IC – Alp Arslan himself
3 x TC
Foot Archers, 8 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow
Foot Javelinmen, 6 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Foot Javelinmen, 6 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Bedouin Cavalry, 6 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Lancers, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 Cv, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 Cv, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
The dawn of day 2 (although how you tell when it doesn’t get dark is beyond me
) pitched me up against David Fairhurst and his Alexandrians led by “Big Al” himself. Oddly despite our years on the GB competition circuit we couldn’t remember ever meeting in a singles game before – we’d had to travel to Helsinki to manage that!David’s army was:
IC – Big Al
2 x TC
Companions, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Lancers, Swordsmen
Thracians, 6 MF, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Light Spear, Swordsmen
Thracians, 6 MF, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Light Spear, Swordsmen
Foot Companions, 12 HF, Average, Drilled, Protected, Pikemen
Foot Companions, 12 HF, Average, Drilled, Protected, Pikemen
Agrianians, 8 LF, Superior, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Cretans, 6 LF, Superior, Drilled, Unprotected, Bow
Thracian Light Horse, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Skythians, 4 Cv, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Prodromoi, 4 LH, Average, Drilled, Unprotected, Lancers, Swordsmen
Hypaspists, 8 MF, Superior, Drilled, Protected, Light Spear, Swordsmen (can be fielded as HF, Superior, Drilled, Protected, Pikemen)
Iphikratean Hoplites, 8 MF, Average, Drilled, Protected, Offensive Spearmen
Elephants, 2 El, Average
I won the initiative and so Big Al was stepping out onto the steppe
to try and pin down the Turks. We ended up with little terrain that would affect the game, a piece of broken ground on David’s right was the most important really although a couple of pieces of rough ended up in my centre but nothing that was going to bother me. David’s camp was somewhat to his left of centre and I briefly toyed with doing a Ruddock and flank marching a BG, but decided against it. My deployment ended up with the LF in the centre as usual, expecting to be pulled back ASAP again as usual, 4 BGs of Turcomans on the left with the other and the Bedouin on the right; all the skirmishers the regulation 15MU in. I had a single BG of Ghilman on my left and all the rest of the Cv on the right with, as usual, the Ghilman on the extreme end of the line. David deployed his Iphikrateans and Hypaspists on the right to push round that flank quickly, the phalanx echeloned back with LF screening and the majority of his mounted and the nellies on his left. He also had the Thracian MF as a second line to give support. All looked quite like Gaugamela really - seems that FoG encourages historical solutions to historical problems 
The plans appeared to be that I was going to skirmish on the left and push with my major shooting power on the right, aiming for the enemy mounted whilst David was aiming to turn the table 90 degrees to then push me off table with a steady, if long, advance. I did wonder whether his Hypaspists next to the table edge may be a weakness as they would get -1 on any CT if I could shoot them up a bit, but they were Superior.
The first few moves went pretty much as planned for both sides. My big cavalry wing marched steadily around the table whilst lighter units advanced to slow the Makedonians down to single moves to maximise my chances of gaining local superiority before David turned the battle. On my left I had some success with shooting at the Protected MF but with Al as an IC normality was soon restored, my one real success was that the Thracian LH had to retreat behind the MF as it couldn’t stand out against all my horsemen – watch this BG, it is important.
Eventually, of course, the Makedonian MF charge my left wing LH and Cv to drive them off and stop them shooting and here Nik tries to be clever, with unexpected results. The Iphikrateans charged my lone left wing Ghilman BG and I think that if instead of evading, after which my only real option would be to turn back 180 degrees, I stand to fight and, all being well, I should then break off which gives me more options in my move, although I could easily be disrupted and/or lose a base. It took me a short while to decide but stand I did. So the Iphikrateans contact and we draw the Impact phase, however, through lucky dice rolling I win the Melee phase by 2 hits and, inevitably, roll a double 1 which meant that despite Big Al sitting with them, they double dropped to Fragmented.
Being my move next David couldn’t move any of his other troops out of the way or out of testing range and so when the MF inevitably broke in the next melee phase we had a rather nasty situation for the Makedonians. The routing MF bust through the Thracian LH behind them (I told you to watch them) and when the Ghilman pusued the LH evade move took them through one of the supporting Thracian MF as they had to evade directly away from the charge, it being a flank or rear charge so an evade to their rear was not possible. It got worse when my Ghilman then hit the now Disrupted Thracian MF, broke them so that they went through the LH again so Fragmenting them and these then broke when the Ghilman pursue charged at them. Result for me with 1 Ghilman BG breaking 3 enemy BGs and ending up most of the way to the baggage.
In an attempt to do something about the rampaging Ghilman David was forced to bring his only useful reserve unit left to face them, the other Thracian MF, but bang, crash, wallop and they were also routing, this time across the back of his army so that the Ghilman were being drawn towards his left wing cavalry with my right wing bearing down on them from the front. During this rout the routers again burst through other troops disrupting them, it seemed to be the feature of the game – and again it had taken an unfortunate series of dice rolls in the VMDs for this to happen.
David now, correctly, realised that he had to push with his cavalry and elephants to try and get something out of the game as it was slipping away alarmingly quickly – much to my surprise. However, it turned out that my right wing Ghilman had “magic bows” and in 2 shots David failed 2 Death Rolls and the Companions were down to 2 bases – note stat watchers this meant I had hit with at least 3 shots each time on a 50% chance per dice; lucky, moi? However, they had to charge the Ghilman and so they did and at the same time we had the Makedonian Skythians fighting the Turcoman Cv despite the latter being Protected. Brave though they were the Makedonian cavalry succumbed fairly quickly and, almost inevitably, a routing unit burst through an already Disrupted BG to break David’s army.
So 25-0 to me much to my surprise and all arising from a single combat where I got lucky whilst trying to get a small advantage for my next move. I think this is the only FoG game I’ve played where a single combat round has had so much impact on the game.
Part 4 tomorrow all being well.