Graeco-Indians vs Early Achaemenid Persians in ADLG

My Graeco-Indians clash with the Early Achaemenid Persians of my club mate, Mick, King-of-kings.  I forgot to take one at set up, so this is after turn one.

Centre

Left

Right

We started fighting in the fields.  Not ideal to face Javelinmen with my elephant.

 Mick’s immortals drive off my skirmishers

 

We face off on the right.  Lots of bow armed cavalry and some camels pretending to be armoured cavalry.

My other elephant and swordsmen get stuck in.  How hard can come bowmen be to kill.  It goes quite well but disaster strikes on the right.

In the centre my cunning shift to the right crushes the reckless immortals

 

And we’re winning the archery on the right.

After compulsory pursuit the elephant is hit in the flank and destroyed!😱

Everyone else lines up

The collapse in the fields continues

The main lines clash in the centre

In the fields the Persian Javelinmen finally start to break.

As do the Sparabara who have been ground down slowly

The Persian cavalry start to outflank the Graeco-Indian right

Meanwhile a wide sweep by some Arachosian light horse threatens the embarrassingly improvised Persian camp.  Just one more hit on the disguised-camels and the camp sacking points are in the bag!

 A phoenix’ eye view of the closing stages

The last of the Javelinmen break and the Graeco-Indians salvage some honour from the wreckage on the left.

The reverse occurs in the centre as the phalanx flanks collapse.

 

On the right the Persian cavalry finally flank the Graeco-Indian line but it is too little too late.

 

 

Despite a desperate fight, the Arachosians cannot defeat the disguised camels and it is all over.

Both sides broke at this point, for the narrowest of winning draws to the Persians, 24-23.  Grrr!  So close and yet so far.

Alexander keeps riding

This was from a couple of weeks back but life has been too busy for posting.  Alexander tries again to vanquish his Persian nemesis.

The details of the battle are hazy now but it was very close run thing with a few morale rolls deciding the day for Darius.  Alexander's charge was glorius but ultimately futile.

After two defeats and one costly victory Alexander slinks back to Macedonia to lick his wounds.

The invincible King of Kings rests easily in his bed while the young barbarian plots his revenge, and probably fights off a coup attempt.

Alexander will return...

Alexander rides again!

After enjoying our last Alexandrian Lion Rampant game we thought we would try again.

The scenario this time was Hold On Tight.  The Macedonains, having regrouped from their early defeat were looking for revenge.  Invading Asia Minor again they met their despotic foes in a lightly wooded valley.   Both armies would fight for a small rise in the centre of the field.  History does not record why but local rumour has it that Dionysus had stood there to gaze on the setting sun.

The armies we used were little modified from last time.  We toned down the Companions and used them as Mounted Serjeants.  This was mostly to make them more manoeuvrable with a 5+ move activation.  The Schiltron's hadn't worked too well as Phalanxes, so we allowed them to move in Schiltron at 4".  Lastly the Saka were no longer Expert. and the Kardakes were raised up from Yeoman to Serjeants by virtue of a spare point.

Alexander's men moved quickly across the valley, beating the slow footed eaterners to the mound.  It's the probably the effeminate trousers that slowed them down. 

 

Persian arrows did darken the sky, as their general had boasted before the battle, but the fine Greek armour and shields saved many a mountain man's life.

The climax of the battle saw a Macedonian Phalanx on the hill attacked from three sides, until a last desperate cavalry charge was thrown back and the Persian's realised they were beaten.  Basking in the glory of holding the hill few Macedonians afterwards recalled how they hadn't killed quite so many Persians as Alexander had boasted they would.

Surrounded by slain Median horsemen the Phalangites looked west into the setting sun as Dionysus had before them.  Was this an omen from the gods that all the Persian Empire would fall?

Alexander Rampant

My newly completed Macedonians took on my club mate Freddy's old WAB Persians in our first try at using Dan Mersey's Lion Rampant rules for Ancients.

I had not played Lion Rampant before but had heard good things and liked the look of the game scale.  I struggle to finish painting big armies so skirmish games are a nice level for completing projects.

While not up to speed with the rules at the start we had a good fun game and were doing most things without the book after a few turns.  We played the brutal, as written, end your turn on a failure activation tests, which didn't prove as jarring as I expected.  On occasion we failed the first test and at other times activated every unit.  Nobody seemed to dominate on luck and I don't recall the sequence spoiling anything.  Rather the risk was part of the fun.

We used the standard medieval stats, which probably need a bit of tweaking for the armies we used but worked well enough for the test.

    Macedonians

    Companions (Mounted Men-at-arms, Drilled) 7pts, 6 figures

    Thessalians (Mounted Serjeants) 4 pts, 6 figures

    Phalangites (Foot Serjeants) 4 pts, 12 figures

    Phalangites (Foot Serjeants) 4 pts, 12 figures

    Phalangites (Foot Serjeants) 4 pts, 12 figures

    Agrianians (Bidowers) 2 pts, 6 figures

    Cretans (Bidowers) 2 pts, 6 figures

    Macedonians (Bidowers) 2 pts, 6 figures

    29 pts

    Persians

    Persian Cavalry (Mounted Serjeants) 4 pts, 6 figures

    Persian Cavalry (Mounted Serjeants) 4 pts, 6 figures

    Sakae Horse Archers (Mounted Yeoman, Expert) 6 pts, 6 figures

    Greek Mercenaries (Foot Sejeants) 4 pts, 12 figures

    Kardakes (Foot Yeomen) 3 pts, 12 figures

    Mardian Archers (Archers) 4 pts, 12 figures

    Takabara (Bidowers) 2 pts, 6 figures
    Takabara (Bidowers) 2 pts, 6 figures
    29 pts

I've just realised I cheated myself out of a third unit of Bidowers but I don't think it would have changed the result.

Freddy missed his massed ranks but his army mostly performed well with the Saka the Persians' star unit.  The Macedonian Companions were impressive but were whittled away as they rampaged across the battlefield. Despite chasing off Darius and his bodyguard Alexander was finally brought down by Takabara javelins and the Macedonians were defeated.  A lesson for future games is to focus the companions' power where it counts.  

My Thessalians were my newest unit and their inexperience showed in the game.  Hopefully they will improve next time.

Sadly my phone battery died after just four game photos but we'll definitely be trying this again. 

Alexander goes east

My latest project is to do some armies for the Alexandrian Conquests.  This is another unfinished project from the archives and I haven't completed my Russians yet but I fancied something different for a while.

The plan is do small armies about the size of those for Lion Rampant or possibly a little larger.  I was never very good at finishing full sized armies for WAB or other similar games, the large units are just too tedious to paint.  I've enjoyed painting the RCW and Middle Earth forces though, so I'm again doing the same single skirmish basing. 

For games I'll either do scaled down battles or concentrate on smaller actions.  While Alexander's conquests involved a handful of great battles there were dozens, if not hundreds, of smaller actions. I don't have a definite set of rules in mind yet but there seems to be a few newish skirmish sets available now and I could use a Lion Rampant variant or Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles too.