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This should have been written and posted weeks ago - tempis fugit, and all that.
Long ago I used to be an active ancients gamer during the reign of WRG 7th ed. When that system imploded under the pressure of rules lawyers' mutations, distortions, perversions and amendments my first thought was: Thank God that's finally over! quickly followed with: Now what? Systems came and went. None appealed. My beloved Skythians lay still and quiet in their closed wooden case like kings in a forgotten kurgan. Years rolled by. Caches of lead sat in cardboard boxes until the boxes grew brittle and crumbled away, manufacturers closed their doors, and whole spectra of paints shrank and dried in their bottles and tubes.
Then came FoG.
First whispers and murmurs came over TMP. TMP led to online research which led to the Slitherine and phenomenally useful Madaxeman sites; the Slitherine site led to the recent announcement that SMAC (Southern Mississippi Armies of Conquest) were hosting a tournament with the Wolves From the Sea theme! My favorite period! Alas, to my shame I had sold my Anglo-Danes many years ago, and there was no way I could paint another Dark Ages army in time for the tournament . . .
But wait!
When in doubt, READ THE DIRECTIONS! At the end of the WFTS book the theme allows for Early Alans! Skythoid horse archers I have in abundance, and immediate orders for Sarmation lancers were duly posted to Isarus and Khurasan. Both manufacturers came through with rapid dispatch and I slogged through the first 24 figures. Days went by. I still had the touch, but I was slow as lichen in getting them covered. The day prior to the event I still had 48 minis left to paint. The solution was the 6mm way. Black primer coat, dry brush the high points with 5-6 colors and 1 metallic. Don't look close, don't look back - just get it done. Brutal but effective. Result: 48 minis finished in 4 1/2 hours. They didn't look great but they didn't look horrible either. Sometimes good enough is perfect. By the time the glue dried and everything was packed, it was 14 hours until the balloon went up in Gautier Mississippi.
Morning of the tournament. Late start, bad directions, drizzle, fog. Arrive 1.5 hours late, half expecting to be turned away. Games are well in progress. Several guys looks up at the dumbass who just staggered in. "Hey! You William?" I admit this is so. I am to play Rich Olier, Anglo-Danes, and also the tourney ref. I proceed to pull out my troops and immediately drop a unit of Skythians on the floor. The omens are inauspicious as saddles are emptied before the army is even deployed! Omens be damned . . . this is my first game in 18 years and I will do my best.
Home Team - noob's dirt simple 800 points Early Alans list:
viewtopic.php?t=12087
1xIC; 1xFC; 2xTC @ 200 pts
5 BGs of 4 Lancers, Armoured, Sw, superior @ 320 pts
7 BGs of 4 LH, Bw, Sw, average @ 280 pts = 800 points maximum.
Round 1: Anglo-Danes v. Alans
Anglo-Danes win initiative. Some terrain is spotted around. Except for some large woods in the NW corner of the board (enemy base line is North) none of it mattered nor can I recall it. Anglo-Danes set up in a compact mass, somewhat favoring the E side - their left. A BG of Welsh spearmen on the enemy right flank looks inviting.
Alans set up with a LH center, lancers to each side of center, LH on extreme ends. Alan plan is to do Cannae on horseback; bendy center to tie up enemy, lancer pincers to crush hapless foes inwards from flanks, outrider LH to protect flanks and support lancers if needed. Rich kindly explains battle lines to me and allows me to reorder the troops. I do so, but fail to maximize this concept and have a slightly scattered main line rather than the previous total dispersal of forces.
Off we go. Both armies make a general forward advance, with the exception of the Welsh spearmen who hare off towards the NW woods to their right. Alan lancers chase after them in pursuit, but fail to catch them before they make it to the woods.
Anglo-Danes form a stout horseshoe, Alan LH conform. Having read a number of the AARs, I anticipate leisurely shooting the enemy to bloody bits, then sweep them up with the lancers, ala Carrhae.
I then meet the large, armored, offensive spear shield wall . . .
"Plinking" is an Americanism that refers to the practice of going out into the country and idly shooting arbitrary targets such as cans and bottles simply to practice marksmanship and pass the time. Usually this has no practical effects whatsoever. Plinking aptly describes the results - and sound if there were any - of 4 base LH BGs trying to wear down large armored shieldwalls. At least they stayed put. At the time I attributed this to abject fear on the part of the Anglo-Danes.
Meanwhile the Alan lancers decide to rejoin the war, and wander back from the race for the woods and from the Alan base line. In due course, lancer charges are declared for a body of mounted huscarls, a BG of huscarls on foot, and a body of armored fyrd. The attack on the huscarls has early promise, but ultimately fails and the lancers break off. The attack on the Anglo-Danish cavalry fails dismally, and the lancers die after stubbornly lingering for a while. The attacks on the fyrd also fail . . .
The 'static' Anglo-Danes now launch a general counterattack all along their line, and the battered and disordered Alan lancers clumsily scramble to get the hell out of the way. The LH continue to plink arrows against the finest Sheffield steel mail hauberks, achieving nothing except getting in the way, after all is what the lights are paid for.
At this point the Alans' unintentional but best move comes into play, and time runs out in this truncated game and looming disaster. Alan losses are moderate, due only to the 1st round being called. In one turn or two, all of the scattered lancers would have been crushed, instead of only most of them.
Debriefing: Rich is a really patient guy; one must read the rules - not simply scan them; the last few pages of the rules are the most important pages in the book; get everything you can out of unified battle lines in the initial advance; FoG is not WRG 7th - attacking the best quality units just makes things much harder and does not garner more 'points'; lancers' charges are surprisingly weak, but their stamina can be surprisingly high; frontal attacks by cavalry on spears in good order is really stupid, just as it is in every other set of rules (duh); things have never been right since I sold my old Anglo-Danes. Perhaps it is time for new ones?
Round 2: Alans v. Early Scots
My second opponent is Simone Fraternali. He greets me while I am packing up my Alans to leave a tournament for which I now know I am manifestly unprepared. I tell him that it is good to meet him but I know nothing about the game and am unprepared to play at all, far less play in a tournament. Further, it would take forever to slowly and pedantically grind through a round. He assures me that he is learning too, and that he really does not mind if the game 'finishes' or not. It is OK with him to relax and just enjoy this round while we both work on the game. An amazing concept, that. We should enjoy our hobbies, and savor our leisure time. I keep forgetting those points, and it was good of Simone to remind me. The Alans came back out of the box.
Alans win initiative. The result is a gentle hill on the east side of the board, just north of the center line. There is a bit of brush on the Alan left baseline. Otherwise the field is empty. The Early Scots, by the nature of their army combined with this barren terrain, are at a distinct disadvantage.
The Scots mass from their left to the center of the field, with their thanes in the center of their line and large swarms of skirmishers on their left set to race towards the hill. The Alans face the main Scottish line with LH, and a token lancer force on the left. The greater mass of the lancers form up on the Alan right, directly opposite the hostile skirmishers. The Alan plan, like the list, is again dirt simple: ride straight forward and slam into things - in particular the light foot. Shoot whatever cannot be impaled. Roll high.
As the Alans advance the Scots keep their right anchored on their base line while their center and left bulge out, anchored on the east side of the table. This forms a broad, shallow arc facing the Alans.
As the Alan lancers close with the Scottish LF, Simone does something I have never seen before. His skirmishers, having successfully performed their role as bait, deftly turn into columns and begin to slip away through their own lines, like minnows slipping through holes in a net. Suddenly, instead of a big swarm of soft, juicy LF, the Alan lancers are looking at a spiky, pain promising hedgehog of Scottish and Viking spears.
We have all read of velites and manipular tactics, and the inherent difficulty of duplicating such tactics on a table top, and how such things cannot be done within the 'confines' of game rules. Simone did it, and he did it masterfully, exchanging the soft ~ 20% mass of his army for a hard line of heavy offensive spears backed up by three more large BGs of medium offensive spears. There was no 'traffic jam', no jostling or disorder; just a deft exchange of bait fish for barracuda, and I was feeling quite the flounder. Meanwhile, the Scottish LF run from their left flank towards their right, where the Alan LH are forming up and trying to pot some spearmen.
On the right, one BG of lancers launches a charge on the Viking foot (deja vu moment: frontal attacks by cavalry on spears in good order is really stupid, just as it is in every other set of rules (duh)... ) while their comrades shout derision at them. The Alan chargers are lucky, and bounce off of the Vikings to no ill effect. The Alan LH engage generally along the center and left, with no effects to either side.
At this time I decide to run away.
In a slow, clumsy manner the Alan lancers turn from the Scots and trot away. The LH easily follow suit and fall back, covering the heavier troops. Simone indicates that he too has read Herodotus, but decides to play for a win anyway and he begins to expand his line forward on all fronts. As he does this, he is forced to fill emerging gaps in his line with some lighter units; a BG of LH in the center and some LF (IIRC) on his center right.
The Alan LH wheel to face, while the lancers continue to retire a short distance before wheeling, where they wait in reserve. The LH, reinforced with generals, concentrates fire on the softer targets now in the Scottish line. This finally pays off; on the Alan left, an Alan LH BG accompanied by the IC breaks a skirmisher unit, catches it and destroys it, pursuing past the Scottish line and well into the hollow horseshoe formation. Following this, the Scottish LH unit in the center is constricted and attacked. It holds up well, but is eventually destroyed.
Elsewhere along the line several of the Alan units are left disrupted or fragmented. At this point, both lines were stretched with multiple gaps; the Alans have one LH BG with their IC in good order behind the Scottish line of battle, but facing 4 BGs of LF. Along the tattered front, The Alans have a loose cordon of lancers and LH, some of it looking decidely wobbly, facing a clear superiority of offensive spears in good order, albeit scattered. The Scottish left is strong, and essentially unopposed.
Time was called. Casualties all around are minor although the Alans enjoy a slight superiority in the points. Both armies are in a precarious and scattered posture, but the Scots have more and larger BGs still in a condition to fight.
Debriefing: This game really felt like a fencing match. Fortunately for me, Simone was trying to fence with a baseball bat, as the Early Scots appeared to be horribly cumbersome and slow to wield. I held a finely balanced epee, but crudely hacked around with it as if trying to chop wood. If we had one another's armies, or Simone had enjoyed any luck at all with the terrain, he would have won handily.
If one's army needs terrain to function or survive, and one does not get it, being a superior general may not matter as one is screwed at the onset; setup can be used for great head fakes; in using bowfire, when one shoots at a small, soft target instead of a large, armored one, the resulting sound is 'thock' instead of 'plink'. Thock is good. Plink is bad. Sons of the steppes must learn this lesson! It is even more important than the 'charging at spears is stupid' thing. Listen to Rich when he tells you your dice are crap, and should be replaced.
Round 3: Alans v. Normans
My third opponent is Bill Sierichs. The Normans run lancers rather than knights.
Alans win initiative, but Bill is very adept at using such terrain as he can get to trash the field. In particular, a brushy area just west of my mid center and another just to the right of center along the Alan baseline give me a lot of grief in set up and maneuver. The overall field ends up being somewhat awkward, but open in the center except for the annoying patch of brush.
The Normans set out infantry on a broad front, Alans set out LH on a broad front. Norman lancer BGs are committed on both flanks. All five Alan lancer BGs are committed on the west/Alan left. Alan plan is to hold up the Norman center and right with a token force, while swinging the Alan center and left to overwhelm the Norman right - in particular the 3 BGs of lancers.
Alans advance generally, while the Normans begin the caterpillar hump from their left to their right to bolster their right flank. At first the Alans right and center demonstration with 3 BGs of LH is successful, but the Normans dedicate a group of LF, MI crossbowmen and a cavalry BG to drive off this demonstration, and the Alan LH on the right are pressed hard. This frees more of the Norman center to reinforce their left.
The five BG strong line of Alan lancers passes the center line and nears the 3 Norman lancers, but two more BGs of Normans are moving up rapidly to support their left. The two eastern-most Alan lancer BGs peel off to face the Norman lancer reinforcement. The 3 Alan and 3 Norman lancer BGs to the west crash head to head; the four lancer BGs just to the east of this collision engage in sequence as well. This course of this conflagration of 10 BGs of lancers is hard to describe, but looks and feels a lot like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3rrZ07Pig0
At this point the battle lines look something like a "Z" with elongated horizontal strokes. The top stroke traces the sprawling cavalry melees; the diagonal (but more nearly vertical) stroke is a writhing mishmash of Alan LH and Norman foot shooting and feinting at one another; the very elongated lower horizontal stroke is the 3 Alan LH BGs giving ground to the dedicated Norman task force which is driving them off.
The initial cavalry clash goes better for the Alans than the Normans but is indecisive, and we both commit most of our generals to this fight. Both of us roll lackluster combat dice and good dice for cohesion checks, so the melee grinds on and on. On the right, the Alan LH demonstration is driven deep into the Alan's side of the board. In the center, an Alan LH group gets too far forward and is eventually cornered and killed. On the extreme left, three Alan lancer BGs with two generals are locked in combat with three Norman lancer BGs and two generals. One of the Alan generals is killed, the center BG loses cohesion from this and soon breaks. The lancer combat is now four scattered melees separated by an Alan rout, with a Norman ascendancy in the center and on their left.
At this point, the tide turns. The Alans continue to roll mediocre dice, but the Normans begin to roll - and continue to roll - perfectly wretched dice. The Normans lose a general, the Alans rally their routed lancer BG and it returns to battle. The Alans slowly begin to win more of their melees than they lose, and luckily pot a couple of units through sustained fortunate shooting - the annoying crossbowmen which are near the the center are broken and the cavalry unit at the tail end of the now very vertical "Z". Both lines are looking very dodgy and motheaten by now.
Time is called. Both sides have sustained losses but the Alans have the better of the exchange. This is due primarily to the Normans' inability to roll higher than a '4' in the last quarter of the game. If the Norman cavalry had been knights instead of lancers, the Alans would have been crushed.
Debriefing: Matching strength to strength and relying on the dice to put one over the top is not very bright, but it is lots of fun; great long lines of cavalry smashing into each other is fun; if you can get knights instead of lancers, do so. Drop a support unit or so.
Round 4: Early Navarrese v. Alans
By Sunday, I am tired. Accordingly my recollections are more sketchy for this game, which is good because I got thrashed.
My final opponent is Bob Bass running Early Navarrese. His army is a balanced army, primarily infantry spearmen but with respectable numbers of shock and skirmishing cavalry, and lesser numbers of missile armed foot.
Terrain is set out. I place a gentle hill in the middle of his baseline, in hopes that he will camp his infantry there. Just west of the hill is a large area of broken terrain. He puts a large area of brush just left of center and just south of the center line. There is another large area of brush near the middle of the west edge of the table, and more broken terrain just north of that.
The Spanish camp goes in the NW corner of the board, the Alan camp almost diametrically opposite.
By now I have decided that the lancers need to be tucked back to follow up on LH successes, rather than lauched like roundhouse punches on their own. Also, the mobility of the Alans is such that I am more comfortable with a farflung deployment and advance. Alans have LH BGs on the extreme left and right flanks, LH mass in the center, and lancers massed to the right of those.
I don't recall the Navarrese deployment very well. IIRC it is a little bit west of center, with a traditional array of infantry center with LF screen, cavalry wings, LH on the extreme flanks.
The Alan LH advance, sending LH probes on the left and right flanks, and the central mass skirting east of the brush towards the Navarrese infantry. The Alan lancers dawdle forward, but slowly. The Navarrese are quick to insert LF archers (or slingers) into the brush.
An Alan LH BG is dispatched to see off the LF in the brush; the remaining central mass of LH draw close to the Navarrese infantry center; the LH on the wings drive forward to engage Navarrese LH. The Alan lancers loiter, waiting for the LH to creat opportuinities to exploit.
At all points the Alan LH fail. The left flank BG and attached general is beaten, pursued and destroyed by Navarrese LH, the LH in the brush are ineffectual both in archery and melee against the LF, the central LH BGs are roughed up by Navarrese infantry missile support, and the right flank Alan LH are driven back by Navarrese LH. The Alan lancers mill around to no purpose while their commander gazes in dull bemusement at the field.
All initiative now lies with the Navarrese. They swing their right flank around until their lines approach a perpendicular angle with the main axis of the Alans. The Alans LH in the brush now break in melee against the LF slingers!
The Alan right is driven back hard, as the LH are roughed up by their Navarrese counterparts. The Alan lancers churn around clumsily to try to attack the Navarrese LH on the right. The Alan LH withdraw from the center, back towards their camp.
The Navarrese right now drives forward due east, unresisted. There is no Alan left. Similarly, the Navarrese infantry center drives forward into the center as the Alan LH draw back. On the right, the Alan LH are broken. As one of the Alan BGs rout, their flight draws pursuing Navarrese into the line of attack of an Alan lancer unit. The other Navarrese LH BG drives hard towards the Alan camp, and Alan lancers and a detached LH BG from the center race to defend the camp.
The Alan LH continue to fall back, angling to face rough to the NW, to hold back the Navarrese left and center. Somewhere in here another LH BG is broken. The lucky Alan lancer unit nails the Navarrese LH pursuing the routing Alan LH, and destroyes the Navarrese LH. At this point the originally 12 BG strong Alans have 5 BGs broken or routed with another fragmented. The surviving Navarrese LH BG behind (greatly reduced) Alan lines is about 2 inches from the Alan camp . . .
Time is called. By a whisker, the Alans avoid complete collapse. This is the last round in the tournament.
Debriefing: Sending out unsupported skirmishers is to murder them; LH cannot fight superior numbers or terrain and win; if one has frittered away one's LH, the remaining lancers truly are a blunt instrument as they attmept to function without cover; reserves which are never committed are called "spectators".
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My thoughts on FoG, the tournament, and SMAC . . .
FoG is a great game. It marks - in my own opinion - a clear advance over preceding ancients rules systems. FoG preserves the best aspects of some previous rules sets, and sheds many of the odd wrinkles and hideous charts, complications, and legalisms of some other rules system. It is by no means "beer and pretzels", but does flow more logically and easily than comparable sets which I have played. The games feel right; they feel historical, and the battles are won or lost through grinding struggle rather than tap dancing or sudden death, whether by lucky rolls or magic troop types. I think the theme system helps here.
My only real quibble is the terrain placement mechanisms. It seems that terrain can be nearly decisive in its own right, and is largely random. This to me is a flaw. Perhaps this is less important with non-steppe armies. I will have to play more games and see.
I cannot quite call the tournament "fun". Fun connotes carefree relaxation. The data dump was far too much to be relaxed or carefree, but the games were demanding, satisfying and exciting. I had a hell of a good time, was thoroughly satisfied, and have been planning multiple armies eve since. Back in the saddle again, as the song goes. It is a good place to be a Skythian.
SMAC. Well. Rich posted a thank you to me for coming to the tournament, and a number of the guys expressed it at the close of the tournament. You mugs. The thanks are due from me to all of you, not the other way around. There are few groups who would welcome and assist an utter noob - who showed up late - in a tournament setting to the extent SMAC and the Louisiana guys did for me. In my life, I can count on one hand the number of groups I have found so welcoming and encouraging, and none more so than SMAC. Thank all of you guys. I can truly say that I greatly enjoyed meeting each of you, and got something positive out of each game.
I certainly look forward to playing you guys again. Next time I will show no mercy, however!
Cordially,
William
