I was using North African Dynasties which was
IC, FC
5x4 Cv Superior, Armoured, Undrilled, Lancer Swordsmen
10x4 LH, Average, Unprotected, Javelin Light Spear
1x4 LF, Average, Sling
1x12 compulsory heavy foot
My opponent was using Early Successor, which was basically as much HF as you can get your hands on. Even the Thureophoroi and Thorakitai were Heavy Foot. I think it was:
2xTC
1x4 Cavalry, Average, Armoured, Drilled, Lancer Swordsmen
2x8 HF, Average, Protected, Drilled, Offensive Spearmen
1x8 HF, Average, Armoured, Drilled, Offensive Spearmen
1x8 HF, Superior, Protected, Pikemen
1x8 HF, Average, Protected, Undrilled, Offensive Spearmen
1x6 LF, average, Sling
1x6 LF, Average, Javelin Light Spear
5x8 HF, Average, Protected, Pikemen
Not much terrain. The Heavy foot mob were wedged in between the table edge and a lump of difficult going. I decided to flank march on my left hand side with two BG's of Light Horse.
I lined up with my Light Horse to skirmish the pikes and a left hook delivered by the cavalry. I hoped the flank march would keep the 6" gap to the edge of the table so I could get behind the pesky pikes. I won the roll to decide who went first and the flank march signalled it's intent to arrive on my very first turn. So I ran forward with everything as fast as I could
I scouted the other side of the table to see what my opponent would see
My opponent prepared for the flank march and otherwise did very little. How very pikey.
Both my flanking units arrived safely and I brought one on behind my cavalry and another where it couldn't get charged.
My remaining LH moved forward to harass the pike line.
I chased off the light foot, which prompted a general charge by the pike phalanx. I believe the phrase "firework display" might be a descriptive one. Given that the heavy foot had now covered the table, my cavalry bravely turned around and re-deployed.
And kept on redeploying. On the far right I had some localised success by shooting the superior pike to fragmented.
It was all getting very cagey.
At this point I had one BG of cavalry that was preventing some pikes charging - the unit on the left hand side most furthest forward. I put the IC with them to stop them charging, they could turn and move to safety in my next turn. Needless to say, despite the +3, they failed failed their test and charged the pikemen frontally. Well done chaps. I lost the impact, but the IC meant no harm was done. I moved some Light Horse up to give me some more dice. I had shot a pike unit to disrupted in the middle, so moved a cavalry unit to charge them if they were still disrupted.
And what's this? You can see the dice I rolled on the bottom right of the picture. I was disappointed that one of the cavalry missed. You can also see the pikes cohesion test and death roll at the top of the picture. The pikes lost a base and disrupted.
My opponent moved up the flanking units to provide overlaps, but to no avail. The pikes fragmented.
Annoyingly the pike unit in the middle didn't get shot and then bolstered (my opponent is so lucky). My cavalry failed their test to charge (the IC was in range) and came off with a base loss and disrupted. The greeks had chased off the light horse providing an overlap to the fragmented pike, but it wasn't going to help.
Some of the skirmishers on my right hand side had got bored of shooting up superior pikemen so went for the camp. The disrupted Light Foot came back and shot me to disrupted the cheeky little blighters. My cavalry having smashed through the pike with no losses set their sights on the average cavalry. My light horse getting dangerously close to the table edge made a bee line for the safety to the right.
My disrupted light horse charged the light foot who ran away, so I bagged the camp instead. My light horse had now failed four attempts to bolster... I should have known better than to charge the average cavalry. After an impact and melee I was fragmented and down a base. I was beginning to get a lot of shots on the superior pike block though.
My Light Horse took the camp, but got shot to fragmented. Now failing a magnificent 7 attempts to bolster... The superior pike were now in what can only really be described as a turkey shoot, taking 10 shooting dice per turn.
On the left hand side, my cavalry charged some isolated pikemen, but retired disrupted. It was nearing the end, so my cavalry were getting ready to charge, if not already committed. I briefly had the greeks disrupted, but they survived losing the mele 4-0 and then bolstered. Ouch.
The blasted thureophoroi then prevented me recoiling. The less said about the [poor] superior pike on the right the better.
I charged the thureophoroi front and side with cavalry and light horse and succeeding in disrupting them! Hurrah!
Meanwhile the skirmisher battle at the back had taken a decisive change for the better, my Light Horse remembered how to bolster and turned around and charged the Light Foot in the rear. I had my slingers to the front, so the light foot were forced to stand and fight. It didn't last long.
My cavalry fighting the greeks broke, but didn't go anywhere because of the annoying thureophoroi, who had also managed to get the light horse on the flank to double drop. They dropped to fragmented themselves because of the cavalry. The greeks were fortunately out of range of my cavalry.
I shot the superior pike to broken and then turned around to head for the next pike down the line. My cavalry on the left had a futile attempt to break some more pike, but broke off down to two bases and disrupted. My opponent had a desperate last attempt to break more cavalry, but his pike charge faltered and the pike unit broke after a single impact and melee.
It was at this point that we timed out. The Successors had lost 11 / 13 and the African Dynasties 4 / 12. This meant the score was 15-5 in old money, or using the brand new BHGS scoring system, 28-8.
Cracking game, fun had by all.
