Battle between Carthage en Pyrrhus Epirus

[ErikG]

Some Images of a battle we've played between Pyrrhus of Epirus and Carthage, we played it early this year before the lockdown and it was the last larger battle we were able to play this year .

I was planning to write a battlereport around it but after some difficulty with photobucket I gave up hope. Discovering Imgur I was able to post it but it's been so busy eversince so I have not had the oppertunity to write something down  but I wanted to share the pictures anyway.

The battle went on for a long time but in the end the Epirotes managed to pin a large part of the Carthaginian army and were able to unleash larger nubmers at the cartahginian left flank, breaking and surrounding them leaving the other flank nog option but to retreat, It was a victory vfor Pyrrhus but not a pyrrhic victory, the largest part of his army remained intact.

We use Hail Caesar but always add some rules to add flavour, we've used the stampede rule for the elepanhts from warhammer ancient battles but have to tweak it a bit, all the elephants stampeded and were killed by their mahout or killed their own units, great fun but we have to tweak those rules a bit for the next time. I hope you enjoy the pictures,

[has.been]

Lots of nice goodies on show.

[Fremitus Borealis]

Great pictures!

Gotta say, I love the varied colors in those units! Part of the reason it takes me so long to paint a unit is I try to make the figures as individualized as I can, so it's nice to see other armies that do this

[Jjonas]

Very nice big game! Good stuff!

One thing to note- the Carthaginians ran terrified from Pyrrhus' army partly because they had no elephants at that time. It would have been very interesting to see how the Earlier Carthage army would have actually faired with their chariots. But they made a smarter calculation and fled to the fortresses, some of which Pyrrhus was able to overwhelm. But the Carthaginians really massacred the Epirotes and their Syracusan allies at Lilybaeum, one of those unusual situations in antiquity where firepower shattered a less than well thought through series of assaults.

I can imagine how the WAB elephant rules and HC might not meld completely together- sometimes they didn't work in WAB- too random at times. But even Pyrrhus had trouble against Rome with stampeding elephants, and he was very tactically gifted in keeping them in reserve for the decisive moments. With the later Carthaginian army a Sicily campaign vs. Epirotes is fun though, and can be handled with a easy point to point map or a linear territory schematic.
Here's my ancient Sicily point to point map for grins- wow coming up for its 20 year anniversary:

https://ancientbattles.com/WAB_Successors/PyrrhusSicily.htm

[Jjonas]

Also there is this very useful resurrected Magna Graecia Campaign Rules for an ancient campaign in Sicily.  These are by Rob Smith 1997.

and now posted by Brian from Edinburgh on his blog:
http://wishfulwargamer.blogspot.com/p/magna-graecia-campaign-rules.html

[ErikG]

Thanks. I'll chack it out. It is true that my Carthaginians were made for the second punic wars but I'll look in to it and check it out, that might be fun to do, tanks!

[Frostie]

Looks and sounds great.

Could you post the 'home rules' you used for this battle.  I have armies of the period and am always looking for period flavour with HC

[Steam Flunky]

Impressive!!

[Wiegraf]

Great looking mass battle! Looks like a ton of fun.

[Ray Rivers]

Can't add much more... lovely sight! 

Beautifully painted minis and a proper mass battle. Who could ask for more?