Slitherine

What follows is a brief description of our first game with AoW. It was played back in November using 25mm figures. My Sassanids have been in the cupboard since 6th Edition and so it was great to use them again. They are my oldest 25mm army and are mainly the old Hinchliffe and Lamming figures, many of which are conversions.

Sassanids v Alexandrians 25mm 800 points.

Our aim was to try to use as many different troop types as possible to get a feel as to how they perform.

Sassanid list

4 x 4 element BGs of Noble cavalry
1 x 4 element BG of Cataphrates
1 x 4 element BG of Elephants
1 x 6 element BG of Light horse
1 x 8 element BG of Protected archers
1 x 8 element BG of Hill tribesmen
1 x 6 element BG of Slingers
1 x 8 element BG of Levy spearmen
1 x 8 element BG of levy mob

1 x FC general
3 x TC generals

Alexandrian list

2 x 4 element BGs of Companions
1 x 6 element BG of Paeonians
1 x 8 element BG of Hypaspist pikemen
2 x 8 element BG of Foot companions
2 x 6 element BGs of Thracians
1 x 6 element BG of Agrianians
1 x 6 element BG of Cretans
1 x 8 element BG of Ally Hoplites

1 x IC general
2 x FC generals

Alexander won the invading dice throw.
The Sassanids chose Steppe terrain.

We agreed to use some terrain to see how this effected troop movement. 1 x Slope, 2 x Bad Going and 2 x Brush. All of this landed in the flank sectors.

Alexander??™s +2 ensured he won the initiative and so the Sassanids had to start deploying first. In AoW, each army deploys in four sections alternatively.

We had agreed not to ambush in our first game. The Sassanids deployed some troops right to the edge of the table with only one gap in their line. This was only to avoid the elephants upsetting their own cavalry.

The situation after deployment can be seen in the picture below.


1st Move.
Not much happened, both armies moved forward. The Sassanids making more second moves, making the maximum use of their extra general.




2nd Move
Alexander halts the foot skirmishers on his right taking advantage of the hill. On his left the light horse continue their move towards the flank.

The Sassanid line advances and the slingers shoot at the javelinmen. Despite getting 3 hits with 3 dice the javelinmen survive the death roll. On their left the Sassanid light horse are unable to get into shooting range. Less than half an inch out!

3rd Move
The javelinmen on Alexander??™s right decide not to chance their luck with another round of shooting and charged the slingers. The slingers opt to evade but throw a ???1??™ and are caught by the javelinmen who throw a??™6??™ for their variable moves. The result was that the slingers routed, but only after a round of melee later in the move.



The slingers routed in the Inter Bound and the javelinmen pursued into the supporting troops.

On the left the light horse not wanting to risking a round of shooting from the closing Sassanid cavalry, charged the Sassanid light horse. The Sassanids opt to evade, successfully this time. They shoot to their rear but miss.



In the Sassanid move the light horse rally and with the aid of the shooting from a Noble BG, the Alexandrian light horse fails their cohesion test and loose a base.



On the Sassanid left, their general joins the Hill tribesmen in the front rank. The Alexandrian javelinmen loose the impact to the Hillmen and draw with the archers. They fail their test and drop a cohesion level. In the melee they loose again, this time dropping two cohesion levels and routing.

In the centre the Sassanid levy spearmen (warband looking figures) advance with the elephants, but loose a base to shooting from the Cretan skirmishers. They pass the cohesion test.



To the left of the elephants a battle line of 3 x 4 noble BG??™s and a general close to shoot the BG of allied Greeks. The Greeks pass their shooting casualties cohesion test with the aid of the attached general. They loose one base due to the number of hits and save another in their death roll.



The Cataphrates are trying to redeploy into the gap between the elephants and Nobles.
In the inter bound the Hillmen and archers pursue the broken Javelinmen.



4th Move.

The Greek allies realising the Sassanid cavalry have come too close decide to charge them. In the impact neither side has an advantage. The Greeks win overall, drawing with one BG and winning against the other. The Sassanids pass their cohesion tests.



In the movement phase a BG of pikemen comes up to support the Greeks. In the melee that follows the Greeks win and after the Sassanids have again passed their cohesion tests, the Battle Line breaks off.



As we have almost run out of time, in the Sassanid move the elephants charge into the pikemen to see what happens. After the impact and melee phases the elephants loose a base, but pass their cohesion test.

Unfortunately the game ended here as we had run out of time, but I hope this gives an impression of how the basic rules work. I have played several more games with the Sassanid since then and am currently reorganising them and adding some more figures. I may even paint some close order Levy spearmen.

When I get a chance over the weekend I will finish my report on Usk.

Hope you enjoyed the eye candy.


Don M

Thanks for the report. I look forward to reading about your experience at Usk. It was interesting to see from the photos that the game looked a lot like DBM as it played out. Is that the case, or am I just seeing it through old lenses?

Marc

One of the problems I have found with DBM is you can get odd elements left in the middle of nowhere. Often this is when you manouvre an element out of a group and then never get the pips to rejoin it to the group. In AoW all troops with good cohesion can make simple moves, you only throw for what are called COMPLEX MOVES. This is were the extra points you pay for drilled troops comes in.

This was our first game and was 25mm. Having now played several games of 15mm the look is different due to the extra space.

Steve and I have stopped playing AoW for a couple of weeks. This is for several reasons,

1. The rule writers want to collect all the feedback from Usk and incorporate it in a new version.
2. We intend to look at the new version with fresh eyes. We have got a little mixed up between the last two versions.
3. Pressure of work. Yes I do do some
4. Would like to use some of my other toys. I have lots of new WWII rapid fire British that I have painted recently.

When we return I will take some pictures of a 15mm game and post them here.

Don M

babyshark wrote:Thanks for the report. I look forward to reading about your experience at Usk. It was interesting to see from the photos that the game looked a lot like DBM as it played out. Is that the case, or am I just seeing it through old lenses?

Marc

Its IS hard not to see it thru a DB-lens .... however the big difference is that there are big chucks of identically equipped men fighting together, and staying together by wheeling around - no odd elements jumping around, no "alexander deployed 20 pikemen next to 40 thracians and then 60 agrianians and another 20 pikemen so he coudl get a good series of matchups against Darius equally heterogenous battle line".

And having mounted troops actually shoot - sheesh, thats a big difference. The hardest thing is remembering that non-shooting cavalry is a crap feature of DBM we have all learnt to accept and put up with, not the way things were historically !!

Sounds like there will be some serious re-learning of troop interactions. Not a surprise, really. One of DBM's biggest flaws is the poor job is does modelling shooting.

Is there a lot of maneuvering in AoW? None of the (admittedly small sample size) game reports that I have read here have described much in the way of maneuver. One of my favorite things about DBM is that one can maneuver, react, and sometimes even redeploy during the course of a game. The game is rarely over at deployment. As a result, my big worry about AoW is that it will be a game of simply "line 'em up and go forward"; too much like Tactica for my taste.

Is that a valid fear? Anyone? Talk to me.

Marc

There is plenty of opportunity to maneuver in AoW, All the games I have played have had some sort of main line of battle with maneuver at the fringes but there is definitley a chance to change things post deployment. If you are badly out deployed you may not be able to fix the problem before you are crushed but that is IMO reasonable.

What AoW doesn't have is the single element micro 'tactics' of DBM, it also doesn't have the DBM pay a PIP or two and move back pullout of DBM. In my second game at Usk it was nice that when I had managed to get my warriors right in to the face of the Roman medium archers that they couldn't simply be pulled out of the way for a couple of PIPs which is what would have happened in DBM.

The amount of maneuver in an ancients wargame is a difficult thing to judge. As gamers we all want control but if we were real generals we would have far less control over most of our armies than the most effective ancient generals. It was notable that the players who did well in the first competition were also players who do well in DBM comps.

Hammy

Well I am glad to hear that maneuver is possible in AoW. And, frankly, it is sort of reassuring that the historically better players do well, as that tends to indicate that skill will be rewarded.

Most games, DBM included, give the players far more control than a real general would have. DBM sometimes gives players an almost comical ability to pull back out of trouble with a good pip score. Game designers need to strike the right balance between ability to control the troops and penalty for poor tactical and deployment decisions.

Marc

DBM sometimes gives players an almost comical ability to pull back out of trouble with a good pip score.

That is one of my major problems with DBM. You have somone on the rack and them a six on the pip dice and they are gone. From what I have seen in AoW once you are in trouble it takes alot of skill to get out of it.

Don M

It's good to see a unit taking hits and dropping levels of cohesion, rather than have one whole unit simply vanish after a single bad die roll, or a different unit getting "pushed back" a base-depth after an equally atrocious result. It seems to draw on DBM for some of the mechanics, but definitely takes on a different flavor with the more gradual and wider range of results.

I definitely want to look into these rules when they become available.