Field of Glory in The Roman World - 2010

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Third Game, and it's Graham Briggs and his Magically Unambitious Trousers - another EA Persian army. Having played the player/army combo before at Britcon 08 so I expected a similar army.

Pictures of Persians from my Ancients Photo Directory

My opponents list was Early Aechemenid Persian

Here's the game..

The Persians had deployed all their Immortals and cavalry on one side, behind a big blob of rough going. The rest of the table was open, and defended by a LH unit. My army was spread across the table

For once, the Roman LH are confident of bossing their enemy

No opposition ...

On the left, Roman LH bottled up their opponents

The Cowardly Persians are corner sitting !!

With only a few moves gone, the Roman Auxilia decide that there is no real need for two units to steam into 16 Immortals quite yet, and turn and retreat whist the Legions move up.

The Roman left wing swings round to close the trap on the hapless Persians

The Immortals debate moving out of the Rough going as a legion hoves into view from the right of the shot.

One Auxilia unit loses contact with it's General... and is left behind

Grahams dissapointingly mundane shirt looks on as the Persian army shrinks backwards into the corner

It's inexorable....

As their potential opponents retreat, the Immortals as one pick up their huge wicker pavises and turm, reform and march off to face the new flank threat

The Persian Immortals were able to turn, expand and redeploy faster than the Legions could march forward

The squeeze was on.

A tempting flank. If only the huge formation comprised of thousands of bowmen shooting from behind pavises was one that would have found it difficult to maneuver, this would have been a great position for the Romans

The Persians decided that their cavalry push on the left of shot was a bit of a waste of time, and started to redeploy those as well.

Nearly two hours into the game, and the first cohesion test is taken by some Roman light horse after being shot at by some Poor infantry. And of course, they fail it with a double-one. Pants.

As the legions labour onwards, the Immortals continue to dance into an ever smaller corner.

Loads of legions and auxilia pile forwards

By now there is a vague chance of combat taking place in the forseeable future. A unit of Immortals has decided it might consider fighting against Auxilia, having comprehensively outpaced the plodding legions.

Graham's dice and tape measure start to feel claustrophobic as the Romans turn on the squeeze

The Aechemenid Immortals appeared to have left a flank open!

And in another astonishing coup, the Romans loot the Persian camp.

Removing the camp however opens up the field for the far stronger Persian cavalry to scare off the Roman LH, and clatter into some Auxilia.

The exposed flank is suddenly unexposed, as the Persians dredge up a tactic from DBM days and put an intervening element into play. However, it would only be a temporary delay - the Legion could charge and bounce them out of the way.

More Auxilia occupy their proper niche in the battlefield ecosystem and move into the rough going.

Auxilia move forwards under a hail of arrows...seeking to restrict the Immortals scope for sneaky moves, thus ensuring when the flank charge finally comes in they will still be in place

Auxilia force Persian cavalry back after maintaining cohesion throughout combat.

After beating off the Persian Cavalry, the confident Auxilia move up to press the Persians back against their supporting units should they dare to charge again. They also are now ready to charge home against the Immortals if they dare...

As they prepare to charge the blocking Cavalry unit, the legion take 3 hits from shooting, and promptly lose a base and drop to disrupted. As they are the Light Spear armed unit, this means they need to pass a test to charge - which they then fail...

More proper legions are now getting into charge range as they flood into the middle, and the shooter-target Legion also recover cohesion. With the clock clearly running out it's time to take a few risks as the Persians cower like 7 year old girls into an ever smaller corner of the board...

Unlike the limp-wristed legions, The Persian Immortals have no qualms about charging - and in so doing they undertake a Wheel of Cheese!

" The Wheel of Cheese" 

The Wheel of Cheese means the Immortals no longer have a Roman unit behind their flank! And because they have contacted 2 separate Auxilia units who are not equal base widths apart, they will not conform either, so will remain in this safe-from-flank-charge position. It's like the worst elements of DBM had never died!

The Persians don't get the benefit of their shooting, but with a General and being Superior are still decisively better at impact.

The Romans are now starting finally to get to grips with the Persians as they have essentially run out of table to skulk away into, and Disrupted markers sprout across the board.

With the clock clicking down, the Romans are marginally ahead, and commit a couple of Generals to the 2 Auxilia units in combat to trty and shore them up before the game ends.

One Auxilia unit finally breaks on 50% casualties, but the "Intervening Element" Cavalry unit also drops to Fragmented, giving the Romans the narrowest possible victory.

Post Match Summary

The Lipizzaner Horsemanship of my opponents made this into something which really struggled to be classified as a recreation of an ancient battle, as both my, and especially my opponents armies were simply too maneuverable to get drawn into unfavourable combats.

The Immortals in particular seemed to maneuver in a fashion which was more Immoral than Immortal, as they wriggled like an eel on a hook in a bucket of grease dipped in olive oil and then dropped onto an air-hockey table. How my poor legions could hope to ever catch up with such ridiculous maneuverability was hard to see - and when my opponent started pulling out Sandals of Intervene and Wheels of Cheese, things got really really silly.

What was satisfying was that the new units seemed to add quite a bit to the army, as the ability to shoot and inflict cohesion tests on the enemy without risking themselves made a big impact on the outcome - the Persian Cavalry were essentially defeated by shooting alone, as were the Thracians, whereas in combat, even against the legions, the odds would have been much closer. Anyways, a good start - roll on the next game

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Hannibal's Post Match Analysis

This wasn't really a battle, so I really struggle to express any opinion on it whatsoever. Clearly you should have moved faster, and taken more risks and been successful with them, but other than that it was frankly a surreal experience even just reading the report, I hate to think what it was like to actually be involved.

Lets hope you get a decent draw in the final round as that's the only thing that can save you now

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