Field of Glory in The Roman World - 2010

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One game down, and I'm very near top of the table - and that means a game against a LH army - the textbook Ancient-world dominating Empire of the Bosporans awaited me in the afternoon game.

Pictures of Figures who could be Bosporans from my Ancients Photo Directory

My Second opponents list was Bosporans - click here to see it

Here's the game..

Stone me! It's so unusual to have no terrain on table isn't it ? Puzzled by this unexpected development, I came up with the innovative tactic of spreading my army out in a thin line.

3 units of my light horse charged forward to try and pin the Bosporan heavy cavalry back, and give me time to move my legions into their path

The Bosporans had nothing really on their right

There were a load of Bosporan lancers facing my legions - but with more LH on my right, and the bowmen in enfilade it was fairly well set up for me to receive a charge.

The tow legions suddenly realised that they were only two legions against 5 or 6 units of lancers.

The left flank looked like it was mine for the taking - if the Bosporans decided to leave anything behind when they left

The Bosporan Poor Light foot moved up and put a sandal behind my light horse units rear edge, whilst a unit of lancers moved up in an incredibly precise way in an attampt to undertake some DBM-like maneuver which i was sure was going to be very clever, but which I didn't really understand in the context of simulating ancient warfare.

A third legion steamed in from the left, under a hail of slingshots from the crappy infantry.

The Bosporans had reinforced their weak right with a unit of unprotected cavalry.... This was good news as it was possibly one of the few things on table my infantry might be able to catch

Here's the setup as the two armies close for the inevitable Lancer on Legion combat

The three legions have maneuvered to try and tempt the Bosporans into some unplanned charges, but the Bosporan IC stops them all. Towards the bottom of the frame, a unit of Roman bowmen try and set themselves into a position in which an enemy cavalry unit charging at them will be forced to conform into a position from which they cannot break off.

But with some highly accurate micro wheeling during their charges, the Bosporans manage to charge in wherever they want.

The Bosporans lose a base or so in the middle, but the Romans respond by losing their General in the center!

His units reaction to was drop a cohesion level, totally destroying the plan to make the Bosporans bounce off

In the resulting melee, the Bosporans hit with almost every dice they roll, whilst the Romans do well, but not as well as the Bosporans. The unit in the middle, missing its general, breaks...

Two Bosporans units bounce off, but the fragmented one bursts through the middle into the second line... whilst the one at the top of the picture is somehow in partial frontal contact with the steady legion, but has only contributed to combat as an overlap so manages to stay in place against the disrupted bowmen.

The second line of the Romans bear the brunt or an ineffectual fragmented charge.

A fruitless Charge.

Across the line the Romans move up seeking to press the Bosporans backwards - but all the LF escape..

The non-contacting yet contacting legion conforms to the Bosporans who were not in frontal contact with it during the Roman turn. But then loses the combat and drops a level of cohesion.

The Romans continue to put the squeeze on.

Having run out of legions, the Roman army is forced to rely on shooting and overlaps in combat to take down the huge volumes of lancers.

More lancers return to the fray, and one of the last two legions becomes fragmented.

...and becomes removed from play

The Roman auxilia are shooing light foot away, but they simply cannot beat so many lancers

With nothing left to protect them, some of the Dom Rom Auxilia do their Dom Rom thing and turn and run !

An uneven struggle

With an inevitable outcome...

Bad news for one of the remaining legions as Lancers stream through the gaps and hit it in the flank. Thats the end of it really...a losing draw

Post Match Summary

Well, a one dice roll game here. The loss of a general in the very first combat of the game, in a melee that his unit won, really knackered any chance of the glorious Romans beating this horse of faceless Empire-less maybe Barbarian, maybe expatriate Greek, frankly who knows pseudo Parthian horsemen and skirmishers. That was bad enough, but to also lose a base, and lose cohesion as well - doh!

The Generals in play had little choice but to try the tedious "deploy across the table in a line" approach - and I felt the chaps did quite well to re-form the 3 legions and get them all in front of the Bosporan cavalry, and frankly the Legion need to be the Lancer-killers in this matchup. When they failed, there was little else I had in my locker to respond.

What was mystefying was that the Bosporans had the potential to exercise far more mobility than my pedestrian forces, yet they were happy to stick all their lancers in a line and charge them into my best troops. Admittedly, sticking my best troops into the enemys best troops was also my plan, however given the fact nothing else I owned could actually catch any other part of the enemy army is something of a mitigating circumstance here I feel. Anyways, I didn't lose - so roll on the next game

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Hannibal's Post Match Analysis

What a brilliant idea to change your army composition to deal with these type of armies. Lets see - what could possible have helped here. Erm, maybe 5 legionary instead of 3, units to take on the enemy's 5 lancer units? Or maybe an IC to make you more resilient to shooting?

And what could you have lived without? Perhaps that second unit of unprotected bowmen - as then you'd have only lost one of the, not both? And those two units of Roman Bow-only LH were absolutely fantastic against the Bw/Sw armed enemy LH weren't they - oh, sorry, I meant THEY WERE TOTALLY FRICKING USELESS!!

I think you were very lucky indeed not to be totally rolled over here. Your army is looking like a liability, not a clever improvement.

....OK - roll on error-strewn game No3 please.....

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