Greek later hoplite vs Libyan Egyptian

 

This is a turn-by-turn report of a 400AP game between Libyian Egyptians (book 1 list 38) and Later Hoplite Greeks (book 2, list 5) between Dirk Heinsius and Josh Barton on the 12/12/2020.

The armies

The Egyptian list was from 712BC, and consisted of three commands, with one being an allied command (which is compulsory). The troops are a mixture of regular cavalry chariots (Cav(S)), regular bowmen (Bw(I)) and Irregular warband (Wb(S)).

The Libyian Egyptian army list

As Dirk’s neat list shows, the army has a large amount of ME at 90, and all three commands are roughly of the same size, with the allied command (D) being smaller in ME but larger in elements, making it a pain to break, and making it a good stalling command.

The Greeks were Thebans from ~350BC and similarly consisted of three commands, all of them regular sub-generals. The troops were mostly regular spearmen (Sp(O)), and regular psiloi (a mixture of Ps(S) and (O)), with a small group of regular cavalry (Cv(O)).

The Greek army list

As Josh’s list shows the hoplites and psiloi were split in two commands, with both having a small number of superior spearmen (the Theban sacred band) and a small command of Cavalry supported by the Hammippoi (Reg Ps(S) that can provide +1 to the combat resolution of cavalry in some circumstances). The Greek army is smaller than the Egyptian one with only 83.5ME. However in theory the Greek troops are superior to the Egyptians. The army was structured to maximise the number of ME that needed to be lost for a command to break, but it does have a small, relatively fragile command in the cavalry.

Set up

Having chosen their armies the players chose their preferred invasion season (spring for the Greeks, summer for the Egyptians), and rolled off to see who was the invader. The Egyptians have aggression 2, meaning that they add 2 to their dice, compared to the Greek’s 1, making them more likely to be the invader. The first dice roll was a draw after these modifiers were taken into account, moving the invasion back one season, and the Egyptians won the second roll, meaning that the Egyptians were invading Greece in Autumn.

Both players then selected their terrain – the Egyptians, as the invader chose first and selected a road (0 FE), a vineyard (1 FE) and an open field (1 FE) for a total of 2 feature equivalents. The Greeks chose 2 difficult hills (1/2 FE each), a lake (2FE) and a rocky flat (1FE) for a total of 4 FE. Josh then nominated his back edge as ‘5’ on the deployment dice, and Dirk nominated his left flank as ‘6’. The terrain was then deployed according to the rules on page 21 of the rulebook. They then both drew a map of the terrain and the approximate deployment of their commands.

Josh's deployment map

Josh’s deployment map including the side numbers and terrain. He mentioned to Dirk that he’d crossed out his initial deployment and changed the orders of his commands before Dirk had finished (but this is usually good faith!).

The players then rolled off for a second time to see who deployed first and whether there was any weather. Josh rolled 2, and Dirk rolled 6, meaning that Dirk doubled Josh and so would deployed first. The difference of 4 meant that there was no relevant weather (just a light breeze), and the battle started at 8am, so avoided a night battle.

 

Deployment

Dirk then deployed all of his army according to his map, followed by Josh

Dirk Deploys his army

Dirk deployed his allied command on his right, behind one of the difficult hills and flanked by the lake. His cavalry and bow were deployed on the opposite flank and the fearsome meshwesh (warband S) with Pharaoh in the middle.

The deployed Greek line (with wargamers in the background)

Getting to deploy second the Greeks were able to counter-deploy the Libyians somewhat, placing their cavalry opposite the meshwesh, and the hoplites on either flank – moving the cavalry to the middle was the change the Greek player made, hence why he checked it with his opponent! Josh elected to not deploy a command along the road, something that may come back to haunt him!

Both players then wrote down which commands would be getting which dice, with the Greeks giving their right the high dice, the cavalry getting the middle dice and the left getting the low dice. The Egyptians gave pharaoh the high dice and the sub-general the low dice. The Libyan ally gets his own dice separate from the other two.

The Battle

Turn 1 Egyptians (pip die 4/3 and ally 2)

Having deployed first, Dirk got the first turn and began by rolling pip die and getting 4 and 3 for the regular generals and 2 for the ally – sighing in relief that it wasn’t a 1 which would make the ally unreliable.

There wasn’t much action in the first turn, the chariots began moving out wide and the bowmen moving forward to free up space for the meshwesh. In the middle command, Dirk used pharaoh’s pip (c-in-c’s dice) and 2 pips to turn the meshwesh 90 degrees into a column facing his left flank. The Libyians moved up the hill for 2 pips.

The Libyans take the hill, the meshwesh are about to turn into a column facing their left

Turn 1 Greeks (pip die 6/4/3)

Josh then rolled massive pip die, getting 6, 4 and 3, but didn’t use most of them, deciding to advance as fast as he could to engage the Egyptians before the meshwesh could reform this was one pip from each command. An additional two pips were used from the cavalry command to turn the psiloi into a column (only 1 pip for being regulars) and then moving the column 200 paces.

The Greeks advance on the reforming meshwesh

End of turn 1

Turn 2 Egyptian (6/4 and 3 for the ally)

Dirk was a bit nervous about his pips – low pips now would prevent the meshwesh from getting out of a column (2 pips plus the generals!), luckily though he rolled a 6 and a 4 for his regular commands and a 3 for the ally. This allowed him to march the meshwesh forward for one pip and then reform them from a column into a group facing the Greeks for three pips. He also used 2 pips to move his chariots further out wide on the left, and 2 to reform the archers into a wider group (using two individual element moves). 2 pips were also needed to hold the impetuous Libyan warband.

The meshwesh reform, this was the biggest danger for the Egyptians, next turn the Greeks would be within 400 paces and would stop them from marching!

End of Egyptian turn 2 - everything is now in position!

Turn 2 Greeks (6/5/1)

The Greeks yet again got excellent pips but couldn’t make use of most of them, simply moving forward. The column of psiloi continued its reform but found itself within 400 paces of the Egyptians, meaning that they were limited to one move. The advance put the spear in range of the bw(I), but after several shots only 2 spearmen were pushed back – bow are +3 vs foot and get +1 if they have a second rank, while spear always add +4 (with no back rank against shooting) meaning that they need to roll a 6 when spear roll a 1 to double the spear and kill them.

The Greek line advances - two of the spear would recoil to the archers, but the line would hold

Turn 3 Egyptian (5/3 ally 3)

Dirk again got decent dice, and used a massive 4 pips in the c-in-c’s command to perform 4 individual element moves to further stretch out his archers’ line. His remaining pip was used to move the meshwesh forward up to the archer line. He also used another 2 pips on the sub-general’s command to move two elements of his archers. The shooting again only got a couple of pushed back, with the archers mostly 1 rank deep they cannot actually kill spear (with +3 the most they can get is ‘9’ to the spear’s lowest of ‘5’).

Turn 3 Greek (5/4/2)

Again pips were no problem for the Greeks! The large number of pips allowed him to use 2 pips from the cavalry command to reposition 2 of his cavalry in-front of the meshwesh, and 2 pips from the high-pip command to move four elements of hoplites (in 2 columns) in-front of the gap left by the cavalry. The remaining pips were used to reform the spear-line that was pushed back by the bow. The low pip command also used one of its two pips to turn the entire phalanx into a column, however with the Libyans within 400 paces they could not make a march move.

The shooting was again ineffective.

The Greeks reform to place their cavalry in-front of the meshwesh

Turn 4 Egyptian (4/3 and ally 1)

The Egyptian pip die were not perfect this turn. The 1 for the ally meant that Dirk could not hold the Libyan warband, causing them to rush forward and make contact with the Greek cavalry. The pips in the middle allowed him one last turn of reforming before the Greek line hit. He used two pips from the general’s command to make two individual element moves with his bowmen to move them in-front of the Greek cavalry, with the last pip used to hold only the two columns of meshwesh in-front of the cavalry. Dirk had wanted to move more bowmen but they were within 80 paces of the hoplites, preventing them from doing anything but moving forward or backwards.

Not holding the remaining 4 columns of meshwesh caused them to go impetuous, charging forward through the Egyptian bowmen (who recoiled behind the meshwesh) and make contact with the Greek hoplites.

Combat began with the Libyan warband beating the Greek cavalry, causing them to flee in-front of the reforming column of Greek hoplites behind them, but the main show was the meshwesh. Things started poorly for them with the first result being 6 – 1 for the hoplites, resulting in a total of 11 for the Greeks (+4+1 for back rank) to 5 for the meshwesh (3 + 1 for a back rank). However the meshwesh returned the favour winning the next two combats. Warband get a ‘quick kill’ against spear and kill them in two ranks, so both of these wins (although not doubles) resulted in 4 elements of spear being killed! The Greeks regained some pride, getting a second 6 -1 in the final combat of the round. In all cases the victorious foot pushed forward, this let Dirk get his meshwesh in combat with the Greek general who was leading behind the main phalanx, and also meant that the Greeks didn’t need to use pips in their counter-attack.

The Meshwesh open up the Greek lines

Turn 4 Greek (6/1/1)

The Greek luck with pip dice failed! 6 for the high command was nice, but one for both the cavalry and the other hoplites was a disaster because it meant that the Greeks needed to choose between counter-attacking the meshwesh with the cavalry and the column of psiloi or moving the fleeing cavalry out of the way of the Greek column. As it was the Greeks decided to use their one pip to move the psiloi into combat and the general’s free to move the cavalry in, meaning that the reinforcements were delayed for another turn!

With the high-pip general in combat the Greeks effectively only had 3 moves (since it is an additional pip to do anything if the General is in combat), which they used to move their psiloi on the far right forward into the bow and aux(O) and to move the rest of the hoplites into combat with the Egyptian bowmen.

Shooting finally achieved something, with the Egyptian bow killing both a Greek cavalry and also one of the advancing psiloi on the right. In the combats there were mostly just push-backs (neither warband or spear quick-kill on the warband’s turn), but the Greek general was able to double the warband they faced, getting one kill. The meshwesh also doubled one of the newly arrived psiloi. This ‘spends’ them so they don’t count as losses until the command is broken. It also means that the second rank of psiloi aren’t killed either.

The Greeks are about to counter-attack the Meshwesh, but the hoplite line looks very thin already!

Turn 5 Egyptian (6/4 and ally 4)

The Egyptians smelled blood, and got a massive number of pips. The impetuous Libyan warband continued charging forward out of control, nearly making contact with the stalled Greek column, elsewhere the glut of pips allowed pharaoh’s chariots to make contact with the remaining Greek cavalry, and the other chariots to counter-charge the Greek psiloi that had attacked the auxiliaries.

The Libyan warband are just short of the Greeks, in the background some psiloi are engaged by other warband

The meshwesh took the opportunity to attack wherever they could, hoping to quickly break the Greek army…

The smattering of shooting from the unengaged bowmen again achieved little.

The chariots charged into the Greek cavalry – this is +3 vs +3 but with the chariots adding +2 if they win the combat, and breaking ties. The end result of the three combats were two dead cavalry bases. Out on the far flank, the auxilia and chariots killed 4 psiloi.

Dead Greek cavalry! The command is now down 3 ME

Again the main show was the meshwesh, who killed four more spearmen, including winning a 6 – 5 leading to two bases dead! The combat with the Greek general was close, the general had no support, but has +1 for being a general, leading to a total of +5. However he was also flanked by the meshwesh swarm, reducing this to a +4. The meshwesh were again on +4. Both sides rolled 3s, leading to a draw, however the superiority of the meshwesh meant that they add +1 in a tie, meaning they won, and killed the Greek General.

The loss of the General and 4 spear(O) was 8ME in total, added to the 2 ME from the psiloi and the 4 from the already dead hoplites, the command had lost 14 ME, leading to it breaking!

The cavalry command had lost a total of 3 cavalry and 2 psiloi for 4 ME, not enough to dishearten them. However, being within 400 paces of a command that breaks adds 2 ME to the command’s losses for the one turn. This was enough to also break the cavalry and, with 2 commands broken the Greek army was forced to surrender.

 

Ending thoughts

In a tournament, that would have been a comfortable 25-0 win to the Egyptians, and it was deserved. Dirk played well, taking a minor gamble with his meshwesh, but it was a gamble that paid off, giving them the fight they needed. He also took Josh by surprise by letting the meshwesh go impetuous through the bowmen, this was not expected!

As for the Greek plan, deploying the left hoplites against a difficult hill facing psiloi was bad, there is no way that spearmen will attack psiloi up a difficult hill, so deploying them in column along the road would have been far more advantageous. However though, it would not have made a difference, the meshwesh charging through the bowmen won the game for the Egyptians and without a screen of psiloi there was no chance for the hoplites to survive (let alone win!).