Field of Glory Wargaming at The International Wargame Federation Euro Championshships - Rome 2009

Aaah - its Rome, so it must be lunchtime! 

After a snack of several sandwiches worth of randomly filled cheese and something else (oh, and some beer. Well, quite a lot really. In fact, I was quite well tanked by the afternoon game came around..) the FoG crowd (mob) discovered we were all playing outside in the afternoon, prompting a rush to the hat stall and the chemists (for sun tan lotion).

In terms of gaming, this al-fresco experience saw me drawn against an Ottomanian army who's list is available here 

Pictures of Ottomanians from my Ancients Photo Directory

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Pedor immediately attempted to intimidate me by wearing his "Yellow Jersey" earned as an overnight Britcon leader, and I was intimidated - I really can't wear yellow as it doesn't suit my skin tone and it always washes all the colour out of my face, so in the fashion stakes (which is what counts in Italy) Pedro was one-nil up already. 

My light horse pushed up along the edge of the table near a large wood... 

In the middle the legions advanced steadfastly across what appears in retrospect to have been a snowy plain (what ever happened to "weather" in games eh? That was a barrel of laughs!). I had thinned them out considerably as the terrain had fallen in almost entirely inconsequential places but the army they were facing was mighty small and compact. There must be a trick or two up their copious Ottoman sleeves surely? 

With no terrain to form an obvious place to attack, the Legions had formed up into 2 separate groups, connected by Auxilia 12 legions and 6 supporting archers braced themselves for the initial French rush.

By now my Roman light horse were being intimidated by better painted opponents with significantly more stylish shield designs to boot. But Superiority was on the side of the Roman shooters, and whilst under normal circumstances the supporting auxilia would also have been a great comfort, with the Ottoman Janissaries advancing swiftly up as well things were a bit more dicey.

Swinging back over to the other flank, the Ottoman LH were facing an almost complete wall of Romans, all armoured up to the nines save for the sole unit of archers, who looked set to do much shredding of Turkish robes and quilted armour with their superior bows and ability to fire from a 2nd rank as well. If only the supporting Ps could shoot too! The Ottomans had by now already decided that having their cavalry split into two was not a good idea, and those on this side of the table had made a swift exit over to my right. 

In the center, that intimidating yellow shirt hovered on the edge of my vision as large chunks of the Roman army made a bee-line for the rather paltry looking Ottoman forces. 

With Caesar in attendance to play his true historical role in providing his men with "A Magical Shield of Invulnerability From Arrows!" two units of auxilia barreled towards the Janissaries as over on the wing, the superiority of the Roman LH repeatedly failed to help them shoot up the Ottomans. The Ottoman lancers were better than my Roman javelinmen, but their bowmen were worse, and so a standoff developed.

By now it was all starting to develop quite nicely, with my army separating on a pivot of a unit of auxilia hot-footing it towards the enclosed field slap bang in the middle of the Ottomans deployment area, and ganging up on the Turks to either side.   

The auxilia were by now fully fixed from their earlier battering, and waded into the Ottomans with great glee - but limited actual success as it turned out. The Ottoman lancers had also dared a charge, and were now somewhat out of position..  

But back in the middle, the Romans were quietly confident - although potentially the Ottomans could still evade, this would leave the flanks of their Janissaries gravely exposed.

And as this was happening, on the other side of the table several thousand points worth of Romans were being tied up by a handful of Ottoman skirmishers who refused to fail any cohesion tests despite being bereft of Generals and being shot at by Superior bowmen on a regular basis.

The Auxiliaries facing off the janissaries realised quite quickly that whilst they enjoyed the advantages of armour, they were rather under equipped in the "bodies" department when fighting some twice their number of Superior bowmen - and one units quickly evaporated. This prompted the Ottoman cavalry in the middle to take heart and charge home against the legions, who had been waiting for this all their lives... 

Unfortunately for the legions, those lives then proved to be surprisingly short, as despite being just as good as their opponents, they fell to fragmented before their colleagues could move up to join in the fray..

Then, clearly, loads of stuff happened very quickly indeed, and so quickly in fact that I missed all the action. Essentially one unit of (elite) Ottoman cavalry broke through my right (against the fragged legion from the previous picture, pursued and then returned to the fray. The other units of Ottoman cavalry were almost totally minced by the rest of the Roman army, including some who were pincered by the Auxilia who by now dominated the Enclosed Field. As this photo is taken my light horse are attempting to do something technical by getting so close to the Ottoman cavalry that they are unable to wheel and hit the back of another legion (but they didn't manage to do it correctly - possibly due to beer. What they perhaps should have done is to turn 90 degrees at the end of their move, thus meaning the Ottomans would be wheeling to hit their flank, which would have been illegal as you can't wheel to hit a flank when starting within 2.5cm of it. It would have looked odd, and been counter intuitive, but hey, it's a cheese proof game !) 

As all this happened, light horse were squirming far more successfully on the opposite side of the field. With the baggage in sight, but with the Roman bowmen consistently failing to even score 2 hits to cause a test, space was still running out for the Ottomans, although it was obvious to everyone that they would almost all escape to the other half of the table anyway. 

  

Back where the real action was, the Quakapulu had ripped a new a--hole for another of my legions by hitting them in the rear, but space and time was running out for the rest of the Ottoman cavalry - and the Janissaries found themselves with no target left at all! 

 

As the Quakapulu pursued, the found themselves trapped in a cauldron of pain, and were then themselves handed an additional posterior orifice by a rather grateful Legion. 

Meanwhile, with my opportunities to catch units and beat them fast running out, the Superior LH decided to take matters into their own hands, and initiated a charge against their decidedly Average opponents - which worked spectacularly well, and saw the Ottomans skittled out in short order as the bemused Janissaries looked on in disgust! 

Like Dr Who getting into a malfunctioning Tardis, Time and Space finally ran out for most of the Ottoman cavalry, as they were pinned between the legions and the Auxilia of the Roman army. 

But still the last units were proving elusive to catch... and with the Romans already having by now lost a serious amount of units too (2 auxilia, 2 legions, 1 LH) the yellow shirt may yet have the last and most fashionable laugh.

The Ottoman cavalry were being removed in fistfuls, and fleeing for home...

And the Roman bowmen managed to have the last laugh on their side of the table, as they eventually (at the 6th time of asking!!!) managed to trap, and then break an initially 6-strong LH unit from shooting, whilst manfully resisting the urge to charge them off table !

By now I had also frittered away another unit of LH (trapped by 4 units of Ottoman cavalry and LH), and lost my baggage to a sneaky LH unit so was only 1 half-unit away from breaking. The Ottomans were similarly teetering, needing one half-unit to go down to lose the game as well. 

Deciding that fame and glory were more important than getting a draw out of the game, the Legions teed themselves up for an assault on the Janissaries, who by now had marched clean across the table and camped in a field on my baseline.  

The Superior  Legions, taking shelter under the "Big Silvery Magic Shield of Impenetrable Destiny" kindly lent to them by their +2 Cohesion test-assisting leader Caesar girded their loins and charged into the teeth of the hailstorm...

...and got utterly shredded, losing 2 bases and dropping to fragmented inside 2 rounds of shooting despite their superiority and the presence of Caesar - to then lose the game!

Post Match Summary

As Caesar, I feel somewhat unlucky to lose this one. The Ottomans were tough as old boots, and we did a good job of pushing them across the table, but were repeatedly shredded by the Janissaries, and also we somehow struggled against the cavalry as well.

Really, having paid for armour, we should have done better, and I blame the dice.

Also it was hard for us to pick on such a small and mobile army with our much bigger force on a table with only one meaningful piece of terrain on it.

At least the victory conditions meant we were not penalized for trying to go for the win. I'm sure that's something the rules authors will want to look at in the next version though, so enjoy it while it lasts.  

Hannibal's Post Match Analysis

Look. Unlucky? You Idiot. 

You had half of your army spending the entire game chasing 1 unit of light horse and eating the baggage. The other half unsurprisingly struggled to beat some 750 points worth of Ottomans. 

You also totally failed to appreciate that 8 average foot would not be enough to beat 16 Superior Janissaries. being 1 factor up in impact and melee isn't enough to compensate for the awesome power of 2nd rank shooting, and also them being superior and having a 50% advantage in numbers. A basic mistake which you rightly got punished for.

And quite what you were trying to do with those LH of yours is beyond me. Although why it should be better for you if you presented your flank to the Ottomans, well , some nutter clearly wrote these rules so I do have some sympathy 

Lets see how the next game goes then ? 

 

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