Seleucids vs Antigonids

[Keraunos]

A report of the latest fiasco learning experience with pikemen can be found here.

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There were elephants!

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And lots of pikes.


Not much more to say, really   

[CarlL]

Keraunos,
Thanks for link to your battle report / blog where you provide lots of lovely photos, of lots of lovely figures and a lengthy battle report.

I don't know the rules you used. (Has anyone done a review for "Slingshot"?)

But it seemed strange that it allows a pike phalanx and its supporting cavalry to deploy in a corner of the battlefield. I have played games where players have hugged table edges (sometimes contrary to the rules being used) but it seems quite untypical behaviour by a Hellenistic army!!

You noted your unhappiness with the rules allowing light / open order troops to delay heavy infantry. And your plans to adjust these. My limited knowledge of Hellenistic warfare would suggest good rules would not delay advance of pikes in good (to them) terrain but cause skirmishers / light troops to withdraw, while giving lights opportunity to disrupt the cohesion of the phalanx?

I like your collection of troops and you giving time to creating a photo report. Many thanks
CarlL

[Erpingham]

Has anyone done a review for "Slingshot"?

There is a two page review in Slingshot 348 (pp41-42) by Dave Hollin.

[Imperial Dave]

Indeed there is. I hadn't considered the "lights" question in depth. I will reread and ponder

[Keraunos]

Keraunos,
Thanks for link to your battle report / blog

I like your collection of troops and you giving time to creating a photo report. Many thanks
CarlL

Carl, thank you for the kind comments. 

Various aspects of the rules give me concern, not just the behaviour of light troops, but I tried to make clear in this first part of the write up that the problems in this game were more to do with the generals, mainly me.  The rules don't encourage bunching of forces at one end of the table.  The mechanics reward well spread deployment.  The trouble was that on the side of the table I had to deploy there were a series of features that would disrupt a phalanx moving through them positioned just on or in front of my forward deployment line.  The wheeze of a flank deployment hoped to get round this but only ended up with my phalanx fouling up my cavalry and then tripping over other friendly units - as well as the issue with light troops.

I am working on a fuller set of comments on the rules following the several games played with it over the last few weeks.  I think it is much fairer to put comment on parts found problematic into context with aspects that work well and with what the rule set aims to do compared with others.

[Imperial Dave]

I will be interested to see your in depth considerations in due course

[Keraunos]

Your wish is my command!  I meant to spend the day working on the allied Principes, but then I had a thought as to how to illustrate the mess that the end of the battle ended up in and one thing led to another and now I have both completed a battle report and added a codicil - which may not be the word I am looking for but whatever - of reflections from my experience so far with Three Ages of Rome.  The link is here.

[Erpingham]

Good analytical report there, Kim.  As discussed in another thread, it is possible to scupper a workable set of rules by moving beyond the designers parameters, as seems to have happened here.

Two points that occurred to me. One is whether the terrain mechanism managed to mess with a satisfying game.  Something we have discussed at great length elsewhere on the forum but would either of the commanders in real life have declined battle in this terrain?  Gamers, of course, are reluctant to do this as you all gathered to get figures on a table and set to and the destruction of plastic armies has no consequence.

The other was how chaotic and fragmented the melee became.  The system seems to have either failed to hold the phalanxes (phalanges?) together or actually encouraged units chasing one another willy-nilly.

[Keraunos]

Anthony, your point about the terrain that generals would be willing to fight on is taken entirely.  I think that if we had used the terrain setting envisaged in the rules - random generation of items, placement by players - we may have ended up with a more benign battlefield.  It was the randomised placement wot done it.  Even so, I tend ever more towards a pre-battle game that gives players means to influence where a battle takes place and how they position their men to best advantage on the field, rather than the simple substitutes that these and other rules seem to offer.

As for the mess at the end, again it would not have been as bad if we had had a more conventional deployment on the Antigonid side but I don't see anything in the rules to discourage the sorts of things that did happen and some things that actively encourage it - like the phalanx block shooting off like Prince Rupert's cavalry in pursuit of a unit they routed.  Light infantry breaking up the phalanx line before it even got into action with its opposite numbers didn't help either.

So, perhaps that is another point I should have added to the list?

[Imperial Dave]

Keep going!

[Keraunos]

I will keep going, but not with Three Ages of Rome.  Next week will see more pikes in action but with shot attached to them so you won't be seeing a report on this forum.

[Erpingham]

Next week will see more pikes in action but with shot attached to them so you won't be seeing a report on this forum.

Oh good. I shall covertly follow it on the blog 

[Imperial Dave]

Fair enough