We rejoin the action for the third part of our four part account of our refight of Ruspina. Caesar, thwarted in his attack on the left by the arrival of Petreius, has advanced the right of his line in an attampt to break through in the centre. This would require fighting his way through Labienus' veteran Gallic and German cavalry...
Above, Caesar's outnumbered Gallic cavalry charge bravely forward but are engulfed and founder amidst a sea of Numidians and Germans.
Five more Numidian units march onto the table to join Petreius on the ridge... gulp. The Caesarians were outnumbered roughly two to one in units, by this stage.
"Lads, if we can break through, there's all the wine you can drink on the far side of that ridge!" Caesar (right centre, you can just see his red cloak) advances to avenge his Gallic horse.
Caesar contracts his line, moving away from the worrying Pompeian buildup on his left. That's a Command and Colors summary sheet in the foreground.
The cavalry unit in the centre of this mass of legionaries is Labienus with his German bodyguard. Caesar managed to isolate it by marching a couple of units to prevent it from evading, and personally attaked it at the head of his troops. The unit was comprehensively slaughtered. However, Labienus managed (somehow!!!) to survive no less than 5 rolls to kill him as he broke through the encircling units to escape. Grrrr. If he'd have died, Caesar would have been able to claim "Spolia Opima" and to hang his armour outside his house in Rome.
And here, in today's final shot, Labienus taunts Caesar from the relative safety of a hillock.
Final part, tomorrow.
4 comments:
I see the generals were drinking wine!
Did this impair the tactical judgement of either side?
Consul; it didn't impair my opponent enough, alas...
The rules are relatively simple so we usually drink a bottle or more of wine during play.
hey simon,
was thinking of your Zama tables..
for your hexes, specifically.
could you get a custom made rubber stamp,large ,with the hex outline, and use a light grey ink pad and stamp the imprint on the terrain?
lining up each hex to the next.might only need 5 sides to the outline to better link up. oh well just a thought. good luck
steve
Hi Steve, I'm thinking of making a hex template and spraying the borders on to the table I'm making for the big Zama game... but someone had a method using a stamp on TMP.
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