More Dux Bellorum - Macedonian War Edition

Martin and I played a game of our Dux Bellorum-Impetus mash-up rules this afternoon. Without wahj's armies of Romans and Carthaginians, we had to make do with Martin's Macedonians and my Pergamenes, supplemented by my Hittite allies. We got about 50 points on each side, which equates to around 200 points in Impetus.

With no heavy infantry to speak of, I set my some area terrain in each quarter of the table, placed my only unit of cavalry to face Martin's cavalry, hoping to tie him up on a face-off while my more numerous skirmishers and medium infantry outflanked his slow phalanxes.

After some stand-off on the Macedonian left flank, his cavalry drew my cavalry into a charge, feinted flight, then turned around and destroyed it. As my only cavalry unit was also my command unit (yes, I am painting another cavalry unit right now), this left me without Leadership Points for the rest of the game. His command unit wasn't unscathed either - it took 2 hits and had 1 left.

Meanwhile, on the Macedonian right flank, my medium infantry had driven off his skirmishers guarding his flank and was poised to charge into the flank of his phalax. Unfortunately, I failed my activation roll at this critical juncture. Martin rushed his cavalry back to his threatened flank in Alexandrian fashion, while he used his LPs to soak up the hits I inflicted on his phalanxes. When the cavalry arrived, I knew the game was up and we called the game and watched Going Medieval, which had just come on on TV.

The Macedonian Companion cavalry rout the Pergamene lancers. The light cavalry rush across the rear of the Macedonian line to reinforce the threatened flank.

Two units of Thureophoroi are unable to rout the phalanx. The cavalry arrive to tilt the balance. The little squares with tiny pebbles on them are casualty markers - I have yet to add shields on them.

Being a smaller game than our previous one, manoeuvre had a more important role in the game and there wasn't a slug fest of heavy infantry. The game moved pretty fast and was finished in less than two hours, which is a good thing because our campaign games are likely to be three times as large as this one.

Replica Roman coins used as Leadership Point tokens; they have a nice feel to them - throwing them behind a unit feels like throwing down chips in a game of poker.

Finally, we end with a couple of shots of Martin's beautifully-painted figures.

Macedonian pikes

Companion cavalry