Thracians vs Cham (Peter Williamson)
DBMM Nationals: My third game, in which the terrain, the only cavalry being Reg (I), and the dice were all important. A win, 25-0. Thank you, Peter, for a good game and your excellent humour in the face of an unpleasant match-up of armies and cruel dice.
Peter invaded and chose two scrubby hills, which his elephants would like. I chose three small pieces of marsh and wood to help prevent Peter placing terrain in useful places for him, and a piece of rocky flat to hamper his elephants. The picture shows my little terrain pieces led to the right half of the table being very open. Peter’s scrubby hills ended up in the centre left, one on each side of the table, and my rocky flat was very near the left edge of the table.
I knew Peter had few troops he could deploy in the flank sectors. I decided to cover the centre with the King’s clouds of peltasts (Ps(S)) and handful of slingers (Ps(O)), advancing quickly. The King and nobles (Irr Kn(I) in wedge) were behind them, far enough back to pick where they might fight and close enough to actually get there to fight.
Xenophon and his hoplites would be on the edge of the open right flank, most of them in a column, ready to move further out to that flank to counter any Cham auxiliaries (Reg Ax(S) and a few (O)) and cavalry (Reg CV(I)) that might be there. The Greek peltasts (Reg Ps(S)) would threatened any elephants. A command of light horse (Irr LH(O)) was behind them and would sweep wide, forcing Peter to expend PIPs and turn troops to face them.
I would attack on my left with a mixed command: peltasts (Irr Ax(S) and Irr Ps(S)) and a few archers (Irr Ps(O)) rushing to take the scrubby hill and pushing through the rocky flat, with plentiful light horse pushing out wide.
We rolled deployment dice, Peter doubled mine and had to deploy first. He deployed warband (Irr Wb(F)), cavalry and elephants in the centre. Each flank was similar, elephants, auxiliaries and archers (Reg Ps(O)) who could support the auxiliaries.
I had to deploy according to my plan but could shuffle elements within that plan to get the best match ups I could. And really, that combined with good combat dice, was the game – the pic shows how difficult the situation was.
We played and my psiloi peltasts in the centre swarmed over the warband, causing serious casualties and driving them back. The nobles then charged through into the badly disrupted warband. On the open right flank the regular hoplites showed off their drill, and combined with their psiloi peltasts and the supporting light horse command were just too much for the Cham command in front of them. On my left, my psiloi peltasts and psiloi archers were able to get the uphill advantage on the hill, I had superior numbers of auxiliary peltasts to their left and the light horse from that command snuck around the edge of the rocky ground.
The Cham left, being attacked by the two commands on my right broke, that broke the centre, and that was the game. A hard day at the office for the Cham, with the paper, scissors, rock of DBMM definitely being in my favour and exacerbated by the deployment dice and combat dice also definitely being in my favour.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2369941093165469/
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| This pic is after deployment with Peter, the invader, having the first bound. It shows how open the right flank was, with the hoplites and light horse behind them ready to exploit it. |
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| The Cham left flank command, elephants, archers (Ps (O)) and auxiliaries (Ax(S) and one or two Ax(O)). |
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