Pacifying Palestine

It has been almost a month since I last posted, and that is largely because work and life got hectic. But I have not been idle on the wargaming front. I've taken the opportunity to use these middle school holidays of the year to take a break from painting for others and do a bit of painting for myself. The result has been this Later Hebrew DBA army to match my recently reacquired Philistines:

Doing Yahweh's work...

I wanted the army to represent the Israelites at the time of King David - hence the magen David on many of the shields. I also went with quite dull colours on the chariots after my initial paint jobs made them look like refugees from a Culture Club concert.

Of course, one cannot finish an army without putting it through its paces, and a showdown with the Philistines was on the cards. Thanks to some spectacularly poor dice rolling on behalf of the Philistines (a trend that would continue throughout the evening), the Hebrews packed up their tents and marched down to the coast for their summer holiday.

The field of battle - Philistines at the top, Hebrews at the bottom.

 The Phillies set up their compulsory Waterway and put down two pieces of Rough Going - a woods and a marsh. They didn't really want to have too much difficult terrain because they have a lot of spear which like good going and were facing Auxilia who thrive in the rough. The Hebrews chose the edge with the most difficult going. The Phillies deployed in a long line with a second line of reserves. They eschewed the prospect of a littoral landing because they wanted to try and present a solid line across the board. Possibly a mistake.

The Hebrews also deployed in 2 lines. This was going to be a big knock down battle of attrition - nothing fancy at all.

The lines move towards each other

 The first pips saw both armies grind towards each other.

The first rounds of combat.

 The initial clash delivered some shock results. The Philistines lost a chariot, an Auxilia and a Psiloi element. In return the Hebrews lost a single element of Auxilia to the spears in the centre of the line.

 Both sides then paused for a moment to reform their lines, feeding in reserves to fill in any gaps. The next round of combat saw the power of the spear elements in action. The Hebrew auxilia had no answer, their whole line bouncing back, despite having an initial overlap on the left flank. Only the general's chariot and the right hand psiloi saved the day for the Hebrews. a '6 to 1' roll gave the Hebrew skirmishers victory over their opponents, and all thanks were given to Yahweh.

The death toll.

The Hebrews triumphed with some lucky rolling around the fringes, but the centre of the Philstine line was solid. I am very impressed with spears in DBA 3.0. I always found them a bit underwhelming in 2.2, but the +1 flank modifier makes them a rock now. It will be interesting to see how the Anglo-Danish army goes against the Normans when I have them all up and running.

Nate