Plexatia Preview 3 - The Gauls

Plexatia Preview 2- The Romans

Battle of Plexatia 56BC - Preview 1

We are fighting this fictional battle down the length of the table - 23 feet of it. Crassus has led his 7th Legion, with assorted light infantry and cavalry allies, over the ford (at the River Garonne)
which is located by a friendly Aedui village called Plexatia.

Adcantuannus, the chief of the Sotiates tribe, has heard of the Roman advance on his territory and has moved his entire army of 11,000 men to the ford in the hope of catching them crossing. He has arrived too late and must fight here.

I'll post some more detailed pre-battle pictures. The game will be fought on Tuesday/Wednesday of next week and I'll do a battle report at the end.

A small baroque Church (15mm)

Here are two Austrian battalions of IR 18 Marshall deployed on either side of a small baroque church. I bought the resin model years ago and have just painted and based it. I'm not sure who manufactured it, but it is very pretty.

Most of the rest of this week I'll be sorting out the table for the Roman game we will be having next week. I'll try to post pictures of the new table later on.

15mm WAS/SYW

I have decided to replace my 25mm SYW with 15mm for two reasons:

1) I’m going to buy back from my friend in New York (Jon) all those painted 15mm armies I sold him 18 years ago. That means 680 French infantry plus cavalry, artillery and generals. On the Allied side that means 384 Hanoverian infantry plus cavalry, artillery and generals. I painted them so I know they are fine. This will provide a very substantial core of what will be needed.

2) I like large armies and the width of my table (seven feet) means 15mm will be the best scale to do this period in and to do it justice.

So, at some time later this year, these armies will be winging their way across the Atlantic and then it will just be a question of rebasing and replacing the OG cavalry. OG infantry are lovely and I like painting them, but I’m no fan of their cavalry. Eureka, on the other hand, have wonderful cavalry.

In the meantime, I’m playing around with the size of the battalions. I’ve decided that I’ll use 20 figures a battalion for all nations that use the 3 rank system – based in two ranks.

These armies must be versatile to be used in both the WAS and SYW so I’ve had to come up with a system to cover those nations that deployed in 4 ranks. I tried a system that had extra pairs of figures in a third rank (to represent the 4 ranks) but which could be brought together into the front line to make battalions in 3 ranks. I dropped this plan as 15mm figures in pairs are too fiddly to use. So I’ve decided to base Austrians, for example, exactly like the Prussians (20 figures in 5 bases of 4 figures) but when they are to represent battalions in four ranks I’ll just take away a base to reduce the frontage. Are you still with me, or have your eyes glazed over as you fall into a stupor?

Because I use computer rules (Carnage and Glory II – much to be recommended!) you can do all these sorts of things because it’s what you input into the computer order of battle that is important, not the number of figures.

What I am showing in these pictures is a number of Prussian infantry battalions placed in front of my modular village units. Each village unit is 8” long by 4” and I’ll explain the thinking behind them in a later post.

Lastly, why am I doing Prussians and Austrians rather than French and Allies? Because I have bags of Prussian and Austrian figures and I can’t touch the Western theatre until I have all the armies physically in front of me.

Top Picture: 1st Battalion of Prussian IR 1 in front of module one.

2nd Picture: 2nd Battalion of Prussian IR 1 in front of the rear of module one.

3rd Picture: 1st Battalion of Prussian IR 8 in front of module two

4th Picture: 2nd Battalion of Prussian IR 8 in front of the rear of module two.

Right Wing Cavalry

Here is the right wing of my Polish Renaissance army. It consists of:

General Jan Holowczynski

Duke Janusz of Masovia Hussaria Banner (6)

Pawel Sapieha, Voivod of Witebsk’s Hussaria Banner(6)

Jan of Tarnow’s Pancerni Banner (12)

Klemens of Moskorzew Pancerni Banner (6)

Iwo of Obichowa Pancerni Banner (6)

General Levy of Lublin Banner(12)

General Levy of Przemysl Banner (12)

I’m now about half way through!

Iwo of Obichowa Pancerni Banner

This is the last cavalry regiment for the Right Wing of my Polish Renaissance army. We are now about half way through!

I’ll picture the entire force this weekend when I go up to the attic to set up the table for the ancients game we will be having on 19th April. More on that game next week with pictures of the battlefield and orders-of-battle. It is going to be a game of Caesarean Romans under the younger Crassus against the Sotiate tribe of Gauls.