"Avec Armenia" Topic

The last of 3 25mm, "Heavy Metal" battlereports using the L' Art de la Guerre rule set.
"Our scouts have found the Armenian camp", reported Adidasphoros.
"Bagratid Armenian or Armenian Principality?", inquired Nikephoros.
"Does it matter?" asked Pumaphoros.
"Of course it matters!"
Adidasphoros and Pumaphoros just stared at their brother.
"Nike, in all the time I have known you, you have never cared about the specific list of your opponent. Your decision tree consists of "Does my opponent have good cavalry, Yes or No? If yes, then you try to find a river to reduce their movement, and if no, then not." said Pumaphoros with some annoyance.
"Yeah, then you pick a hill with a field on it to shoot from, and a gully to hide troops in.", added Adidasphoros
"And that hill idea never works because our opponent never comes near it. We always wind up coming off of it anyway."
"But the gully idea works fairly often."
"All we know for sure is they don't have any Cataphracts."
"Yeah, because of the tournament requirements."
"And because neither of the Dark Age Lists for Armenia has them anyway."
link
enjoy

It must be nice to love a game so much that that's essentially all you play.

Interesting, certainly. While it is fun to play different games, I suppose there is something to be said for getting really good at one game. I've been told (which is to say, I have no personal experience, at all) that gamers in the eastern United States tend to concentrate on a small number of rules sets, which they learn well, while those of us out west tend to do more different rules, but don't know them so well.

Grelber

I don't only play LADG. But I don't write up battle reports for "7 Wonders" or "Mad Ludwigs Castle" And Covid put the Kibosh on "All Quiet on the Martian Front" The last fight was in March. link

The short evade/long pursuit phenomenon described in this account reminds me of a game I had in a brief foray back into WRG 7th (actually 7.5) many years ago. I'd played 5th and 6th editions but had not liked 7th and gave away ancients (and wargaming) for years, until I was introduced to DBM not long before it lost its stranglehold.

I borrowed and dusted off my brother's Early (Belisarian?) Byzantines for a game at the local club against an Islamic Persian. Per the rules, my cavalry were HC, Reg C, Lance,bow and shield. The Persians were IrrA EHC, lance, bow (maybe the back ranks were Irr C, I don't remember). What I do remember was that the Persians would slaughter me in a combination of uncontrolled advance, plus the heavier armour (EHC over HC). My cunning plan was to shoot at the Persians as I advanced. They would launch an uncontrolled charge, I would (cunningly) evade, he would end up near my foot archers, who would pepper him while he rallied. My cavalry would then charge him, when he was no longer carrying out an uncontrolled advance, being tired from the previous charge and the shooting. It was the fatigue idea that put me off 7th Ed, which had some otherwise good ideas – incidentally, you could see the inception of the 'radical' ideas of DBx – no casualty removal, a (theoretical but not always delivered) shift from equipment minutae to "what the general needs to know". Fatigue didn't work. Cavalry were a one-shot weapon, especially if they charged uncontrolled, as they would immediately be tired, which was a permanent status (until exhausted). It was this that I was planning to exploit with what was, in effect, a feigned retreat.

Everything worked perfectly to start. I got into range and shot. He shot back. Meh, at long range, not an issue. He obliged by launching uncontrolled advances with all four units of his cavalry. I evaded with my four. I proceeded to roll ones for every unit and evade short. And, you guessed it, he rolled long with every unit of his. All my cavalry were caught and broken. Game over.

Kind of demoralising. I played one other game of 7.5 against a guy who'd figured out that Reg LHI, JLS (javelin or light spear) and Shield were a kind of super troop – They retained their javelin in combat because they didn't have another weapon, fought in 1 1/2 ranks and could break off in the unlikely event that they were losing. So he used Khmer …

I used my brother's Byzantines again and got thumped again. I figured that the way to beat him was to buy a Samnite army – Front rank LHI, JLS, Sh, just like his, but the rear rank LMI instead, so cheaper. And tons of them. But it just didn't feel right – Samnites are cool and all, but to me it isn't the way to play our hobby.

Cheers,
John

Cheers,
John

I also started with WRG-6, and played 7 through Warrior(tm) extensively. I had to give up on Byzantines though, and being caught by impetuously charging mounted was the reason. In your case, all four of your units were caught, and that of course is very bad luck, but it you look at the odds, 4 charges on 4 evades, the odds of just one of your evaders caught is almost 50/50. He routs, and two other units will have to make waver checks, a minus for uneasy because they will have an enemy to their rear, and the odds are 50/50 one goes to shaken. And he will likely break on then next declared charge, caught or not.

So the whole Byzantine plan has, at best, a 50% chance of success. I regarded that as a "bad plan". And since I could not see the Byzantines being run any other way, I replaced the riders with Arabs and ran them as Islamic Persian. If you can't beat them, then join them.

You remember the odds better than me, but then you obviously played a lot more than me. It was a borrowed army so I didn't really have to abandon the Byzantines as such, just return them :-)

Speaking of odds, I might have mentioned this before but I was watching that same brother playing a WRG 1925 -50 original edition WWII game once (1:300). Our friend had a full company of 17 Panther tanks. My brother had an off table battery of Soviet 203mm howitzers. All the panthers were in the beaten zone. He needed a 5/6 followed by a 6 to knock out a vehicle. Using the same dice we always used, he destroyed all 17 Panthers in one bound, 17 5s or 6s, followed by 17 6s. Game over, needless to say.

Someone worked out the odds for me once . . .

Cheers,
John

That would be 5.5% to the 17th power. My calculator puts that at 3.8 times 10 to the minus 22 power.

I'm unlikely to ever witness such an event again . . .

Cheers,
John