Sassanids vs Romans - Short report & Questions
Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:40 pm
Clive and I played Sassanids vs mid-Imperial Romans yesterday. I'll write up a battle report and post it on the open forum. Some observations and queries:
As my third game, it "played" much better from my point of view, and the battle felt reasonably "historically accurate". It was a close fought battle which swung the Roman way once the Roman light cavalry who had managed to defeat the opposing Sassanid light horse rallied from pursuit and returned to the battle to threaten the Sassanids rear.
Points of note:
- On the other flank a block of 4 elephants ground through my light artillery and auxiliary bowmen after a few bounds. This is probably okay, but it's hard to see how elephants can be countered. Certainly my artillery didn't really slow them down nor did concentrated bow shooting. Also the legionaries look like they'd also struggle to stop them.
- The Roman auxilia (armoured swordsmen) carved up the Sassanid auxilia fairly rapidly which felt right
- A block of auxilia attempted to run down some Sassanid cavalry in the open and failed miserably. Again probably right, it was the legionaries that really game the cavalry a hard time
- Clive mentioned some talk of removing the "roman" superior swordsman. Not sure about this as it was this that really gave the Romans an edge in a melee. Otherwise it's foot armoured swordsmen vs mounted armoured swordmen. My understanding of battles of that period was that the Romans had an edge in extended fighting.
It was a long game - 3.5 hrs at 800 AP. We didn't get a conclusions through calculating attrition points (losses were even) although the outcome became obvious once the Roman light horse returned.
Queries:
How do I include some photos in my battle report? Do I have to publish them somewhere on the web first (err, where?) before they will appear?
The resultant formation after you turn 90 degrees isn't clear from the rules. It says "...end in a block whose width is 1 base per full or partial base width depth of the original..." What's a base width depth? Do you just mean base depth - e.g. a formation 3 deep will end up after turning 90 degrees 3 wide (or 2 if it chooses)?
The legionaries and auxilia all had integrated archers in the 3rd rank. We differed in our interpretation of how the mechanism for support shooting works at impact. My understanding is that extra dice are thrown, using shooting POAs, but counting to the combat total hits. E.G. If I infliced 1 hit through shooting and 1 hit through impact combat then the opponent suffers 2 hits for combat calculation purposes. The issue was it was explained to Clive at Usk was that they may force a CT if you get enough shooting hits but they don't count towards the number of hits infliced in combat. So in the above example, using the latter interpretation there would only be 1 melee hit infliced.
Rallying during the interbound. The main section states that you can only test if you've dropped a level in the bound just gone. The Detailed sequence of play (p14) talkes about "in the preceeding bound". Do you mean the current bound or the bound before the current bound? It's not clear. i.e. if it's the end of my bound but I dropped a level during my opponents bound the rules imply that I can't rally until 2 full bounds are complete without dropping a leve. In this example I dropped a level "in the preceeding bound" and therefore can't attempt to rally.
I'm not sure about artillery. It's range seems short (same as bow), is difficult to move & is slow (fair enough). I'm not sure why cataphracts are less vulnerable to artillery (0 POA) than armoured knights (+ POA).
Neil
As my third game, it "played" much better from my point of view, and the battle felt reasonably "historically accurate". It was a close fought battle which swung the Roman way once the Roman light cavalry who had managed to defeat the opposing Sassanid light horse rallied from pursuit and returned to the battle to threaten the Sassanids rear.
Points of note:
- On the other flank a block of 4 elephants ground through my light artillery and auxiliary bowmen after a few bounds. This is probably okay, but it's hard to see how elephants can be countered. Certainly my artillery didn't really slow them down nor did concentrated bow shooting. Also the legionaries look like they'd also struggle to stop them.
- The Roman auxilia (armoured swordsmen) carved up the Sassanid auxilia fairly rapidly which felt right
- A block of auxilia attempted to run down some Sassanid cavalry in the open and failed miserably. Again probably right, it was the legionaries that really game the cavalry a hard time
- Clive mentioned some talk of removing the "roman" superior swordsman. Not sure about this as it was this that really gave the Romans an edge in a melee. Otherwise it's foot armoured swordsmen vs mounted armoured swordmen. My understanding of battles of that period was that the Romans had an edge in extended fighting.
It was a long game - 3.5 hrs at 800 AP. We didn't get a conclusions through calculating attrition points (losses were even) although the outcome became obvious once the Roman light horse returned.
Queries:
How do I include some photos in my battle report? Do I have to publish them somewhere on the web first (err, where?) before they will appear?
The resultant formation after you turn 90 degrees isn't clear from the rules. It says "...end in a block whose width is 1 base per full or partial base width depth of the original..." What's a base width depth? Do you just mean base depth - e.g. a formation 3 deep will end up after turning 90 degrees 3 wide (or 2 if it chooses)?
The legionaries and auxilia all had integrated archers in the 3rd rank. We differed in our interpretation of how the mechanism for support shooting works at impact. My understanding is that extra dice are thrown, using shooting POAs, but counting to the combat total hits. E.G. If I infliced 1 hit through shooting and 1 hit through impact combat then the opponent suffers 2 hits for combat calculation purposes. The issue was it was explained to Clive at Usk was that they may force a CT if you get enough shooting hits but they don't count towards the number of hits infliced in combat. So in the above example, using the latter interpretation there would only be 1 melee hit infliced.
Rallying during the interbound. The main section states that you can only test if you've dropped a level in the bound just gone. The Detailed sequence of play (p14) talkes about "in the preceeding bound". Do you mean the current bound or the bound before the current bound? It's not clear. i.e. if it's the end of my bound but I dropped a level during my opponents bound the rules imply that I can't rally until 2 full bounds are complete without dropping a leve. In this example I dropped a level "in the preceeding bound" and therefore can't attempt to rally.
I'm not sure about artillery. It's range seems short (same as bow), is difficult to move & is slow (fair enough). I'm not sure why cataphracts are less vulnerable to artillery (0 POA) than armoured knights (+ POA).
Neil