From Basing to Battle

 

The hoplites that were completed over the weekend were sent into their first battle on Tuesday evening, filling out the ranks of an Athenian + Allies army that I led out against Gareth's Theban and allied army.  The armies were identical, each side fielding 8 units of hoplites with two generals, 6 assorted light units and a couple of cavalry - one of which being hamippoi.  The field was a level plain between a river lined with small groves of trees and a range of steep hills.  We used the Alala! rules again, but varied the set up arrangements.  Instead of dicing for each side to place a unit, I put a screen down the middle of the table to allow both sides to set up without knowing how the other would deploy.  We also allowed each side to form hoplites into deep units, not just the Thebans, though doing so would shorten the hoplite line and give more scope to light troops and cavalry to run around and make a nuisance of themselves.  The rolls for the quality of generals went badly for both sides.  Both my commanders were rated as 3s while Gareth did even worse, ending up with both as 2s (the numbers being the command points available each turn).

When the screen was removed it revealed that both generals had had similar idea.

Both armies had anchored one flank of their hoplites on the groves beside the river, supported by light troops in the woods.  The Thebans had put all their hoplites into deep formations, leaving  a wide expanse of open ground up to the hill line covered only by light troops and cavalry.  My best Athenian units were in deep order next to the grove while the remaining hoplites were spread in a single line beyond them, held back so as to cover the flank of the main strike force but not get drawn into the fight too early.  Again, some light troops covered the open flank beyond.

Noting that the Theban hoplite blocks were angled to face towards the centre and so would move away from the woods and towards the weaker end of my line, I could see opportunity to hit his flank with my main body but thought I would have to move quickly to make sure they didn't hit my weaker troops before I hit them.  I decided to spend a turn raising enthusiasm among my troops, then lead off with the main body, fully expecting the Thebans to be on the march already, in line with Gareth's normal policy of attack first and ask questions later.

Instead, the Thebans just sat there, using their small supply of command points to draw card after card from the 'Gods will decide' pack.  I held back, raising enthusiasm to the maximum and then drawing some cards myself, waiting for the Thebans hoplites to start shifting.  As this was going on the light troops and cavalry on each side generally did very little until the Thebans started shifting their cavalry and peltasts from their left wing towards the centre.

 The first pair of cards I drew were quite useful

The second pair cancelled each other out!

Light troops being very hesitant in coming to grips among the groves along the river bank

Finally my light units push forward to try to clear the Theban lights out of the woods 

I decided to move my rear hoplite group forward to prevent a gap opening up when the main force advanced but promptly disordered the line by running into my cavalry which had moved across to counter the Theban cavalry.  Not a good start.

Happily the Thebans then advanced with their right hand phalanx, which got over-enthusiastic and became disordered as well.

As my main phalanx advanced, the Theban cavalry raced across to try to get over onto my left flank before the gap closed.  They picked up a lot of disorder on the way and, if I won the initiative on the next turn would be forced either to face my hoplites head on, not a good position to be in, or to evade.

I won the initiative.  The Theban cavalry evaded and I crashed into the hoplite mass, my own men at the peak of enthusiasm, the Thebans still at basic readiness.  A fat lot of good it did me.  Rolling over 20 d6s I managed only 3 hits - 5s or 6s.  The Thebans got 6 hits from far fewer dice.  So, first clash ended with me falling back with double the casualties of the enemy and a drop in enthusiasm on my part and a gain by the enemy.

The adjacent fight went no better.  Again I had a big advantage in enthusiasm and this time had flank suppport but again got only 3 hits to the Theban's 7.

In the next turn I again won the initiative, rallied my men and attacked.  Again I was beaten getting only 2 hits to 4 Theban in the first melee.

At last, in the next melee I won the dice roll.  Gareth then started playing cards that he had been stashing away.  The first allowed him to reroll all the dice in the melee and he promptly converted a loss into a win.

Another card allowed him to save the peltasts protecting the flank of his phalanx from my light troops

And so it went on, with my hoplites never winning a single melee and steadily dropping in enthusiasm level while that of the Thebans rose until they were rolling more dice than me.

Only in the eventual fight between the two cavalry units did I get a win, but still not sufficient to destroy the enemy unit - which in any case was backed up by the second Theban phalanx, so not much advantage was to be gained.

On the open flank my light troops had done well against fewer opponents and could now threaten the flank of the second Theban phalanx.  This had just been given orders to move but with my main phalanx about to collapse there was really no call for it to do so and we ended the battle by mutual consent.

So, an unusual battle in several respects.  The new hoplites looked beautiful but seem to have gone into the fight with butter knives rather than decent weapons.  Even when they did get a good dice roll, Gareth's untypical defensive posture, relying on the gods for support, paid off handsomely.  He drew a spectacularly good set of cards, all of which allowed him to intervene to head off any bad results.

The gods were very much with Gareth and the Thebans.  Every card he drew could be held for later use and gave good advantages, particularly in neutralizing my light troops and allowing the Thebans hoplites to reverse the only melee result that went against them.

I was happy with the way the casualty and status tracker dials worked.  Placing a dial at the front of a hoplite unit indicated that it had not been ordered to advance.  The blank markers - indicating basic readiness - were easy to replace with those containing coloured tufts indicating higher states of enthusiasm/aggression.  Some of the dials were a bit too easy to turn, so one had to be careful to keep the right casualty count, but that is easily fixed with a bit of tightening.  The only thing they don't yet cover is disorder, so we still had to use tokens to indicate that.  The rules author uses small stones to indicate disorder and I am working on a neat extension tray to the casualty marker that can hold some similar indicator.  For the moment, though, the main task is to work out how to win the favour of the gods so that I can finally beat those dreadful Thebans.

Close up of a casualty tracker dial in use next to one of my commanders.  The window shows casualties.  The blue tuft beyond the figure indicates that the unit has dropped down a level in enthusiasm from being eager - which would be shown by a red tuft.  The blue dot on the dial handle indicates that the unit is 'B' class.