Thracians vs Syracusan (David Wright)
DBMM Nationals, game 2: A game in which I had a poor plan, lost patience and was lucky to end with an 11-14 draw. Thank you David for an, otherwise, excellent game!
David was the defender, in the picture we have deployed and David is starting the first bound. The picture shows the jammed up nature of the table with the sea, woods, and the gentle hill on my left that would become so important.
My first poor decision was choosing small pieces of difficult going to try to restrict where David could place his terrain and hopefully open up the table somewhat for my light horse (David had no light horse). David placed his compulsory sea and then two woods which, as the defender, he placed before my terrain – so much for my plan. He also had two 1FE gentle hills. In hindsight, I should have chosen scrubby hills, which I would have placed before David’s gentle hills and which would have suited my foot.
David deployed first: lots and lots of hoplites (Reg and Irr Sp(O)) from near the edge of the sea to a wood in his centre-right. The wood was full of psiloi (S and O), there were peltasts of some nationality (Reg Ax(S)) between the wood and the gentle hill, and cavalry (Reg CvO)) for the hill.
My plan was to use my light horse command (Irr LH(O)) on my right to force the hoplites facing them to use PIPs to protect the gap between them and the sea and to skirmish and delay. Holding the centre was Xenophon (Reg Cv(O)) with the mercenary hoplites (Reg Sp(O)) and peltasts (Reg Ps(S)). I would attack on my left with a mixed command: peltasts (Irr Ps(S)) and a few archers (Irr Ps(O)) storming the wood, and plentiful light horse and superior numbers of peltasts (Irr Ax(S)) facing off David’s peltasts and cavalry. Behind those commands was the King in reserve with nobles (Irr Kn(I) wedge), peltasts (Reg Ps(S)) a few slingers (Irr Ps(O)) and a couple of light horse, mostly to support my right and centre.
My right and centre worked fine but my attack on the left was a dismal failure.
David’s and my psiloi in the wood didn’t do a lot to each other so I lost patience and attacked his peltasts and cavalry. Yes, I had more troops but David had the hill and that made all the difference. Eventually, my command broke. The King’s command did what it could to cover and the only other loss was one element of light horse on my right. I lost more than 20%, David lost less than 10%.
A better plan that occurred to me afterwards (how useful was that?), might have been to use Xenophon and his hoplites to screen the hill on my left and certainly not attack up the hill (that uphill attack was a “doh!”moment). Attack the wood by leading with the auxiliary peltasts supported by that commands psiloi peltasts, holding the light horse back as a reserve. The King’s cloud of psiloi peltasts and the light horse command would skirmish and delay in the centre and right.
Easy eh? After the game
https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2369000893259489/
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| David is starting the first bound. The picture shows the jammed up nature of the table with the sea, woods, and the gentle hill on my left that would become so important. |
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