Slitherine

Phil Giles, Stephen Finn and I fought our first unhistorical fight last Tuesday - a "turn up with 800pts of any army" game.

I chose Alexandrian Macedonian - many because I wanted to see how pike and a mixed economy style army would work. Stephen Finn chose Lombards, mainly to see how cheap troops mixed with quality troops worked. Phil decided to fight on my side in this battle as he had fought with Stephen when last we had all three of us available.

My army was:
# Order of March Cost D.
1 IC General Cavalry,,,Armoured,-,Lancers,Swordsmen 100
1 FC General Cavalry,,,Armoured,-,Lancers,Swordsmen 50
1 FC General Cavalry,,,Armoured,-,Lancers,Swordsmen 50
4 Thracian, Paionian or Eastern Light Horse Light Horse,Average,Undrilled,Unprotected,Javelins,Light Spear,- 32 1
6 Illyrian or Thracian Javelinmen Light Foot,Average,Undrilled,Unprotected,Javelins,Light Spear,- 24 1
6 Rhodian Slingers Light Foot,Average,Drilled,Unprotected,Sling,-,- 24 1
12 Foot Companions Heavy Foot,Average,Drilled,Protected,-,Pikemen,Pikemen 84 2
12 Foot Companions Heavy Foot,Average,Drilled,Protected,-,Pikemen,Pikemen 84 2
6 Indian foot Medium Foot,Poor,Undrilled,Unprotected,Bow,-,Swordsmen 24 2
4 Companion Cavalry Cavalry,Superior,Drilled,Armoured,-,Lancers,Swordsmen 68 3
4 Companion Cavalry Cavalry,Superior,Drilled,Armoured,-,Lancers,Swordsmen 68 3
8 Hypaspists (any dates) Heavy Foot,Superior,Drilled,Protected,-,Pikemen,Pikemen 72 3
4 Companion Cavalry Cavalry,Superior,Drilled,Armoured,-,Lancers,Swordsmen 68 4
2 Elephants (Only from 326 BC) ,,,,,, 50 4

Total Points 798
Total Units 11 3,3,3,2
Total Scouting 19

Stephen's Army was:
1 FC
1 FC
1 TC
1 TC
6 HF Defensive Spearmen (Poor)
6 HF Defensive Spearmen (Poor)
6 HF Defensive Spearmen (Poor)
6 HF Defensive Spearmen (Poor)
6 HF Defensive Spearmen (Poor)
6 LF Bow, Poor
6 LF Bow, Poor
4 LH Bow, Swordsmen
4 Cv Lancer, Sworsmen, Superior, Armoured
4 Cv Lancer, Sworsmen, Superior, Armoured
6 Cv Lancer, Sworsmen, Superior, Armoured
6 Cv Lancer, Sworsmen, Superior, Armoured
6 Cv Lancer, Sworsmen, Superior, Armoured


Setup
The Macedonians invaded. Figuring that they might have more cavalry we opted for woodlands. Stephen choose 4 open areas and we choose 2 woods and 2 marshes. Not only was this an attempt to limit the scope of manoeuvre for the Lombards, but it was also an opportunity to see how more terrain affected the game.

As you can see from the picture, the Macedonian flanks we well covered and the wood on the right flank was a god-send to limit the ability of the Lombard cavalry to exert pressure on that flank.

When Stephen announced 34 scouting points I knew we were in trouble ??“ that was a scary amount of high quality cavalry. In response our 19 seemed puny, but we had the dice roll advantage with the IC. However we decisively lost the scouting roll and set-up first.


The picture shows that we set up with the pikes in the middle ??“ aimed at the enemy camp and Companions to the rear. We had to do this as we had no idea where the last three BGs of three were going (with the other cavalry to form an imposing block) and we needed the flexibility.


The skirmishing fights looked good ??“ the archers were poor so we should on average win those fights or at the very least drive them off and the light horse in the middle would be a race between shooting and impact ??“ although the Lombard light horse were armed with swords ??“ so it could turn nasty if the impact phase was not telling or we became disrupted due to shooting.

Confident of winning the skirmishing fight it remained to see where we wanted to put the pikes ??“ against the poor defensive spearmen on the baseline or swing right and try to fend off the cavalry?


Bound 1
Stephen advanced his cavalry and skirmishers, and so did we. Phil and I agreed to attack the spearmen with the pikes, hoping that the elephants and companions (plus hopefully control of the wood on the right) would be enough to hold the Lombard cavalry sweep. We advanced our skirmishers (keeping just outside of shooting range, moved the pikes left and formed the Companions into a more compact block. We also pushed the elephants up boldly as they moved more slowly than the Companions who could always catch up (only now as I write this battle report do I remember that the Companions would have been disordered by the elephants as well and so it is a good thing that things did not turn out as we originally planned or we could have mistakenly ended up cheating).



Bound 2
Stephen moved his skirmish line up to shooting range, got his spearmen moving right.


He also split his cavalry to try get 12 bases around the woods on a wide right flank sweep. His extra general at this point was very useful for this move.


The shooting turned out to be useless.

Phil and I decided to charge the light horse in the middle ??“ no sense in taking the shooting.


At impact Stephen lost the fight and failed a CT ??“ the light horse were disrupted. We also decided to charge our Thracians on the right at the archers ??“ they evaded leaving our Thracians out in the open against a horde of cavalry!


Phil and I immediately changed our minds about the main plan. The spearmen were never going to be caught, and we figured it was time to push the pikes into the faces of the remaining three BGs of cavalry to force a more aggressive response from the spearmen ??“ so we executed a scary and very whizzy right turn and advance. We kept the companions sitting on the fence to see what would happen and pushed the elephants up further to scare some cavalry.


In our shooting phase our slingers on the left disrupted the archers ??“ we could now press our advantage there and maybe longer term attack the camp, turn a spearmen flank or force another BG to deal with them.

In melee the light horse fight resulted in the Lombard horse archers routing, leaving our light horse to threaten the flank.



Bound 3
Stephen charged his unit of cavalry against the elephants. At first this might seem mad, but the cavalry had a general which could fight in the front rank, were superior and only lose a single PoA at impact and are even in melee (is this right? ??“ elephants don??™t get any bonus against mounted in melee!!). I reckon the odds were with him slightly. In any case impact saw a stalemate and no result.

Fortunately for us, the cavalry facing the exposed Thracians could not really charge them (or not effectively anyway) ??“ so Stephen ignored them.

Stephen ran his archers on the left away, turned his spearmen back to the front in the middle and continued the cavalry push on the right.

Then we remembered that elephants disorder cavalry! Ah-ha! Suddenly things looks a little better (and we never remembered that elephants cause an extra -1 to CT rolls for BGs fighting them until it was past the point of mattering). In any case the cavalry lost the melee due to some neat dice rolling, failed a CT and lost a base. We actually made the cavalry fragmented (disorder + disrupted) but looking at the rules again I am not sure that this is right.


Following Bounds
Stephen tried to sweep 12 bases of cavalry around the wood on the right, but a smart move with the pikes meant we could move a BG off to intercept effectively negating it before it started. The cavalry turned around, but never made it back into the game (as did the pike).


Around the wood the Stephen??™s archers tried to press our Thracians, but after helping the elephants out in combat, they turned around and chased them off. Again neither took part in the rest of the battle.

In the middle the pikes hassled a unit of cavalry that had peeled off to try and slow them down. After an indecisive charge and break-off they were caught again ??“ mainly because the break-off move was limited due to another cavalry unit covering the flank against our victorious light horse who were looking for a flank to exploit.


The elephants moved up to attack the flanks of the two cavalry units, and before long the two cavalry units were routed.


It was at this point we realised there was really no need to break the opposition army. We had three routed units and none ourselves ??“ this was a decisive victory. This sparked off a debate about how easy it was to get a decisive victory and whether this was a good thing or not.


On the left, Stephen pushed the spearmen forwards and we decided to switch the Companions to counter that ??“ threatening the spearmens flank and front.

This is the final point of the battle.



Conclusions
It was a strange game with a lot of movement, counter movement and not much fighting. What fighting there was ended up being quite one-sided with factors being in our favour and units getting chewed up piecemeal. This was reinforced by the point that we did not have to make a single CT in the whole game.

By the end of the game we had routed 4 units and had a decisive victory with no need to press for any more. With the early manoeuvre taking time there was no time for Stephen to press with his spearmen, which by then were looking decidedly exposed anyway.

The game was really dominated by the manoeuvrability of the pike, who whizzed around the table from left to right and took Stephen (and ourselves) totally by surprise.

The game was really dominated by the BL movement which is already being discussed in another thread. However here are another couple of points that were raised by the game.

* It seems the cost of FC versus TC is a little out of whack. IC seem ok - not sure whether they are worth it or not which is ideal. However FC are essentially not much better than TC and yet are nearly twice as expensive. We reckon TC need to cost around 40 points or even 45 to make FC worth it.

* At first glance it seems quite easy to get a decisive victory. All you need to do is rout two BGs then sit back. However, after much discussion we reckon this is a good thing. It forces the player who is losing to get stuck in - there is nothing to lose at that point. It will also make it nearly impossible to turtle up in a corner - you have to get out there and put pressure on the opposition. Otherwise you are going to find yourself 2 units down and not in a position to do anything about it.
However, it does not look like a good idea when you first look at it, and there might be a chance that you can snipe a decisive victory. We'll keep an eye on this and I'll definitely try and do some sniping in future games.

* At first glance it seems quite easy to get a decisive victory. All you need to do is rout two BGs then sit back. However, after much discussion we reckon this is a good thing. It forces the player who is losing to get stuck in - there is nothing to lose at that point. It will also make it nearly impossible to turtle up in a corner - you have to get out there and put pressure on the opposition. Otherwise you are going to find yourself 2 units down and not in a position to do anything about it.
However, it does not look like a good idea when you first look at it, and there might be a chance that you can snipe a decisive victory. We'll keep an eye on this and I'll definitely try and do some sniping in future games.

The scoring system currently in the rules is designed to make people fight the battle, and to penalise players who sit back, and is mainly for one-off games. We're not sure how we're going to interpret the results for competition scoring as yet. Certainly there will be a bonus for a 'total' victory. (i.e. breaking your opponents army)

Thanks for the report. The quality is outstanding.

Thanks Terry.

I'll probably be cutting back on the number of proper battle reports and alternatiing between "thoughts from the game" summaries and proper battle reports.

A question I missed:

* Can a BG that has been charged directly by another unit initate a ZOI "counter charge"? This is important from two points of view. Firstly it allows a charged unit to move a distance forward which might be tactically important and secondly it allows a PoA bonus for impact foot if charging non-shock mounted - effectively making Impact Foot able to get a PoA over Light Spear armed Cavalry at Impact whereas if not then the Cavalry get the PoA.

bddbrown wrote: * Can a BG that has been charged directly by another unit initate a ZOI "counter charge"?

No

This is important from two points of view. Firstly it allows a charged unit to move a distance forward which might be tactically important and secondly it allows a PoA bonus for impact foot if charging non-shock mounted - effectively making Impact Foot able to get a PoA over Light Spear armed Cavalry at Impact whereas if not then the Cavalry get the PoA.

Indeed. We don't want them to get the POA vs cavalry that charge them. If we did, there would be no point in having a POA that only applied when charging.

Some rewording necessary I think, to clarify that you cannot make an intercept charge if you are the target of the charge.

Bruce,

Cracking battle report as ever.

El do get rather useful when you get all the components together....DISR effect and a -1 on cohesion tests and hard to kill due to the + on the Death Roll. But lsoe one and they're gone.

On the scoring system your appraisal is much the same as ours. the idea is to make people want to fight. When we set scores for competitions there needs to be a good reason to try to get the decsiive victory cancelled out and also a decent benefit for getting a total victory.

The ZOI charges are only there to allow you to intercept a charging unit if you are a free agent. We need to reword this to make it clear cut. All the POAs have been carefully set to take into account charging adn countercharging so as Richard said in his posting we woldn't want to allow the ZOI rules - set for a different purpose - to interfere with this. On our fix list.

Si