Romans and Parthians

david53 · Post by **david53** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:32 pm

If you have had access too the V2 site you may just have read about how I feel about mounted V heavy foot fights. But read on...

Last night we had at the club a great game very historical Parthians V Romans game(should'nt allowed this historical match) Right I could'nt complain cause it was Carrhae all over again(with different commanders I might say)

I was facing over the steppe like flat destert(just like carrhae) a mass of LH half of them cheekly borrowed of me. I deployed in the corner doing a Matt as we call it at the club, my left on the fortified camp deployed 10mu in and my right held by my 2 only LH Bgs and a roman legion hiding behind some FF's.

This game went the way that I would'nt have thought possible I actually enjoyed it, due to the large numbers of Pathian LH they managed to get in each others way, they took the camp but that just opened the LH to the advance of one BG of Legions who I thought I could afford to lose while holding up 5 LH BGs and 1 BG Lancers. On my right I managed to stand the fire of 2 BGs of LH Bow against 2 of my LH Jav and managed to get mm away from them in my movement and the Parthian LH having failed the move back pulled back 7mu I them moved back to my starting line this went on for a few turns, while this was going on I managed to destroy a LH BG in the centre

Right I thought this game would have been dull cause I can't catch his LH but having to spread out along my line with his LH I was able to use the expand and move of the HF to pin the LH and take the firing from them allowing my Cavalry and 2 LH Javilins BGs working together to take on three LH Bow destroying one and forcing one of the table.

In the centre the girly Parthians had given up trying to shoot the brave romans and brought up the heavy boys to take on the one roman unit slightly ahead of their friends a unit of elite 6 base romans, who happened to go and fail the only test against shooting that the romans did all game just before the Cats charged in.

After the combat and melee of the first round found one of the cats disrupted and the other had lost a base. In the JAP the romans rallied up and after the next combat one of the cats were Fragged and the other disrupted and the romans were steady.

Matt and I had a great game he thought he would be just wearing down the romans me i thought it would go the way of history but this time Crassus won.(well it was 11-9 for the romans a fine show and by the end i had reached past the middle of the table. Whats more we both had a laught at matts poor dice rolling.

Had to say one thing about the lone romen 4 base legion holding up the 5 LH and Cavalry for all 3 and half hours they were shot at by at least 5 BGs every bound and ended the game still steady even after the parthians got sick of the shooting charged in with the lancers in fron t and 1 LH BG in the rear of the foot.

A great game not sure if the Parthians followed the historical thing and got rid of their general?

navigator · Post by **navigator** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:30 pm

david, as i am leaving v2 development to the experts can you tell me how the game played differently to that under v1

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:55 pm

I believe this was V1, a practice for Derby Paul.

david53 · Post by **david53** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:18 pm

navigator wrote:david, as i am leaving v2 development to the experts can you tell me how the game played differently to that under v1

Sorry Paul to have mixed it up for you.

navigator · Post by **navigator** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:42 pm

ooops i see now having re read the top bit..... so how would it have played differently under v2? better or worse

MatthewP · Post by **MatthewP** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:01 am

Had to say one thing about the lone romen 4 base legion holding up the 5 LH and Cavalry for all 3 and half hours they were shot at by at least 5 BGs every bound and ended the game still steady even after the parthians got sick of the shooting charged in with the lancers in fron t and 1 LH BG in the rear of the foot.

And even then they passed every test.
Then there was the cataphracts (two bgs) charging into 6 disrupted Romans, we bounce off, one disrupted and one fragged. And lets not forget all the other shooting that failed to disrupt anything at all.

Oh, how we laughed

Robert241167 · Post by **Robert241167** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:05 am

How did you bounce off if they were disrupted when you went in?

Or did you have to go through 2 rounds of melee and bounce off after they had been rallied?

Rob

MatthewP · Post by **MatthewP** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:46 am

Oh yes. We charge, Dave won every combat despite being disrupted. We finnish the first round with both mine dropping a level and his recovering. The second round wasnt much better. Dave won again. It was all down hill from there. I was lucky to escape at all.

Robert241167 · Post by **Robert241167** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:53 am

Now I understand.

I hope my legions fare better against him on Monday!

Rob

david53 · Post by **david53** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:56 pm

Robert241167 wrote:Now I understand.

I hope my legions fare better against him on Monday!

Rob

Roman blood will be spilled I am sure?

frederic · Post by **frederic** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 6:12 pm

5 LH BGs firing at the same roman BGs, it makes up to 10 dices. Let say 9, that makes an average of 3 hits each shooting phase (hits on 5,6 only - roman armour).
You're not lucky with dices. Such isolated BG generally lost bases on death roll.

On V2 it would have been worse for the Parthian LH.

david53 · Post by **david53** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:20 am

frederic wrote:5 LH BGs firing at the same roman BGs, it makes up to 10 dices. Let say 9, that makes an average of 3 hits each shooting phase (hits on 5,6 only - roman armour).
You're not lucky with dices. Such isolated BG generally lost bases on death roll.

On V2 it would have been worse for the Parthian LH.

He did hit me but there were only two times throughtout the game that he got 4 hits the other times it was mainly passing the test with an overall -1

madaxeman · Post by **madaxeman** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 9:42 am

Sorry, but I'm not on the v2.0 site so I don't quite get what you are trying to say here.

From your description it sounds like a game in which the Romans were incredibly lucky throughout, fought a cautious and broadly defensive battle and then ended up with a draw.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to conclude from this other than Romans need to be both lucky and play defensively in order not to lose to Parthians in Steppe terrain?

david53 · Post by **david53** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 10:33 am

madaxeman wrote:Sorry, but I'm not on the v2.0 site so I don't quite get what you are trying to say here.

From your description it sounds like a game in which the Romans were incredibly lucky throughout, fought a cautious and broadly defensive battle and then ended up with a draw.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to conclude from this other than Romans need to be both lucky and play defensively in order not to lose to Parthians in Steppe terrain?

I think your missing the whole point, but as you said your not on V2?

Since HF move 3mu and LH move 7mu you might call it defensive I would have said playing to the armies ability and since I had only 2 BGs of LH against 15 Enemy BGs of LH picking the time to attack seemed such a good idea to me I just went along with it.

MatthewP · Post by **MatthewP** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 4:31 pm

I think the point is that both players enjoyed the experience. Yes the Romnans where lucky and that helps in any FOG game.

navigator · Post by **navigator** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 6:34 pm

altho, i was hoping to gain enlightenment on differences between v1 and v2...... from two experienced and hig quality players

david53 · Post by **david53** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:40 pm

navigator wrote:altho, i was hoping to gain enlightenment on differences between v1 and v2...... from two experienced and hig quality players

Can't be meaning me then, what I'll try and do soonish is play a V2 game using the same armies and write it up. TBH I would like to see how the match up works in V2 also.

Dave

navigator · Post by **navigator** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 11:51 am

thanks David, that would help us luddites get up to speed...

bring back dbm !!!
it wasnt broke it just needed putting into plain english...

cheers
p