Hydaspes, - Alexander’s last
battle, fought in the mystical east, and, according to Oliver Stone also fought
in a forest.
Fortunately, according to
Professor Phil Sabin, it was actually fought on a fairly open plain, so a
massive saving in scenery costs right
there. Hydaspes has a number of interesting features and was the only battle
which was actually determined by the strength of Alexander’s infantry as he
struggled to subdue Porus’ elephants. The accounts in Arrian and Curtius and
interestingly anecdotal, dominated as they are by the presence of the
elephants. The reader is left speculating that the very obvious “elephant in
the room” stopped any observers from noting other significant factors in the
battle.
For this refight I again combined
Sabin’s research with Neil Thomas’ AMW, a combination that has served me well
enough on previous occasions. Sabin as ever does an excellent job of sifting
out the accumulated crud on our understanding provided by the numerous modern
historians and so providing us with what we actually know.
For convenience I again replaced
Sabin’s units on a 1:1 basis with their closest equivalents in AMW, and
modified the AMW unit classifications where needed.
This battle features probably
Alexander’s smallest army so the numbers for them was never going to be a
problem (although I did need to plunder my “Successor” cavalry box, so a few of
the units of Companions have anachronistic shields). Porus’ army is much bigger
and looked like testing my newly painted Indians to the limit.
The armies stacked up like this:
Porus:
9 x Levy Heavy Archers (144
figures)
2 x Average Heavy chariots (8
models)
4 x Average Heavy cavalry (48
figures)
6 x Elephants (12 models plus 24
light infantry)
Total: 21 units, 168 foot, 48
horse, 8 chariots and 12 elephants. Quite an impressive set up.
This actually left me short of 12
cavalry so some of my gauls made it into the back ranks of a couple of units.
That just left me with a unit of light infantry in the box together with the
lady Royal Guards. Sorry girls, Prof Sabin doesn’t mention you.
Alexander:
5 x Veteran heavy cavalry (60
figures)
2 x Average horse bows (16
figures
2 x Average light horse with
javelins (16 figures)
1 x Veteran light infantry with
javelins (8 figures)
1 x Average light infantry with
bows (8 figures)
2 x Average phalangites (32
figures)
4 x Veteran phalanx (64 figures)
Total: 17 units, 112 infantry 92
cavalry.
Plus each side had some
commanders. The Indians got Porus in a chariot, Alexander got himself and
Coenus on the left wing.
I made a few changes to the rules
for the game. Firstly I added in my now standard fix for commanders. Once a
turn they get to re-roll the dice for one unit they are attached to. In
Alexander’s case he can pick and choose individual dice. For the other two they
have to re-roll the complete set or not at all.
Elephants are the next issue.
With Alexander having a smaller army this battle would be a complete walkover
if the six elephants were operated under the standard rules.
If you have followed my previous
games with elephants in them you’ll know I’ve experimented with a few ideas. I think I may have about
perfected them.
Elephants units are now
represented by four bases, two elephants and two light infantry. The whole unit
still has the standard saving roll of 3-6, but each base is removed with a
single hit. The standard dice are reduced in proportion to the number of bases
left.
 |
| Porus between two new style elephant units |
To compensate for their reduced
manoeuvrability due to the increase in size I let them turn like light infantry.
They also don’t count as having any flanks. When the last base is removed (and
do take off the light infantry first) do a berserk move at full strength.
I also allowed phalangites to have a saving roll if attacked from the front, although I may have forgotten to tell Phil this during the game.
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