Grasping at Straws

"How to surround - Come from all points of the compass"

An alternative view to the battle report "Surrounded" here.

The Petra(shop) Boys have their first shot at the “top table” tonight but need to invade Btobemy I in Damascus, a task they are not suited for and a repeat of two games ago which ended in defeat.  A record emulated last week as well so confidence is not high.

The Ptolemies are a moving mass (okay, quite small mass) of unstoppable (from my perspective) pikes, superior auxilia and single wedged knights plus some light troops and maybe an elephant or two.  Frontally, without us hiding behind the stone walls we would be stream rollered in short order.  So should we just build more stone walls??  No way!!  Let’s do the opposite and lower the wall count and do the things that are so unpredictable as to be .................. well, outright mad.

So how to halt pikes without walls?  Psiloi – the Aramaeans can bring the many compulsory bowmen as skirmishing psiloi bowmen which will delay the pikes out of the battle if used well and in co-operation with terrain and cavalry to protect them from the auxilia.  This frees up quite a number of APs (resource points used to calculate an armies efficiency, we play to 400AP) to use on the other mad idea.  We’ll bring an ally of, and our own (almost never used) maximum, of fast light horse so that we can get around the smaller enemy mass and pick at him from all angles.  But wait, there’s more!!

I have years and years of history of flank marches that fail to arrive, having stopped using them in the old country because they just hate me.  On the few occasions I’ve tried them here in BKK they have, true to form, failed to arrive.  Hence I never use them and Bob knows it.

So tonight I’ll use two!!  Each a fast light horse command to attack from the rear, one being a sub-general using the top PiP rating to give plenty of scope for action.  Last week Anthony stole my thunder and used the recently discovered (well, for me anyway) concept of using the delayed battle stratagem to maximise the odds of arrival, the very trick I had been agonising over for days, calculating the odds of a mix of sub or ally generals and with or without the delay and if adding an exaggerated size stratagem would mask the plan or not. 

But tonight well find out if it works for me (like it worked for Anthony last week).  Part two to be written at a later date.

Desperate situations call for drastic means!!

Post Battle Survivors Tell the Tale

(while dining on elephants steaks courtesy of two elements of Ptolemic pachyderms)

We couldn’t quite find the battle field we desired (due to terrain generation vagaries) but we weren’t too unhappy with what we got.  Even though one side was a bit restricted for entry points we put out both flank marches so only had two commands on table.

Deployment was defensive with defended dunes on the left and plenty of psiloi in the open in the centre to act as pike delayers.  As expected Bob’s pikes were front and centre although angled a bit and he was offset to his left (my right) with most of his support troops.  Two inferior elephants were almost on his base edge so far away that they looked like they had no interest in getting involved while his knights in wedge formation were on the other flank also way back in reserve mode.  These two rather strange deployments plus no 4^th command set my mind racing looking for a cunning plan.  I went ahead and called delayed battle, worrying that it might give my plan away.

Imagine my surprise when my Skythian flank march made its appearance on only the second bound!!  Things were looking better although it would be a tight squeeze to get on between the terrain and I’d have to deal with the knights almost immediately which would mean swamping them with numbers.  To this end I went in column around the terrain, accepted that Bob would get first charge (depending on his PiPs) but would then be in position to hard flank elements and move around into the rear of the knights.

Bob, unlike me remembered that light horse flee from knight, so pick only a single fight head on with the column.  When you have a fast light horse general the best place to keep him alive is at the rear of the formation so they are safe from the light horse lottery effect combats.  So that’s where my Skythian was properly positioned.  Until the column fled with (ahead of) the element that was beaten and the last element, the general, fell off the edge of the world/table and was lost!! 

The stinkiest piece of smelly cheese we’ve seen out here for a long while!!

Being a small command and with the general’s loss having such a big effect they didn’t stay much longer and apart from one knight destroying half of the Ptolemies baggage they did no damage.

In the centre of the table I was just mucking around and stalling for time and slowing pushing the psiloi across to intercept the pike blocks.  Maybe I was too reckless with the light horse here and took casualties for nothing in return although I’d taken risks against the PiP dice that had caught me short a couple of times.  I choose not to mention Bob’s artillery damaging my exquisite stone walls with such abandon and ease, to say nothing of killing the elements so easily.

Then the earth shattering news!!  Despite my track record almost all flank marches arriving in subsequent games, this time the second flank march arrives and 19 light horse march on the table as far as they can almost into contact with the three cavalry posted by Bob as pickets on my right flank.  As this was Bob’s low PiP allocation command I think Bob was restrained when he said in an even British voice “Oh, this could be really quite bad, it could”.

Of course it wasn’t.  The three cavalry diced they way to survival too many times and while we split off some horse to catch and dispatch the elephants (from the rear both times) the flank was only ever a threat rather than a danger.  We took a cheap shot at a general with hard flank contact via the DH but it didn’t come off either and we stalled. 

The psiloi from two commands of the main force had come up to put on pressure on Bob’s rescue teams and by turning elements, maximising no recoils and at times co-ordinating with the light horse were causing casualties.  The psiloi were also able to push into a gap that had opened in Bob’s line looking to exploit hard flanks and rear attacks.  To prevent this Btobemy himself (the CinC) was the only available counter so he went stomping on the peasants and buried himself unsupported and unprotected in the mass of light troops. 

I got in two attacks with double overlaps and hard flanks in consecutive bounds, needing to roll two-up on the dice to have our javelins skewer Btobemy (we were PsS to his front not PsO as Bob noted, these being the flanking elements) but we failed to do it on either occasion.  Time was called and we had to resort to book-keeping to get a campaign game victor.

For all it ended in ultimate failure, I was very pleased with the way the overall plan had turned an expected mundane beating into a surprisingly close run thing.  There is something to be said for bizarre plans.

Surrounded

So week three of the campaign, and having mugged Nash last week, I was now King of the Table and had to defend my position against Wayne and his Nabateans. Having defeated them earlier in week one, I wasn't expecting too much trouble, and was probably a little overconfident.

 I did however, prepare one little surprise for him, rebasing some models that I'd painted 30 years ago and never played with. I was thus able to field three elements of artillery O. Now if you've read the previous posts about this campaign, you'll know that one of Wayne's hobbies is building walls (TF) across battlefields, and if you're familiar with the finer details of the purple tome, you'll know that not only do artillery shoot at bows with a factor of 4 vs 2, but temporary fortifications don't count against them. I wasn't sure if Wayne knew the last point or not, but was looking forward to him finding out.

As per my right as reigning King, I chose to defend. Since Wayne had chosen one of the two available sand dune terrain pieces, I elected to use a 2 FE dune which fell on the left round about the center line. A BUA and a rocky hill protected my right flank, and a difficult hill was in the middle of my deployment area on the back edge. Wayne's left flank was protected by another dune a little way in from the edge.

Now in the previous game, Wayne had deployed a large light horse command, which could present some dangers, and my left flank was a little open. OTOH I didn't want to sit on the defensive, as I wanted to logorate his bows with my artillery. Therefore I angled my pike a block a little, so that it could push out into the center, but keeping the gap between it and the rear hill a reasonable size that the the cavalry command to the left could protect. The artillery were on the right of the pikes, and the rightmost command would protect the right, and use its peltasts to clear the dune protecting Wayne's left flank.

Position after first turn

Bows out, psiloi in

Now in the past Wayne has struggled to put together an Aramean list that suits his style, but this time he'd come up with something that might just work. Gone was the massive bow line and wall protected it, this time what appeared on table was a few bow behind a short wall anchored to the dunes on his right, and many of the compulsory bow elements in the army had been converted to psiloi (O), a large swarm of which occupied the center of the table. More light troops and some camels were in the dune, and on the right of his line were some Ps(S) and Bow(I). There were a few cavalry and light horse in the center too, but clearly a lot of troops were missing.

I should probably have stuck to my plan of anchoring the left of my line on the hill, but I favour an agressive approach to the game, so decided to push forward quickly and try to defeat the one table forces before the expected flank march arrived. I wanted to be able to move the artillery into position so gave the middle command of pikes and artillery the middle pip dice, the command on the right took the high one so that it could sweep the dunes, and the flank guard on the left took the low one. The latter was to cause problems later.

Skythian flank march arrives

The initial moves then saw me push forward into the center with the pikes and artillery, and push forward aggressive on the right with my peltasts with a few cavalry in support. Wayne moved his light horse across to fight with the peltasts, and I managed to bag a cavalry with my bolt shooters. The big surprise was that Wayne's flank march rolled a six* on the second turn, and he announced that it would arrive on my right, rather than the more open left

Skythians advance

The flank march turned out to be a Skythian ally (obviously under new management after the demise of their general last week), comprising a a bunch of light horse and a couple of noble knights. I hurriedly turned around my own column of knights from the right command to act as a fire brigade, and hopefully keep the Skythians contained behind the hill until a enough force could be summoned to deal with them properly. Meanwhile the Skythian knights advanced towards the baggage (subsequently killing half of it), and the light horse formed into a long column snaking around the hill, with their general in the rear.

Skythains flee

Now in my experience, Skythian ally commands seldom fare well**, and so it was to prove as I unleashed cheesy move of the year, hitting the front of the light horse column with a knight, and forcing the leading element to flee. This pushed back the whole column forcing the whole thing flee, and resulting in the general at the end fleeing off table and being lost ***. Next bound I was able to flank and kill one the nobles, and that was enough to break the command.

Holy ****

However, my relief was short lived, as Wayne announced the arrival of another flank march on my left. This turned out to be a huge force of 18 horse archers, plus a general. To the three elements of Galatian cavalry mercenaries that I had thrown out as a picket on my left, it must have seemed like a scene from a French Foreign Legion movie as the whole horizon was suddenly filled with hostile cavalry. The tried to flee, but were quickly caught and surrounded. However, they put up spirited rear guard action fighting back to back, and killed several enemy elements before succumbing. This gave me time to throw together some sort of line, using the peltasts from the left command, and some pikes from the center, but the response was hampered by the command on that side having the low pips.

Flank march and response

The leftmost command also contained two elephants, which I could find little use for, so had left at the back so that at least wouldn't be in the way. These were quickly surrounded and dispatched by the onrushing mass, demoralizing the leftmost command. Wayne then moved his light troops from his right wing to attack my left side peltasts hoping to finishing them off quickly. They held on for a while though, allowing reserves from the right to arrive and counter attack killing enough of the flank marchers to demoralize them too.

Open fire!.  All Weapons!

Meanwhile on the right Wayne's light horse had been driven off, allowing my artillery to advance and shoot at the archers behind the wall. The latter, feeling themselves safe, were clearly dismayed by the heavy bolts arriving from afar, with the first two shots being six ones in my favour.

Gap in the line

Madness

It was at this point that I almost made a fatal mistake. With the peltasts and the left part of the phalanx having been send to deal with the flank march, a gap had opened in my line, which Wayne attempted to exploit with his psiloi, placing heavy pressure on the left hand peltasts, who could collapse at any moment. So being short on reserves, I send King Btobemy himself to intervene, and in a moment of stupidity charged him into the long column of psiloi attempting to come through the gap. Now another of the lines of fine print in the purple tome says that if you are a knight wedge element, you must pursue if you win, and since the Egyptian King surrounded by his finest, tend to do quite well against light archers equipped only with a bow and tunic, King Btobemy kept advancing leaving his flanks to be attacked by all manner of scummy commoners. One bad die roll, and his glorious reign would come to an ignoble end. Of course I mounted my own "Saving Private Ryan" effort, but to no avail.

Luckily by now, we had reached the time limit for the game, and King Btobemy remained on his horse. Wayne's pressure had finally broken my

Btobemy lives

leftmost command though, so we had to do some counting up to determine the victor. As it turned out we'd both lost 30%,  but Wayne also had a demoralized command, so I scrapped through seven to six, and retained my grip on Syria.

This was a tough game, and Wayne had a much better battle plan than me, and for the second week in a row I just scraped through, being particularly lucky in seeing of the Skythians so easily. The newly constituted lightweight version of the Nabateans is much more dangerous than before, and could now be a real contender.

Next time, I will be challenged by Anthony and his Parthians. There has been some feverish diplomatic activity with both sides sending large bags of gold (the campaign rules allow you to use your bonus APs to boost your rating with allies) to the Rhoxolani, in an attempt to secure their services, but in the end they elected to keep the cash, and join neither side. Now we both have some time to consider our plans, as unfortunately due to upcoming commitments, we won't be able to fight this game for another three weeks.

* Wayne has notoriously bad luck with flank marches, and is usually happy if they arrive by the end of the next game. Any plan that relies on his flank march not turning up will usually succeed.

** The Skythians were also in action on the side table this week, where thing also went badly for them.

*** I had actually intended to make the whole column flee which would buy me some breathing space, but hadn't reallized this would send the general off table.

Luck of The Egyptians: Syrian Campaign Round 2

Last week's game saw Nash and his Romans defeat Anthony and his Parthains to secure Syria and grab the position of King of the Table. This week it was King Btobemy's turn to play on the challenge table and try to unseat the reigning KotT. As per the campaign rules, the attacker and defender were determined before picking an OoB and with Nash electing to stay home and mind the goats, I would be the attacker.

King Btobemy trying out a new mount

In addition to the usual things to think about when planning a battle, the campaign adds two extra elements to consider, bonus points and ally selection.

The winner of each game (on either challenge or side tables) gains a number of bonus points equal to their score using the standard game system (so 13 to 25) which can be saved up and used in future games. They may be used to buy stratagems, TF or PF, up to six horde elements, or elements from the army list at double cost.

Unlike the previous campaign, we don't use the allies from the army list, instead their is a common pool of eight allies that we all choose from. In order to prevent both sides picking the same ally, and to add a very simple element of diplomacy, we all ranked the allies in preference order at the start of the campaign. For any given battle, you may only use those allies you've assigned a higher preference to than your opponent. There is the additional wrinkle that if you lose a game while using an ally (or win but the ally is shattered) you can't use that ally again.

So what should I pick to defeat Nash. His Romans are a very tough versatile army, and he has a lot experience using them. It was no major weaknesses, but there are some avenues of attack. His legions might with a bit of luck be swept away by knights or warbands, the large cavalry wing he habitually employs might be defeated by knights (but not the knight wedges in my army list), and I have more difficult terrain troops. Nash was obviously well aware of the dangers posed by the Sarmatians, picking them as his top ally and thus denying them to me. I'd picked the Galatians as my top ally with the intention of using them against Nash, but elected to keep them in reserve for games in later rounds. I also thought about using a Rhoxolani command to boost my cavalry which would otherwise be outnumbered, but in the end I stuck with a three command army from my own list, very similar to the one from the last game. However, I dropped one of the elephants and instead employed 4 elements of Galation (Warband S) mercenaries to boost my chances against the legions. I spend 19 of my 34 bonus points on scouting and ambush stratagems and and additional 4 points on troops (as my total troop elements came to 402 points).

I picked two sand dunes for my terrain (as they narrow the central portion of the table more than a Waterway) and Nash had a couple of oil wells (minimum size marshes) a BUA and a gentle hill. Most of the significant terrain fell on the right side of the table, with just the hill and the oil well to the left. This gave the Romans a bit more space to run around in than I'd hoped, but at least allowed me to secure one flank the various bits of bad going on the right.

Deployment

 

My plan was to crush the legions with my phalanx and Galatians, and to this end I split the Galations into two pairs with each having a phalanx block on both flanks, the idea being that the pike blocks would push things back giving the Galatians a double overlap and a great chance of a kill. The maximized my offensive potential, but meant that wheeling would be more difficult with irregulars mixed in, and I'd lose my free march move with the pikes.

I expected the terrain on the right to be lousy with Roman light troops, so decided not to waste pips fighting there, but to mask it with the peltasts from my right hand command. The cavalry from that command would be sent to assist the left, and knight wedges would also go left, or attack the legions if they overlapped the right of the phalanx. On the left was a mixed force of peltasts cavalry and a lone elephant whose job was to protect the left of the phalanx, and not to lose to quickly. Many elements were thrown forwards to delay the Romans marching around my left flank.

The Romans deployed with the legions on their left, with a small pip dump command of horde and a couple of blades on their left flank. To the right of the legions was a massed command of Roman cavalry lead by the C in C (Rollius Sixus) and an elephant. On their far left, was the surprise package, a Skythian ally with horse archers and four noble knight elements. I was quite happy to see the latter, as previous experience has shown they meet far more death than glory.

Relief Column

The game opened with the Roman cavalry advancing on my left, and the legions forming column and moving away from my phalanx. I pushed forward with the phalanx, but it suffered a dearth of pips all game, and I was never able to re-orient it properly towards the legions. On my left I withdrew my pickets, and began moving the mounted from right across to reinforce.

It was clear that this going to be one of those games that turned 90 degrees and would be fought along the long axis. With the legions getting away, I pushed the phalanx forward as fast as possible, even at the expense of allowing a flank attack on the left of the line by Roman light horse. It was 3 vs 3, but I lost and had to remove two elements of pike. Still it was a big command, and the Roman cavalry had been lured into a fight.

A messy fight now developed between the Roman cavalry and my peltasts and the leftmost elements of the Phalanx. My elephant did good work bagging a couple of horse, but the Romans had the numbers, and that began to tell. Meanwhile my phalanx command scored 1 on its pip dice for five bounds in a row (it was assigned the lowest dice, but even so it should only get a one about forty percent of the time), and in order to prevent more losses from flank attack, I had to allow the Galatians to rush off impetuously, to their doom I feared.

At this stage, things weren't looking good. My right wing wasn't in the fight, my phalanx was stalled, split into multiple groups nowhere near their target, my left flank was starting to crumble and the Skythians had finally got around the left, and their knights were poised to sweep away my cavalry at the end of the line. However, their was one glimmer of hope, in that the Roman CinC who'd been bringing the elephant up was now in line with it, and a gap in the line allowed my cavalry to flank the elephant, turning it round and placing him in the death zone. One good roll, and the elephants would stampede trampling Rollius Sixtus into the ground. Nash rolls his dice ... a one... maybe I'm still in this, but then I roll mine and it comes up two. Three would have been enough, but Rollius Sixtus lives to scurry away. All seemed lost.

Final Attack on Legion

At this point, Fortuna decided to take a hand. One pair of the Galatians who'd rushed off ahead of the army had been dispatched, but the others were nearing some legionaries. Not wanting to take any chances, Nash moved out his cavalry general in command of the legions to confront them, apparently unaware that cavalry flee from warband if beaten, and failing to leave enough space for them to fully recoil. A bad die roll saw the general defeated, forced to flee, and dying for lack of recoil space. The victorious Galatians then piled into the legionaries, killing a pair of them, and with the C in C King Btobemy himself who'd come up in support, killing another, the legionary command was broken.

Psiloi win the day

On the left my good fortune continued. The Skythain general charged into combat with my cavalry, and promptly died to a six one result. I then counter attacked flanking and killing another Skythian noble, and a dishearten psiloi attacked the Roman elephant, killing it and another Skythain noble behind. With two commands down, the Roman army was defeated, and somehow I'd won the game.

Phew !!!.




So now Btobemy is King of the Table, and awaits the challenge of Waynazab and his Nabateans.

The Protagonists II. The Ptolemies

Since cataphracts featured so heavily in the last campaign, we wanted some different troop types for this campaign, and hence the conflict in Syria more or less chose itself as the only arena where we could field enough compatible armies.

I figured I'd be something Hellenistic as I had suitable figures to use from the Bactrian Greek army. There were only two Hellenistic powers standing by this date though, and with the Seleucids having too many cataphracts, and being but a shadow of their former selves, that left the Ptolemaic Egyptians. So I shall give battle as king Btobemy of Egypt, the first (and probably last) of his name*.

I've never really looked at the list much before, but it turns out to be a handy army. The core of pikemen is augmented with lots of peltasts (Ax(S)) for controlling difficult terrain, cavalry wedges that are excellent at killing Romans, and there's a good selection of mercenaries available from Elephants to ferocious Galatian swordsmen. The standard pikemen can also be augmented with superior guardsmen (Pk(S)) but that'd mean I'd have to paint them, so they'll only be used if really needed.

Battle plans should be pretty simple, some terrain to close down the table, then hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle with the pikey boys. Peltasts, elephants and wedges will deal with anyone wanting a nibble at their flanks.

That then was the plan in their first outing, a side table** game against Wayne's Nabateans, and a waterway on one flank, sand dunes next to it, and a BUA on the other meant the terrain was set up perfectly. However, when Wayne deployed, I found that the cunning Arab had stymied my simple and elegant plan by building a wall (dry stone wall TF) all across the centre of the table manned with two dozen bow elements. A quick check of the rules showed that rather than the factors of 7 vs 3 I'd been anticipating for pikes vs bows, I would now get 4 vs 6. The pikes therefore moved up to just outside shooting distance from the wall and stayed there for the whole game.

Needing to do something different I attempted to seize the sand dunes next to the waterway with my peltasts, while sending my heavy cavalry through a narrow gap between the dunes and the water to outflank the wall. The peltasts outclassed anything in the other army, and I expected them to seize the dunes easily and ease the exit of the cavalry from the narrow gap. However, they failed miserably in their task rolling a whole bucket load of ones, and allowing Wayne to adroitly bottle up my cavalry column by transferring his own cavalry from the other wing. My cavalry wedges tried to bust their way out of the gap, but while doing some damage, the were defeated and broken.

With two plans foiled, and cursing my dice, I switched my attention to the other flank, and tried to work around the wall from that side. Here I deployed more peltasts and some Galatian mercenary cavalry. Wayne's flank was guarded my a large command of horse archers, but as soon contact was made my dice luck switched around and Wayne's flank guard was swept away and broken within a couple of bounds. With their position behind the wall hopelessly outflanked, and no more reserves, the Nabatean's positions crumbled. A nineteen - six win for the Ptolemies then, and nineteen valuable bonus points to use in the challenge game against Nash and Romans.

* Some of you more scurrilously minded folk (I'm looking at you Suetonious's grandad) may be wondering whether Btobemy really married his sister. Well damnright he did, as she's well hot, and looks just like a young Elizabeth Taylor.

** One day someone will make a post about the campaign rules, but basically there are two games each round, a challenge game which will eventually determine the campaign winner, and side table game where you can win bonus AP to use in the challenge games.