Pontus Rebels from Macedonian Control

This is the deployment map for yesterday's battle in our Empire campaign: the Macedonians attempt to quell the revolt in Pontus.  I couldn't make it along, so Gordon took in the figures and played the rebellion.  Here's his report.  The defenders are in red at the top of the map, the attacking loyalists in blue.

Macedonian Punitive Expedition Meets Disaster in Pontus

The Pontics deployed without seeing the Macedonian map. All the cavalry was deployed on the left centre with a light infantry unit outside of them to move through the rough ground. The Pontic phalanx was deployed right of centre with the citizen phalangites on the right and the professionals and the elites on the left end of this block. Beyond that were the skirmishers and light infantry in the flank area.

The Macedonians did not attack initially. On the left the Pontic large 16 figure light cavalry unit backed up by the Scythian horse archers and the light infantry advanced rapidly and drove off some of the Macedonian skirmishers and then defeated the Macedonian horse archers. The rest of the Macedonian skirmishers remained a nuisance killing two light cavalry units by the end of the game.

On the Pontic right the mass of missile troops gained an ascendancy over the light forces facing them.

The Macedonian Phalanx began to advance but on the Pontic left the endmost Macedonian Phalanx unit was forced to wheel outwards to protect a flank. It then suffered very heavily from missile fire coming within one hit of breaking. By judicious advancing and retiring, making full use of its good morale, the Pontic heavy cavalry paralysed the Macedonian phalanx opposite it. The good quality units of the leftmost part of the Pontic phalanx were able to engage the rest of the Macedonian Phalanx at an advantage although the Macedonians used their heavy cavalry skilfully to prevent the rest of the Pontic phalanx lapping round the open end of the Macedonian line. Nonetheless the advantage of numbers lay with the Pontic phalanx in this melee. The battle between the Phalanxes lasted 5 turns by which time the Macedonians had lost all their light infantry and much of their cavalry to the extremely effective Pontic shooting so that when two units of the Macedonian Phalanx broke the total Macedonian losses were such that the battle was over. The Pontics lost two massed units only, both of these being light cavalry.

The entire Macedonian Battlefield Photography Unit was massacred so there is no photographic record of this startling Pontic victory.

Mithridates

General Secretary of the War College of the Central Committee of the Pontic Revolutionary Peoples Front


When Gordon returns the figures tomorrow evening we'll roll for next week's battle and terrain.