Game Reports

Titus' siege of Jerusalem 70AD

Posted by Cryns on 28 May 2017, 12:45

Few weeks ago Mr. Van Wees, Mr. Bos (Romans) and Mr. Cryns (Jews) played a DBMM game representing Titus' siege of Jerusalem during the Jewish revolt in 70AD

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The greatest challenge for me has always been the recreation of the historical terrain. No cities' history and archaeology has been studied and reconstructed so intense as Jerusalems. But concerning the city walls during 70AD opinions changed through the years.

I choose for the later interpretations of the most probable course of 'Josephus 2nd wall' as recorded in Josephus book 'The Jewis War'.

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How the Romans entered the city according to Josephus:Image

Our game starts after Titus took the (most northern) 3th wall and build his new army camp within the New City, a suburb that was still in development and not occupied by many buildings yet. Here he besieged the 2th wall.

The section I tried to rebuild:
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For the representation of a corner of the Temple Mount, the Antiona Fortress, the 2nd wall and part of the 3th wall (foreground) I used a hotch potch of my ancient Greek, Phoencian and Roman Hadrianic walls:
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Because all of these sections are painted in similar tones, they fit together pretty well.

Both of these pictures show the same area in the right-centre: the first as a build up area, the second as a green park:
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Our Antonia Fortress and the 2nd wall:
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After the rough lines of the citywalls are layed out, the terrain is accidented by several layers of foam blocks under the table cloth. Mr. Bos surprised us with new Mediterranean shrubs he made, perfect for the vegetation on the steep slopes of the Kydron Valley that was a no go area for Roman siege machines:
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All terrain features are replaced again on top of the tablecloth:Image

Temple mount and Antonia Fortress are higher than the rest of the city now.

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The city was desperately defended by Jewish groups, non-cooperating, hating and distrusting each other, like Zelotes, Judeans, Idumeans, Samaritans and Gallileans. They fought with light arms, as skirmishers, bowmen, hordes and religious suicide fanatics. Some had armour looted from the Romans in the years before and using some looted balista's too.

Because we have no single Jewish figure in our collections, I was forced to select a hotch potch of Greek, Minor Asian and Persian light troops and masses, which I will not show in close up since there is no historical relevance:

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Many of these are conversions made of Atlantic Egyptians and Matchbox/Airfix WW2 figures during the 1980's. All together 500 army points according to our DBMM counting system excluding the value of the fortifications.
Opposed by Mr. Bos his Romans (900 army points) that are mostly Streletz figures and thus a perfect representation for the Roman army in Vespasian's time. To strengthen his siege machines we added some Macedonian siege elements.

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The lower wall foreground (designed as Hadrians wall by me in 1986) is made of potters clay. The walls in the background are made of styrodur foam in 2010 as Hellenist walls.

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Mr. Bos his Roman camp with tents made of paper covering metal wire frames:
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A biblic house made of plaster covered cardboard from my 1980's collection but I doubt if the vaulted roof was already in use for simple houses in those days:
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Siege ramp made of foam&wood by Mr. Bos:
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My giant stonethorwing catapult made of cardboard back in 1986:
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Atlantic siege tower (stuffed with ancient Greek crew)
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Mr. Bos equipped the Zvezda siege tower very cleverly with 'neutral' figures so it can be used for both Ancient Greek and Imperial Roman games.
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We added an extra gaming-feature: secret tunnels used by the Zelotes to undermine the Roman siege machines. I draw these on a secret paper so as soon as my opponents are faced by Jewish fanatics appearing out of nowhere, I can show them I am not cheating but those tunnels were dug before :winky: Thats why those catapults are guarded with lots of legionaries and in spite of that in the picture above several machines got destroyed and removed from the table.

Some houses used as towers, thats why the bases of the ballista's and crew don't fit :eh:
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Dice on top of the citywall representing the initiative points used by the commander of that particular wall section in that particular gaming turn:
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Phoenician temple representing the platform (not the right spot) of the second Jewish temple:
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At the end of our gaming day (21:30h) the Romans had occupied many wall sections and towers of the 2nd wall. The Jews started to retreat to the Antonia Fortress and the Tempelmount.
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Cryns  Netherlands

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Posted by Wiking on 28 May 2017, 13:58

Impressive work. House , wall, siege tower, Palms in different size.
I like the way of walls in sections to add it in different row.
A fantastic work of models over so much years.
:yeah:

I am interested in conversions from Matchbox/ Airfix WW2 soldier to soldier of the ancient.
With all these ammo belts and boots.

Is it possible to get some pic of a few conversions.
Maybe I get some idea (for what ever, nothing special right now) if I see it.
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Wiking  Germany
 
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Posted by Bluefalchion on 28 May 2017, 15:24

Didn't someone convert an ancient Roman into a ww2 German on this forum a while back?

Great battlefield, Mr. Cryns. I can discern the regret in your post that you don't have available a 500 pt DBMM army of fully converted and 100% historically accurate Jewish fighters. Don't take it too hard. I doubt anyone will think your standards are slipping. I know I won't.

You are not a researcher, modelor, and painter who goes half way. Your goal in everything you do in quite simply perfection. Thanks for showing us this Seige of Jerusalem game.
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Bluefalchion  United States of America
 
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Posted by Wiking on 28 May 2017, 19:04

Bluefalchin wrote:
Didn't someone convert an ancient Roman into a ww2 German on this forum a while back?

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Wiking  Germany
 
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Posted by Cryns on 29 May 2017, 16:03

Oh - my - good - Lord!

Somebody posted a Roman N**i in my Jewish Cultural Historical topic! :shock:

How much deeper can this Forum sink? :mrgreen:
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Cryns  Netherlands

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Posted by sberry on 29 May 2017, 16:34

Mr. Cryns wrote:Somebody posted a Roman N**i in my Jewish Cultural Historical topic! :shock:

How much deeper can this Forum sink? :mrgreen:


And the way he carries his shield is totally wrong!

But your wargame report with the lots of great pics is most impressive! At first, I was a bit shocked, but then I was relieved to read that this was done using existing parts, not another project of yours built totally de novo.
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sberry  Germany
 
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Posted by Cryns on 30 May 2017, 09:47

Wiking, Bluefalchion an Sberry thanks for your nice words :-D

Wiking wrote:work of models over so much years.

Most 1980's buildings were painted over to match them with the recent ones.
And so were the bases: I re-based 600 Persians, many because I switched from WRG to DBA/DBMM gaming system, all of them because of the color.

And it was manly for this reason:

Not the figure itself but its base color gets most of the spectators attention because seen from the top (our perspective) the figure occupies only 10% - 25% of its base.

Wiking wrote:all these ammo belts

Those, together with the fire arms, were the first things we cut away with a stanley knife when we were teenagers.

Wiking wrote:Maybe I get some idea if I see it.
No you don't :mrgreen:
It's of a quality that you and me left far behind us many years ago already.

Wiking wrote:Is it possible to get some pic of a few conversions.

That would be a nice game, especially for you:
I show some ancient tribal warriors from Asia Minor, the Kaukasus or the Central Asian steppes and you have to guess which plastics were cut to pieces to achieve that. Last week I stored them into the basement again. Maybe I will post them one day in my Gaugamela topic.

Bluefalchion wrote:the regret in your post that you don't have available 100% historically accurate Jewish fighters. Don't take it too hard. I doubt anyone will think your standards are slipping. I know I won't.

Well.... to be honest, I do :oops: . When there is only 10% historical accuracy I feel no desire to throw all of it in close up detail on the internet ;-) What would be the point of that? But anyway thank you so much for your compliments, Bluefalchion. You have always been one of my favorite analysts in this forum, giving us feedback on artistic, ethical and psychological matters. I am always happy with that :-D :notworthy:

Bluefalchion wrote:Your goal in everything you do in quite simply perfection.
Isn't that the whole point of what all of us are doing? Spending much time and energy on objects that are so small that the average eye of a 45 years old are not able to see it properly anymore?

sberry wrote:And the way he carries his shield is totally wrong!

Yes, that makes its political incorrectness even worse!!! :mrgreen:
Isn't that a Revell scaling down of the old Elastolin Romans?
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Cryns  Netherlands

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Posted by sprinkles on 04 Jun 2017, 11:59

Wow that table is stunning, a really great piece of work!. Looks like it was not just a great looking game but also loads of fun to play!. Love the undermining idea, i may 'borrow' that for my own games!.
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Posted by Edwardian on 04 Jun 2017, 12:10

Superb stuff. Really, I worry that I post too many superlatives, but this is the art of wargaming and modelling at its height, so what can I say?

Beautiful game.
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Posted by PhilC on 04 Jun 2017, 13:57

Edwardian, I propose that we now use hyperlatives :mrgreen:
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PhilC  Europe

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Posted by C M Dodson on 04 Jun 2017, 14:30

Dear Mr C,

Apologies, I spotted this whilst away and was not able to post a response.

As usual you have surpassed yourselves with this presentation. This is primarily a wargame but the quality of the scenery, buildings and troops is excellent.

Most wargamers make an effort with their scenery, but you realise the impact of the visual element as well.

What a joy to fight over such terrain. The only drawback I can imagine is when your sleeves catch a building and wipe out a housing estate. I know from personal experience!

Well done.

Best wishes,

Chris
C M Dodson  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by Cryns on 06 Jun 2017, 18:11

sprinkles wrote: also loads of fun to play!. Love the undermining idea, i may 'borrow' that for my own games!.

Sprinkles you are welcome. Let me tell you about some fellows of my old wargame club 'Societe de la Grande Armee': Eighteen years ago they organized a huge scale Renaissance game about several Popes fighting for power in Rome. When troops of the French Pope suddenly entered the city of Rome, neglecting its fortifications, the Borgia Pope started to complain about this. Then the French Pope told him to look UNDER their table. A REAL scale TUNNEL including steps going down at the outside of the citywall and steps going upwards behind the wall was taped with cellotape to the bottom side of the table top :winky:

Edwardian wrote: I worry that I post too many superlatives

Since this is THE FORUM OF SUPERLATIVES we all face the same problem. Thank you very much for your superlatives.

PhilC wrote:I propose that we now use hyperlatives

PhilC I love you man!
After that we can switch to megalatives, gigalatives, nytrolatives and finally nuclearlatives (but then its suddenly all over).

C M Dodson wrote:was not able to post a response.

Dear Sir Dodson,

Never apologize for being slow. This is our hobby remember. Not our way to make money. Thank you so much for your nice words.

C M Dodson wrote:The only drawback I can imagine is when your sleeves catch a building and wipe out a housing estate. I know from personal experience!

That is why I always try to wear short sleeved shirts during such game. And don't drink too much beer because the belly can create similar catastrophes.
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Cryns  Netherlands

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Posted by FredG on 21 Jun 2017, 17:30

Mr. Cryns wrote:

PhilC I love you man!
After that we can switch to megalatives, gigalatives, nytrolatives and finally nuclearlatives (but then its suddenly all over).


Someone must have slipped in a dose of laxatives :P
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FredG  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by Peter on 27 Jun 2017, 20:23

I like that picture of that German Roman. Or was it Roman German? :eh:

BTW the game is nice to! :-D
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Peter  Belgium

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