Slitherine

I decided to use the Skythians, mainly because it has been my main army in DBM for the last year or so and also because I had my one and only game the previous Monday using them against the Swiss.

I really didn't know what to expect, so I took a fairly standard list, but I couldn't afford any foot.

(One IC, one FC and one TC)
7*4 Light Horse (Average, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen)
2*4 Cavalry (Superior, Protected, Bow, Swordsmen)
Greek Allies (one TC)
2*6 Heavy Foot (Average, Protected, Offensive Spearmen, Drilled)
2*6 Heavy Foot (Average, Protected, Offensive Spearmen, Undrilled)
1*6 Light Foot (Poor, Javelin)

Game One V Clive Vaughan (New Kingdom Egyptian)

The terrain finished with some rough going on my left flank and everything else was of no consequence. Since I really had no idea what was in the NKE I deployed with my spearmen with their flank in the air
butted up to the rough going, then my cavalry and finally all of the light horse on the right wing.

Clive deployed with a mass of light foot opposite the rough going and a mass of medium impact foot in the middle. On his left he had some bowmen and some more skirmishers. There were some Chariots in reserve.

I had the idea that impact foot are the Art of War equivalent to warband, so I reckoned the spearmen wouldn't fare too well against them, but my cavalry should be fine. I made a general advance with all of my mounted. Very quickly my light horse on the right wing found the Egyptian skirmishers and rode them down in short order (me being mounted and swordsmen giving a big plus in melee), this enable my light horse to surround the remaining units on the right and shoot them to pieces.

In the middle my cavalry were making short work of the medium foot in the middle and broke a further couple of units. However on my left my Greeks had light foot on their flank and impact foot to the front. They bravely stood to receive the charge. I must confess to being a bit lucky here, because on two separate occassions the impact foot charged and had an advantage in the impact phase. On both occasions I won the impact, not only disordering them but also causing a casualty! After this the spearmen ground out the ensuing combats and broke the units in front of them.

This caused the Egyptian army to break and in my opinion a fairly lucky beginning for the Skythians since all I wanted to do was run forward to see how the combat mechanisms worked! Under the scoring system in place I won 32-0.

Game Two v Kev Johnson (Ottoman Turk)

Kev was using an Ottoman with masses of cavalry (can't remember exactly to be honest), but he said he just used the figures he had rather than try to work out a good list as he had played exactly the same number of games as myself (two - one of which was in the morning!).

There was no terrain to speak of and I decided to skirmish my whole left hand side of the battlefield with light horse whilst sending all of the good stuff to hit the right flank.

The battle basically moved about 90 degrees anti-clockwise, with fairly heavy casualties on both sides - this was a good old ding-dong battle of a game. It ended with my cavalry two moves from Kev's baggage and my Light Horse scattered all over the table! I was fairly impressed with the speed with which we both played considering our experience and we didn't have too many rule-looking up moments, apart from consulting the various charts. We both expressed concern over the Steppe terrain - but this has already been mentioned on the forum.

I think we needed another couple of turns to get a completed result, but an extremely enjoyable game. I had broken five units and lost three, so it ended up a 20-12

Game Three v Terry Shaw (Assyrian)

I was expecting to get a kicking in this game since I was actually playing against one of the rules writers who also has a reputation for being fairly competent!

Again, there was very little terrain I setup my Cavalry in the middle and greeks on the left, whilst skirmishing my right (similar to the previous game). Terry setup a mass of rubbish foot opposite my light
horse and all of the chariots and cavalry facing the middle. There was a unit of Camels on my far left.

The Heavy Chariots and cavalry advanced confidently and in the first action of the game the Heavy Chariots charged both units of my cavalry. I won the impact phase and Terry passed his CT, but in what was probably the crucial roll of the game Terry lost a Chariot. They became disordered in the ensuing combat and broke the turn after. This allowed my cavalry to cover the right whilst my spearmen moved forward. All of the foot on the right moved forwards unopposed towards my camp (which was on my far right flank), the Camels failed CMT after CMT and were still staring at spearmen slowly advancing towards them.

My cavalry split up and one unit charged some more Heavy Chariots and the other turned to face off some cavalry whilst my spearmen caught up. My Cavalry won the largely even fight and routed Terrys cavalry. After what we worked out was seven failed CMT's Terrys Camels were caught by my spearmen, somewaht inevitably they threw a rubbish variable dice move and my spearmen actually caught them in the evade move! They ignominiously ran of table. This enabled some light horse (who had been shooting them up to good effect) to sweep around and threaten Terry's baggage, light horse and cavalry in the middle (whom my cavalry were about to engage)

Eventually my spearmen charged and the Assyrians were caught in a three way trap between Cavalry, Light Horse and Spearmen. The end got fairly messy (but the rules covered all situations adequately) and I got the remaining attrition points I needed to finish the Assyrians off. I had won 28-4.

Game Four v Bruce Brown (Ottoman)

Another Ottoman -although a very different one as this one contained Serbian Knights.

I wanted to see how the Serbians fared up to my Offensive Spearmen, Bruce deployed in lines with Light Horse, then Cavalry then the Serbians. I deployed Light Horse to the fore and Spearmen behind. I quickly moved all of the light horse to the left and right and brought my spearmen up, Bruce countered by sending his cavalry in similar directions, some Light Horse Lancers moved to my left, My cavalry moved to the left (where most of Bruce's Heavies had gone) and the fight was quickly joined. Bruce's Lancers duffed up my Swordsmen and my Cavalry prevailed against the Ottomans. In the middle the Knights eventually charged, My spearmen were evens at Impact and Advantaged in Combat, so they fared exceedingly well, the knights broke off after each combat, so I was unable to do them permanent damage. I thought the rules worked exceedingly well in this respect - if the Knights got "lucky" then they could wipe out my spearmen, but if I stayed steady then there was a general attrition on the knights, which eventually would cause a failed morale check if they charged enough! As I was able to march forward, the Knights would be forced to take a CMT not to charge.

On my right some of my cavalry got isolated and routed by Light Foot on my right and I eventually lost my cavalry on the left as well to a combination of cavalry and light horse, we were all preparing for a third knight charge (some of the knight BG's were exceedingly short staffed at this point) when time was called.

Another really excellent game, I lost four BG's and Bruce lost two. That made it a 24-8.

I think that in effect we seem to have a nine point scoring system, which requires work, but overall four really excellent games which had me full of enthusiasm and what seemed to me a fairly polished set of rules.

dave_r wrote:In the middle the Knights eventually charged, My spearmen were evens at Impact and Advantaged in Combat, so they fared exceedingly well, the knights broke off after each combat, so I was unable to do them permanent damage. I thought the rules worked exceedingly well in this respect - if the Knights got "lucky" then they could wipe out my spearmen, but if I stayed steady then there was a general attrition on the knights, which eventually would cause a failed morale check if they charged enough! As I was able to march forward, the Knights would be forced to take a CMT not to charge.

Interesting. So when the Serbs failed to break the spears with the impetous of their charge they "bounced" (as it were)? Do you think that the Serbs were unlucky not to eventually beat the hoplites or is the outcome you got the one you would expect given the way the rules are set up?

Thanks for your report. It sounds as though one can to some intersting maneuver and redeployment in AoW. I was especially interested in the description, from your game against Bruce, of you moving your light horse away from your spears and Briuce countering by redeploying his cav. Sounds like it was a fun game.

Marc

Interesting. So when the Serbs failed to break the spears with the impetous of their charge they "bounced" (as it were)? Do you think that the Serbs were unlucky not to eventually beat the hoplites or is the outcome you got the one you would expect given the way the rules are set up?

The Knights do need to get lucky to beat the Spearmen - but if they do then I would expect them to break the line. Which is as it should be. If the "normal" things happen, then the knights will generally lose a war of attrition. The big question is do the Knights get lucky before they are too badly mauled to do so? My money would be on the spearmen, but if I can't say with certaintly ....

Thanks for your report. It sounds as though one can to some intersting maneuver and redeployment in AoW. I was especially interested in the description, from your game against Bruce, of you moving your light horse away from your spears and Briuce countering by redeploying his cav. Sounds like it was a fun game.

It was. One of the most interesting things was that despite their only being relatively minor casualties on both sides, a fairly major victory was won (24-8) despite the fact neither army was anywhere near breaking.

We spend too much time manoevering and not enough time fighting

babyshark wrote:

dave_r wrote:In the middle the Knights eventually charged, My spearmen were evens at Impact and Advantaged in Combat, so they fared exceedingly well, the knights broke off after each combat, so I was unable to do them permanent damage. I thought the rules worked exceedingly well in this respect - if the Knights got "lucky" then they could wipe out my spearmen, but if I stayed steady then there was a general attrition on the knights, which eventually would cause a failed morale check if they charged enough! As I was able to march forward, the Knights would be forced to take a CMT not to charge.

Interesting. So when the Serbs failed to break the spears with the impetous of their charge they "bounced" (as it were)? Do you think that the Serbs were unlucky not to eventually beat the hoplites or is the outcome you got the one you would expect given the way the rules are set up?

The key to the knights vs spear / pike interraction is the state of the spearmen. If the spear are steady they have an advantage (and pike have a big advantage) but if the infantry become disrupted then things even out quite a lot.

If after an impact phase and a melee phase the infantry are still steady (i.e. the mounted have not made an impression) then the mounted are forced to break off and regroup.

When I played Bruce his Serbs charged two of my pike blocks and in both cases their initial attack was repulsed with minor losses on both sides. He then had to decide if he should charge again or not. Chose not to, failed a CMT to revent a charge of the BG nowhere near the general and they proceded to ride down a steady undamaged pike block

It all felt very reasonable.

Hammy

hammy wrote:When I played Bruce his Serbs charged two of my pike blocks and in both cases their initial attack was repulsed with minor losses on both sides. He then had to decide if he should charge again or not. Chose not to, failed a CMT to revent a charge of the BG nowhere near the general and they proceded to ride down a steady undamaged pike block

But really only because the pike block was on its own, so that the knights overlapped it on both flanks in the melee. On an equal frontage the situation would be pretty hopeless for knights charging Swiss pikemen. (As it should be).

rbodleyscott wrote:

hammy wrote:When I played Bruce his Serbs charged two of my pike blocks and in both cases their initial attack was repulsed with minor losses on both sides. He then had to decide if he should charge again or not. Chose not to, failed a CMT to revent a charge of the BG nowhere near the general and they proceded to ride down a steady undamaged pike block

But really only because the pike block was on its own, so that the knights overlapped it on both flanks in the melee. On an equal frontage the situation would be pretty hopeless for knights charging Swiss pikemen. (As it should be).

OK, very true. The pikes were a touch overlapped and still were unlucky to die.

hammy wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote:

hammy wrote:When I played Bruce his Serbs charged two of my pike blocks and in both cases their initial attack was repulsed with minor losses on both sides. He then had to decide if he should charge again or not. Chose not to, failed a CMT to revent a charge of the BG nowhere near the general and they proceded to ride down a steady undamaged pike block

But really only because the pike block was on its own, so that the knights overlapped it on both flanks in the melee. On an equal frontage the situation would be pretty hopeless for knights charging Swiss pikemen. (As it should be).

OK, very true. The pikes were a touch overlapped and still were unlucky to die.

So how do overlaps work under AoW? Same or similar to DBM?


Cheers,
Jer

whitehorses wrote:So how do overlaps work under AoW? Same or similar to DBM?

In AoW there are no overlaps at impact (each side fights with the same number of bases) but in melee the side with the longer line gets to fight with an extra file on each side they have an overlap. BG's can expand to counter overlaps but as normally troops fight at a sensible depth expansion is often counter productive.

In the knight example the impact heavily favours the pike but if the knights manage to remain steady then in the melee the knights get 2 extra dice for each overlap. As the pike were 2 wide and 4 deep this meant that the pike got 4 dice to the knight's 8, granted the pike were still at a small advantage but twice as many dice makes up for a lot of advantage.

Hammy