Field of Glory Wargaming at Britcon 2009 - Sunny Manchester 2009
As the second day staggered through to the early lunch break the jubilant Romans clawed their way further up the leaderboard. Next up were some of our actual honest to goodness historical enemies - Sassanids The list is available here
Pictures of Sassanids from my Ancients Photo Directory
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Sassanids were rather different to the one I'd played in practice, with a monster 3 units of well telegraphed Elephants coming out in the last deployment section. The usual couple of bits of rough terrain somewhat constrained them at deployment, but the game looked set for a solid slog
The game started as my Roman LH swiftly moved to bottle up the Sassanid cavalry and try and hold them up as my auxilia raced for the adjacent rough terrain.
In basketball terms this was very much a full court press with a pretty solid line of legionnaires able to block up the open ground, and auxilia doing what they were supposed to and working the flanks of the enemy in the uneven ground.
Battle was joined almost immediately with both sides happy to commit troops - although the Sassanids did have that "skirmish" trick up their sleeves...
But skirmishing was little benefit against so many armoured infantry and with vastly more units than my opponent the Superior Roman bowmen were able to sneak into some gaps and pepper the soon to be disheartened Sassanid cavalry.
The Elephants charged in - but of the 2 units, one didn't last well at all, and soon it looked like the most potent elements of the Sassanid army were not long for this world.
Further along the line, the other elephants charged in unsupported - but did considerably better, disrupting the legion at impact.
Elsewhere, further to the right the massive block of auxilia had driven off the Sassanid cavalry wing with some aplomb, and this opened up the flank of the elephants for the bowmen, who had to decide whether they might have time to turn and charge the enemy flank, or if a simple overlap would be good enough to tip the balance.
Right on the other edge of the table, the Sassanid Clibanarii had failed to force a passage through the gap between the wood and a field, and were now reliant on their lighter colleagues on horseback and with slings to prevent them being caught in a trap, from which they can't escape...
There appeared to be serious fisticuffs going on across the entire width of the table - but a closer look showed that the Sassanid Calibarii had in general turned tail and either evaded or fled, leaving pretty much just the Elephant Corps to continue to uphold the honour of Azhura Mazdahurahurahuru (I think its their god?). But the Smellies were doing the business, and had fragmented and disrupted some of their opponents..
But back in the cornfield, the jaws of the trap crumbled beneath withering bow fire, and a unit of armoured auxilia broke and fled as they fell to fragmented and then were charged by the Sassanid cavalry!
Suddenly all bets were off, as the elephants, after fighting for about a week, totally unsupported and overlapped, managed to trample the last legionaries facing them and power forwards, leaving the Roman bowmen glad to be superior and hence unruffled by the adjacent death of their colleagues.
With the battle swinging in the wind, 3 Roman units, almost totally surrounding a Clibanarii unit made a concerted charge from all angles! Surely we would catch them and strike a blow for the Glory of Rome!
Erm, no.... the Sassanids somehow managed to get away in an ridiculous LH-tastic evade move, leaving several auxiliary units hanging in the breeze.....
The other unit of elephants still fought on as well - Caesar was starting to
despair of whether there was any way the Sassanid army could be either caught or
killed! 
On the flank, even our superior and javelin armed LH were finding it heavy going against the Sassanid light horse.
Things turned ugly fairly soon, and it was lucky that Roman general had been on hand to rescue the routing auxilia and patch them up and turn them round or the entire flank would look very empty indeed for the team in red.
But despite all these tactical setbacks, the strategic situation continued to look really promising, and as the Roman commanders rushed back and forth reviving the flagging morale of their men across the width of the park, the noose tightened on the Clibanarii units.
With space running out, finally they were forced into making a valiant stand
instead of evading away like scythian-style girls, and with the Sassanid camp
also in our sights the Romans closed the trap.
Back on the left, the situation was now coming slowly under control, and the Roman commander managed to withdraw and regroup even more of the units under his command, as the revitalized auxilia started to get confident yet again in the ploughed field.
Soon the Romans were pulling the isolated Sassanids apart as they maneuvered them out of any situations where they might cause danger to the Roman rear.
With the left flank stabilizing and the center looking like a victory was imminent the only big fat grey fly in the ointment was the un-killable elephants, who had yet again battered a legion to fragmented.
The bright spot in the battle suddenly became incandescent as finally the Sassanids ran out of room, and legions and auxilia started to skittle them over, as the sheer density of men and horses took them way beyond the chance of any further successful evades.
With one legion already down, the incredible elephants carried on fighting, forcing the 2nd legion to adopt the rather unorthodox tactic of engaging them with their supporting archers directly !
..and as if by magic, stunned at the impudence of being attacked by men in no armour and without swords, the elephants finally gave up the ghost! The Romans were now within touching distance of utter victory.
So, an ideal time for an embarrassing debacle with the Superior bowmen, who attempted to herd the 3rd Sassanid elephant unit away from the Roman camp but who ended up in a bit of a shambled as the elephants turned around and stomped the luckless archers.
But that was to be the last of the debacles - as to the utter satisfaction of the Roman commander, he finally came up with a foolproof method to stop enemy LH escaping from a charge to break the Sassanid army and win the game!
Post Match Summary
As
Caesar, I'm somewhat surprised to be able to announce yet another victory. This
one felt really hard work and I suspect it was mostly due to my strategic genius
of deploying 15 units against just 11 for the Sausages, allowing me to gang up
on the enemy almost every time any units came head to head.
The terrain was also a bit of a bonus - fortunately the Sassanid general hadn't spotted the possibility to take a river and a road and remove large chunks of terrain from the edges of the table or we would have had significantly less scope to narrow the field and try and deal with his greater potential maneuverability.
Eventually though, sheer weight of numbers told - arguably along with a reluctance of the Sassanid general to order his Clibanarii to bunch together and charge home instead of evading and shooting across the width of the table - which could have caused my auxilia in particular some serious headaches if the dice had fallen badly for them.
But, another win - Hoorah!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
9
out of 10 wins? Maybe you don't actually need me anymore perhaps?
Or perhaps not!
How on earth did you conspire to lose 2 full legions ? Let me tell you. You totally enveloped the elephants, with vast numbers of units, and yet you failed at every opportunity to get in even one single flank charge. Instead you took the short-termist, greedy option of adding in units as overlaps, which really did almost nothing as it contributed maybe one extra hit per turn. You therefore relied on luck - more specifically, the enemy having some bad luck - to kill off the most potent force in his army, at a time when the rest of it was clearly unwilling to engage with you.
Remember - flank charges kill people really quickly. Overlaps are nice, but not as good.
Now, write that down somewhere. It may come in useful later.
Lets see how the next game goes then ?
View My Stats for My FoG Pages
