Recoil! game 2, Thracians vs Ancient British (Graham Starkey)
Recoil! is a an annual DBMM 200 competition run by Neil Williamson over two Saturdays at the Hutt Valley Wargaming Club. My earlier post has more details about the competition format, a summary of my Thracian list and a report of my first game https://www.facebook.com/.../8248.../posts/2421145204711724/
In my second game, Graham was the defender, he could not change the terrain, and the terrain map is in the pics. Graham uses the option where there are no warband in his Ancient British army and, instead, there are lots (and lots) of chariots. I had discovered during the first round that Graham’s chariots can dismount as superior warband, including at deployment, and luckily I was deploying second.
I expected Graham to fill the marsh by the river on my right with infantry, have some troops between the marsh and his base edge and to line up his chariots, maybe with some dismounted, from the marsh to the other side of the table where there was a gentle hill for the chariots to charge off. The river was an advantage to me – it was rough going for my cavalry and light horse but difficult going for Graham’s chariots. Graham deployed similarly to how I expected, and the chariots were all mounted.
My plan was simple, attack on the right with my Thracian sub-general’s command, and hold in the centre and left until the marsh was taken and the British line turned. Xenophon and his hoplites and peltasts (Ps (S)) were in the centre, with the King on my left with peltasts deployed behind his cavalry to support them (Thracian Ps(S) can support their cavalry against other cavalry, +1 in my opponent’s bound). I had light horse on both flanks: on the right to sweep around the river and cross behind the marsh if possible and on the left to fill what would be a one element-wide gap between the King’s cavalry and the edge of the board.
The game played out more or less as planned. The Thracian peltasts and archers (Ps(S) and (O)) got into the marsh and disheartened the British command, which was shored up by its superior warband general and just the sheer number of surviving, disheartened slingers.
The auxiliary peltasts in the sub-general’s command and the sub-general advanced far enough to protect the psiloi flank. Xenophon advanced the hoplites to protect the auxiliaries and the King advanced his command to protect the hoplites – a shallow echelon, angled back a little from the marsh. I was wary of getting too close to the base of Graham’s gentle hill because about the only benefit for chariots being on deeper bases is it is easier for them to get the +1 for mounted attacking downhill because it is the back edge that counts.
On my right my light horse did not get far because I needed PIPs for the fight in the marsh and to protect the psiloi’s flank. One element of light horse did peel off and interfere effectively on the edge of the fight in the marsh. The auxiliary peltasts and hoplites got into a cautious fight with chariots, generally accounting well for themselves. Nothing much happened on my left, though Graham did dismount one of his chariots to threaten the end of the hoplite line with superior warband – I countered with peltasts (Ps(S)).
When time was called after two hours the British had lost more than 10% of their morale equivalents incurring two penalty points and the Thracians had lost less than 10% – a 14-11 draw after an entertaining game. Thank you Graham 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2421659417993636/
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| Graham had the first bound. Most of the fighting happened in the marsh and to the left of it. Graham has lined the river behind the marsh with superior and ordinary baggage. |
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| The map for the terrain we fought over. |
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