Slitherine

I played recently taking my Mauryas Classical Indian army against my friend's newly painted Roman army. We were both trying out lists for the upcoming FoG tournament on August 2 at Greathall Games in Austin, Tx. Since the tournament will be using preset terrain we asked our mutual friend Gordon to set up our table for us. I must have been using my Jedi mind powers on Gordon because he set up a table that was absolutely perfect for my army. There was a natural defensive line of woods, hills and fields across the center of my deployment zone and I set up in it with my archer battlegroups interspersed with elephant columns (a tactic we read about on the Slitherine forum) My line was anchored by a plowed field on my left and by woods on my right. I set up my heavy chariots supported by one of my crappy cavalry units on the far right and a single crappy cavalry unit on the left. The Romans had a line of really nasty legionaires which they aimed at my archery line defending the hilltop having no desire at all to fight me in the woods (quite understandable). He sent a unit of cavalry supported by auxilla to attack my chariots and had a unit of archers to support the attack against my left flank.

Things went badly for the Romans right off the bat. In the initial clash between my heavy chariots and his cavalry and auxilla, I got a lucky die roll and killed his general. This pretty much doomed his left flank as he could not recover from his morale losses and soon his cavalry and an auxilla unit were routed off the field. The other auxilla unit smashed into my cavalry unit but I was able to break off and flank march away without taking any damage or morale loss. I ran up a unit of javalins to engage the remaining auxilla unit and ran up the cavalry and my heavy chariots to support the attack.



On the other flank my cavalry unit dashed around the archers and got behind them forcing them to turn around to protect themselves and keeping them from supporting his main attack against my defensive line of archers and elephants. When the Roman flank collapsedon my right, my cavalry unit on the left turned around and made a beeline for his camp.

The big battle in the center didn’t go well for the Romans either. I got in some lucky archery hits and held up their advance for a turn while they tried to recover from 3 disordered legions. When they did hit my line, the defensive bonuses I had held them to a single POA advantage (in the open he would have had two). I managed to fracture one of his legions and crushed his remaining auxilla unit which gave me the game. This would have been a totally different battle if I had to face those legions on open ground. I wonder if I can talk Rob into letting Gordon set up all the terrain for the tournament



Dave
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I see your name, and hear those golden words..."Cowbells, I need more cowbells"

Thanks for the AARP. Fun read!

What were the points--650 or 800? Were the Roman auxilia based as MF or HF? If the legions were four base BGs they are definitely vulnerable to cohesion tests triggered by shooting. I've played three battles this month using Late Republican Romans against Indo-Greeks (much like the Classic Indians save no chariots, instead pike and drilled cav) and I deploy three legions as 6 base BGs.

600 point game. The auxilla were nasty themselves. I don't remember if they were HF or MF but they were armored and my cavalry was lucky to get away from them. Those 4 stand legions are pretty brittle but god help you if they catch you on their terms.

Dave

DontFearDaReaper wrote:600 point game. The auxilla were nasty themselves. I don't remember if they were HF or MF but they were armored and my cavalry was lucky to get away from them. Those 4 stand legions are pretty brittle but god help you if they catch you on their terms.

Dave

Indeed--they are nasty. My friend Mark who has played the Indo-Greeks against me has developed a healthy respect for them and is very wiley about not facing them on their terms.

The problem with Elephant columns is that only the first rank fights and only the first rank counts for HPB (counts as 2 bases for this purpose), so that one hit on the column triggers a cohesion test with a -1 penalty for taking 1HP2B.

Any but bow or sling get a + POA, so in most cases you are looking at either a 1/2 or 2/3 of taking that cohesion test without rerolls, vs the 1/4 or 4/9 chance of taking that test from 2 shots on a 2-Elephant frontage.

Comments from very experienced FoG players recommend Elephants in 4-packs on the wings, and maybe another in the middle - a lot more formidable in paired BGs than spreading them along the line, even if that seems to be a frequent historical practice.

Cheers,

Mike

Well, at 600 points I only had 4 elephants in my whole army. I suppose I could have grouped them together and placed them on one of the wings but I did the column thing to keep them from having to take a death test. You can recover from the occasional blown cohesion test (assuming your generals stay alive ) but you blow a death test and kiss your 2 stand elephant unit goodbye.

Dave

DontFearDaReaper wrote:Well, at 600 points I only had 4 elephants in my whole army. I suppose I could have grouped them together and placed them on one of the wings but I did the column thing to keep them from having to take a death test. You can recover from the occasional blown cohesion test (assuming your generals stay alive ) but you blow a death test and kiss your 2 stand elephant unit goodbye.

Dave

True--having MF alongside the Nellies will dilute the enemy's shooting. Of course, Elephants get a +1 on the death throw. They are potentially fragile for being so powerful. Interesting combination.

A little off-topic but I just put the finishing touches on my Indian camp and I wanted to show it off.



Dave

Very nice!

Good report too.

Looking forward to getting hammered by both you and Stork. Since i'm part of 'team GHG' I will not have the persians at the tourney. I will play with the girlie boy romans. An army with almost no bows! I guess I will have to learn how to fight with a short pointy knife while hiding behind a shield!

See ya at the tourney!!!
Chipxes

Thats too bad, I am looking forward to fighting your Persians. Looks like it will be a much closer fight than it was under WA. Of course, the Indians had the most broken and gimmicky army in that whole system (Happily there doesn't seem to be anything broken or gimmicky about the Indian lists under FoG). No more panzer light chariots being led by a terrorphant to guarantee victory In fact, I rebased my elephants for FoG. While I might play WA again at some point, I won't play it again using the Indian list

Dave