Empires dawn
At the beginning of XIII century BC in the near east the powerful empire of Egypt and Hatti were fighting in the Levant trying to expand their dominions. Both nations were rich, culturally advanced and socially well organized. Both had a powerful army at their disposal.
Suddenly, between 1206 and 1150 BC, these civilizations collapsed.
Out of nowhere, new nations appeared in the mediterranean and migrated, looking for new lands. Possibly pushed by severe drought and famine, Sherden, Peleset, Tjeker, Weshesh, collectively called Sea people, Dorian, Phrigian and Thracian from northern Europe were soon followed by Gasgan, Arameans and Lybians tribes. They attacked and crushed the Minoian states, destroyed every city between Troy in Anatolia and Gaza in Philistia.
The Hittite Empire collapsed, many syrian city states were sacked and burned. The Egyptian kingdom was the only one able to stop them, but at an high price, being severly weakened and losing all the possessions in the Levant. The wars with the sea people marked the start of the egyptian decline.
It was the end of the Bronze Age, and the beginning of a dark age.
This is a team campaign ideated to be played and finished in a single session. One team will play the nations migrating and destroying everything in their path, while the other team will try to defend and repulse the barbarians from their home country
The teams will then play individual games, each one representing a different war theatre in this era, choosen from the list below. The armies must be comprised between 1208 and 1176BC.
New Kingdom Egyptian vs Early Libyan
New Kingdom Egyptian vs Sea People
Ugarit vs Sea People
Siro Canaanite vs Sea People
Hittite Empire vs Sea People
Hittite Empire vs Gasgan
Hittite Empire vs Early Northern Barbarians
Later Minoian vs Early Northern Barbarians
Later Minoian vs Sea People
The score will be calculated by team, adding all the individual battles. The team scoring higher will be the winner.
As usual, the losing team will offer a drink to the winners.
Report of the games
Hittite vs Sea People
The Sea people, on the left, tried to use two big rough hill as defensive position, to hold the hittite army and trick them. Most of the sea people troops on the right were exagerated by stratagem and concealed a flank march on the left side. The hittite deployed a huge PkF phalanx in the center, supported by KnO and light troops
The Hittite once realized the sea people line was weaker than expected, attacked
The sea people flank march and chariots thratened the hittite CvO and LhF guarding the flank, that were in ambush behind a gentle hill.
Sea people charged to lure the PkF downhill.
Hittite right wing under pressure
Hittite PkF phalanx had the upper hand in combat. RKnO were unstoppable even when hard flanked. The frontal attack by Hittite was succesfull
The Hittite CvO and LhF are overwhelmed and destroyed, but gained enough time to let the rest of the hittite army to break the enemy in a bloody frontal fight. The Hittite won 20-5
Early Lybian vs NKE
The NKE (in process to be finished) deployed with chariots in the center and infantry on the wings. The Lybians, supported by a sea people corps along the WW, relied on massed archery.
The chariot attack in the center by the Egyptians was disrupted by massed bwI fire
The egyptian archer corps was isolated from the center
The continous bow fire started to inflict casualties to egyptian chariotry. Gaps appeared and were soon exploited by lybians light troops
Egyptian center was simply overwhelmed once it was disordered. The egyptian archer corps inflicted a lot of casualties to sea people mercenaries, but broke once contacted. 23-2 to Lybians
Hittite vs Early Northern Barbarians
The Hittite defended in a quite open table, bisected by some difficult features. He deployed on the right, while the barbarians set up on the opposite flank, trying to play an attritional wheeling game in the center along the bad going. The Hittite had very high pip and was able to redeploy quickly enough to pin the enemy
The barbarians were outmanouvered and had to face massed Kn chariots in good going with their AxS horde
The Hittite once in position advanced and started to logorate the barbarians
The barbarians could not hold the enemy mounted, and started to lose more and more troops. The better command and control let Hittite exploit gaps and exposed flanks.
It was a real carnage. 25-0 for the Hittite
The Empires won 47 to 28. The Empires survived this round of invasions, but a new generation of barbarians will come