Playing in the MAWS club Ancients Warlords Trophy - this was a KO match. Since the Oxford doubles is around the corner (which I am not going to...) we agreed to play a 1000pt game from Immortal Fire.
I decided to use Lydian:
1 IC + 3 TC's
16 Cavalry, Superior, Undrilled, Armoured, Light Spear, Swordsmen (4*4)
8 Light Horse, Average, Javelin, Light Spear (2*4)
4 Light Horse, Average, Bow, Swordsmen (1*4)
12 Medium Foot, Average, Undrilled, Light spear (2*6)
12 Light Foot, Average, Undrilled, Javelin, Light Spear (2*6)
32 Hoplites, Average, Undrilled, Offensive Spear (4*8)
6 Light Foot, Average, Undrilled, Bow (1*6)
6 Thracians, Average, Undrilled, Light Spear, Swordsmen (1*6)
I had the Pre-Battle Initiative and facing Greeks, chose Hilly. I put down the maximum Steep Hills, a Village and a Marsh. The Greeks put some rough going down.
Most of the terrain formed an inpenetrable mass in the middle and the right hand side (well if you are heavy foot anyway). There was a large steep hill on the left, leaving a gap of around 40 cm, then in the middle a large marsh - with both of these being on my opponents side. Then the village was on my side and some rough next to it and finally a steep hill on the far right hand side on my opponents side.
Cant remember exactly what was in the Greek list, but it involved bucketfulls of hoplites. There was some poor quality LF with javelins deployed on the steep hill opposite the village. I had placed two ambushes of the Light Foot Javelinmen, one in the village and the other in the steep hill. There was some more Greek LF on the steep hill on the far left, armed with bows and slings.
We both deployed masses of hoplites in the "open area" on the left, with the Greeks including an allied Spartan contingent. I deployed my LH in front of the hoplites and 2 BG's of Cavalry on the far left. I had one BG of Cavalry on the far right and one in the middle next to the village. The two MF Lydian BG's were providing rear support to the 4 BG's of hoplites. and the Thracians were lined up to have a pop at some MF defensive spearmen in the Marsh in the middle. There were three more BG's of Greek Hoplites in front of the village and rough going.
There was an initial clash on the right hand side between the two sets of LF - with the Lydians being average to the Greeks Poor proving a crucial difference and quickly fragging one BG and disrupting the other. Both Greek LF BG's were withdrawn and the hoplites moved up. Because I had some Cavalry on the far right, this forced the Greeks to split up to cover the gaps that the LF had now left. I moved my LH in front of the hoplites to their left to be opposite the Steep Hill to give the LF skirmishers something to think about, which meant the hoplites were unable to advance. But the Thracians were keen and ran towards the Defensive spear in the difficult going.
The Greek Hoplites surged forward in the good going and started widening their lines as it became possible - although still overlapped by the Lydian Hoplites at this stage. With the Light Horse eventually getting out of their way, the Lydian Hoplites moved forward in an effort to engage the Greeks, before they could make their superior numbers tell and outflank them.
The Lydian Light Horse dispersed the Greek LF (fragging one BG) and moved to threaten the Hoplite flank. This caused a Spartan BG to be drawn away from the main line and charged several times to relieve the pressure. My Thracians had by now come within charge range and ran into the Defensive Spearmen. Despite only having 4 dice to my oponents 6 and my opponent having his general in the front rank, this was a dead draw for about 5 consecutive combats.
On the right the hoplites had charged the skirmishers that had dispersed the Greek skirmishers and ran forward exposing their flank to the Lydian Cavalry. The greeks were ordered to about face, but their lines were obviously still disordered from their charge and could not be turned. The Lydian Cavalry promptly charged and fragged the unit at impact and broke them in melee. The hoplites ran just enough to contact the next BG in the line, disordering them, so when the victorious cavalry smashed into their flank in the JAP they then broke in the next impact phase. The victorious cavalry where whooped along and would not be stopped from pursuing their quarry. Which was ill advised due to some rubbish cavalry who had watched the events unfold, but were now in an excellent position to charge the flank of the pursuing horsemen, which they did and broke them.
On the left the hoplites clashed. Because of the defensive spearmen getting held up by the Thracians for ages and the Spartans having to deal with Light Horse, this meant that the Lydians had overlaps on both sides of the main line and one BG of spartans on the far left - there was also 3 Lydian Generals to the Greeks 1. Combined with some fairly poor CT's on the Greeks part this meant that two of the BG's were disrupted during the initial impact and melee. In the Lydian turn this worsened, although some Lydian Hoplites did go disrupted on the far right.
The Thracians eventually broke, but even then proved to be useful as they ran past the Lydian spear line they prevented some hoplites outflanking the Lydians
The Greeks threw the last roll of the dice and all the remaining hoplites not engaged charged in, including the elite (oops, sorry Superior) Spartans with a general in the front rank. However, even this was not enough to halt the victorious Lydians and even one of the Spartan BG's was disrupted and when one of the Greek BG's in the middle of the line broke this caused a wave of panic which all but destroyed the spear wall by breaking one BG's and fragging two more.
It was at this point the Greeks threw in the towel, having 5 BG's broken and several Fragged with only two Lydian BG's broken and not much possibility of any more success.
Interesting game. (I think) We both concluded the following
- Lack of mounted really, really hurts the Greeks
- It is kind of obvious that if your opponent has a wodge of off spearmen then difficult going is the key - the greeks lack quality Light Foot to slug it out in the difficult going
- The three generals and rear support for the Lydians in my mind were key. My opponent claimed I threw good dice for Cohesion tests (which was also true)
I generally use that rather than getting out the paper copies.