Alexander's Successors 323-47 BC
Gametesting the WAB Pontic Army Lists
Play test report for 3000pt Pontics vs. Romans
Freddy and Trevor offered this report
Good King Mithridates having decided to rid the world
Romans once and for all (obviously he did not realise how many there were and how fast
they bred) raised an army.
King
Army
2 x 10 Pontic Guards with heavy armour
1 x 10 Rhoxolani horse archers
1 x 24 Sinopean Guards equipped as legionaries with large
shield and pilum
1 x 32 Brazen Shields with heavy armour and pike
2 x 48 Freed Slave phalanxes with light armour and pike
1 x 24 Levy Thureophoroi with javelins and thrusting
spears
2 x 18 Levy Thureophoroi with javelins and thrusting
spears
1 x 24 Bastarnae with falx
1 x 24 Iberians with javelins and throwing spears
1
Scythed Chariot
1 x 9 Mercenary
Cretan Archers
The Romans sent to meet him.
General
Army
2 Lictors
1 Praetor
4 x Centurions
1 x 20 Veteran Legionaries
3 x 20 Experienced Legionaries
3 x 24 Allied Galatian Imitation Legionaries
3 Scorpions
each with 3 crew
1 x 9 Galatian Noble Cavalry
2 x 10 Skirmishers with javelins
The battle was fought on an 8’ x 4’ table with
no terrain features as I wanted nothing to get in way of my enormous army (302 figures)
and Trevor doesn’t seem to like terrain features.
Straightaway the Romans showed how sneaky and underhand
they were going to be by digging two 18” long trenches straight out from their
baseline about 4’ apart they then deployed all their infantry inside these barriers
with 2 Experienced Legionary unit at each end of the line (veterans on their extreme
right) and the Galatian Legions in the centre under the watchful eye of the General. The
Javelinmen started in skirmish order just behind the main line then used their pre game
4” move to leapfrog the legions. The Galatian Nobles were left to their fate outside
the trenches on the Roman right. The Scorpions
were split with 2 on the Roman left and 1 tucked between the right-hand Romans and the
Galatians.
My Phalanx deployed in the centre with the two Freed Slave
units on the left, the Brazen Shields in the centre and the Sinopean Legion in the
position of honour on the right. There was a
Scythed Chariot between the Brazen Shields and the Legion.
Flanking the heavy infantry I had 1 unit of Levy Thureophoroi and the
Bastarnae on the left and the balance of the light infantry on the right. The Levies on
the right and one unit on the left were “formed” the rest were normal light
infantry. The cavalry were split with one unit on each flank.
The battle started with the Rhoxolani taking their free
move to close with the enemy then the Romans advanced across the entire front. The Scorpions irritated the middle phalanx (it
takes more then that to lose a rank in a 48 figure unit) and one of the Thureophoroi units
on the right. I countered by fast marching the
two right hand light infantry units to try and cross the trenches and threaten the Roman
rear, the cavalry not wanting to make a frontal assault on formed infantry followed. On
the left the cavalry moved up to attack the Galatian Nobles supported by the Levy
Thureophoroi who advanced to far and got charged next turn.
In the centre the Phalanx stood and watched whilst the archers attacked the
enemy skirmishers. Over the next two moves as
the armies closed the Cretans caused the right hand skirmish unit to panic and then failed
to do any real damage to the heavy infantry and the Rhoxolani ran around in circles
getting peppered with javelins and eventually ran away never to return.
The Romans continued their advance with more Scorpion fire
(not so irritating this time as they killed 3 cavalrymen who strangely enough failed their
3D6 panic test) and the Galatians spurned my nice tempting wedge to charge the
Thureophoroi but lost, survived their CR test and FBIGO’d. Unfortunately for them
they only went back 6” which left them nicely in range of the wedge, the Thureophoroi
gave chase but ran out of puff at 5” so they left it to the wedge to commit
atrocities the Galatian Nobility will take a lifetime to recover from (6-0 casualties,
pursued and destroyed). The Roman Veterans and
Battle Standard panicked and fled after watching the destruction of their cavalry. On the
right the fast march continued but the Iberians stopped and reformed to fill the hole left
by the cavalry who thankfully had rallied). The centre edged forward.
Yet more advancing by the Romans next turn and of course
the Veterans and ABS rallied and reformed (don’t you just hate going up against high
Ld troops). Then my Guard cavalry swung round
to threaten the end of the Roman line, the Phalanx edged forward again and the Scythed
Chariot launched itself at the “real” Roman Legion which was a mistake as they
formed lanes and let it run straight through to the rear.
On the right the Thureophoroi split into skirmish order swarmed into the
trench and threw javelins at the 2 Scorpions.
The Romans continued their advance bringing them into
charge range of the Phalanx, their Experienced Legion turned to face my left hand wedge
and the Scorpions shot the Scythed Chariot to pieces.
The
The Pontic Guard wedge on the left with no choice in the
matter impetuously charged the Legionary unit in front of them exposing their flank to the
veterans. (At this point I was regretting not having Alexander at the head of his
Companions who could have ignored the close enemy units and run through the gap to
threaten the rear of the whole Roman army which would have been fun). Next in line the Bastarnae charged the Roman
skirmishers who fled, were caught and destroyed the hit the flank of the Romans in contact
with the wedge. Leaving the Slave Phalanx
behind, the Brazen Shields attempted to wheel and hit one of the Galatian Imitation
Legions in the flank but caught the next one in the line so had to fight two units
frontally, one on each corner. The Sinopean
Guards charged the inside Roman unit, the Iberians threw javelins at the outside one and
the Levy Thureophoroi charged out of the trench to attack the Scorpion crews. The combats were resolved with the cavalry winning
causing the Romans to “burn their stubborn”, the Brazen Shields lost by 1 and broke due to us all losing track of
the warband rules (somehow we came up with a result of autobreak despite the fact that the
Galatians had not charged and they are only subject to Rule 1). The Sinopean Guards lost but held and the
Thureophoroi routed the Scorpions.
The
Roman turn had the Veterans charging and virtually annihilating the wedge, the Regular
legionaries beat off the flank attack by the Bastarnae, broke them and hit the end Phalanx
in the pursuit. In the centre the Galatians
charged the other Slave Phalanx with 2 units whilst the other unit having pursued and
destroyed the Brazen Shields caught the ABS on his own (with 1 casualty against 1 wound
the ABS ran away). The Slave Phalanx having
survived it’s panic test for the Brazen Shields breaking, lost its CR test. Against my judgement they were not allowed to class
the Galatian Legionaries as Romans and test on an unmodified 10 but fled automatically as
they were outnumbered levies. The Sinopean
Guards won their combat and the Romans “burnt their stubborn”. The end Roman unit charged the Iberians who lost
but survived the CR test.
The last chance for the Pontics.
The Thureophoroi who had panicked when the Brazen Shields
were destroyed rallied at the edge of the table to far away to have any effect on the
battle. The three remaining unengaged units
could now move, the Thureophoroi on the left moved towards the Veteran Legionaries, the
Thureophoroi on the right formed up in a position to charge the rear of the unit fighting
the Brazen Shields and the cavalry finally got close enough threaten either of the two
Roman units on the right.
The Ex Slave Phalanx beat the Roman Legion but it passed
its CR test. The Sinopean Guards beat their
opponent but the Romans passed again, the Iberians held (not sure how but rolling a 3
helped.
The final Roman turn started with the Veterans ignoring
the Thureophoroi and charging the front last phalanx whilst one of the Galatian Legions
charged into it’s flank. This combat was
lost by about 3 and the phalanx was automatically broken and destroyed (see comments
above). The Sinopean Guard won again and the
Romans held again! However the Iberians
finally caved in, were broken…etc. This
caused the cavalry to take and pass a panic test and the Levy Thureophoroi to panic.
Final chance to claim a scalp had the cavalry charging the
Romans in the flank, the Romans passed their panic test but finally broke in the CR test.
Comments
In no particular order:
TRENCHES- Should
they be limited to the deployment zone? In
this game they extended 6” outside the deployment zone. Should there be a cost for
them as they proved very useful for the Romans?
GALATIAN IMITATION LEGION – Imitation Legionaries
work out good value. Conscripts from the Spartacus list cost 10pts and have LD6, so long
as they can keep rank bonus you get Ld 7 and the same stats for everything else (assuming
they take the large shield and heavy throwing spear- 10pts).
In fact they make a good way to fill out the centre of a Roman Army as the
middle of the line is unlikely to use the drilled attribute of ordinary Legionaries who
cost 13pts.
WARBAND IMITATION LEGION – This was our mistake and
should not happen, at least not to me again. This
in my opinion (obviously biased of course) changed the battle from being fairly evenly
balanced into a disaster when the Brazen Shields collapsed rather than have two chances of
getting 7 or less to survive.
EX SLAVE PHALANX – We had a difference of opinion
about unmodified test applying to Galatian allies. My view was that the “hatred”
factor should count against any unit in the Roman Army including allies, not just Romans
which was Trevor’s view.
Also, how does the rule about Levies fearing any unit they
do not outnumber by at least 2:1 and
automatically breaking affect the “hated” rule. I think it should overrule the levies/fear.
IMPETUOSITY – Have you considered making Pontic
cavalry take a test against their leadership to stop pursuing a broken enemy even after
catching and destroying them.
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04/28/07