Thebans vs Ptolemaic - posted by Josh Barton, 31 October 2020

Today I got to play a wonderful game against Russell's Ptolomaics with my real Greeks. With Russell having not played for a long time and my Greeks being... well my Greeks it was set up to be a good game. The Greeks were invading Egypt, consequently there was a WW and an otherwise open field. We also had a furry guest.

As I did against the Persians I put the cavalry in a flank attack, and lined the spear up behind the psiloi. I wasn't confident in beating the large number of kn(f) in wedge with the cav, but it felt like a good 50/50. The same was true in the middle - bd(O) and pk(O) against spear is not ideal but hopefully the psiloi would break them up as they came in.

Russell advanced aggressively as my psiloi repositioned opposite his blade. Meanwhile my flank attack came in on the first turn, but Russell rolled terrible pips so couldn't properly reposition.

After a couple of turns trading insults the lines collided. The psiloi were quickly pushed back and spent while the pike pushed into and then through the hoplite line! With a gap opened up so quickly things looked bleak for the Greeks.

However the cavalry combat went better as the cav general killed a light horse and hard flanked a knight, the knight line broke up giving the cavalry good opportunities to exploit further flanks.

In the middle the blade and aux failed to make any progress against the sacred band but on the right things went bad to worse as the pike began exploiting the gap and rolling up the Greek line.

The right flank of the Greeks was quickly disheartened, broken and shattered. However in the middle hoplites managed to kill 4 blade and the cavalry combat continued going in favour of the Greeks.

The Greek center held out but became disheartened, as did the remaining Egyptian blade putting both armies on the precipice, despite the massive losses on the Greek side compared to the Ptolomaics.

And then on the last turn both armies broke. The knight command broke putting the -2ME on the blade, breaking the Ptolomaics with a minimum number of casualties, on the Greek side neither command broke but the Egyptians did just enough to put the whole army under 50% MEs.

I robbed Russell here, he mashed my army and if the losses had been in different commands he would have easily won. Still it was good fun, and nice to get the Greeks out again. I've brought some more models for the Greeks and hopefully I can strengthen the army a bit (dropping the brilliant general for a start...) 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/permalink/1653106994848886/

Vincent Cholewa

Nice base-cloth but what happened to the grass?

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• Russell Briant

  Vincent Cholewa

   still special votes to count but it looks like it needs to remain underground for some time to come.

  

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Vincent Cholewa

Alastair Duncan

 offered advice?

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• Josh Barton

  he certainly added commentary

  

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• Vincent Cholewa

  

  Great game report - I do like these rules. Josh, are you sure you weren’t playing Pyrrhus?

  

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• Russell Briant

  Thanks you for the game Josh which cracked on at a good pace.

  Simultaneous breaking seemed a perfect outcome.… 

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• Frank LeSquirrel

  Brilliant guys...

  

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