Ptolemaic Civil War

On Tuesday, we played Ptolemaic Egyptians fighting one another as they continue their slide into degeneracy. The date is 116 BC. Aferwards, we decided that one army was fighting for one of the Cleopatras, and the other for a Ptolemy. It didn't matter which ones...

The first photo shows the right wing of Cleopatra's army, well stocked with cavalry and loads of peltasts ready to infest a town. Simon played the right half of this army.

The phalanx from the same army: all heavily equipped, although the morale of some of them is rather suspect. The usual expendables are out front.

The left flank of Cleopatra's supporters: a real mixture. Gordon in command here.

The relatively weak left wing of the Ptolemy supporters. Unfortunately for me, this is the bit I'm running...

Our central phalanx (Billy) overlaps the opposition somewhat to our right.

Graham is in command of our right.

A long side shot of both armies; Cleo to the left, her brother/cousin/husband or whatever to the right.

The action begins on my flank. My job is to keep all of that weight off the flank of our advancing phalanx, which we hope will win the battle for us.

A close-up of all that lot coming over the hill in my general direction.

The phalanxes do what phalanxes do.

I throw units forward with reckless abandon. I'm not usually as insane as this, but I reckon the best way for me to slow down Simon's lot is to cause a giant traffic jam.

The phalanxes close in on each other. We have an overlap to our right; they have one to our left. I am just going to have to hope that it takes them a while to kill our lone elephant unit on this wing.

Graham is doing quite well on our far right flank, grinding down the opposition a unit at a time.

How it all looks at this point.

My forces are disintegrating.

Badly. Or well, depending on which member of the House of Ptolemy you might be...

A close-up of Simon's advance.

Clash of the phalanxes. Which we are losing badly.

Graham is now advancing at our right.

A full table shot shows the moment of decision.

I sacrifice my light horse to keep the traffic jammed.

And then our army ran away. it's actually quite good fun to play a game you don't really care about - after all, who is bothered about which degenerate inbred scumbag does what to whom? In campaign terms, all it does is lead to further loss of power for Egypt as their armies clash in a needless bout of bloodletting. To the East, Parthia waxes mighty, and to the northwest the legions seem to be gathering...

Next up: nasty Romans in their province of Macedonia are attacked by Illyrian-type tribes in a mood for loot (114 BC). This isn't a period I know that much about, but it turns out that the tribes gave Rome a really hard time for several generations after the demise of the Macedonian state; this will be the first of several such troublesome encounters to come.