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Call to Arms 07

Page history last edited by Rob Brennan 15 years, 8 months ago

 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

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