Back at Kadesh, Rameses (right) had led his division out of the camp - and here come the Hittite infantry!
The infantry are light troops (Auxilliaries in C&C and what used to be called Light Medium Infantry in WRG) so this could be an interesting fight.
The Egyptians have the worst of it, losing a chariot - but the infantry retire...
...so both sides take a breather.
Rameses leads another sortie - with mixed results...
...but is forced back to camp.
A further flurry of Hittite spears and arrows leads to the loss of Rameses's guard unit, meaning he has to test to survive. A helmet means he is dead. Bugger.
The final score. This was a 'six-banner' battle and for once it wasn't a very close run thing! 6-1 in favour of the Hittites.
Muwatali 1 - Ramses 0. As, well, not historically, seemingly, as history tells us Ramses won a tough and costly fight. But that's only (in my view) because modern scholars have swallowed Ramses's self-glorifying narrative: hook, line and sinker. But, reading between the lines of even Ramses's yarn, he took a shellacking, did he what!
ReplyDeleteOf course, on the war games table, nothing is a given. Great result!
It was a bit closer than the final tally indicates. We had a huge swirling chariot battle in the middle of the field, even one of the four horse/ox chariots got stuck in. Like all 'cavalry' battles, with mobile but fragile units, the result was balanced on a knife edge. Rameses suffered from having his retreating chariots crash into their own fortifications, while the Hitites lost some in the river for similar reasons.
ReplyDeleteArchduke Piccolo
ReplyDeleteAs Martin says, this was actually a closer game than the score might suggest - with a 'sudden death' moment late on.
Martin Rapier
ReplyDeleteSo do you think these chariots will ever catch on?
I'd much rather have a good solid line of Legionaries than a bunch of flimsy chariots.
ReplyDelete