Friday 4th April was the Ching Ming Festival in Hong Kong - one of the two grave sweeping holidays in the Chinese calendar - and having no obligations Andrew and I were able to meet up in my 'office' for a couple of games of Alala! interspersed by a curry in a nearby restaurant.
The first game was a simple learning by playing set up to introduce Andrew to the rules. I didn't take any pictures of this as Andrew had set up his camera to record the game. He has now posted a video on his 'On the Gaming Table' channel, which you can find here -
For the second game we added extra units and increased the width of the table from 6' to 7' to allow a bit more room for manoeuvre. The additions were not directly equal. One side would get 2 Spartan hoplite units, a unit of hamippoi and a unit of peltasts, the other would get a double depth Theban unit, horse archers and both a peltast and a javelin unit. Both would get an extra general to add to the two per side in the learning game. We rolled for which we would get and I ended up with the Spartans to face up against Andrew's Thebans.
After drawing cards to determine the sequence of setting up, we ended up with the deployments shown above. Andrew had extended his line by putting one peltast unit in between his right hand and centre phalanx, preventing me from getting an easy outflanking, and had weighted his light troops towards his right. This left only his cavalry and one javelin unit to face the bulk of my light troops that I had put on my right.
Rolling for the quality of generals gave Andrew two grade III and one grade IV, while I did a bit better with two grade III and a grade V. I put the grade V with a couple of C grade units on my left, where the extra command points would allow him to raise aggression levels easily without having to start advancing, while the other generals each took three hoplite units. Instead of keeping the A grade Spartans together, I allocated one to each of the groups of three to stiffen them up. I would come to regret this.
After a couple of turns of moving up the light troops while boosting aggression with the main body I committed to an advance all along the line, rolling only one die to reduce the chance of incurring disorder. However, my right wing rolled a 5 so incurred disorder anyway. Andrew ordered an advance on his right and centre but held back on the left.
The position after two turns of advance by the hoplites. In the foreground and centre a charge into combat is about to take place but the lines are still far apart in the distance as my right has stopped to shake off disorder while the Thebans opposite have only just been given the signal to advance. Beyond them, my light troops and cavalry are on the verge of crushing their immediate opponents but on the near wing my light troops are in bad shape.
The lines meet, both sides at the highest level of aggression as indicated by the red tufts on the casualty dials
In the centre a Spartan unit found itself without a direct opponent, leaving it with the choice of starting to wheel to get onto an enemy flank or staying in place to give support to one of its neighbours. I chose the latter course.
That choice seemed to pay off as the supported unit managed to get 13 hits on 18 dice rolled! However, Andrew's unit had quite good rolls, too, so I ended up 1 hit shy of inflicting a defeat and had to settle for a set-back for the enemy.
At the right of my line, the other Spartan unit got stuck in and also inflicted a set-back on Andrew's line. My light troops also were now poised to swing against the rear of the line. A good start.
Unfortunately, in the centre one of my hoplite units took a set-back while Andrew's skirmishers started to work round my left flank.
Then things started going downhill rapidly. The unit that had taken a set-back followed that up with a defeat and retired shaken.
and as my Spartan unit in the centre started to wheel, the unit next to it also suffered a defeat and was driven back, leaving the Spartans isolated and swarmed by enemy light troops.
At the left end of my line another isolated unit was fighting valiantly and managed to defeat its opponent
but skirmishers swarming round its rear cut it down to half strength and left it unable to exploit its victory.
while over on my right, my swarms of skirmishers and cavalry had done little to trouble the enemy and all three of my hoplite units had taken set-backs.
With my line completely ruptured and all my remaining units in difficulties I conceded the game. Andrew's men had suffered quite a lot of damage themselves but with the deep Theban unit still fighting at full strength the possibility of some lucky throws turning impending defeat around was slim in the extreme.
Mulling over the games with a cup of tea we both thought that despite the larger number of troops to handle in the second game there had been no problems with this. Keeping track of things was easy and with practice we were getting quicker at calculating the number of dice to roll for each melee so the pace of the game remained fast. If I had kept both my Spartan units together on the right and put the grade V general there that might have given me the edge on that flank but still would not have prevented the rupture in the centre.
Another attempt to reverse my run of defeats with Alala! will have to wait. The troops are now packed away and I will be off on my travels for the next couple of months.
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