'Alala!' straight up

The regular Tuesday fight night saw us getting to grips with 'Alala!' again, to introduce the rules to Tim who missed the fight last week.

Rather than match up Macedonians with Thebans again, I went for a straight Hoplite on Hoplite battle, pitching Locrians against Malians in a fight over some border area overlooked by a small temple.  Each side brought 6 units of hoplites in two phalanxes to the fight, backed up by an assortment of light troops and cavalry.  Each side would have two units of 'B' class and four of 'C' class hoplites,  two units on each side being 'Ready' to start with, the rest 'Formed Up' (the lowest level of aggression allowing movement towards the enemy).  Unlike the last couple of games where we had an abundance of generals and command points, this time we just had two generals per side, one with 3 command points to spend each turn, the other just 2 (too few to raise the aggression level of stationary 'C' class units).

Initial deployment.  Locrians are on the left, Malians to the right.  The first Locrian phalanx, commanded by Jeremy, was angled to face the first Malian phalanx - commanded by Gareth - that had deployed at an angle that would allow it to advance from behind the temple ridge into the open ground in the centre.  One detachment of Locrian javelin men are on the far flank facing the temple.  Two peltast units are held behind the centre of the Locrian line to fill any gap that might open between the two wings of the phalanx and prevent the enemy heavy cavalry that had been placed in the centre, together with some peltasts, exploiting such a gap.  The other Locrian phalanx under my command was facing directly across to the other Malian phalanx under Tim's command.  All the Locrian cavalry and a couple of archer units were on my right (in the foreground on the left of the picture) in rather broken ground, faced by only a couple of light Malian units.

Gareth committed the Malian right to an immediate advance, aiming to raise aggression on the march but giving up on drawing 'god' cards.  He sent his light cavalry to advance through a narrow trail behind the temple to get onto the Locrian flank while archers advanced up to the temple hill.  In the centre - at the top of the picture - Malian peltasts also advanced but beyond them the other phalanx held still while Tim drew 'god' cards.  The Locrian phalanxes remained halted.  Their javelin men in the foreground failed a control test so also remained still.

Jeremy decided to use his command points to draw a 'god' card and was blessed with an increase in his command points for all future turns, giving him much greater choice of actions.

At the start of the second turn, Tim moved some archers to attack mine.  His missed while my unit replied with 4 hits that reduced the Malian unit below 50% strength.  The survivors fled the field.

Jeremy was blessed by the gods again, drawing a free aggression upgrade for one unit

Gareth's light cavalry had moved quickly and were now in position to start causing trouble.  The Locrian javelin men looked to be in a hopeless position having failed to activate and now facing Malian archers to their front and the cavalry on the flank.

Tim's phalanx starts to advance so he can use his limited command points to raise the aggression of his 'C' class hoplites.  They shift to the right, as allowed to hoplites, but the rough ground will prevent them moving further out to outflank my phalanx and the shift brings them into range of my light troops!

Jeremy's javelin men again fail to move.  In an exchange of javelins with the light cavalry before it charges in, both sides take 2 hits.  In the subsequent combat, both took further hits, fell below 50% and departed the field.  Gareth's sweeping outflanking move came to a swift end.

Tim's slingers about to exit under a hail of arrows and javelins while his phalanx lumbers forward beyond

The Malian generals decide to shift their heavy cavalry from the centre to protect the left flank of Tim's phalanx.

The Locrians win the initiative for the first time in the game.  Encouraged by Gareth's phalanx having halted to redress ranks - getting rid of disorder caused by rapid movement at the expense of reducing aggression - Jeremy ordered his phalanx forward and rolled a 5 (the maximum on an average die used for movement) which cost him a point of disorder on each unit.

In the next turn, the Locrians again gain the initiative and advance both phalanxes into charge range and engaged all along the line in the charge phase.

In the foreground, Jeremy's units held the advantage in aggression in all three melées.  They gained a success in the nearest fight, pushing back the Malians and reducing them to 'Shaken'.  In the centre they gained a victory, forcing the enemy to retire shaken.  The third fight was inconclusive.  Exactly the same results - a victory, a success and a draw - came from the fights on the other side, even though the units were much more evenly matched in aggression levels and consequent numbers of dice rolls. 

In the final round of fighting, the Locrian heavy cavalry added a flank charge to the attacks of my phalanx, earning another victory.  In the centre, my third unit also gained a victory.  It tried to pursue, needing only 6 on two average dice to catch up with the fleeing Malians and get a free hack at them, but rolled only a 5 so ended up achieving nothing beyond losing its formation.  In the other clash of the phalanxes, Jeremy's men went in with major advantages in two melées and succeeded in getting inconclusive results in all three!

The Malian heavy cavalry were disordered by the hoplites retreating into them and had taken losses from the archers who had shot once then retired to the safety of the rough hill.  They could not hope to turn the tide of the battle, only try to cover the retreat of the defeated phalanx. 

We celebrated victory and assuaged defeat with some delicious doughnuts.  'Alala!' had again delivered an enjoyable game, though with a very different feel to our previous outings.  The thin lines of normal hoplite phalanxes are much flimsier than the deep masses of Thebans and Macedonians.  Our main lesson was that keeping up aggression levels is more important than getting rid of some disorder.  Gareth's men went into the fight as 'formed up' and were immediately reduced to 'shaken' when taking any adverse result whereas Tim's did not suffer so badly from the set back in the first exchange.  The other lesson was not to count on light troops and cavalry having impact on the phalanx fight except under the most advantageous circumstances, which, happily, my heavy cavalry were presented with.    

The temple of Nike and the fertile plain below are now restored to the rightful possession of Locris.