Initially, I intended to attempt a recreation of the Battle of Cannae, because it is one of the most impressive (and mercifully well-documented) heroic victories in military history. This would mean collecting both a Carthaginian army and a Republican Roman army of relatively large sizes—at least 1-200 figures per side.
But, the more I thought about it (and the more I read about the Diadochoi) the more it appealed to me to aim at a four-player campaign (i.e. moving armies around a map and playing tabletop miniatures games to resolve battles when opposing forces meet) featuring Rome, Carthage, and eternal arch-enemies the Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Egypt (it helps that my core gaming group consists of three other players!).
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| Courtesy of Wikipedia |
These four armies/empires have the benefit of 1) creating two sets of "historically-appropriate" opponents, 2) if not sharing borders, at least occupying the four quadrants of the Mediterranean (so allowing "What-if" battles naturally to occur as a result of territorial expansion), and 3) all operating in the same historical period (the 4th-2nd centuries BC).
It also occurred to me that this ambitious goal might be in reach, budgetarily speaking, due to the fact that there is a wide (and ever-widening) range of plastics covering this era, and because the multi-national nature of all four factions' armies meant there would be significant overlap in the forces I would need to build.
For instance, Hannibal's 2nd Punic War Carthaginian army relied heavily on Gaulish allies (and the Carthaginians made extensive use of mercenary Gauls in the 1st and 3rd Punic wars beside), so a good number of Gaulish infantry and cavalry would be obligatory; however, the Romans also fought alongside the Gauls on several occasions — including against Hannibal. So any Gaulish units which I purchased for the Carthaginians could also be used as allies for the Romans, if needed.
In addition, after the Eastern Celt rampage through Greece and Macedon, finally ending in a mass-migration to central Anatolia in the 270s BC, "Galatian" mercenaries became extremely popular throughout the armies of the entire eastern Mediterranean world, fighting for Antigonid Macedon, the Epirotes, the Seleucids, the Pontics and Pergamon, and even the Ptolemies, who encouraged thousands of Galatian Celts to settle in military colonies throughout Ptolemaic Egypt.
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| Galatians floating down the Nile — by Angus McBride (I think) |
So, every unit of Gauls which I assemble has the potential to fit into any of these four target armies (and, potentially, future armies from the same era should I ever expand the project). Further, these elements of allied Gaulish forces would form a core which could be expanded into a standalone Gaulish army later on.
The same principle would apply to Iberian, Samnite, Greek, Anatolian, Thracian, and Persian contingents of these four armies, in that each category can be used in at least two armies.
Versatility is, therefore, one of the key advantages of the era and armies that I have chosen, and I decided to design these armies with versatility in mind, particularly because, if I was clever enough about it, I would eventually be able to construct additional armies primarily or entirely out of components procured for the Big Four—for example, Phalangites, Indian Elephants, and Companion Cavalry from the Seleucid army might be combined with Tarantine Cavalry, Samnite Infantry, and Gaulish mercenaries from the Carthaginian army to create an Epirote army.
To an extent, minor aesthetic/tactical changes throughout the 3rd century BC (which is spottily-documented anyway) could be fudged to create armies in nearby eras. If my Seleucid and Ptolemaic Phalanxes are not too explicitly Hellenistic in design, they could be used in an Alexandrian Macedonian army, or an early Successors/Diadochoi-era army, and the eastern auxiliaries of the Seleucids could be combined with (mercenary) Hoplites and used as the nucleus of a Late Achaemenid army to oppose Alexander (or used to beef up Diadochoi armies).
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| Are these Alexandrian Macedonian Phalangites or Later Successor Phalangites? You don't ask, and Warlord Games won't tell |
This planning principle will be kept in mind throughout the project as I build a collection from the ground up, and I have covered it in such detail because I think it is a very useful principle to contemplate for other gamers that may be entering or considering the Historical Wargaming hobby as an alternative to fantasy and scifi wargaming, because it helps make collecting multiple armies more affordable and less time-consuming, and a versatile collection will allow its owner to more easily recreate the big, cinematic battles that got every history-buff hooked in the first place.
So, with my era selected, and the armies I wish to collect chosen, I now needed more specifics for my plan, as far as which units to compose each army from.
To be continued...
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