Veni. Vidi. Vici.
Slightly longer battle report (with nice pictures)
Mark arranged an ancients battle in preparation for the forthcoming ancients campaign. Myself and John took the Seleucids while Ian and Russ took the Macedonians. Mark principally gave us the Seleucids on the basis of "If I gave them to Ian, he'd make mincemeat out of you!".
That's encouraging!
In the general set-up, we noticed that the Macedonians had more pike and spear than us, that our cavalry was slightly better and we had more light horse (including horse archers) and some elephants!
So John and I cooked up a cunning plan to masscare the Macedonian cavalry with our own and letting our more numerous light horse pepper the opposing pike and spears - thereby whittling down their numbers - and keeping our own pike stationary (rather then risk taking on superior numbers). So when the lines eventually clashed, the opposition would be weaker.
Of course, Ian and Russ had their own plans - which involved avoiding our cavalry and getting their own round the back to cause mayhem.
Each side laid out a unit in turn - and they cleverly kept their cavalry until last. We'd placed ours in the centre to allow them to swing either side.
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| Macedonian set-up. All their cavalry are on the far side. Note they have many more foot skirmishers than we do. |
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| A photograph of no practical use except it shows Mark as Doctor Evil. |
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| Elephants sprint across the battlefield (I wish!) |
Something you should know about the rules. Each commander has two dice which are thrown each time they want to issue an order. These are subject to modifiers and the score needed is reduced by 1 for each order issued. So say he starts on a 9 for the first order, the player must throw 9 or under to issue the first order, then 8 or under, then 7 or under. Theoretically you could get 5-6 orders in, but this requires spectacular dice throwing. On average it comes in at 2-3 but its possible to issue just 1 order or squeeze 4 out of a commander.
The game therefore suits myself and John as it rewards low dice throwing - a skill we are far too adept in for our own good (usually in games where scores of >3 on a d6 are required where we both fail miserably).
I'm telling you this now so what happens next actually makes sense!
Ignoring the elephants completely (and who can blame them) the Macedonians instead made a bee-line for our flanking light horse. Ian rolled twice for orders and they covered a lot of ground. Crucially, he missed out on a third order (which would have meant them crashing into - and wiping out - our light horse and being round the back of our spears with nothing in their way.
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| The Macedonian cavalry pull up just short of the flanking Seleucid light horse. Phew! |
Meanwhile our elephants also came under skirmisher fire as the Macedonian line moved up.
In our movement, I opened up the horse archers (literally and figuratively) to send a shower of arrows into the nearest pike unit. Many hits were made and 2 stands were lost. Ho ho ho! And they were forced back. Ha ha ha!
In addition, two elephants turned with a view to hitting the Macedonian cavalry in the rear. However, unusually high dice rolling by John led to them halting almost immediately. So we had to get the Light Horse out of the way (which we did) and save our rear. So John engaged in some biblical dice throwing and manged to get our cavalry from the middle of the table into the rear of the Macedoninan cavalry with three rolls.
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| We crunch into the Macedonian cavalry rear. Boo-yah! |
This was - as it turned out - the game winning move. It also shows the margins for winning and losing battles. Had Ian got the crucial third move in, we'd have lost our light horse - but the Persian cavalry could (I suppose) have turned inside the trees (in the picture) and saved the rear - but it was far from certain. As it was, we got the 3rd move in and impacted the Macedoninans with a significant advantage.
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| Much slashing and stabbing ensues. |
The rules we play are brutal in the extreme. As the cavalry clashed, stands were being lost on both sides. We were lucky that the elephants were essentially keeping the rest of the Macedonians at bay, thereby allowing us unrestricted access to Stabsville, and we were dishing out more than we were taking.
Of course, we couldn't have it all our own way. My horse archers were charged by the pike - forcing them to evade and evade again. Similarly in the centre, John's light horse (i.e. the ones which weren't on the flank) had charged up the middle to chuck some spears and they too were forced back a bit.
The elephants came under more skirmish fire and we wondered where we were going to send them next - into the melee with the horses or into the side of the Macedonian line.
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| The stabbing carries on in the corner while the elephants try to decide which way to go. |
We decided to send them into the melee (as a unit of Macedonian light horse appeared on our right flank) and they lumbered about 10 yards as we missed on their orders again. To make matters worse, one of the elephants was 'rampaged' and we had to throw a direction dice to see which way he'd go.
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| The Seleucids get around the side - it's curtains for the Macedonians |
In addition, my horse archers re-formed and sent another load of arrows into the pike that had charged them - causing more hits and sending them all the way back across the battlefield.
At this stage we wished we'd moved some pike up as they could really have caused a load of damage - but we decided to stick to the plan.
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| Yeah! And don't come back! |
We also lined up the flanking light horse to hit the Macedonian cavalry (now they'd been reduced in numbers) and polish them off completely.
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| The Light Horse (now the danger has passed) try to get in on the act. |
However, they weren't required. The final melee led to the death (to a man) of the Macedonian cavalry and - more importantly - their Commander. Under campaign rules, if a commander dies, then the battle is lost. As a result myself and John were victorious (the first win in a long time for me!).
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| A big hole where the Macedoninan cavalry used to be... |
If this had been a campaign battle, then the Seleucids would have taken the territory (and gained the relevant troop type for the region) and the Macedonians would have had to retreat and fight their next battle with no cavalry!
Indeed, it may prove to be a tactic for a victorious army to keep pushing at a defeated one as they will be weaker and weaker. But then again, it will mean moving further away from supply lines and possibly opening up a gap for someone else to exploit.
Anyway - a good trial run and food for thought. Whoever I get (not bloody Carthage, hopefully!) I aim to find some elephants and horse archers pronto!