Hutt Valley Wargaming Club: Thracians vs Etruscans - posted by Vince Cholewa, 17 November 2020

Many thanks to Che Tibby for an excellent game of toy soldiers at the Hutt Valley Wargaming Club on Saturday. While my Thracians vs Che’s Etruscans is not a historical encounter, they were contemporary armies and near neighbours - close enough to show the DBMM rules at their best. Using anachronistic armies produces a good game but the rules are at their very best with historical matchups.

The game ended with Che deservedly leading 15-10.

The table was something of a valley, with gentle hills on both sides and a vineyard on the Etruscan right flank.

I have to admit, Che deployed better than I did. Refusing the flank with the vineyard, while filling the other with ordinary cavalry and light horse (Cv(O) and LH(O)) for the big push. His centre was assorted Italian hill tribes (warband and auxiliaries), with Etruscan hoplites and legionaries between them and the cavalry.

I deployed a mercenary Greek hoplite command on the hill in my centre, planning to use it as the immovable obstacle while I had vague ideas about going around both the Etruscan flanks. However, I had not asked myself the “how will I do that?” question and, really, I was doing little more than just responding to Che.

The hoplites on the hill did exactly what was asked of them, throwing off charge after charge of hill tribe warbands, eventually breaking that command. They also inflicted casualties on the Etruscan legionaries who were also attacking up the hill. Thracian and Greek psiloi had done enough to disrupt the Etruscan attack so the warband and legionaries could not coordinate as well as they might have. The hoplites were eventually disheartened but remained kings of the castle.

The flank opposite the Etruscan cavalry was a disaster. The Thracian nobles (Irr Kn(I) wedges) proved no match at all for the cavalry and broke quickly, exposing the flank of the hoplites. The supporting command of light horse did what it could to protect the hoplites and snipe at the advancing Etruscans but on their own were never going to be enough to do that for long.

The flank around the vineyard was something of a scramble involving Thracian auxiliaries, psiloi and light horse, none of whom made much progress. The Italian hill tribes auxiliaries, Etruscan legionaries and two or three elements of cavalry were slowly gaining the upper hand.

When we called time after about four hours of play, my army had lost just over 40% of its morale equivalents and Che’s had lost about 25%.

It was a pleasure to play against Che - thank you - and any game with near-contemporary armies where ordinary cavalry are the nastiest troops is bound to be fun

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/permalink/1668315489994703/

Che during his first bound

Etruscan infantry

More Etruscan infantry

And yet more Etruscan infantry

Italian hill tribes

Etruscan infantry - there were a lot of them

Thracian light horse

Mercenary Greek hoplites

Russell Briant

A great retelling. You are a bard.

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• Vincent Cholewa

  

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  Russell Briant

   you are too kind, thank you 

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• Russell Briant

  Vincent Cholewa

   the chap who said History is written by the victors hadn’t met you (or Josh).

  And the community is grateful for that.

  

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Dave Madigan

Fantastic looking armies!

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• Vincent Cholewa

  

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  Dave Madigan

   Che Tibby’s Etruscans especially. He has taken a leaf out of Patsy’s book and done an Absolutely Fabulous job, dahhhling 

  

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