Battle of Tel Nebi Mend 1274BCE

Thursday saw Hittites and Egyptians take to the field of battle in a clash with my frequent Australian nemesis, Peter.  Peter commands the Hittite Army.  I command the Egyptian Army.  Peter already posted a battle report of our tabletop exploits so be sure to visit his blog report at Chariots left, right, and center.  His battle report is very entertaining causing me to reconsider publishing an account of my own.  Still, I forge ahead with the battle from the Egyptian, slightly biased, perspective.

Initial battle lines

Egyptian Army readies for battle...

while the Hittite Army does the same.

As Pharaoh’s Army marches north through Canaan on his annual campaigning against the Hittites, the Pharaoh’s wing is stopped at the narrow passage between Lake Homs and Tel Nebi Mend. The heights of Tel Nebi Mend control passage of the ground falling away to the marshy banks of the lake. Seizing the high ground is imperative as it controls the road north as well as provide a source of water. Both armies must control the heights while attempting to destroy the enemy.

Recognizing the importance of the high ground at Tel Nebi Mend, the Hittite King seizes the initiative.  His army moves smartly toward the rough, rocky outcropping.  The two Hittite chariots on the left of the Hittite battle line begin to work their way around the end of the tel.  In response, Pharaoh pushes his army up to counter the King's advances.  On the Hittite Right, the King pushes his army forward with a chariot leading the way skirting the impassable rocky ground to its left.  Dust clouds kicked up by the bodies of chariots begin to envelop the battlefield.  

Hittites move to take the high ground.

Pharaoh counters.

Hittite Right marches forward.

Overall dispositions in early phase of battle.

The Hittites strike first!

The lead chariot on the Hittite Left bears down on the exposed Egyptian skirmishers.  The skirmishers quickly head for the rear.  Not wanting to over-extend itself, the chariot waits for his companion to join.

Perhaps to buy time for the Egyptian Army to come up, the Egyptian chariot moving up to support the retreating skirmishers attacks.  In possibly a rash move, the Egyptian attacks the enemy body of chariots, unsupported.  The enemy, however, has support.  In a quick clash the Egyptian chariot is sent packing to the rear.  Fortunately, a second Egyptian chariot arrives to cover the retreat.  Still, the pursuing Hittite catches his prey.  In the melee, the Hittite is driven off.  That was close!  In all of this confusion, the King orders his foot infantry to take the high ground in strength.  

Egyptian skirmishers evade!

Egyptian attack is repulsed.

The victorious Hittite pursues the fleeing Egyptian chariot.

But the Hittite's attack is blunted and he is driven off.

With combats swirling on the left, 
the remaining combatants await their turn.
The King heads toward the action out on the left.

With the battle seemingly in check on the Hittite Left, for now, battle focus shifts to the Hittite right.

Seeing the Egyptians bring up a chariot from their left behind a skirmisher screen, the Hittites slip into action.  Hittite skirmishers manage to disorder the Egyptian chariot as it moves out into the open.  Skirting the palm forest, the Hittite chariot on the far right strikes.  The first enemy in its path are skirmishers covering the movement of an Egyptian chariot.  Quickly scattering the skirmishers, the Hittite hits the Egyptian chariot.  Likely surprised by the sudden appearance of the enemy, the Egyptian retreats after a quick clash.  

Hittite chariot attacks on the right.

Enemy skirmishers are overrun...

and the Egyptian chariot is attacked.

As the Egyptian chariot heads to the rear, an Egyptian bow unit is uncovered.  The Hittite chases the fleeing chariot and smacks into the bowmen.  Failing to get off a volley of arrows as the enemy closes, the Egyptian bowmen buckle and run to the rear.  Continuing its pursuit, the Hittite rattles on.  The pursuit carries it into the rear of the enemy chariot, chased off only moments before.  This time, however, the situation is different.  The Egyptian has support.  Nearing exhaustion from its efforts, the Hittite chariot fails to break through.  Instead, it is repulsed and turns about to retire into the distance.  

The Egyptian chariot is put to flight.
The Hittite pursues.

Egyptian archers are put to flight.
The Hittite pursues.

Finally, the Hittite is stopped!

Hittite chariot on its way to the rear.

Not relinquishing initiative yet, the Hittite chariot in the center swings around the end of the rocky outcropping and strikes the enemy.  Battered by Egyptian archery on the approach, the Hittite chariot is weakened before crashing into the enemy's chariot.  In a lengthy dogfight, the Hittite is finally driven off in great disorder.  Seeing his enemy off, the Egyptian pursues.  Following the fleeing Hittite, the Egyptian is repelled by the determined archery of the bowmen to the front.  With all of his chariotry on the left in disarray, Pharaoh, himself, moves up to stabilize the situation.   

The Hittite attacks!

The Hittite is repulsed.
In pursuit, the Egyptian comes
under heavy archery fire and retires.

Pharaoh moves up to sort the mess.

Returning to the action on the Egyptian Right, having seen off his compatriot's pursuer, the Egyptian chariot counterattacks.  The fleeing Hittite chariot is caught and quickly dispatched.  Even though the Hittite Left is now exposed, the remaining Hittite chariot chooses to attack rather than maneuver into a more defensive position.  Hugging the rocky ground around Tel Nebi Mend, the Hittite attacks a line of bowmen.  In the following exchange of missile fire, the Hittite is forced to veer off and head for its own battle line.

Fleeing Hittite is caught and destroyed.

Hugging the rocks, the Hittite attacks!

Under a hail of arrows, 

the Hittite chariot is forced to retire.

Situation as the battle reaches a climax.

The King directs the refusal of the Hittite Left, as the King moves up to offer encouragement and direction.  The Hittite Right stands solidly awaiting orders to advance.  With the enemy holding the vital high ground, Pharaoh must devise an alternative plan of action.

Egyptians look up to the enemy positioned on the heights. 

Hittite Left is refused...

but an Egyptian chariot lays in wait upon the enemy left.

Hittite Right stands firm.

Seizing the moment, the Egyptian chariot situated upon the Hittite Left attacks.  His target is the retreating enemy chariot.  Catching the enemy in flank, the chariot is dispatched but his work is not done!  In pursuit, the chariot crashes into a supporting enemy spear.  The spearmen cannot withstand the shock.  They are driven back!  The Egyptian follows up and hits them again.  This time, the enemy is sent reeling toward the rear.  

Unfortunately for the victorious Egyptian, glory is short lived.  Refusing to continue to pursue, it is attacked from the rear as the enemy rushes down from the heights.  Attacked vigorously from above, the chariot is destroyed.     

Hittite caught in flank and destroyed!

Pursuit carries the chariot into enemy spear.

The enemy is pushed back...

and then put to flight!

Pharaoh takes this moment to send his infantry to attack the heights.  The Hittite javelinmen are pushed back exposing (the now) rear-facing Hittite spear.  The spearmen are scattered and the entire Hittite force on the hill is ejected.  With the Hittite Left disintegrating, the King reacts.  Moving around the rocky hill, the King attacks!  Fortune is not with the King.  His attack is seen off by a hail of arrows.  To compound the seemingly dire situation, Pharaoh orders an attack into the Hittite Center.  One chariot is caught in flight leaving the baggage exposed.  Moments later, the Hittite baggage is overrun.    

Attacks and counterattacks across the battlefield.

Hittite chariot caught and dispatched.

Baggage overrun!

Wheeling about, the King makes one more attempt to destroy the Egyptian Right.  The unlucky King is defeated in another attack against the enemy at the base of Tel Nebi Mend.  Forced to retreat back toward the high ground, the King slows to negotiate the difficult ground.  He is caught from behind and killed.  The battle is over.

The Hittite King meets his demise.

Victory to Pharaoh!

While the end may have come suddenly, the fight was long, hard, and even.  Until the Hittite camp was taken and the King killed, the battle was not yet decided.

Peter put up a very good fight although his luck escaped him at times.  He did roll five 6s on five dice once, though.  Quite demoralizing as the recipient!  Great game full of interesting twists and turns with drama at every move.  Game lasted about three and a half hours.

Thank you, Peter!

Now, go off and read Peter's entertaining battle report.

Hanoverian Dragoons and Back to Biblicals

While October has not witnessed my hoped-for uptick in painting output, October monthly totals will see a small increase over September.  I still have one week to go, however.  Year-to-Date totals show that I still have a shot at reaching 1,000 painted figured for 2023.  I may need to pick up the pace.  

Summarizing monthly totals from the Painting Log saw mishap nearly causing a calamity.  As I entered in October completed units, I decided to separate out the Sumerian entries to create their own table culling them from the Biblical collections.  Well, I cut and pasted the Sumerian entries into a new table.  Taking a quick glance at the results, all looked good.  Only later when summarizing monthly and yearly totals did I notice that something looked strange.  Returning to the newly created Sumerian table, my heart sank when I noticed that the new table did not have the Painted Date field.  I lost that important statistic on all of the Sumerian entries.  Sigh.  Before panic and despair set in, I looked for a backup. Fortunately, a recent backup existed.  Copying and pasting the backup entries back into the DB solved my problem and all monthly and yearly totals were back as expected.  Whew!  My recommendation?  Always ensure a recent backup is present.

Anyway, off the painting desk today is another regiment of Hanoverian cavalry for the 18mm SYW project.  Today's dozen troopers muster out as Hanoverian Dragoon Regiment Busche.  Figures are Eureka Miniatures.

On the gaming front this week, Thursday and Friday see a return to Biblicals.  Really, it seems like they never left.  They did not.  Chariot clashes have only been interrupted by Saturday's Cannae four-game marathon.  

On deck are another pair of Egypt v Hatti clashes.  This time, I throw in some terrain for the armies to negotiate.  Both games are remote and I get to both umpire and command one of the armies.  My record is not good of late when I wear both hats.  Perhaps my fortunes will turn this week.  Thursday sees an Australian opponent.  Friday sees a UK opponent.  Wish me luck.

As a note on the blogging front, I see that Blogs Followed thumbnails have returned for all and the Insert Image interface received a new facelift.  Are the two connected? 

Cannae, Again?

Yes!  In fact we got in four battles of Cannae in a gaming session on Saturday.

In an encore presentation of Commands & Colors Ancients in miniature (see Four Battles at Cannae), Scott invited Kevin and I to a day of gaming in Coeur d'Alene.  On deck were more battles of Cannae.  In September, we managed to get in four games in about five hours.  Yesterday's session saw another four battles played in under five hours including a break for lunch at a local burger joint.   

Commands & Colors: Ancients' Cannae

After a lengthy pre-battle chat, we dived into action.

The Table

In Game #1, I (Carthage) faced Kevin's Romans.  After an aggressive Roman start that saw the Roman battle line advance to engage, Rome's attacks did more damage to themselves than to the enemy.  Once Carthage got its heavy infantry on the left into action, Rome crumbled.  Carthage wins 7-3. 

Rome pushes the battle line forward...

only to meet defeat.

Game #2 saw Kevin and Scott go at it.  Scott commands the Carthaginians while Kevin sticks with commanding the Roman Army.  

Scott and Kevin ready for battle.

As seen in previous Cannae games, Scott relies upon Carthaginian missile fire to soften up the Romans before attacking.  Today was no different. Despite suffering from missile fire, Rome advances.  Once Roman ranks were depleted, Carthage strikes.  Carthage wins 7-5.   

Like Babe Ruth,
Scott points to where the missile fire will fall. 

Game #3 saw me back at the table.  I faced Scott as he commanded the Roman Army.  In a closely contested match, my Carthaginians fall to Scott's Romans 7-6 as he ripped open the Carthaginian center in a pair of crippling cavalry charges.

Overrun by Roman medium cavalry.

In the last battle of the day, I remained at the table still in command of the Carthaginians.  Kevin sat back down to command the Romans.

Kevin sits behind the Roman Army.

In a battle that ebbed and flowed throughout with neither able to gain the upper hand, my Carthaginians finally fell 7-6 in the closest match of the day.  The highlight of the battle (for me!) was a devastating Carthaginian cavalry attack against the Roman Right.  when the dust cleared, three Roman units were dead on the field.  Unfortunately, those successes were short lived.  Carthage lost both cavalry units in attacks on the following turn.    

Carthaginian ranks are thinning.

At the end of the day, Carthage won two battles and Rome won two battles.

For the players, individual scores were:

Scott 2-0

Kevin 1-2

Jon    1-2

Have I mentioned that Scott is a very good player?  At least I managed to win one game this time!

As always, great fun, great food, great company, and beautiful armies.  I do have indigestion though.  The burgers and fries were quite greasy...but delicious.