Romans vs Seleucids with Optio

[Justin Swanton]

Lately I've been focussing on finishing the development of Optio and finally publishing the damn thing. To that end plenty of playtesting over the past few weeks (well, as much as I can get in in between other things like making a living). Here's a game finished yesterday between my playtester Peter and myself, using Seleucids (Peter) and Romans (yours truly).

These are good playtesting armies as they introduce a wide variety of troops types: Pike Phalanx, Auxilia, Archers, Slingers, Javelin footmen, LH, Elephants, Medium cavalry and Heavy Cavalry (Companions) on the Seleucid side, and Legions, Hoplite Phalanx (allied Greeks), Peltasts and Medium Cavalry on the Roman side. 40 stands on the Seleucid side and 36 on the Roman side, so on the medium-to-big side as army sizes go. Peter was in the deep end but nonetheless enjoyed himself.

The pre-battle terrain game wrapped up in 5 minutes as usual. I'll do a separate post on it, just to say it uses magnets to simulate fog of war and works like a charm. We ended up on a battlefield with a decent spread of woodland and scattered trees, not really ideal for the phalanx or the legions, but no matter. What battle was ever fought on a football field? We deployed by alternately placing 1/3 of our armies until everything was down. Which gave this:



Seleucids at top, Romans at bottom. From left to right:

Seleucids
Back row: Auxilia, Archers, Pike Phalanx, Pike Phalanx, Pike Phalanx, Pike Phalanx, Archers, Auxilia
Front row: Medium Cavalry, LH, Javelinmen, Elephant, Slingers, Elephant, Javelinmen, LH, Companions

Romans
Hoplites, Hoplites, Hoplites, Hoplites, Peltasts, Peltasts, Allied Legion, Roman Legion, Roman Legion, Allied Legion, Allied Cavalry, Allied Cavalry, Roman Cavalry, Allied Extraordinarii Cavalry







Three trees in a battlefield square represents forest, one tree represents scattered woodland (odd copse, bushes, etc.). Forest is far more problematic than scattered woodland but in a chance-free game scattered woodland can play an important part at crucial moments.

Peter's plan was to use his shooters (LI, LH and Archers) along with his elephants to wear my heavy infantry down and then his pikes to finish them off. My plan was to outflank his left with my cavalry and get into his rear. My Peltasts were to exploit the gap in his centre. His Auxilia could of course outflank my Hoplites' left but you can't take care of everything. They would have to take care of themselves.

The Roman plan pretty much worked. The Hoplites moved up to take advantage of the vegetation in front of them - not very good for Hoplites but worse for cavalry and Pikes. The Roman cav on the right took control of that wing and began to pressure the enemy troops there, especially the Companions who were focussed on trying to break the rightmost Allied legion. Not far away the ellies charged the Roman legion, but being in an extended line (only one ellie stand in the unit) could not outfight the legionaries though they did damage their morale.




With the Seleucid left flank Auxilia and Companions gone, the Roman cav swarm in against the pikes and into the rear, whilst the Roman general leads his cavalry unit in a lightning march around the Roman rear to the other flank. Cavalry can really move fast when there aren't enemy cavalry in the vicinity to bother them, forming column and double-moving up to 6 squares in a turn. Like this they can move as close to enemy units as they please. The Pikes on the Seleucid right engage the hoplites and slowly win the fight against them.




The Roman cav form line in the Seleucid rear whilst the Roman general finally reaches the left flank and forms line against the Auxilia fighting against the hoplites there. The pikes are now fully engaged, fighting legions and Hoplites with varying degrees of success. Pikes can beat anything provided conditions are optimal - even a bit of scattered woodland spoils the winning formula. The Roman Peltasts use the gap in the centre to get on the flanks of the Pike units there and disorder them, which is very bad news for the Pikes.




The Romans have dispatched the Archers and LI, and rout one Pike unit after swarming it from several sides. Even though they have dispatched two Hoplite units the Seleucids finally crumble when the rout of another Pike unit in the centre sends the rest of the army packing. Game over!




I suggested to Peter that using units as cannon fodder to soften up my legions and Hoplites was probably not a good idea as the loss of too many units makes the rest of the army vulnerable to a general rout. The loss of 9 stands (not units but individual bases) is enough to send nearby fragile units running for it when the next friendly unit routs. The loss of 12 stands sends average units running, and the loss of 18 stands is enough for the resolute units (Pikes and Companions in this case) to call it a day. Peter should really screen his pike units with LI units and guard their flanks with heavier units like Auxilia and Archers, perhaps using elephants to buff up his cavalry. But for a new arrival to Ancients gaming he is learning very quickly. We'll see what he does next time.

[Erpingham]

Nicely presented Justin.  Good to see Optio still on track.

[Imperial Dave]

Really nice Justin and love the markers

[Justin Swanton]

Nicely presented Justin.  Good to see Optio still on track.

Thanks Anthony. Optio works nicely now. No clunk and even a largish game likes this wraps up in about 3-4 hours. Smaller games (+/- 30 stands per side) wrap up in less than 3 hours. I still have several things to lock down: terrain maps for the pre-battle game, conversion of army lists of major rulesets for use in Optio, and standardising the attributes (command, combat and loss effect) of generals and commanders. Getting there.

[Justin Swanton]

Really nice Justin and love the markers

Ta.    I finally found a way of making them easy to make and use. You can't stop progress. 

[Imperial Dave]

Like a knife through......? 

[Justin Swanton]

Like a knife through......? 

There ya go.

[Imperial Dave]

well I am impressed

good work justin