Battle of Heraclea Revisted - Metro Seattle Gamers Summer Skirmish

My buddy Adrian and I ran our Heraclea game again today up in Seattle. Scott M. and Gene A. ran the Epirotes and Chris P. and James R. ran the Romans. Although played on a 6 feet wide table instead of the usual 8 feet, the set up was essentially the same. Adrian did rebase his Roman maniples into two-ranks with wider frontages, and the river bend was switched to the opposite end (Epirotes' left).

The Epirote right and center was played very conservatively by Scott - at least initially. However, this later changed after he lost both his Hypaspists and Companion Heavy Cav Wedge in the same turn. The Companions were lost after choosing to flee out of enemy territory - he had to do this as he was about to be flank attacked by Roman infantry. This was after having to follow the Roman Cav unit which was defeated in combat, but chose to Give Ground. I don't particularly like this rule - as I've stated before; and this game confirmed it. The Companions rolled an ultra low 4 (using 3D6!) and the Roman infantry easily caught and destroyed them. The Hypaspists were killed off in similar fashion. They chose to fire and flee, but again a low die roll allowed them to be caught and destroyed by an inferior unit.

Luckily the two elephants held in reserve got into the fray and took up the slack and did very well on the Epirote right flank. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any clear pictures of the action.

Gene did very well on the Epirote left - aggressive tactics and not too shabby dice rolling.

We called the game at the end of Turn 5. The Romans narrowly won by the total number of points of units killed. The Epirotes probably had the advantage prior to losing their two best units - the Companion Cav and Hypaspists; although the elephants did surprisingly (for me) well. I had envisioned them stampeding into their own ranks after pin prick missile wounds. They ended up showering the enemy with their missile weapons, as well as causing fear and panic into the Romans.

ADDENDUM:

Here are some photos I lifted off of Chris Pramas' Facebook - he took them with his cellphone, but just as good as the ones I took with my camera - the area we were in wasn't that well lit.

Close up of the Companion wedge; followed by them charging - actually counter-charging - into Roman cavalry (played by Chris). I need a nice figure to represent Cineas - the character leading the wedge;. The standard was moved to the center, third row - easier to spot as the actual center of the wedge for turning/wheeling.

Close up of some of the Epirote phalanx battle line. Romans don't like them much.

Yay, some pictures of elephants - thanks, Chris!

Kevin Smyth brought up the Langton 1/1200th Ancient Ships, which he offered to sell to me and Adrian.  They were a bit smaller than we had imagined, but the detail is as good as we had hoped; we will now be ordering more for our Roman Seas game. These are the ones I bought - Adrian got four (all painted very nicely by Kevin years ago - he even painted the eyes on the bows of the ships!).