Battle of Clastidium 222 BC - Command and Colors Ancients Game

 

Side view of the table

View from the Roman side

View from the Gallic side

Marcellus is wounded but victorious and joins a unit

Roman cavalry attack Gallic light infantry

Gauls retreat on Roman right flank

Romans attack 

Cavalry combat in the centre

First post and game for the New Year! Last Monday afternoon I played a solo Command and Colors Ancients game out in the shed. The scenario was the Battle of Clastidium with a mainly cavalry force of Romans under Marcellus fighting a Gallic force of Insubres and Gaesatae under Britomartus/Viridomarus. For the background on the battle see the post: https://bucellarii.blogspot.com/2020/11/republican-roman-cavalry-and-leves.html

I wanted to incorporate the single combat between Marcellus and Britomartus in the scenario and did this by giving, Marcellus three wounds and Britomartus two, with two dice each in combat, hitting on leader and sword symbols. The victor would gain a victory point for killing their opponent, as well as depriving the enemy of a leader. 

In my game Marcellus was victorious but wounded and joined a cavalry unit in the centre. The Gauls had four command cards to the Romans six and no leader, after Britomartus was killed. The scenario for the battle, if anyone is interested, can be found on the Command and Colors Ancients scenario list site:

https://www.commandsandcolors.net/ancients/maps/59-celtic-war-225-222-bc/256-203-clastidium-222-bc.html

The Romans had a couple of Order Medium Troops cards which proved very handy for their five medium cavalry units. In the end the Romans won fairly easily 5-0 victory points. The Gauls never really got going and their most effective troops, the Gaesatae, had limited opportunities for combat. However a couple of the Roman cavalry units were only one block away from being destroyed, so the result was closer than it seemed.

Gauls attack 

Roman cavalry successful on the Gallic left flank

More cavalry combat in the centre

Romans evade

Gallic left flank is destroyed

Gauls counterattack

Roman cavalry holds on

Romans are victorious

Republican Roman Cavalry and Leves

 

Here are some Republican Roman cavalry and leves that I've just finished painting. The cavalry are all Crusader Miniatures figures with LBM shield transfers and the leves are Victrix. I have a Command and Colors Ancients (CCA) game in mind for these troops, the Battle of Clastidium 222 BC, where the Roman consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus killed the Gallic Insubres chieftain, Britomartus/Viridomarus in single combat and won the spolia opima, one of the highest honours in ancient Rome. The Roman forces led by Marcellus consisted entirely of cavalry with a few hundred supporting light infantry (the leves).

Plutarch in his life of Marcellus (Parallel Lives) gives an entertaining description of the action:

7 1 Meanwhile the king of the Gauls espied him, and judging from his insignia that he was the commander, rode far out in front of the rest and confronted him, shouting challenges and brandishing his spear. His stature exceeded that of the other Gauls, and he was conspicuous for a suit of armour which was set off with gold and silver and bright colours and all sorts of broideries; it gleamed like lightning. 2 Accordingly, as Marcellus surveyed the ranks of the enemy, this seemed to him to be the most beautiful armour, and he concluded that it was this which he had vowed to the god. He therefore rushed upon the man, and by a thrust of his spear which pierced his adversary's breastplate, and by the impact of his horse in full career, threw him, still living, upon the ground, where, with a second and third blow, he promptly killed him. 3 Then leaping from his horse and laying his hands upon the armour of the dead, he looked towards heaven and said: "O Jupiter Feretrius, who beholdest the great deeds and exploits of generals and commanders in wars and fightings, I call thee to witness that I have overpowered and slain this man with my own hand, being the third Roman ruler and general so to slay a ruler and king, and that I dedicate to thee the first and most beautiful of the spoils. Do thou therefore grant us a like fortune as we prosecute the rest of the war."

4 His prayer ended, the cavalry joined battle, fighting, not with the enemy's horsemen alone, but also with their footmen who attacked them at the same time, and won a victory, in its sort and kind, was remarkable and strange. For never before or since, as we are told, have so few horsemen conquered so many horsemen and footmen together. After slaying the greater part of the enemy and getting possession of their arms and baggage, Marcellus returned to his colleague, who was hard put to it in his war with the Gauls near their largest and most populous city.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Marcellus*.html