A half dozen DBMM-ers gathered this morning to do battle at Call to Arms in
Wellington (for comaprison 15mm DBM 3.1 had 10 I think, WAB had about 10
too?), using the one true scale - 25mm/HO :)
We arranged to have 3 sets of paired opposing armies - Nubians and Old
Kingdom Egyptians, Alexanders Macedonians and LAte Achaemenid Persians, and
Franks vs LIR. WE each started the day playing our own armies, then moved
around for hte 2nd round, and will continue to try new options tomorrow.
It's an nice change, and is giving me, at least, a good look at how various
things wok that I might have seen otherwise.
I bought the Nubians, so round 1 was against Kevin O'Kane and the 'gypos.
The Nubians are pretty simple - CinC as Bw(O) with 24 Bw(O), 20 Wb(F) and 4
Ps(O), 2 subs each Gen as Bw(O), 16 Bw(O), 10 Ps(O) and 7 Ps(I). Each
command also has 2 command baggage.
Deployment was simple - CinC in hte middle with Bw in front and Wb behind,
flanked by the sub-generals' bows and hte Ps outside them in the flank
zones.
There were a couple of gentle hills that were fairly close to hte middle of
hte table, but in the end terrain mattered not one whit.
Kevin is an old time gamer (35+ years) but fairly new to 'MM...and it
showed. His deployment of the regular Egyptian Bd(F) and Bw(I) was in
clumps of each 3 wide and about the same deep - I was fairly worried about
his Bd, but he was unable to get hte most of htem.
WE closed - there was some desultory shooting, then the Wb burst through the
Nubian Bw, and the fun began....initially the Wb didn't achieve too much,
but then in one turn they destroyed a heap of Bw and Bd, and the game was
pretty much over from there.
In the end 1/2 the Wb were lost, and quite a bit of Nubian
psiloi...amounting to about 15% of the 109ME's the army had, for 23-2.
I'm using the Egyptians in reverse tomorrow morning - mental note - Bw(I)
are not the ideal troops to fight Wb with!!
This afternoon I had the brilliant Alexander to fight the evil Darius.
The Macedonians had a command of Pk (20) with Ax(S) Hypaspists and a few
Ps(S), a command of 10 Hoplites with a few Thracian Ax(S) and a couple of
Lh, and Alex in charge of the Companians along with a few Thessalian Cv and
Lh. The Bg had been purchased as regular.....in lieu of having any army
list that says otherwise!! :)
A WW covered one flank, and on this floated the Shp(X) - however it was
sailing aginst the wind, so didn't get very far and did so slowly! A couple
of large gentle hills next to the WW didn't achieve much, while on the other
flank an area of rough going about hte half-way line provided a natural
obstacle, but again was not particularly significant.
I deployed the Pk so their flank would be protected by the rough going,
intending hte Hypaspists to hold it, the Hoplites next to them to the rear,
and the Companions with Alex to their left and in front.
the PErsians had a command of hoplites and 4 Exp, 12 Cv(I) and a bunch of
light infantry (Ps, Ax(O))on one flank, and Cv(O), Lh and more light
infantry on the other.
To cut a long story short - the pike command general 6-1'ed Darius to kill
him...then got 5-1'd by Lh returning the favour. The Companions smashed the
Persian hoplites into tiny little chunks, and hte Cv(I) also lost their
general and a few mmore elements to lose the game. 22-3
The (S) rules continue to confuse hte shirt off everyone's back :(
At the end ofday 1 Alexander and the Nubians were unbeaten, while the 2 LIR
vs Frank games were both "draws", with neither side being broken when time
was called.
Tomorrow I am using the 2 unsuccessful armies - Persians in the morning and
Egyptians in the afternoon....
As mentioned previously, day 2 saw me booked to play the 2 hitherto
unsuccessful armies - Persians vs Macedonians, and then Egyptians vs
Nubians
The Persians were going to be a problem - the strike troops in the army
are 4 Exp - so far in the competition they'd killed 1 pike and 2
Ps.......total.....in 2 games....:(
The bulk of the army was 12 elements each of Cv(I), Ax(O) and Ps(O) -
not exaclty awe inspiring! A command of Reg Sp(O) Greek mercenaries
gave them a bit of staying power tho, plus a couple of Sp(S) "Immortals"
the owning player had mistakenly bought (they're supposed to be Sp(O)
AFAIK). Then there was 6 Cv(O), 6 Lh(O), a couple of archers, Darius as
Cv(O) chariot and a Cv(S) Sub-gen.
I figured the Cv would be best against his foot since his Sp and Pk only
count 1 rank vs it and at 4:4 it's a dice roll - plus I don't get
overlapped if I move into contact with his line, and only get "spent" if
doubled in my bound.
Also the Ax(O) are OK on the "defence" uphill vs Hoplites.
So the plan was to get the Cv vs the heavy infantry as much as possible,
have the Ax stand uphill vs hoplites if required, and put Darius with
high PIPs and the Exp to try to get them somewhere useful.
And so it was!
Darius got the Exp "into the gap" - some Ax(S) - between the Macedonian
pike and Kn - they still didn't kill much, but they did push him back
for 3 or 4 turns uncovering the flank of the pike.
The Ax(O) found a convenient hill, and the Sp had to come attack them or
leave the other flank of the pike open. The Cv(O) and Ax(O) fought the
Greeks to a standstill here, the Cv counting as uphill in my bound
causing some casualties.
However it was the Pike vs Medizing Greeks, and Kn(F) vs Cv(I) where the
game was won and lost - the Persian hoplite mercenaries were 4 deep vs
ost of hte Macedonian phalanx, and flanked by the 2 Persians Sp and some
cavalry - a few casualties were inflicted in the resulting scrum. But
the Pikes' general had to come out and play to cover the flank left open
by the Exp - he pushed forwards, but eventually found himself facing
Darius, with Greek hoplites lapped onto his flank on one side, and light
horse on the other - Darius was victorious, and hte phalanx was
disheartened.
The Macedonian Kn slammed into the Cv(I) - Alexander declaring a
brilliant stroke for +2 - it wasn't needed...the Persians threw 1's and
2's, and the front rank disappeared!
In another turn most of the rest of the Cv(I) was destroyed and the
command broken, while the pikemen continued to fight disheartened.
But all it took was the Gods of Averages to wave their magic wands - 2
Kn were destroyed by rolling 1's (1 vs Demoralised Cv(S) Gen, the other
vs Lh), and Alexander's command broke (he'd lost 1 Kn already and a Ps),
plus a couple more casualties on the pikemen and a famous Persian
victory was secured.....18-7 - it was pretty tight!
In this battle the Exp destroyed 2 Ps and 2 Ax - one of them a Persian
one 'cos I hadn't realised EXP do have a zone of death!! So not a lot
of casualties, but they did have a major influence by uncovering the
flank of the phalanx.
Last game - Egyptians vs my own Nubians
The Egyptians had managed a draw in the morning - their best result to
date. Facing head on into more and better bow accompanied by Wb
obviously hadn't working for them so far in the weekend, so I determined
to flank march and have a delayed command - trying to use the superior
manoeuvrability of the regulars to wrong foot him.
And again so it was - the battle started at 5am on a Nubian winter
morning with a strong wind blowing from the flank I was marching on. As
invader I had 4 moves of moonless night (moves limited to 80p), the
defending Nubians had 3 moves - I got to setup 2nd AND move 1st due to
the visibility, but he would get "first use" of the good visibility with
sunrise.
The delayed command duly arrived, and the flank march a turn later - he
had turned some troops outwards expecting possibly 2 flank marches, so
wasn't totally unprepared. The flank marching blades got in among some
bows and Wb, killing several for the loss of a single element. The 1
on-table-command had linked up with the flank march and its blades were
attacking the front of the Nubians, losing a couple of Ps and another
Bd, while the delayed command was lining up on the bulk of the Nubian Wb
with some Ax and Bd.
Unfortunately time had to be called then due to the requirement to leave
the hall a bit early on Sunday afternoon - no 10th's had been lost by
either side, but I suspect I was in a better position and was a few
elements up.
Most of the people taking part had only a couple of DBMM games, or none
at all, so it was good to finally get a bunch together to work through
issues and get in some concentrated gaming :0
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.