first game : romans vs parthians
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 8:51 am
well finally managed to get the troops on the table and had a 700 point game.
i went for Parthians against Principiate Romans.
with parthians having 6 bgs of 4 light horse and 3 of 6 cataphracts plus an Ic and 3 TCs the terrain was pretty open (we agreed to short cut it by having the parthians win PBI and Romans get first turn then sorted a steppe battlefield between us) the Romans had a more mixed collection with 3 bgs of 6 legion (1 superior, 2 average) 2 bgs of mf auxilia( 4 and 6) 1 of archers (mf at 6) 1 of artillery (2) 1 bg of 6 equites ad a sarmatian ally ( 1 bg of 4 lf and 1 of 6 cav lancers) and 2 tcs and a fc for generals.
initail deployment had the parthians mass thier cataphracts on the open side of the battlefield, while the romans deploed along the whole front, the intial moves saw both sides press forward where tey saw advantage (the Roman equites looking to go through the horse archers to the camp, while the cataphracts advanced on the enemy right wing before any reinforcements could arrive form the left.
the battle from there progressed pretty predictably, the horse archers evaded and shot, ineffectively til i figured out how to mass the archery on one target, (when i finally did this they shot to broken the 4 base auxilia bg over a couple of turns), the equites managed to get through to the camp eventually.
the sarmatians were forced to charge the join of 2 cataphract bgs each with a tc in the front rank (as the sarmatians had) this combat continued for a number of turns, though eventually the sarmatians started to deteriorate , but were finally broken on base losses, the other cataphract unit had caught the 6 strong auxilia in the open and broke them fairly quickly, then persued into the legion (again the join of 2 battlegroups) which when joined by their general, slowly ground down the cataphracts, however with the other 2 cataphracts hitting the auxilia archers with predictible consequences the Romans were too close to breaking to recover.
conclusions, deployment was the key here, the cataphract bgs were going to roll over most things they hit and having all 3 hit half the enemy without the others being able to reinforce made for some quick attrition points scored, archery takes some getting used to horse archers are effective in numbers, but 1 battlegroup will do little on its own. the legions are tough, but the average guys needed a general to help out. artillery really are slow , and probably not worth it.
finally the game flowed nicely and most of the mechanisms were easy to pick up, the rulebook was easy to reference , even if some rules seemed to be in odd places (index and glossary were very useful) compared to other sets i've used it held up well, as a fun game, with nice balance and a flavor of its own, definitly one to continue with.
Ben
i went for Parthians against Principiate Romans.
with parthians having 6 bgs of 4 light horse and 3 of 6 cataphracts plus an Ic and 3 TCs the terrain was pretty open (we agreed to short cut it by having the parthians win PBI and Romans get first turn then sorted a steppe battlefield between us) the Romans had a more mixed collection with 3 bgs of 6 legion (1 superior, 2 average) 2 bgs of mf auxilia( 4 and 6) 1 of archers (mf at 6) 1 of artillery (2) 1 bg of 6 equites ad a sarmatian ally ( 1 bg of 4 lf and 1 of 6 cav lancers) and 2 tcs and a fc for generals.
initail deployment had the parthians mass thier cataphracts on the open side of the battlefield, while the romans deploed along the whole front, the intial moves saw both sides press forward where tey saw advantage (the Roman equites looking to go through the horse archers to the camp, while the cataphracts advanced on the enemy right wing before any reinforcements could arrive form the left.
the battle from there progressed pretty predictably, the horse archers evaded and shot, ineffectively til i figured out how to mass the archery on one target, (when i finally did this they shot to broken the 4 base auxilia bg over a couple of turns), the equites managed to get through to the camp eventually.
the sarmatians were forced to charge the join of 2 cataphract bgs each with a tc in the front rank (as the sarmatians had) this combat continued for a number of turns, though eventually the sarmatians started to deteriorate , but were finally broken on base losses, the other cataphract unit had caught the 6 strong auxilia in the open and broke them fairly quickly, then persued into the legion (again the join of 2 battlegroups) which when joined by their general, slowly ground down the cataphracts, however with the other 2 cataphracts hitting the auxilia archers with predictible consequences the Romans were too close to breaking to recover.
conclusions, deployment was the key here, the cataphract bgs were going to roll over most things they hit and having all 3 hit half the enemy without the others being able to reinforce made for some quick attrition points scored, archery takes some getting used to horse archers are effective in numbers, but 1 battlegroup will do little on its own. the legions are tough, but the average guys needed a general to help out. artillery really are slow , and probably not worth it.
finally the game flowed nicely and most of the mechanisms were easy to pick up, the rulebook was easy to reference , even if some rules seemed to be in odd places (index and glossary were very useful) compared to other sets i've used it held up well, as a fun game, with nice balance and a flavor of its own, definitly one to continue with.
Ben