If

 Hi all,

The Great Rebasing continues apace, but didn't get in the way of me being able to host remote DBA from my end.  It was a treat for me, both because it's the first non-WWII historical game played at the new house, and also the first ancients game played with my figs since we left Toronto about six years ago!

Macedonians top.  The grouped cavalry at the top of the pic was standing in for the Mac camp.

With what I have for figs (Spartan / hoplites and Antigonid / eastern successors) we opted for a historical, but slightly misrepresented matchup, with Philippian Macedonians vs. Spartans.  Philip, somewhat notoriously, threatened the Spartans with slavery if he won their impending conflict, to which the Spartans, laconically (ha!), replied "if".  While the Spartans may have, in point of historical fact, been rather limited socially, politically, and even militarily (and see the brilliant set of posts on Spartan social organization at CoUP, you're welcome), you can't fault them for smart-assery, which I personally appreciate.

The Spartan left wing.  Didn't want to extend the line into the fields, just in case.

Macedonians deploy on a narrow frontage, with their right covered by light troops in the woods.

Sparta, oddly enough, had elephants for a camp.

Macedon had a slight edge on aggression, and ended up as attacker, and once we'd established terrain, we had one side of the table dominated by woods, and the other mostly open.  I picked the clear side, not out of any tactical brilliance, but because it was the side that had the computer and camera set up (I had the webcam hanging off the light fixture).  Turns out, expediency is the mother of brilliance, as it meant Jura (my increasingly regular remote opponent) got stuck deploying in a narrow frontage between the woods.

Spartan generals anchor the line.

The Spartan right wheels forward, and the Macedonian cavalry counters, skirting the woods.

That's the General and companions, waving around the xystons.

Macedonian light horse engage!

The opening moves of the game saw me advancing and wheeling my right, in the hopes that I would envelope his flank.  This is a pretty standard move for me when my line is longer, although traditionally I do it with cavalry, rather than Even More Spears.  Jura countered by advancing his cavalry in column around the woods, and a rather aggressive charge with his light horse (Tarantines posing as prodromoi), which my spear handily repulsed.

The Macedonian cavalry charge home.  This one was dicey, but the Spartans repulsed the impetuous horse.

The first phase of the battle saw the Macedonian cavalry launch repeated charges against my right wing, including a number of high-stakes clashes between Phillip and the companion cavalry against my General (the Spartan with no name).  As long as the phalanx (and the side support spears get from spears in DBA) held, my general had the advantage in combat, but if he lost, the knights get a quick kill (they destroy the opposing element if they beat them, not just double them).  Turns out, a line of spears is pretty solid against mixed cavalry, and the Macedonians were thrown back repeatedly, with the light horse, at one point, fleeing entirely.

The Macedonian phalanx advances past the choke point.

On the right, the cavalry make little headway against the Spartan phalanx.  On the other hand, the Spartans can't seem to do more than drive off the cavalry - combat is largely inconclusive.

Jura managed to get his phalangites out from betwitxed the woods, and started to shake out a line, but it was still uneven when the main infantry formations clashed.  The Macedonian phalanx has an advantage under these circumstances, but not a decisive one, and the result of the on-going othismos (which I really enjoy saying, for some reason), was a pretty classic grind, with the deeper Macedonian pike phalanx pushing back the Spartans, but not quite breaking through.

Macedonian cavalry regrouped and charged again, with similar results.  Meanwhile, the lines grow closer.

Macedon tries to shake out a battle line, but poor C&C (i.e., low PiP rolls) meant it happened slowly.

Othismos!  The deeper phalanx begins to drive back the Spartans, as the lines break down.

At this point, my longer line, and ability to roll higher PiPs (i.e., command and control resources), let me slowly envelope and gnaw away at the Macedonian flanks.  I had plenty of opportunity to set up attacks where I could pin, and then flank, isolated Macedonian units on the flanks, and while they didn't always pay off, any win resulted in a destroyed unit (flank attacks aren't a big deal in DBA, unless they complement frontal engagement - losing is BAD in DBA if you're engaged both to the front AND to the flank).  It took some grinding, but the Spartans managed to chew away the "softer" elements of the Macedonian formation, before the Macedonian pike could really grind down the Spartan phalanx.

Spartans struggle to get past the Macedonian pikes.

Both lines are in disarray.

On the left, the Spartans envelope the Macedonian light troops, and look to roll up the line.

The Macedonians manage to wheel, but are under increased pressure from multiple sides.

Even without the delays expected from new armies and a new "technical" set-up, this game took longer than others we've played - but it felt "right".  The Macedonian phalanx had a clear, but not decisive, advantage over the Spartans, but the Spartans, with their wider formation, were able to envelope the Macedonian core.  The four elements that the Macedonians lost were their "weakest" ones - auxilia, psiloi, cavalry, and light horse, and the lost them because I was able to hit them on two sides.  The hard core of the Macedonian army had no problem driving back the Spartan centre, and had I rolled poorly, things could have gone very differently (all I needed to do was lose ONCE against his companions, and my general would have disappeared).  Even with the constraints of terrain, this one was much closer than it appeared.

This unit was frustratingly stubborn.  They just would not die!

Note how the Macedonians continue to push back the spear at the middle of the shot.

Repeated attacks failed to break the Macedonian phalanx.

Spartan turn to roll low on PiPs.  Macedonians struggle to reform their line.

Spartans step back and reform.  Behind the Macedonian infantry, their light horse are caught and flanked.  With essentially all of the Macedonian lighter troops gone, Spartans win the game 4-2.

It was so good to get the minis on the table again.  Although I do really enjoy the appearance of the Impetus / element basing, the DBx gives me more options for play, and being able to use the figures counts more, in the long run, than them looking good on the shelf.  Once I get the rebasing done, I'll get back to the Ayyubid / Seljuk painting, and am already looking forward to expanding the stuff I have (later Achaemenids, and various hoplite variations, are in the works).

FMB

Asynchronous Arrow Storm

Hi,

Got in a 300-point Impetus game against Nick the Lemming the other day, something of an ahistorical match-up between his 100 years war English and my Antigonids.  I went in to this game expecting to be spanked, and things worked out more or less as expected ;)  Worth it, though, to get a game in. Nick's highly coloured and rather cheeky version of events can be found here.

Nick was kind enough to come a little early, as I was trying to get in a second game (the Warmahordes one from my last post).  I set up terrain, he picked sides, and we rolled for attacker.  Nick ended up defending, and deployed in a long line across his side of the table.  Although it's apparently winter in England, the English made for a lovely sight.



He concentrated his rather scary (VBU 7!!) cavalry on his right, his archers across the centre, and a gonne and some light foot on his left.

In response, I set up my own cavalry (along with my elephant unit) mirroring his:



My pike and Lykian phalanx in the centre right:



And my Persian medium cavalry and a unit of peltasts on the right.

My plan for the engagement was pretty straightforward.  I was hoping to make some progress on the flanks, with my elephants and numbers evening the field with his cavalry on one side, and my lighter elements working around the his flank on the other.  With a skirmish screen blunting the worst of his shooting, I hoped to get the heavy infantry stuck in more or less intact, and hopefully carry the day.



Nick, however, is a crafty guy.  He responded to my advancing flanks by pushing his cavalry forward slightly, and then putting them on opportunity.  Now he'd be able to interrupt my movement with a charge declaration.  If I was going to tie him up, I'd have to tempt him out with some bait.

On the right, my infantry slowly chugged its way forward, while my sneaky flank attack began sneaking its way up the table.



Nick responded by shifting his lighter infantry around to "cork" his flank.




In a bid to tempt out Nick's cavalry, I pushed my light greek horse forward.  I figured this would be a sacrifice play, but if I could get him off opportunity, and a little strung out, I had a decent shot to take out his flank, and then roll up the line of archers.  On the right, I kept the phalanx train chugging forward, screening with the skirmishers as I went.







Sadly, the sacrifice play worked out a little more sacrificially than I intended.  His VBU 7 knights rolled right over my poor lights without a scratch, and lined up against my VBU 6 agema, the only horse I had that remotely matched them.



I I figured I'd do better to charge than let him pick his own target.  A decent hit, and I might even open up a lane for my elephants.  I sent in the agema, Nick counter-charged . . .



 . . . and then, with nine dice, I rolled zero hits.  Zeeeeee-ro.

Nick smashed through my agema, and then pursued into my greek medium cavalry.



They didn't last long against his knight, who ended up wiping out the greeks too, at the cost of, if I remember, 2 VBU.  All that was holding my left flank together were the elephants.  Nick then proceeded to clear the skirmishers screening them with some close-range bow fire, put some VBU damage on the now-exposed elephants with some more archers, and send in another unit of knights to finish my poor Nellies off.



On a happier note, my persian horse and peltasts had managed to loop around, and were busily causing trouble on Nick's flank.  Not quite on the same scale mind, but it was at least a morale boost ;)

On top of that, I finally managed to chug the large pike phalanx into Nick's line, unscathed at that.  They made predictably short work of the archers in front of them, and had their eyes set on his camp.



It was now a bit of a race.  If I could take out the last blocking archer unit, sack his camp, and maybe chew up his flank a little more, we might have a game.



Or, alternatively, Nick could make 2-3 command checks, charge a third of the way across the table, and slam into the rear of my Lykian phalanx ;)



The Lykians lost the fight, were forced to recoil, couldn't because of the knights behind, routed, and lost me the game.

Ah, well.  As I think I said in the game, any time my phalanx actually makes it to combat, I have fun ;)  In retrospect, I probably would have done better to reverse my deployment, and put the phalanx opposite Nick's cavalry.  I would have had to be cautious about my flanks, but they would have been a better match for his cavalry.  Lesson learned.

Nick is apparently working on some kind of successor-era list, and I will eventually get back to my Ayyubid project, so I wouldn't be shocked at some kind of more era-appropriate match-up down the road.  In the mean time, I'll happily play Impetus at any excuse, so I expect there will be a rematch.

FMb

Resurrection. And death.

Hi,

Got in a somewhat spontaneous game of Impetus last night at the club.   Vonplutz, my opponent in the recent Maurice game, has been expressing some interest, specifically in hoplites, so Watts and I broke out our figures to provide him with a demo game.  As always, it was a squeaker.  Watts' army is in a bit of a transition, as he's moving from ER to Marian Romans, and it's a bit of a mish-mash of figs right now.  My Antigonids, however, were beautifully painted ;)

So pretty.

We decided to incorporate some of the rules updates recently released on the Impetus forums, along with a house rule suggested by Nick the Lemming, intended to remove a gamey situation that allows skirmishers to oblique into point-blank range, while avoiding ZoC issues.  We also played on the "tournament" sized table for a 300 point game, which had some impact on how things unfolded.  I chose to attack, we set up terrain (one side had a forest and marsh, I removed the forest on the other side), and we deployed.  I had my heavy infantry in the centre, my cavalry massed on the left, and a light infantry escort on my right.  Watts mostly mirrored me, with his gallic foot opposing my peltasts, his legions in the centre, and his horse opposing mine.

The Corinthian with no Name surveys the field.

Watts had a commander advantage (his was expert, mine fair), and his initiative rolls ran pretty hot, so he got first move through the bulk of the game.  Early moves were fairly straightforward.  I followed my usual approach vs. Watts, of trying to envelope his flank with my cav, turn it, and apply pressure while driving the phalanx through his guts.  In the early stages, this was complicated by my near total failure to make discipline rolls.

I find it hard to play with phalanx and not make train noises.

I had some concerns with the large unit of Gauls Watts was pushing through the woods.  They have a monster Impetus rating, and if they got in on the flank of my pike, could cause serious problems.  Luckily, they're impetuous, which meant I should be able to lead them off in another direction, at least for a while.  I tasked my peltasts (who've well earned the nickname "The Disposables") to that duty.

On the left, I pushed my medium and light cavalry forward, slowly advanced the elephants, and began to bring the Agema across to coordinate with the mercenary Greek phalanx.

Clever tactics, or poor deployment?  You decide!

As it turned out, I pushed the cavalry a little too far forward.  Not having paid much attention, I overlooked Watts' response, which was to flank my cavalry with his skirmishers, and unload at point-blank range.  Luckily, his dice were cold, and I got away with it.  This time ;)

Couldn't roll a discipline test to save my life.

On the right, the infantry lines continued to close, my advance still hampered by poor discipline.  It didn't help when I rolled snake-eyes for initiative, dropping my commander down to Poor quality!  I also pushed the Persian skirmishers forward, hoping to plink the Gauls.

Like I said.

On the next turn, my Greek light horse returned the Roman's fire, and managed to wipe out the offending unit.  Take that, Roman-boy!

First blood to the good guys.  Annoying skirmishers removed by my trusty Greeks.

Things were starting to heat up on the left.  Watts put both his cavalry on opportunity, and there was a turn or two of muttering and measuring and "are you interrupting?" while we weighed our respective chances.  In the meantime, my heffalumps trundled up, and the Agema continued their sweep across to support the infantry.

Kind of like curling.  SWEEP!  SWEEP!  HARDER!

In the centre, the skirmish lines continued to duel, with my boys getting the better of it for a while.

Because, why fight fair?

On the right, things started to heat up.  The Gauls, provoked by the impudent Persians, charged ahead.  The Persians evaded, running right through the peltasts behind them, who ended up receiving the charge instead.  At 8 dice to 4, I figured to lose this one, but the dice gods were with me, and he actually lost the combat, recoiling from my doughty disposables.

Come at me.  No, please.

This was sort of the tension point in the battle.  The lines were about to engage across a broad front, and it was still pretty much anyone's game.

Like the falcon, about to stoop . . . .

The fight started on the right, with Watts charging home his gallic and German cavalry (one of which fell short).  Sadly, it's also the part where I got so caught up in what was going on, I started forgetting to take pictures ;)  I'm pretty sure we forgot about Vonplutz as well . . . .

Actually got lucky here.  My Greeks recoiled, and almost backed into the elephants.  That would have been a jumbo problem.  

The cavalry fight on the left eventually came out in my favour, with me losing my Greeks, but my Persians left intact, while Watts lost both of his units.  My mercenary phalanx charged home, destroying one legion and mauling another before going down under a swarm of gladius-wielding proto-imperialist fanatics.

Romans.  Romans everywhere.

On the right, my disposables pulled the Gauls waaaaay off course before going down.  Watts spent most of the rest of the game trying to bring them back into the fight, but at Discipline C, he had a tough time getting them moving.  Meanwhile, the dual pain-train of the pike phalanx and the agema cavalry crashed into the Roman lines.

Agema on the left, pain-train centre, slow-poke Gauls bottom right.  

Both ground their way through legions, dealing out damage left and right, but slowing taking hits themselves.  Things hung on a knife edge.  Watts held a slight advantage - all he needed to do was kill one more unit, and I'd break, while I needed to take out a legion.  On the other hand, my elephants and Persian cavalry were fresh and closing in, I had 3 heavily damaged legions in front of my pike, and my Agema, battered heroes all, had fought clear of the melee, trampling Romans into the dirt as they went.

The agema fight clear, the elephants lumber.  Persians are actually out of shot to the left at this point, something like 31 cm away from their target.

It all came down to who broke first.  My elephants lumbered forward, but couldn't shake of their disruption, slowing their advance.  My pike surged ahead, but couldn't break the stubborn legions.  Then, out of nowhere, my Persian cavalry lept forward.  Shaking off disruption, they moved once . . . twice . . . three times, and charged home into the rear of the Roman general's legion.  All I needed to do was win the combat  . . . and neither of us did damage.  Another round!  Again, my pike pushed ahead.  Almost there, but no!  The legion just would not die.  Again, my Persians slammed into the general's legion (we forgot about the auto recoil on medium cavalry).  This time, the Romans got two hits, I rolled for cohesion on a target of 2 . . .

 . . . and rolled 6.  4 points damage.  Good bye Persians, good by game.

Oh, the tragedy!  The gnashing of teeth!  The once again fantastically fun game of Impetus, where victory and defeat hang by a thread!

A 6?  Really?  You couldn't roll that for attack dice?

What a blast of a game.  We were talking about it afterwards, and the only time I can remember not having a great time playing Impetus is when my Antigonids took on an all horse-archer Ayyubid army.  Cannot recommend it enough.

The small tweaks we applied this game all worked pretty well.  We used a smaller playing area, which made it harder to abuse my cavalry advantage, but still allowed for fluid movement of horse.  We applied the official amendments / clarifications to evasion, which cut down the abuse of light horse, and we used our point blank house rule (PB shooting must be directly forward), which eliminated the "skirmisher shuffle" problem.  All in all, I think useful additions to the game.

Vonplutz seems to have caught the bug, as he's now putting through an order for some Xyston Athenians.  This has prompted me to get back to work on my Spartans, and go through my figs with an eye to some other options (*cough* Persians *cough*).  Next update should be on the weekend, as I've finally finished at least a basic paintjob for the Blazing Sun carrier, but the next base of Spartans are primed and I've started on their skin, so it shouldn't be too long before they make an appearance.

FMB