ARR – Parthian (again) vs. Sassanid

[timmy1]

With the new (unofficial) index to hand, I felt ready to give FoG another go. We also had a couple of DBM players who watched part of the game and looked at the lists with interest. 600 Points a side as we had very little time due to a late start. I chose Parthians, my opponent had his Sassanids with him (they had been used for a game of DBM earlier in the day). As we don’t have the official FoG list for Sassanids, my opponent did a direct conversion of a DBM list into FoG terminology, based upon discussions upon the Slitherine site and FoG Yahoo group. I used the Parthian starter army in the Companion Volume 1 (as my own list sucked, as I showed in my first ARR). My opponent’s list looked something like:

1 FC C-in-C
2 TC
4 BG of 4 cavalry, armoured, superior, undrilled, bow, sword (aka Shooty Cav)
1 BG of 4 cataphracts, heavily armoured, superior, undrilled, lance, sword
1 BG of 6 light horse, unarmoured, undrilled, average, bow
1 BG of 8 light foot, unarmoured, undrilled, average, bow
1 BG of 10 mob, unarmoured, undrilled, poor

The Sassanids had the initiative. There was no material terrain. Parthians deployed with the 7 BG of Horse Archers maximum forwards, in pairs on the flank, a group of 3 in the middle, with the Cataphracts in support of each group of Horse Archers. The TC were with the flanking Horse Archers and the IC with the centre Horse Archers. The Sassanids deployed with the Light Horse and a BG of Shooty Cav on the right supported by the Cataphracts, the foot in the centre, mob to the rear, supported by a BG of Shooty Cav and 2 BG of Shooty Cav on the left.

On the Parthian left the situation seemed to be heading for stalemate, with the Sassanid Shooty Cav generally outshooting the Parthian Horse Archers, until the Shooty Cav from the Sassanid centre turned onto the flank of the Horse Archers, who got pinned in a horrible position and were about to die when the game ended.

In the Centre the Sassanid LF archers positively outshot the Parthian Horse Archers, and the Sassanid right flank cataphracts kept the Parthian Cataphracts from reaching the LF archers. The game ended with the two sets of cataphracts locked in combat, neither side with the advantage.

On the Parthian right, the Horse Archers gave the 2 BG of Sassanid Shooty Cav a real hard time, racing up their flanks, while the Parthian Cataphracts assaulted them frontally. However in time the superior shooting of the Sassanids, combined with their superior combat performance, led to the Sassanids coming out on top after a titanic struggle. At one stage I had 2 BG of Horse Archers charging the flanks of the Shooty Cav while the Cataphracts struck from the front, with assorted TC milling about. (After the game my opponent said that he felt sure that I was going to win convincingly here.)

The game finished with 1BG of Parthians destroyed, 2 broken and 1 fragmented. 1BG of Parthian Horse Archers were chasing the Sassanid baggage (and firing a round into the mob on the way past) and 1 Sassanid BG was broken. However 1 Parthian BG was in real trouble and the broken Sassanids might have rallied. A loss but one where I had a much better understanding of the game, and made better use of the Horse Archer mobility. I did make some mistakes but did feel more confident that, with the improved index, I could find what I needed at any point (the game flowed much quicker because of it) and I felt more confident about concentrating on my play. My opponent did not ever seem to feel that he was totally in control.

I can see how, unlike in DBM, Parthians are a viable FoG, especially with the Horse Archers in BG of 6 bases (but that makes the army very brittle). Sassanids look like a good army under FoG. I am of the opinion that Shooty Cav are the best all-round troops in FoG. My opponent’s view is that Sassanids look good against mounted opponents but they would struggle against bow armed foot or if there was lots of terrain on the table and one or two other troop types. We both agree that HI without missile support will be in trouble against Sassanids.

Me, I am a regular army man, and June is not far away. Then I will be able to get my hands on Companion 5 and put my beloved Early Imperial Romans on the table. While I wait for that, I may give my Sarmatians a run as Bosphorans, as they have Shooty Cav and lots of interesting stuff.

This has also been posted on the FoG Yahoo group.