On Sunday 24th November a group of us fought the Battle of Sentinum at the Moredon Community Centre at the clubs monthly Sunday gaming event.
The original Battle was fought between two Republican Roman consular armies against a combined forces of Celts and Samnites.
Phil Wynne and Peter David led the Celts whilst I endeavored to lead the Romans to victory.
The sides were fairly evenly matched with approximately 800 points on the Celtic Samnite alliance spread over 6 divisions against 650 of Romans spread over 3 divisions. The battlefield was fairly open with the victory going to the first side to break three of the opponents divisions. The battle wasn’t as miss-matched as the points might suggest as the Celts were spread across a far broader frontage than the Romans so were unable to bring all of their points to bear as the Romans were from their consolidated position.
View from the Celtic lines across to the Romans
View from the Roman lines across to the vast Celtic host
The battle was hard fought over 6 hours and 12 turns but the eventual winners were the Celts when they finally broke the third Roman division on the left flank. It hadn’t all gone one way though as two of the Celtic divisions were close to breaking and most of the others also were suffering to some extent.
It was a great game to play and visually impressive as well. It was one of those moments which reminded me why I got into wargaming in the first place.
The forces were all 28mm from a variety of manufacturers, including Wargamnes Foundry, Wargames Factory, Warlord Games, A&A Miniatures, Renegade and First Corps. Armies were from Phils and my collections. As is always the way I still left the game working out what extra units I’d need for future games…
The photos attached are from the start of the game.
If anyone is interested in 28mm Ancients please let me know. Whilst Hail Caesar lends itself to games of this scale other systems such as Clash of Empires and WAB2 are more appropriate to the smaller club evening games and a number of our club members play these systems as well. If you enjoy 15mm then we have a strong club following of the WRG rules systems, including DBM (DBMM?), 6th edn., and FOG.
Cheers
Warren
For those who have an interest in the technical things, most of the figures are from armies based for Clash of Empires but put into movement trays suitable for Hail Caesar. Hail Caesar is fairly loose about the unit base sizes allowing a standard unit to be between 160mm (8 figures wide) to 200mm (10 figures wide). Given the limitations of our normal gaming tables we’ve opted for the smaller 8 figure wide units. This means that standard Roman units will be 16 figures strong whilst standard Celtic units will be 32 figures. With our games having a minimum of 3 Divisions a side a standard 6 foot wide table will be filled with a 350 point army.