So I think the above image sums up my feelings after last night pretty well. I was trying out the Successors against Russ's Persians so there were some troop types I was unsure of - and so it proved.
All the scenery we rolled seemed to end up on Russ' side of the table and as I'd won the initiative, Russ placed his troops first. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to stick a plantation in the middle of the battlefield. It has also been so long since I last played FOG that I'd clearly forgotten a lot of the rules - which didn't help the cause one little bit.
The Plan - not that I really had one - was to take on Russ' cavalry as the Thracians went down the inside right to jump out to either attack the cavalry or Persian spears. Russ had placed horses on a steep hill - meaning they would be severely disordered and move at 1" a go.
Basically though my troop deployment sucked. The idea I suppose was to get my good cavalry in while the majority of the Persian horse were stuck on the hill and then get around the back while my medium foot skirted through the woods as the pike advanced and so could threaten the Persian spears or horses on the hill.
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| Persian deployment - horses on the hill. |
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| My deployment - garbage |
Little did I know that the majority of Russ' cavalry were Superior or Elite and could also shoot arrows. As my cavalry (lancers) charged the nearest Persian horse they evaded (as they were only 1 base deep - something else I'd forgotten)
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| View from the pike block. |
To cut a long battle report short, as my cavalry charged the bow-armed Persians they tried to evade and had to stop at the hill.
Therefore at Impact I was hitting them at ++ POA - and got 7 hits from 8 dice. All was clear for a decisive horsey victory.
Except that Russ then threw 5 hits with his 8 dice - and two 1's which he re-rolled for another two hits. Unbelievably it was a draw! The vagaries of FOG had struck again. We both had to make death rolls and I managed to not lose a base (on a 6) and Russ did lose a base.
So we get to the melee. I had 4 dice to his 3 on a +POA.
And lost the melee.
And threw double 1 on the cohesion test for instant Fragmented.
At that point I should have jacked the whole thing in. If the dice are not going to work for you when you have every advantage then they won't work when you don't. I remembered another battle (MRR vs Carthaginians) where a similar thing happened and it led to an easy Carthaginian victory.
The same pretty much happened here as well. I think my heart just went out of the battle at that point. Instead of punching a hole through the flank, a couple of bad dice rolls meant that my flank was the one in danger. So hoplites had to be moved over to protect the flank rather than attack the centre - weakening the overall position.
To make things worse, my Thessalian cavalry had to move to protect the lancers, got shot at and dropped a cohesion level as well. So the flank was a mess before we'd even got started.
We also got into a lot of page turning in the rule book as we had to check on who was allowed to charge when, how the shooting worked etc. Russ' horses on the hill should have been marked as Severe Disorder and a whole host of other bitty crap got in the way of the battle. An example was where Russ' other cavalry on the hill wanted to charge my Fragmented cavalry. I didn't think they could charge if they were Severe Disordered (and I'm still not sure) but they did and my cavalry automatically broke.
It was all downhill from there. My hoplites reached the hill eventually and I thought they'd be OK in fighting Severe Disordered horses. But as they were on the hill, Russ claimed uphill advantage and that my own troops were now Disordered (as they were touching the hill). I suppose its one of those things - if I'd known / remembered that then I'd just have kept the hoplites just off the hill and the cavalry could not have moved (as they'd fight at --POA).
As it was I managed to get them Disrupted but apparently as they were already Severe Disordered this affected them not one jot - not even making cohesion tests more difficult which I found hard to comprehend. But there you are.
In the middle - a sideshow to be fair - the Persian spears came forward. My troops went in piecemeal thanks to the hoplites having to cover the flank. The Thracian heavy weapons should have given a good account of themselves but a combination of rubbish dice by me and Russ re-rolling 1's and 2's down the line made a huge difference. If I learnt anything from the battle, its upgrade your troops to Superior or Elite whenever you can. Re-rolling is a much better option.
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| The hoplites doing all they can - which turns out to be a lot less than I thought it would be. |
Another point of contention was that his spears declared a charge on the Thracians. By doing so, some stepped forward into some Light Foot of mine. I said that I'd evade but was told I couldn't as I hadn't declared an evade when charged. But I wasn't given the option as the Light Foot weren't the target of the charge. Light Foot have to make a CMT to stand in the face of a charge - which they passed - so I assumed thay could do as they liked (i.e. stand OR evade as they saw fit). Russ called this as they had to stand as the CMT had been passed. This didn't seem right to me but as everything else had gone against me I wasn't that bothered and let it stand. The result was that the Light Foot were soon reduced to Fragmented.
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| Hoplites charge the Thracians, step forward into the Successor light foot - who aren't allowed to evade. Game Over. |
As my remaining cavalry were also Fragmented and my hoplites were doing nothing as they were touching the hill the Persian cavalry were on (and so were doubly penalised) I just gave up.
Not much more to add really. It wasn't a particularly enjoyable battle. The scenery had much more impact than I thought it would and - as it was all on Russ' side and I was attacking - meant that I had to go in to win. There was also too much rule-book thumbing as we came across so many issues that we (I) wanted to check. I've certainly got rusty with FOG!
Looking at it, the deployment was wrong for me and my foot were torn between two objectives. I probably should have chosen more cavalry instead of the Thracians (who did nothing) to try and offset the superiority in numbers and quality. I certainly need to think about how to combat the bow armed cavalry (massed horses I suppose to lessen the effect) and aim to at least match the quality (i.e. Superior).
I may look at elephants or scythed chariots as well to see if they add a different dimension.
So well done to Russ - but (and I suppose this is the problem with FOG) - just a couple of bad rolls lost this battle. Russ threw an incredible set of dice to draw the impact when logic said he should have lost it. He'd got himself into a bad position and I should have benefitted but one good roll by Russ (to draw), one bad dice roll (the melee) and then a double 1 (for Fragmented) meant the result of the battle was already decided. We've both been victims in the past of such a result but I'm struggling to think of any other rule set where just a couple of rolls can win or lose a battle in this way.
A 20 in POW can ruin your day but is rarely catastrophic. Other rules require a succession of bad rolls to tip the balance. But in FOG if a unit drops immediately to Fragmented thanks to a double 1, then it is usually irretrievable, the unit is lost and the balance shifts dramatically to the other side. If I could change one thing in FOG, it would be to remove that rule and say that a unit can only drop one cohesion level per combat.
Nuff said.