SOA Battle Day 2010 – Of Time, Space…and Practicallity

As I’ve put together the two armies for Zama, there is one thing that I can’t get away from – this battle is potentially big, really big.

We are looking at 2700+ Infantry, 200+ Cavalry and 18 Elephants – Even in 6mm, this is going to look a very impressive sight.

But are things getting out of hand? Time for a sanity check…

Size of the game

Lets take a look at the points values. I’ve roughly worked out the points value of each army:

• Romans – 1131
• Carthaginians – 1134

Surprisingly similar, but very large  – especially considering that the Impetus rules are designed to work with armies of between 300 – 500 points. Will the system even work with armies that are so big?

Table size

Playing Impetus in 6mm means that you use 1/4 sized based from the 28mm equivalent…which should mean that you can play the game on a 4′ x 2′ board.

Obviously with a game this size, you need a much bigger table – for example, the Carthaginian line is potentialy something like 17 base widths wide – that’s just over a meter…and you need room for the cavalry to operate on both flanks. An 8′ x 4′ table is not an excessive space as far as wargames go, but having this filled with 6mm figures does put some perspective on the size of the battle.

Painting

OK, here’s where it gets difficult. Anyone who reads this blog will know that I am not the quickest painter in the world – far from it. I can achieve some good results when pushed, but I do struggle to stay focused on projects. The sheer size of the forces required would be challenging, even for a quick painter, never mind someone like me.

So what do I do?

I’m the first to admit that I’m a bit of a dreamer, and I get very enthusiastic about new projects. The idea of a huge battle of Zama is, I still think, a great one. Seeing the table would certainly give an appreciation of the sheer scale of the battle. However, I think if I move forward based on the inital plans, the project may very well be doomed for failure.

So, especially considering my concerns with game size, I think a sensible option would be to start by building the armies at half size – so each unit would effectively represent double the amount of troops that it should normally.

Though it will still produce a couple of large armies (26 bases for the Romans and 31 for the Carthaginians) these are certainly much more managable within the confines of ’standard’ Impetus game play.

Obviously, the added bonus of this approach is that I can complete 2 armies which can be used as they stand, and then still go and produce the larger armies if I have the time and resource.

SOA Battle Day 2010 – The Carthaginians

So, having dealt with the Romans, it’s time to deal with Hannibal’s army at Carthage.

As with the Romans, the exact number of Hannibal’s troops at the battle is open to some speculation, but I’m pretty happy to go with the general consensus, which is 36,000 Infantry and 4,000 Cavalry – plus 80 war elephants. This is also the small matter of 4,000 Macedonians, if Livey is to be believed, but we will come back to that.

OK, let’s start with the easy stuff – the Cavalry. This was evenly divided into 2000 Carthaginian & Spanish Cavalry, and 2000 Numidians. This gives us the following:

• 4 Units Medium Cavalry – 4 x 9 = 36 figures (12 strips)
• 8 units of Light Cavalry – 8 x 6 = 48 figures (16 strips)

Onto the Infantry. Hannibal divided his army into 3 lines, each of roughly 12,000 troops.

The first line consisted of Balearic Slingers, Moorish Archers and Ligurian and Celtic Infantry. No exact numbers of each are given, so I’ll make a couple of ‘gaming’ assumptions. If we allocate 4 bases each of slingers and archers (about 1,200 men each), that leaves us with 9,600 Infantry. Divide that equally between the Ligurians and Celts gives us 4,800 each. Since both of these units are FL in Impetus terms, that gives us 6 units of each.

• 6 Units of Light Infantry – 6 x 27 = 162 figures (54 Strips)
• 6 Units of Celts – 6 x 27 = 162 figures (54 strips)
• 4 Units of Slingers – 4 x 12 = 48 figures (12 strips)
• 4 units of Archers – 4 x 12 = 48 figures (12 strips)

Onto the second line, which consisted of 12,000 Carthaginian Levy. They are described as ‘Heavy Infantry’, but I suspect the are actually more like FL in Impetus, as they were Levy, so I’m going to treat them as such (and use the Baccus Citizen Infantry from their Carthage range). This gives us a nice round number…

• 15 Units of Light Infantry – 15 x 36 = 540 figures (135 strips)

Finally, there is the third line, which consists of 12,000 of Hannibal’s veterans. These were a mix of Brutians, Africans, Spanish etc, but all heavies. Again, the maths is easy

• 10 Units of Heavy Infantry – 10 x 48 = 480 figures (120 strips)

At this point we may also want to consider the Macedonians – if we wanted to use them, they would equate to roughly 3 units of Heavy Infantry…

• 3 units of Heavy Infantry – 3 x 48 = 144 figures (36 strips)

And finally we have the elephants. There seems to be no basing conventions for these, so it’s really a ‘look and feel’ issue. 80 elephants should look impressive, but not be overpowering. so, 4 units? Maybe 6? I think 6 units, spread across the front of the army, would look better…

• 6 units of elephants – 6 x 3 = 18 figures

OK, if I thought that the Roman Army was big, this is HUGE. 48 Units of Infantry, 12 Units of Cavalry and 6 units of elephants, which equates to roughly 1,584 infantry, 84 cavalry and 18 elephants.

Time to go away and have a think about this…

SOA Battle Day 2010 – The Roman Forces

So, time to think about how many figures I need for this game of Zama for next year.

This may seem strange, but since I’m recently new to massed battle games (being a skirmish game junkie) I’ve never actually put an army together before based on the historical forces – it’s all a but of a new experience.

First things first – basing conventions.

I’m using the Impetus rules, plus 6mm figures (Baccus) and so I will be using the ’standard’ Polemos 60mm x 30mm basing, which seems to work well for Impetus.

In order to differentiate troop types, I’ve come up with the following convention when it comes to the amount of troops that I put on a base:

• FP (Heavy Infantry) – 4 ranks (usually 12 strips of 6mm figures – 48 troops)
• FL (Mediuym/Light Infantry) – 3 Ranks (Usually 9 strips of 6mm figures – 36 troops)
• S (Skirmishers) – Randomly placed troops on the base  (Usually 12 troops)
• CM (Medium Cavalry) – 1 Rank, 9 figures in line.
• CL (Light Cavalry) – Randomly placed, 6 figures.

But what does a base represent in Impetus? Well, according to the rules…

• Heavy Infantry – 1 base = 600 – 1200 men
• Light Infantry or Medium/Heavy Cavalry – 1 base = 400 – 800 men
• Skirmishers or Light Cavalry – 1 base = 200 – 300 men

So, now that’s sorted out my basing convention and approximate figure ratios, how many figures do I actually need?

Making life easy for myself, I’ll start with the Romans.

According to most sources, the Romans had approximately 24,000 infantry at Zama, plus 1,500 Cavalry. They were complemented by an allied force of 10,000 Numidians (6,000 Infantry and 4,000 Cavalry)

Taking the Roman contingent – according to the Impetus army list, a Republican Roman legion consists of 1 unit each of Velites, Hastati, Princeps and Triarii, or 3 x FP + 1 x S = approx.  3,900 men…except that wasn’t a Republican legion supposed to number about 5,000?

A (very) rough piece of arthimetic means that, allowing for a little margin of error, the Roman Infantry contingent consists of 6 Impetus ‘Legions’.

However, this doesn’t take into account the fact that Triarii units were smaller that the Princeps & Hastati, so maybe I should up the count to 7 ‘Legions’ instead? And for that matter, were all the Roman troops in legions, or did they have accompanying Italian allies, for example? Just how many Legions were with Scipio at Zama?

I’m not sure, and I think I should remember throughout this project to ‘keep it simple’.

So, 6 legions of Roman infantry it is.

The Cavalry, by comparison, is relatively easy. 1,500 Italian Cavalry can be represented by 3 units of Medium Cavalry (1 base = 500 men)

Now, Baccuas do not produce seperate figures for Hastati or Princeps, so they can be bought together.

• 6 Units of Triarii = 6 x 48 = 288 figures (72 strips)
• 12 Units of Hastati/Princeps = 12 x 48 =  576 figures (144 strips)
• 6 Units of Velites = 6 x 12 = 72 figures (18 strips)
• 3 Units of Cavalry = 3 x 9 = 27 Figures (9 strips)

Onto the Numidian allies. Whilst the Cavalry don’t really cause an issue (though there are going to be a lot of them!) the only Numidian infantry in the Impetus army list are Skirmishers. However, I can’t believe that the Numidians fielded an army of 6,000 skirmishers, so I’m going to take some licence and treat 2/3 of this allied contigent as Light Infantry (FL) with the rest as Skirmishers.

This means that the Numidian Infantry can be represented 9 bases of Infantry – 6 Light Infanty and 3 Skirmishers.

As I said, the cavalry are much more straight forward. Assuming that Light Cavalry use a base size of 1 base = 250 men, this gives us 16 bases of Cavalry – certainly a rather large horde for one flank!

So, my Numidian allied contigent:

• 6 Units of Light Infanty -6 x 27 = 162 figures (54 strips)
• 3 Units of Skirmishers – 3 x 12 = 36 figures (9 strips)
• 16 units of Light Cavalry – 16 x 6 = 96 figures (32 strips)

So, that gives us a grand total of 52 bases for the Roman army, 33 of Infantry and 19 of Cavalry, with a total of 1134 Infantry figures and 123 Cavalry.

That’s quite a few, and I haven’t even started on the Cartheginians yet!

SOA Battle Day 2010 – Starting early

I’ve recently recorded an interview with Richard Lockwood of the Society of Ancients (soon to be heard on the podcast feed) and as part of that we chat about the SOA Battle Day.

Battle Day 2010, unusually, has already been decided upon – it will be the Battle of Zama in 202BC – the battle that saw the defeat of Hannibal by Scipio Africanus and the end of the 2nd Punic War.

I thought that I’d better get my research done early, so after scouring the internet, I also decided to by the book “Hannibal’s Last Battle“.

I’m hoping to use this book as a basis for building my force for the 2010 Battle Day.

And what will be my force?

Well, since it will be massed battle it will obviously be 6mm, and we will be using the Impetus Rules. However, rather than sticking to particular points limits, I’m going to use the historical sized forces, and split them according to the Impetus basing convention.

I’ve got several months before the armies need to be ready, so plenty of time to fail dismally!

Projects – 6mm Ancients

Status – On Hold

As you know by now, I get distracted easily…

Just before I bought Uncharted Seas, back in September last year I’d started painting a 6mm Roman Army for use with the Impetus rules. I’d undercoated enough figures for 2 stands – 24 strips, which is 96 figures, and these are currently sat in my painting box, half painted.

These are part of a larger project to paint up several 6mm Ancients arimes for use with the Impetus rules. At present, I own Marian Roman and Parthian armies (enough figures for 500 point armies), but I’m looking to expand this with an army of Gauls and further armies from other periods.

I know, I need to knuckle down and actually get these painted, but the mind keeps ticking over…

Outlook – Once I’ve finished the Command Horizon painting, I want to look at getting the Romans finished asap, and concentrate on painting more Ancient armies, as I want to play much more Impetus in the second half of this year.

Projects – Command Horizon

Status - In Progress

Command Horizon has sort of taken over from Uncharted Seas – primarily due to the challenge I was sent by Peter Berry to get a unit painted in three weeks. This I achieved, but it does leave me with the small matter of the rest of the army still to paint.

Currently, as can be seen from my ‘in progress tray’ above, I working on a further 5 Battalions – Heavy Tank, Medium Tank, Light Mechanised Infantry, Scout Mechanised Infantry and Infantry + support, plus Command Vehicles. Everything is undercoated, and the first basecoat is on all the vehicles, so we are getting there (albeit slowly).

Having chatted with Dave Luff (my gaming partner in this endeavour) about how we are going to learn the game, I need to add to this list a further 3 companies of Infantry (48 figures) plus and extra support base so that I have 2 Infantry Battlions of 3 bases + support – just so that when we start playing the game, we can start with forces of 3 Battalions a side, which will give each of us an Infantry Battalion, and Mechanised Infantry Battalion and a Tank Battalion, which is the minimum sized Brigade, which will be ideal sized army for learning the game.

I have an extra deadline too, as Peter Berry has been in touch, and has threatened me with much on-line ridicule if I don’t get this army finished by the time that Partizan comes around – the pressure is on!

Baccus Painting Challenge – Finished!!!

Yes, though I don’t quite believe it myself, after a concerted effort last night to texture and paint the bases, I actually finished the challenge!

I will put up more detailed photos of each base, and go into how everything was painted tomorrow, when I get some time to take some better pictures.

However, I just wanted to post this photo as proof!

I’m off to email that nice Mr Berry.

Baccus Tanks – bigger pictures

Countzero was asking for some bigger pictures of the Baccus tanks – so here they are.

These are finished – though the turrets look somewhat dull, so I might give them another drybrush of yellow to brighten them back up again.

To be honest, the tanks do look a little ‘muddy’ up close. I’m holding out judgement until I see them on their bases – but I suspect that I might have to revist these at some stage.

Count Zero was also asking what scale these are – they are 6mm, or 1/300th scale.

Baccus Painting Challenge – getting there

Well, just to say that I think I’m in with a fighting chance of achieving the challenge that Peter Berry set me 13 days ago.

I finished the main detailing on the tanks tonight, so you can now (hopefully) see the effect I was trying to achieve with the colour scheme.

Not quite finished yet – they need a weathering drybrush, and then a shading wash to bring out the details (like those on the turrets, for example) but these should be done in the next couple of days.

And then, it’s onto the basing…

Baccus Painting Challenge – WIP

Well, I thought that I’d post some work-in-progress pictures of my Light Tank Battalion.

As you can see, I’ve actually started painting them! (Shock horror!)

The tanks have been cleaned up, the turrets have been glued in place, and then the whole model has been undercoated using Coat d’Arms Grey Primer, a brush on primer which is a very light grey.

After this, I have added metal pins to the bottom of each tank using cut-up paper clips and green stuff – since the tanks are meant to be hover tanks, these will be needed for adding to the base.

An added advantage of these are that they provide something to hold whilst painting the tanks, and then I just pin them to a piece of foam to dry.

I then base-coated the hulls using Coat d’Arms Uniform Grey, and then drybrushed using Light Tank Grey – I’m not sure if the highlights stand out enough. I have then experimented with a splinter camouflage scheme using Citadel Blue/Grey as a base colour – this will be highlighted with Citadel Horizon Blue.

I think the paint scheme looks quite effective so far. Still some way to go, but a good start, I think.