Pyrrhic vs Republican Roman - battle report

As I mentioned before in other posts, there is a Hungarian wargame event called Historikum held several times a year. In this September together with my friend we fought a Hail Caesar battle on this event. My Republican Roman army encountered his Pyrrhic force. This battle report is written by him:

I had one unit of pikemen with hoplites on each of its flanks. On my left flank I had an elephant and on the right flank some Tarentine cavalrymen. In front of the Pyrrhic force stood two divisions of Roman infantry (in the usual velites, hastati, principes, triarii after one another).

The center of the army of Pyrrhus

Tarantine cavalry

The first Roman division

The second Roman division

As per usual, the Romans were the agressors, instantly advancing with haste, whenever the dice allowed. The Greek force quickly moved next to the forest to cover its flank against the mobile Roman units. The Tarentines started advancing through the forest to flank the Roman army.

Romans in quincunx formation

The skirmish favoured the Greeks, the Cretan archers and the slingers started softening up the velites and other units. On the Roman right flank the whole division smashed into the hoplites and the elephant. The velites, although supposedly good against elephants, got crushed. Some prinicipes also broke in the first round of combat, terribly unlucky dice for the Romans. The aim of this attack was to crush the Greek right to attack the pikes in the center from the flanks. The other Roman division was delayed by the flanking Tarentine cavalry, they joined in later on the Roman left side.

In the later bouts the Pyrrhic elephant was killed together with the Greek slingers, which tried to halt the Roman advance for some time. The first charge of the light cavalry was a failure even when they attacked a disordered unit in the back. On the Greek right flank the battle became a bloodbath: both sides ceased to exist. The pikes were lucky to turn around to face the attack to their flank, they were unfortunately beaten back by just one maniple. Chaos ensued, units falling back and charging, flanking. The Tarentine cavalry crushed the last unit of triarii, which broke the second Roman division.

Velites agains the Pyrrhic elephant

Triarii in danger

To summarize, Romans had terrible dice in the start and the first combats. Later it was a bit more balanced, they almost turned the battle around. The light cavalry was not very sufficient in flanking attacks, but at least they slowed down the Roman march.