Once again George was kind enough to bring over his Macedonians and Persians for a 200 point game. As in our first game, we did not use terrain and with only two commands the question was what side do you put the Cv on?
As before, we used the most current 1.1 revisions.
The Macedonians foot command had a pike block with some Ps in support and his mounted command had Companions and Prodomoi with a leavening of elephants and Ps.
The Persian foot command had a spear block with a couple of Ps a Lh(F) and Cv(I) while the mounted command was Irr Cv(O) supported by Lh and a Ax/Ps Takabara group.
As the Persians and with terrible dicing I setup first. I set up the foot command on my left with double ranked spears flanked by horse and the Ps out front. The horse went on my right in a single rank with the Lh in column on their right flank and the Ax/Ps on the left.
George as the Macedonians, put his pike block centre double ranked in the centre with Ps behind and quadruple ranked pike on each flank. His Cavalry went left and rear. The companions on the right of the line with the Ps behindthe flank. The elephants to the left of the Companions and the Prodomoi to the left of the pachyderms.
Seeing that George's pikes were lined up on the gap between my to commands and thinking that the Cav can move well en bloc wth low pips, I gave the high dice to the grunts. George went the other way, giving his Cv the high dice.
I still have enough trouble keeping the factors and moves straight let alone the dice rolls so I apologize in advance for the lack of precise detail.
On turn one, I rolled good pips for the infantry and a 1 for the Cav. I pushed my spears forward, and wheeled them toward centre to threaten the Pikes should they advance. My Cav just trotted forward en mass. George with good pips responded by pushing forward both his infantry and cavalry commands to contact my horse Using multiple march moves. And this is where the title comes in. A single pikes and horse poked at each other ineffectually while the second rank of pike watched from a couple of base widths back. When the Companion Kn(F)General attacked, the dice gods were in my favour and he died by 1 pip - the extra -1 for marching into contact. (Lets call him instead Sid, Alexander's unlucky illegitimate bother, because Alex was never that unlucky.) With the CinC dead on the first turn George was in trouble - or would have been had my dice not been poor.
Turn two saw my Lh on the right flank repulsed, while the pushing match continued between the Kn, Pk and my Cv. With low pips, my spear group slowy wheeled like a rusty barn door toward the Pk flank.
Turn 3 saw the Persian Cv kill another Kn while one of my repulsed Lh moved up to protect the Cv flank from elephants. The rest of the Cv kept up the shoving match with the Pk. The Macedonians wheeled the rear rank of Pk into column and headed off toward my Sp who were finally in a somewhat threatening position.
Turn 4 saw the beginning of the end as the Macedonian Cv command broke. George was able to skillfully plug the worst holes with Ps. His pike were in good shape but were now defending two sides of the square as my Sp had finally gotten into contact. I was able to move much of my Cv up as impetuous despite poor pips, as a router was in 400 of most of my mounted. This was interesting as it gave some of my Cv free moves into the Pk since they were the closest straight ahead enemy.
Turn 5 saw the end of it. I lost some horse but was able to kill enough Macedonians to end the game. The Macedonian pikes while dispersed were still in good shape.
Observations:
- Losing your general on turn one is a bad thing.
- Wheeling slow foot takes a long time but works in the end.
- Impetuous due to a broken enemy command can be used against un-broken enemy. May warrant Ps blocks between commands.
- The second row of pike wheeling into column was unexpected to a newbie but something I need to remember for the future.
- Two commands, while in no way boring, leads to a limited game.
I was happier with my performance though the indecision I experienced in the first game was more off set by George's aggression than any effort of mine. I am getting a better feel for the troop types - Lights in particular are more survivable than I expected, bouncing against the heavies until the lights explode from over exertion. I lost 3 spent and one dead as I recall.
Another great evening spent on another great game. Ok - I'm chuffed I won even if it was by a fluke.
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