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

Friday night was supposed to be civilized, with fine dining and a nice bottle of Chianti. Instead we all gathered back at the venue to sit under the trees drinking beer and eating pizza whilst loitering around the Subbuteo tables and coo-ing over Wings of War.

"Romanorum imbibo ultum vinum"

The next morning was of course a struggle. It was also - of course - very very hot. 

The Saturday saw me drawn against an Sassanid Persian army who's list is available here 

Pictures of Sausages Persians from my Ancients Photo Directory

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In a radical change from normal practice I won initiative again, picked Woodlands - and again all the terrain fell in places where it appeared to be almost irrelevant. However once my opponent started to try and deploy, the presence of 4 huge woods in his deployment zone rather limited his options so maybe it wasn't all that bad after all !

Quite quickly the Elephants took up a commanding position on the only hill on the battlefield. Luckily I had auxilia facing them, who were great against elephants in DBM, so presumably would do OK here as well..

Out to the right, the Sassanids were facing a very tricky puzzle - how to take on 5 units with 4 of their own, without conceding a flank to attack? This was to be a puzzle that was to vex them mightily for much of the game... 

Their first solution was to throw more Cataphracts at the problem in an attempt to even out the maths and run over the Roman auxilia, but at the bottom of the picture, Caesar exercised his brilliant strategic mind to come up with a solution, and made the threatened auxilia simply turn around and walk away! Meanwhile, on the extreme flank, both Sassanid cavalry units were by now engaged in a staring match against the Romans - too afraid to charge in as there would clearly be some "breaking off" trouble if they did - and as they sat paralyzed with indecision, yet another auxilia unit snuck round the flank into the gap cleared by the Roman light horse - who had driven off the Sassanid Light Foot archers. 

Elsewhere things were far more simple. the Sassanid basically had no troops defending their right flank, and so a horde of legions and auxilia descended onto the line of levy spearmen from all angles ....

...whilst more Romans herded and harassed the lone unit of Sassanid light horse off towards their own camp. One or two rounds of melee against the levy and surely the entire right flank would be in tatters? 

With the levy cheering them on, the Elephants decided this was the time to make their decisive play, and charged down off the hill into two units of Romans (it was supposed to be only one, but the auxilia had gotten too close and were caught as the elephants stepped forward). With 2 generals also committed to combat, and rear support the elephants were as tough as nails, but still one failed death roll would explode them... ?

In the center, the line of legionaries had crashed in. Taking a tip from the FoG forum, the Impact Foot unit had even thinned out a little to maximize dice at impact to try and get a break through... but the breakthrough didn't come as the evil levy spearmen stood up to everything we could throw at them with ease ! 

As the bounds ground on, the levy spearmen refused to wilt under the assault - and even started to damage the rather irritated and tetchy legions. maybe they had some sort of secret cooling mechanism hidden under those hats that was keeping them cool whilst the poor Romans boiled in the midday sun? 

The upside of the prolonged battle against the levy was however that the Sassanids had run out of generals, leaving their remaining units of cavalry and light horse on this flank unable to recover their  cohesion as they received round after round of shelling from the poor slingers, superior bowmen and javelin-armed light horse. 

Things soon went from bad to worse for the Sassanids, and the Romans were now scenting baggage - and enemy units! 

The elephants had much bigger noses than the Romans on my left - but they could have almost no noses at all and they would still have been able to smell the blood of the legions and auxilia they were fighting as both units dropped gradually down the cohesion ladder 

- it was time to dispatch a general to try and hold things together for a while!

But back to the right, and, seeing the writing on the wall for their camp in the distance (and disturbed by the arrival of Roman auxilia on their flank and Roman horse archers in their rear), the Sassanids had been forced to commit their troops - and, hit in the flank, and with their break-offs blocked everywhere they turned, the cavalry were being chewed up in the cauldron of Romanity that was encircling them.

And as this was happening, finally, after what seemed like weeks of combat, the Levy spearmen finally had dropped to disrupted, and their ranks had been thinned as well - allowing the Roman swordsmanship to count. the red-clad legions gladly hacked and slashed their way into the rapidly dissolving once-impenetrable wall of spears and delivered a crippling blow to the already reeling unit - quickly finishing the job that seemed for so long they had struggled to really start! 11 hits on one unit, 2 on it's neighbor - TAKE THAT!

The Auxiliaries and legions facing off the elephants had also suffered a similar fate however, and as the triumphant elephants slowly turned to their right, the legion realised that it too had better quickly dispatch the other unit of levy, or it would be the red jam filling in a Sassanid Sandwich.. 

Meanwhile, back at the baggage.... Do you think this is overkill....? 

Then, clearly, loads of stuff happened very quickly indeed, and so quickly in fact that I missed a chunk of the action. The legions facing the rest of the levy managed to break them, pursuing out of range - for the time being - of the elephants, but over on the left I had managed to lose a couple of units against the Cataphracts whilst chewing up the Clibanarii and the battle was now a swirling mess of isolated units in acres of space, with plenty of Romans trying to find the extra points needed to convert victory into total victory. 

The Sassanids had lost 2 units of levy, 2 units of cavalry, and a light horse unit - leaving them a lot closer to defeat than the Romans who had sacrificed 4 units against the Elephants and Cataphracts, but otherwise were untouched - and, crucially, were a larger army anyway. 

With a multitude or units racing to claim the glory, the battle was finally won when the last Sassanid cavalry unit was mauled as it retreated away from the baggage - breaking the Sassanid army ! 

Post Match Summary

As Caesar, I am delighted to announce a comprehensive victory by me, Caesar, against an enemy who caused no end of trouble for loads of the clearly far less competent Emperors who succeeded me in real life.

Those elephants were troublesome for sure, and I rather struggled to deal with the cataphracts as well, but overall I think it was a victory for decency, common sense and blokes in red skirts that will go down well when stories of it are replayed in the bar-rooms and pizza parlours of the mighty capital of my Empire, Rome.

I am proud to announce that normal service has been resumed, and the abberation from last round will be quickly forgotten. Official.

Hannibal's Post Match Analysis

Hmmm. So the might of Rome struggled against a load of peasant spearmen then? Was this unlucky - or was it simply down to you being overlapped again?

And taking on those elephants - if you intend to fight them, you need to fight them with good stuff. And if the enemy commits generals, maybe you should do so too...  

It also took you ages to get round the enemy flank on your right - you had a surplus of units, but what happened? Didn't you do your measurement correctly? I thought your lot were supposed to be able to build roads and bridges and stuff - but that means mapping out the ground and knowing how far away thinsg are. So maybe they all got built after your time eh? 

However, even I must acknowledge a grudging admiration for the victory. Fially you do seem to be getting the hang of using this army you've selected. Having 11 serious combat-capable units against an opponent with only 7 or 8 should have given you enough chance tp practice though.... 

Lets see how the next game goes then ? 

 

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