Field of Glory Wargaming at Warfare 2009

Seleucids vs Late Republican Romans

Pictures of Greek Foot from my Ancients Photo Directory

The last game - hoorah! And a theoretically similarly ploddy army to face across the table - Later Seleucids who's list is available here. The table was a textbook ancient battlefield, with just one steep hill lurking to narrow it downa touch. The location for a Legionary vs Pike faceoff was almost penciled in already. 

I wonder what the point is of living? It doesn't seem to get you anywhere.

The Seleucids had a bit of everything, Pikes, Elephants, Gauls, cataphracts. However the brave Romans were not worried after the previous year when they had realised that all these various troop types were still on a dead evens factor against Legionaries.  The boys in red raced forward eagerly secure in the knowledge that they sort of once remembered reading that legions beat pikes on the Slitherine forum.

The Roman advance was inexorable as they swept towards the waiting Greeks with almost no real opposition so far. 

The Greeks were a manly army, all apart from the facile skirmishers who faffed around ineffectually on the wing - but with a narrow battlefield I had a whole 2 legions to spare to sweep them up with. 

Do you believe it? Bloody yobs!

Having made an initial display of force, my left flank cleverly turned around and regrouped, buying time yet again for the main legionary strike force to do its thang long before my weaker troops would be called into action. 

The Romans were by now almost wetting themselves with excitement as the prospect of a real, proper mano-a-mano fight reared its head instead of all that light horse herding tosh they had had to endure in the previous round. If the Greeks were equally priapic at the thought of combat they hid it well behind some of the most disturbingly wobbly spears and pikes ever seen in the ancient world.   

Brilliant strategic vision - and a bit of rules-lawyer-y wheeling and hanging back to tempt a pike block into a rash charge on one legionary unit and then clobbering it with an intercept charge from another - allowed the Romans to strike what would hopefully prove a decisive blow, with a double overlap and several round of combat to make it count they were off and running... 

The Greek line moved up, and a General committed himself early doors to help the distressed pikemen! 

Caesar: Twenty-five years it took to grow that apple tree. I planted it in the spring of 1965. Feeding it, spraying it, mulching the soil, watering it through the droughts, giving it an annual dressing of potash and hydrogen every January. Not one sodding apple.  Brutus: Come on, lets go plant another one.

 

With their flanks protected by spearmen, a further Roman legion made tracks to where the real action way, relying on his own Greeks to hold the line against some cavalry and medium foot spearmen - of course, with the Gladiators playing a supporting roll as always. 

The Legions were dishing out a real pounding and taking advantage of their double overlap and the difficulties the Greeks were facing in trying to impale legionaries with such bendy pikes ...to inflict literally no damage whatsoever on the isolated pike block, which failed to react or flinch in any way to the onslaught! 

And whilst this was happening yet more legions decided that their time too was here, and remembering the battering they had dished out to the Gaeasati in Game 2, tried to make their re-acquaintance as soon as possible .  

The main action was now starting to take shape, as the two battle lines clattered into each other - and the Greek pikes clattered into all sorts of things arranged at strange angles spread across the table. The isolated, overlapped pike block of course now had the upper hand, but the Superior Argyaspid silver shields were finding it much harder going - they had better morale, but had not trained with the ancient worlds answer to the . But with almost all the Romans committed with the aid of 2 generals and overlaps what could possibly go wrong? 

What language are you talking in now? It appears to be Bollocks.

The Romans repulsed the Greek Elephants, and prepared to smash the unfortunate and unsupported Argyaspids in the flank - but on the left of shot, the unfeasibly successful pike block which had by now survived 26 rounds of combat was winning the day as 2-body Fragmented markers sprouted like evil roman mushrooms behind my lines .... 

Also continuing to fight were the 2-strong Companion unit, giving my monster 6-base Superior legion real problems all on their own. Fortunately by now a pike block had been broken - allowing my legions to step forwards and take on the (of course, totally unconcerned) elephants before they had the chance to charge my own Fragmented legion ..

  

The Romans were grinding forward in the middle as well, and relying on the ++ against the Gaesati to hold them firm until the rest of the legions arrived, another unit committed itself to battle. 

Sunday morning, what is there to be miserable about? Sunday morning, the first day of a new week. Im going to a nice little potter about in the garden where the insanities of life cant possibly upset me.

 

Even the Greek Spearmen were in action, and quickly proved that a General and rear support from the Gladiators were needed to keep them on the table in the face of an attack by Average Cataphracts and loose formation infantry spearmen...

 

But even as the Argyaspids feared they had breathed their last, some pox-ridden Greek skirmishers lurking on a rocky outcrop loosed a couple of arrows, and Lo and Behold, the legion poised to deliver a devastating flank charge was suddenly paralyzed and Fragmented! 

And with the flank-protecting force now split in two as one half had attempted to take out the in theory much greater threat of the Argyaspids, the other Legion were playing a slow and painful game of advancing up the table in the teeth of enemy arrows and javelins as the light horse used their inexhaustible supply of missiles to pelt the unfortunate legionaries. 

Elsewhere, the Roman Legions in the middle suddenly evaporated and collapsed against the invincible pikemen, and the two lines of disconnected Greek foot were able to regroup and combine to inflict yet more pain on a lonely legionary unit who had confidently expected to overlap a pike block, win and be off for an early session in the local taverna a good 30 minutes ago. At least by now the Argyaspids and some more pikemen were in rout, allowing more legions to swarm round the flank of the Greek line.. but would the embattled legion hold up two pike blocks for long enough for them to arrive ?  

They went disrupted....! 

They were removed! 

The first 50 miles on the go all the way - a sense of direction - bowling along. Get past 60 and everything slows down to a sudden crawl and you realise youre not going anywhere any more. All the things you thought you were going to do that never came to anything. You cant turn the clock back - its one way traffic just gradually grinding to a complete halt.

But at least this freed up a disrupted marker for the use of the flank legion who were starting to wonder where exactly Greek light horse managed to store so many javelins ? 

The theoretically better Greek spearmen on my team were also starting to feel the pinch as they were whittled down by the enemy, with only fantastic morale and death tests saving them from breaking due to base losses and cohesion drops in the same turn. 

The Benny Hill Music was by now sounding out across the table as units manfully chased each other in a desperate attempt to inflict pain and suffering - although the inability of the Romans to catch the many Seleucid light foot was a form of pain in itself. 

The Romans notched up another small victory, as the 2-base Companion unit exploded - opening up the flank of the unwieldy pike formation to the onrushing tide of Roman steel.   

Aaargh! But the Super-size-me Greeks in Roman service had been broken as well, allowing the cataphracts to crash into the morale-test-failing superior Gladiators, and disrupting another legion with their flight as well. 

The Pikemen meanwhils had split neatly into two formations, wheeled gracefully after their exertions and shifted to both face the Roman legions bearing down on them and also threaten the now disrupted legion to the left. Of course. 

But the Gladiators had a few tricks left in them yet! They recovered cohesion, and started handing out a whupping to the bemused Average Cataphracts whilst the Roman cavalry, delighted that they had found something to fight, managed to charge the Thracian rhomphia men in the open. Suddenly the loss of the Greeks was not such a bad thing after all, as it had allowed my theoretically worse but actually better units to get involved. 

A wasp in an ice cube? What next? Dog turd on a cocktail stick?

The Thracians started to wobble - but so did the Gladiators as the battle swung back and forth. 

Legions meanwhile looked on in resignation as the LH-like phalanx danced away from their imploring grasp . 

Keen to keep the Greeks honest, one legion even pursued them to prevent a rally by the Argyaspids.  

But suddenly, with time looming, the end of the battle was nigh. Only a complete disaster would tip the Roman army to defeat, but surely the Superior, often battle-winning Gladiators could not drop 2 levels of cohesion in a single combat AND then break and cause the Roman cavalry to also drop to fragmented even with the presence of one of their generals to bolster their morale? 

With the last 2 dice rolls of the game - guess fricking what?    

The Romans were utterly defeated. 

Post Match Summary

Another incomprehensible defeat. We honorably took on the enemy's main troops and by and large beat them - despite the astonishingly against the odds performance of that first pike block. By the end of things the enemy's pikemen were fleeing like small piglets flee from a 3-legged bacon slicer as they tried to avoid confrontation with my  voracious legions, and we'd nailed the nudey guys, killed off the companions, and left the enemy a pale shadow of their former selves. 

Yet, still we lost.

I don't believe it ! 

Hannibal's Post Match Analysis

I believe it. And I've seen it all before. 

You take a small ploddy army - that you set out to use just to fit those ridiculous yet admittedly nicely painted Gladiators into....and then it turns out they are as rubbish as they sound on paper - and then you moan and whinge just because your plan - such as it was - actually worked.

Because, lets face it, your plan consisted of "deploy the Gladiators and hope they do better than they deserve to because they are cool figures". And in a couple of games they actually did far better than they deserved to. They won the first game, killed 2 units in the 3rd game, and survived far longer than was reasonable in Games 2 + 4 as well. So what are you complaining about. 

Now, in terms of actually doing well, lets do some math shall wel.

• Best game - Opponents army 12 units, 1 skirmisher. Same as you.

Other Games: 

•  Seleucids, 17 units including 6 skirmishers, 
• Gauls 13 units including 2 skirmishers and 4 cavalry/chariots who can evade
• Sarmatians , 18 units including 12 skirmishers and 3 evading cavalry units

Can you see a pattern there? The armies you couldn't catch and who had lots more units than you were the ones you were unable to beat. 

If you;d followed Simons advice in the Fog Wiki for LRR you'd have picked a couple of units of skirmisher LH instead of the comedy Gladiators, and the "oh I just painted them too" average spearmen, and maybe you would have had points to turn the Roman Cavalry into something half useful too (as you managed to lose them in almost every battle I seem to recall). Then you could have hoovered up a few enemy skirmish units and then you would at least have had a chance of beating some of these monstrosities. 

I do hope you deploy a better army at the next competition. Something with good armour, a bit of a turn of speed and a nice simple doctrine as well as that may suit you more

And, what;s more, if you think Zamora has even half a chance of being on that plane to Cape Town next year , you're even more cracked that I though. But then again, Roy Hodgson never got to invade Italy - although with his knowledge of Switzerland and Milan perhaps he could have done a better job of keeping those elephants alive than I managed....hmmm...

Thank god this is over though.

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