ATC 2009 Brief Recap of all three rounds.

[flameberge]

Tournament 25mm scale, 5'X8' table, 40mm MU

I put together an Alexandrian Macedonian army I bought at Historicon. It included the following:
Pike X8
Pike X8
Pike X8
Pike X8
Superior Pike X8
MF undrilled protected Off Spear X6
Javelinmen X6
LH Jav X4
Lh Lancer sw X4
LH Bow Sw X4
Companions X4
Agema X4
Fort Camp
IC
TCX3

Round 1 vs Sassanid Persians. He had all mounted. I don't remember exactly his army but I know it had 1 BG elephants flanked on both sides by Cataphracts, 1 or 2 groups of LH bow, and a whole bunch of Armored Superior Bow sword. From the get go I had no idea what to do against this army, (I have never used macedonians before, never fought a horse army before and have only played a total of 5 games before). I knew I didn't want to just sit back and do nothing hoping for time to run out just to not lose. Way to boring and I wouldn't learn anything. Well pretty much what I expected to happe did happen. I pushed forward with my pike and tried the best I could to guard my flanks with what horse I had. He of course just avoided my pike and mangled my horse. I captured his camp and managed to push one unit of LH off the board but that was it. He destroyed pretty much all my mounted troops and the game ended with him breaking my army 12 points to 3. I was actually very happy with this game. My opponent Phil was a nice guy who helped me learn a lot of things about the rules and actually the beating I took helped me learn how to beat a similar type army I played in round 3.

Round 2 vs LRR. I used a LRR army last year so I had a good idea of his capabilities and how to beat them. his army consisted of 1 BG of Numidian LH, 1 BG of Gallic armored cav, 1 BG of javelinmen, 1 BG of spanish MF, and the rest were superior Legionaires. Playing in this tournament made me realize just how good superior troops are. All three opponents I played had mostly superior troops and I can't count the number of ones that got re-rolled into hits. A lot more than I had expected. Anyway, this game involved me pretty much just lining my pike up against his legions while I used my much superior and greater numbered horse to beat up on his flanks. I went forward with my pike but at a slower rate than I could have because I wanted to buy time for my horse to win against his. I knew we would be pretty closely matched in the HF fight with him having a little edge because his were superior so I was in no rush to get my pike stuck in. The battle pretty much went according to plan. Half my pike were winning and half were losing but I was able to beat up his flanks, reposition and then rescue my losing pike. I won this game breaking his army and losing 3 points in the process.

Round 3 vs. Arab conquest. His army consisted of 2 BG of LF bow X8, a large MF armored superior impact group, a couple of superior offensive spear groups, 1 BG of Superior armored lancers, and a whole lot of armored superior bow cav and superior LH lancer swords, and a foot javelin group. Again I was worried that his MUCH superior cav would crush and surround me while his troops would simply avoid my pike. This time however I littered the board with as much terrain as I could. I made one long line with my pike and MF spear, anchored the left flank on my fortified camp and swung the right side of the line toward a gully near the center of the board on my right flank. To the right of the gully were a couple of steep hills. I positioned my companions behind the gully so if he crossed it and I hit him he would probably have part of his unit in disordering terrain and at the very least he would have rough terrain at his back if he fled from impact. Further to the right of that I had all my light horse. On this side of the board he had his MF impact troops some LF javelins and later on he repositioned some armored bow cav over there. On my left flank I had my agema hiding behind a woods. I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking when I placed them there because they were out there by themselves with no support from the pike. When the battle started I swung my pike forward just like I had planned and succeeded in getting my right flank anchored on the gully. My left flank was pretty much secured by my camp but there was about a base width gap between the end of the line and my camp. This actually ended up working out for me later. The right flank not a whole lot happened for quite a while. His javelin didn't want to tangle with all my LH so other than the occasional shot he pretty much rested on the steep hill. His MF behind the gully didn't want to cross and get charged in the open by my lancers so they just parked behind it for a while. He later moved some cav this way but it took a while (he failed a lot of complex MV tests). His LF bow stood in front of my pike and shot and shot and shot at them for half the battle but my IC kept their cohesion and except for a couple times kept them from charging. Luckily when a unit did charge (which only happened twice) he only went a single MU so I was able to move the rest of the line up to maintain a solid line and still stay anchored on the gully. On my left flank my agema got in a huge and protracted battle that really saved me. They were behind a woods but angled so if my MF spear were charged I could flank charge them. So he sent 2 groups of LH lancers around the woods hoping to hit me in the rear but I figured there wasn't a whole lot to be done about it unless I wanted to turn around and spend the rest of the game chasing LH while my line continued to get shot at. He moved his lancers to the front of my agema, I charged, we had an even combat then his LH charged me in the flank and rear. I placed a general up front so I could re-roll 1-3 so by the end of the first round of combat my agema was steady with no base losses, his lancers were the same but I disrupted both light horse units and killed a base off of both LH groups. I then pulled my lancer LH from the right flank along with a general and moved them this way as fast as I could. After several more combats my agema were still steady though they had lost a base and his LH groups were getting beaten up pretty badly. My lancer LH came charging to the rescue and going one base wide they slipped through the space between my camp and spear/pike line and hit one of his LH lances in the flank breaking them, causing the other LH to go fragmented from seeing this. My Agema lost a 2nd base but kept up fighting and long story short my LH finished off both of his LH units and my Agema was eventually destroyed. He decided to charge my MF Offensive spear, I got lucky and not only badly beat the cav I killed a general and the chain reaction of cohesion tests for all the nearby cav along with several units getting burst through was pretty dramatic. Seeing this I started an all out advance hoping to take the initiative before he recovered his units. The rest of the battle involved my right flank light troops retreating and shooting when he got some cav over there and advanced his MF with them. My companions charged and that battle lasted nearly the rest of the game. My pike advanced forward as fast as they could pushing his mostly disrupted cav backward until the pike got up to his MF spear groups and we slugged it out. The game ended up being called for time with me winning 10-5. Without pictures and better detail I hope that battle report was a little coherent at least.

In conclusion I had a lot of fun all three games and I learned a lot. I think I'm going to start a tradition and bring a new army every year. If I want to paint this army myself I better get started now, I'm a slow painter that has a hard time sticking to a project. I just need to choose an army first.