Slitherine

Sorry for the delay, but I have finally got round to making my scenarios available for download via the “sendspace” site. Here to start with is my take on the battle of Sellasia 222BC. The scenario can be downloaded via the following link. Edit note this is now delivered by "Dropbox" ratehr than "Sendspace" and I will be changing over to them for all my scenerio downloads both here and on the Blogsite I am setting up.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54384751/Sellas ... %20IDL.zip

The Battle of Sellasia took place in the summer of 222 BC between the armies of Macedon and the Achaean League, led by Antigonus III Doson, and Sparta under the command of King Cleomenes III. The battle was fought at Sellasia on the northern frontier of Laconia and ended in a Macedonian-Achaean victory. In putting together the scenario I have largely drawn on material in “Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World” by Philip A.G. Sabin and Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars 359 BC to 146 BC, by Duncan Head.

In working on the game I also had a lot of playtesting assistance from blood-phoenix & DuxBellorum, thanks guys, especially with spotting the typos. As with all my Custom Scenarios I plan to rework them to incorporate the “custom battlegroups” feature once this becomes available so please feel free to post comments and suggestions.

You will see that I have used a walled off baggage stack in one corner of the map as a device to boost the Spartan break point level. To balance the game more there might be a case for boosting the size of this, what do you think ?

Regards
Ian

Next up the Battle of Cunaxa 401 BC the sendspace link for download is

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54384751/Cunaxa ... %20IDL.zip

Note new updated Dropbox link

The Battle of Cunaxa was fought in 401 BC between Cyrus the Younger and his elder brother Arsaces, who had seized the Persian throne as Artaxerxes II in 404 BC. Cyrus gathered an army of Greek mercenaries under the Spartan general Clearchus, and met Artaxerxes at Cunaxa on the left bank of the Euphrates River, 70 kilometres North of Babylon. The tactical outcome of the battle is disputed but as Cyrus died in the battle it was a strategic victory for Artaxerxes.

On Cyrus’s death Clearchus the commander of the Greek mercenaries assumed the chief command and conducted the retreat, until, being treacherously seized with his fellow-generals by Tissaphernes, he was handed over to Artaxerxes and executed. Stranded deep in enemy territory, with most of their generals dead, Xenophon played an instrumental role in encouraging the "Ten Thousand" Greek army to march north to the Black Sea in an epic fighting retreat. This story is recorded in Anabasis by Xenophon who accompanied the "expedition up country".

This scenario draws heavily on “Land Battles in 5th Centaury B.C. Greece by Fred Eugene Ray, (particularly for the Persian order of battle) and “Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World” by Philip A Sabin. I have also used “Greek Mercenary Soldiers from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Ipsus” by H W Parke, and of course “The Persian Expedition” by Xenophon, who was there!

Credit should also be given to DuxBellorum & GaiusMarius for their help in playtesting. Enjoy and feel free to comment and post suggestions.

Regards
Ian

And now Cyprian Salamis I 498 BC sendspace link

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54384751/Cypria ... %20IDL.zip

Note new updated Dropbox link

This battle took place in 498BC between the Greek City Kingdoms of Cypras (who rebelled against the Persian Empire following the outbreak of the Ionian revolt) under the command of Onesilus of Salamis and an Imperial Persian force composed of Persian units shipped in from Cilicia and the levies of the Phoenician cities of the island who had remained loyal to Persia, both forces under the command of the Persian general . Artybius.

Historically the battle opened quite well for the Greeks with the right of their army under the personal command of Onesilus seeing off the Persian cavalry opposite them under the command of Artybius and also killing him. At the critical moment however pro Persian conspirators serving in Onesilus own chariot troops from Salamis and others from the neighbouring city of Curium (led by a certain Stasenor) surrounded the Cypriot general and assonated him. This lead to the collapse of the Greek right wing (some of whom also changed sides) and the rout of their entire force.

This slightly counter factual scenario assumes that Onesilus and moved against the plotters (some of whom he must have surly have had good reason to not trust) before the battle. The size of the chariot contingents form Salamis itself and Curium have therefore been reduced, as has their morale to reflect this. Onesilus had in fact only recently sized power in Salamis from his pro Persian brother Gorgus who was also at the battle in the Persian ranks.

My sources for the scenario are “Land Battles in 5th Centuary B.C. Greece by Fred Eugene Ray (a book which I highly recommend to scenario designers for the “Immortal Fire” era battles) and “Shadows In The Desert, Ancient Persia At War” by Dr Kaveh Farrokh. Playtesting cedits are due to DuxBellorum , GaiusMarius & blood-phoenix.

At last you get of use those Greek Chariots for more that a bit of joy riding 
Enjoy
Ian

Fast forwarding now the mid 7th Centaury AD about as dark as the Dark Ages (from a Byzantine Point of view anyway) we have a Lombard Byzantine clash at the battle of Scoltenna 643AD. This scenario has been put forward for inclusion in the Decline & Fall module so hopefully that version will include the new Lombard figures, this is a scenario I am really looking to modifying using the long awaited custom battlegroups facility. The Dropbox link is

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54384751/Sculte ... %20IDL.zip

Fought at the end of November 643AD this battle was one of the few occasions during the 6th/7th century Lombard conquest of Italy when local Byzantine forces chose to meet them in the open field . Its likely that the Lombards track record of contesting the authority of their newly elected kings was one of the reasons for Isac the Exarch of Ravenna leading out the field force of the Exercitu Italiam (Army of Italy) out of their garrisons to face the forces of Rotari the New Lombard king.

The battle was hard fought, with victory eventually going to the Lombards with Isac either dying on the field or soon afterwards. Contemporary sources talk about 8000 Byzantine casualties, which as the full paper strength of Exercitu Italiam had only been 20,00 at the end of the 6th Century suggests that Isac’s force field force was well broken up if not actually wiped out. However as Rotari was unable to take advantage of this to seize Ravenna I suspect that Lombard losses were also on the high side.

In designing the battle I have used Google’s map and earth. to draw the map. While I am sure that the position of the stream will have meandered over the centauries what matters her it its position relative to the armies. All the accounts agree that the battle took place “at” steam of Scoltenna this suggests to me at that armies were not drawn up on either side fighting across it since where this occurs even the most sketchy account of battles usually make reference to the crossing of water obstacles by one or the other of the armies evolved.

I have made the Byzantine force 10,00 strong on the basis that only about 50% of the byzantine forces could be spared from garrisons. My own view is that local recruitment could have kept numbers close to establishment strength but that troop quality would have suffered, hence the fact apart from bodyguards the cavalry has been rated average and the infantry is all either average or poor.

The Lombard army if slightly stronger. Their leaders will be named followed by their title and reference to their bodyguard of “Gasindii” mounted warriors, thus for example “Thrasimund Dux Spoleto & Gasindi”. Wikipedia have a good general site on the Lombards which lists the incumbents of many of the Lombard dukedoms. Moving on to troop types for the cavalry I have used Latin translations of the descriptions given fro the types of horsemen hired by the Byzantines in the 6th century with the fully armoured cavalry being described as “Brave Men or “Fortes” and the lighter retainer type cavalry described in the sources as “armed servants ” Arma Servos”. Finally the foot archers raised from poorer Lombard full citizens or “exercitus” and probably also by this time the semi free “aldi” who owned less than 40 Jugers of land or none at all will be described as levy archer or “Sagittarius Dilectu”.

My main sources for the battle have been Marco Balbi’s book “Lombard Army 568-741 AD and Neil Christie’s “The Lombards” from the Blackwell “Peoples Of Europe” series. Also of use were Ian Heath’s “Armies of the Dark Ages 600 -1066” published by the Wargames Research Group, and “Dark Age Warfare”(The Fourth Book of Hosts) by Colin Froud, published by MAYA press. Thanks again to DuxBellorum & GaiusMarius for their help in playtesting. I hope you enjoy the scenario.

Regards
Ian

Thank you for your work my friend, i"m looking forward to play this.
But i cant download the second and t third scenariofile, can you please check ?

Sorry about that, here is the revised link for Cunaxa

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ke9t09

and Cyprian Salamis

http://www.sendspace.com/file/g38e4z

Let me know if you have any problems.

Enjoy
Ian

Thank you, got it. I will test it all online, but it will take a little time.

Hi playtest of sellesia has started.



Looks good, lot of units, i like it .

Micha wrote:Hi playtest of sellesia hastarted.



Looks good, lot of units, i like it .

Glad you appreciate it, I will have to work out how to post screenshots and graphic images in the forum myself in the near future.

Mnay thanks
Ian

Hoplite1963 wrote: Glad you appreciate it, I will have to work out how to post screenshots and graphic images in the forum myself in the near future.

Mnay thanks
Ian

We could actually do with a step-by-step guide on how to do this, couldn't we? And it needs to be written in such a way that "non-techies" can understand it easily (and any ambiguities in the process need to be explained clearly too).

Hi, playtest finished for Sellasia 222BC, nice battle.
viewtopic.php?p=280345#280345

A few screenshoots.
viewtopic.php?t=30113

Cyprian Salamis I 498 BC
viewtopic.php?t=30202