Battle of Ipsus thread

[bigredbat]

I'll post some images here of minis for the huge Ipsus game I'm working on, which will run in September at the London GT. For the next few weeks I shall be mostly finishing the elephants.





You can read more about them, here https://bigredbat.blogspot.com/2021/05/ipsus-nellies-wip.html

[trev]

Now that's an elephant herd! 

[Jjonas]

Oooh ohh baby, talking my language
Might need some 'terrain features' for that many.

[Cyrus1]

Looks amazing Simon, are they all Aventine ellies?

[Jjonas]

They are amazing. Ipsus reputed to have 475 elephants. 400 on the allied side against 75 Antigonid. The elephants had a decisive impact- but as a gambit. A one- off trick that gamers wont fall for. How to simulate it? I bet Simon has thought long and hard.
Too bad there are no details of the elephant combat at Ipsus, and hardly any details at all for one of history's decisive turning point battles. It is for all intents and purposes as big a drama as Waterloo, but hardly known, hardly mentioned.
I'm sure Simon's game will resurrect it from the dust in his massive display!

[bigredbat]

Hi Jeff,

The 14 "Macedonian" elephants will form a screen across the front of the phalanxes, using the TtS! elephant screen rule. It's these I'd like some more of; 14 seems a lot but as it stands there will only be one roughly every 18 inches across the 20' frontage of the phalanx. I'll call Keith later, I think I need another half-dozen.

The other 15 will be in formed units on either flank of the allied phalanx- I'll treat them as raw, and remove their shock markers so it's unprofitable for them to charge.

BTW Jeff has written a really super background for the scenario, I'll have a look at how we might publish that before the event. Later, after I've run the game, I'll plug in some photos and the OOB and publish it as a free download.

Cheers, Simon

[tomek917]

Super excited to see the progress of this!

And the mention of Hydaspes has got me even more excited 

[bigredbat]

I have all the minis for the Hydaspes but most of the Indians (and there are a lot of them!) are unpainted. Where possible I'm going to use some of the same minis for both- the new phalanx I'll be showing in some months will be used for Hydaspes too, also the companion cavalry and some other minis.

[Jjonas]

BTW Jeff has written a really super background for the scenario, I'll have a look at how we might publish that before the event. Later, after I've run the game, I'll plug in some photos and the OOB and publish it as a free download.

Cheers, Simon

Sounds groovy baby! I  agree splitting the role of the 'screen' vs. offensive elephants used as bludgeons is an appropriate way to go. Curiously in the Diadochi battles they more important as anti cavalry screens and deployment covering screens, and when used aggressively became double edged swords as at Gaza.

Anything I have scribbled will be incredibly enhanced by photos of a "To The Strongest" massive attack! Glad to be a small part of this opus. When are they inventing that teleporting phone booth device?

[Doom Beard 78]

My name is Simon, The BigRedBat
Look on my Elephants ye Mighty, and despair!

Amazing project

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

They look fantastic. 

I have long admired your ambition to recreate huge ancient battles.

[AdamPHayes]

An impressive herd of pachyderms! A fair bit of stabling required for all those models.

[Doom Beard 78]

Im always amazed at  the logistics involved in storage and transportation of such a huge collection

[bigredbat]

Im always amazed at  the logistics involved in storage and transportation of such a huge collection

It's pretty daunting at times, George.  Storage is a killer, I recently ran out of space and have literally had to dig my way out of a hole.

[Hu Rhu]

Wonderful pachyderms.