 3+ save the hoplites were just too tough for the hypaspists and to Nigels glee he soon broke them and off they fled only to be pursued by Nigel's hoplites and destroyed. 

The main macedonian phalanx had clashed with another unit of heavily armoured hoplites and also got well beaten, and destroyed. At this point a well deserved Greek victory was declared. 

We enjoyed playing Warhammer Ancient battles again, most of the game moved smoothly with a bit of flicking through the rulebook. The main part that was a bit trying at times was melee. Basic melee between two units is fine but when you add in different dice throws required for attached command figures and different dice throws required for their war horses through each stage of throwing to hit, then to wound and then to save all seemed a bit too much. We agreed that we would happily play Warhammer Ancients again, but when we meet again in two weeks we will try Macedonians v Greeks using our usual ancient rules of choice, Hail Caesar.