Phokians in Game 4 at Reading
This time the Phokians were up against a traditional and pike-heavy enemy in a Asiatic Early Successor army.
The dice had left me as defender at last, but the Asiatics elected to attack through the mountains, which coupled with a rash of Phokian terrain (even with the vineyard not fitting on) all of which virtually fell on the Asiatic side of the table left them with a messy starting position, and plenty of obviously exposed flanks should they try and press an attack
Largely ignoring the more obvious part of the table, the Asiatics elected to pursue a brave yet also cautious strategy of massing their forces on my left, deploying many of their spearmen in an olive grove (which they soon discovered was far more tricky to move through than they had expected.
This had left my army unbalanced also, and the Spartans were called upon to move swiftly and block off the Asiatic pikemen from emerging from the mountain pass - but surprisingly they seemed reluctant to emerge, with much of the Successor generals efforts being spent on seeking to build some sort of advantage with light horse on his right.
Things were soon looking hairy for the end of the Phokian lines, although the Citizenry Hoplites were to be fair not overly concerned about the potential imminent death of an artillery crew and a load of slaves and peasants.
With just one command facing the enemy attack, the Phokian general struggled to move up his artillery to menace the pikemen whilst simultaneously reorganising his defence against the flanking horsemen.
But none of this was of much concern to the Spartans, who started their normal tactic of charging at anything that they could see - uphill, half way up a mountain - frankly they didn't seem to care, and soon the Successor general was forced into some desperate reorganizations to prevent hordes of spearmen and peasants from overwhelming his small but tough Alpini mountain regiment
Asiatic Mercenary Auxilia march to work on the top of a mountain
Eager to help where they could, a detachment of Spartans had also moved swiftly around to support the flanks of their paymasters, and formed up as a bulwark against further Successor aggression.
The Successor Generals personal retinue formed up and considered a charge against the red dressed men in skirts. But then thought better of it and retreated again.
After some more indecisive skirmishing on the mountains, the clock ticked down and the game ended as a 5-5 draw
Post Match Summary
The Successors proved reluctant to attack out of the mountain and forest fortress that the terrain dice had provided them with, and the Phokians simply lacked the muscle to go in after them. The Phokian comedy flank march had picked the wrong flank also, and so could do little save rush across the table, but without the element of surprise their arrival was anticipated and neutralized by the Greeks redeploying lots of Ps (O) to close off any residual risk that might have emerged.
Post Competition Summary
The Phokians proved a remarkably interesting army - the artillery posed lots of questions for my opponents, but only really came into their own in the one game where I defended in actual play terms as well as in the game mechanics. The placement of terrain - how much, where, when - was certainly something I got wrong however - giving my opponents too little opportunity to chance an attack in several games. This ended up putting in in the situation of trying to force the game and go forwards, which often meant the artillery were either left behind, or more usually were dragged along at great pip wastage, and then still failed to get into the game. Next time - if there is one - possibly less spears and artillery, more Ps (I), and make a conscious decision whether to use the artillery or not when attacking!