Try posting this again…..
This is not going to be as flowery as my last effort – losers never feel quite the same urge to wax lyrical over the battle.
The game was a long awaited match-up between the 2000 point Tournament winning, all conquering, frankly pain in the arse Early Imperial Romans of John Plygawko, one of the most feared Generals in the whole of West Yorkshire, and the latest version of a Pontic list being playtested for a future WAB supplement.
John's army, which I know off by heart in the same way you can shout 'Thats the man, third from the left Officer!' in the line up, was as follows.
Army standard bearer on horseback
20 Veteran Legionaries
20 Regular Legionaries
20 Regular Legionaries
2 Small bolt-shooters
15 Auxliaries with Throw' spear, light armour, shield, jav
15 Auxliaries with Throw' spear, light armour, shield, jav
10 Auxliary Cavalry
11 Auxiliary Archers
12 Auxiliary Archers
Mine was
Mithridates Eupator
Army Standard Bearer
24 Brazen Shields (heavily armoured ordinary phalanx)
24 Brazen Shields
24 Imitataion Legionaries (Like Regular Legionaries but no drilled, no stubborn, no centurion
30 Levies (we look down on Nomad Human Shields, everyone else looks down on us – we know our place) with Thrusting spears and shields. I broke my cardinal rule which is 'if you can't afford to field a decent unit and give them a Musician, standard and leader, don't bother fielding them' and only gave them a leader.
9 Scythian Horse archers – like Nomad horse but worser
10 Armenian light cavalry – probably the cheapest cavalry in the WAB world with Javelins and shield
10 Guard Cavalry with Kontos, extra heavy armour and half-barding (wedge)
15 Iberii with throwing spear, javelin and buckler
2 Scythed Chariots
We used standard club terrain techniques – we each grabbed a hill, a wood and some difficult ground, put it down and then bickered about it. We then deployed a unit at a time. frankly John may as well not have bothered – his deployemnt was so predictable I could have done it for him (we at the club were so sick of John's Romans we almost begged him to get another army. The Bastard got Vikings…. serves us right)
My deployment was far more cunning. So cunning that one of my scythed chariots was directly in front of some difficult ground, and the other behind a wood. Had I been given the opportunity I would probably have also deployed them facing backwards and upside down…. As i struggled to fit everything into my deployment zone, i started casting unpleasant glances at the big block of levy. They could clearly see the looks I gave them (hell, i am about 50 times taller than them, of course they could see me) and it did not seem to improve their morale any. They were already having a 'do the best impression of the guy first in line in the African Arena Scene in 'Gladiator'' contest, as they stared at 20 veteran legions, a large wood and a unit of auxiliaries who move like they are auditioning for starlight express.
Well, i got first turn. John had managed to get a lot closer to the wood on my left than me, and i needed to get my guard cavalry round it if I was to carry out my plan 'hold him by the nose and hit him in the ear' so i marched my guard past the outside of the accursed wood that was filling up with auxliaries hefting javelins and chuckling. A sudden stroke of genius smote me at this point 'them ferkin levies are outmatched by everyone on the battlefield – I shall use them as bait!' and advanced them INTO the auxiliary -filled wood, softly bemoaning their poor quality, lack of rank bonus, fear of enemy they do not enormously outnmumber and (my master stroke) that I had forgotten to give them a musician or standard.
John eyed me with disdain, ignored the weeping horde driven on by the whips of my captains, and lined the edge of the wood as the companions thundered past. All it needed was a TV Van driving down the side to have looked exactly like the Grand National, only worse for the Horses.
Meanwhile the rest of my army advanced to try to engage him, with the scythed chariots wiggling slowly around the Ob-Stackles I had placed in their way. The Horse archers opened fire damaging one of his bolt-shooters. That was about it.
It was his turn. With a nasty sound both bolt-shooters and the auxiliaries opened fire into the side of the Cavalry wedge. Now, I would like you to calculate how many wounds 10 Auxiliary Javelins and two bolt shooters at long range are likely to cause on a 3+ armour save unit. John's calculation came to 6, and the cream of my army, the finest Horsemen of Asia departed the battlefield in a cloud of recriminations and horse-dung.
My head dropped somewhat at this point, and I had that feeling when you KNOW you can't win.. but then John got cocky and charged my Pike with his legions. John doesn't usually – there is no percentage in charging Pike with Legions – and i beat both of them, forcing them to Fall back. I pursued into the maw of the Roman army. My flank manouver was a gonner, my scythed chariots had done their usual Dart-Board impressions already – I had to break through the centre.
In the wood John's Auxiliaries tired of their happy game of walk-round-the-levy-in-the-wood-throwing-Javelins-and-giggling. They charged them. The Levy failed their fear test, and both of us watched with interest as a formed unit was butcherd by a skirmishing one. Doesn't happen often, but then people round here don't often march formed units with no command into a wood in the face of Roman Auxilia.
My Pike were doing well, and some light appeared in the tunnel. My Imitation Legion had been playing with his Cavalry on the right. Helped by the armenians, they had managed to work onto Johns exposed other flank, and now they were able to charge a unit of legionaries fixed to the front by Pike, in the flank. It is symptomatic of my performance in this game that I started out on a +5 combat resolution and still managed to win by only 1. It was enough, the Legion broke and were destroyed. Almost the whole of John's army was within panic test range. I had a hope. Some Hope, the destroyed legion were obviously not very popular, no-one panicked and the slog went on.
I was pushing John back and bunching him up in the centre, but I had lost the other flank and there were two units of Auxilia heading for my flank at skateboard-speed. If I could do a bit better in the grinding combats in the centre I could win it, but in a Pike V Legion head-to-head its unusual for the pike to win by more than 1 or 2, while not unusual for Legion to win by 2 or 3. It so turned out. I won combat after combat, but John fell steadily back while his flanks closed in, and finally a combination of lack of time, the approach of his Auxiliaries and a bad case of ' this for a game of soldiers' led to the game's end.
Other than the Levy, I had lost the Guard Cav from Panic, the scythed Chariots from shooting, and one unit of pike had fled to avoid a flank-charge and were still running at game end. This is not much, but the game was in the bag and we both knew it. I shook John's Hand with my left and hit him in the kidneys with the other. If the plan doesn't work on the battlefield, try it down the Pub.
Pat
receives a gift from his wife…
