DBMM New Zealand : Hebrews vs Medes - posted by Josh Barton, 3 August 2024

Today King David of Israel faced the invading forces of King Astyages of Media (Paul Graham). This was the first outing for the Hebrews and, having not read the Median list beforehand I was not expecting so much cavalry!

The Medians invaded in the spring and faced David's army in a hilly, rocky area of Israel. David's army was deployed with the foot troops on both flanks and a thin line of archers supported by the charioteers in the center. The Medians deployed their archers opposite their Hebrew counterparts, supported by half of their spearmen and heavy cavalry while the Median flanks consisted of horse archers, notably a large contingent of Scythians in the relatively open ground on their right.

The battle opened with the Hebrew army securing their right flank while the Median light cavalry attempted to flank their opponents. In the middle the archers began an extended exchange of arrows while the Median auxilia moved to support them.

The Hebrew elite infantry - the Gibborim and the Caanite mercenaries moved to block the Median flanking attacks while the main wings of the Hebrews edged up the field, uncertain of their chances against the spearmen and cavalry of the Medians. The archer contest began to go against the Hebrews whose line was first broken up and then began to crumble.

The Median auxilia also made contact with the Hebrew archers, beginning a slow but inevitable destruction of the first rank of the Hebrew center. Meanwhile the Median cavalry charged through their lines to attack the Hebrew spearmen.

The Hebrews (at no little hinting from Astyages himself, but we'll omit that in the histories) swapped the priorities of their commands. While this happened the archers in the center fully collapsed and the chariots were forced in to push the Median auxiliaries back.

On the Hebrew center-right flank a heroic stand was made by a small number (2 bases) of spearmen, who managed to hold off 5 times their number of Medians, despite being surrounded for several turns, and even took a few of their opponents with them.

On the Hebrew left the median cavalry made slow progress against the mass of Hebrew spearmen, while the vanguard detachment of Scythians was forced back with heavy casualties. On the far right flank, the Hebrews and the Medians settled into throwing insults at each other for the rest of the battle.

After several frustrating rolls in the middle (failed hard flanks.... grrrrrrrr) the Hebrew chariots were able to kill the Auxilia, and a number of Median cavalrymen while utterly resisting the volleys of arrows coming in from the reformed median archers.

On the left the Hebrew spearmen slowly pushed back the Scythians, but the horse archers were too quick for their footpad opponents and simply turned and withdrew. In the center the Hebrew chariots reformed, while the heroic spearmen detatchment were finally destroyed by the Medians.

By this point we had played for 5 hours, and 24 bounds each of the battle and neither side was close to losing (both had lost about 10% of their army and fairly evenly distributed), so a truce was called and the battle was recorded as indecisive.

So first time out with a book 1 army, and with the Hebrews. I learned a lot, not least of all that armies with 100+ elements are really durable. I'm used to playing medieval armies where losing 12 elements to 4 would pretty much be game over (and I was getting a bit too frustrated, sorry Paul) but with the larger armies you can absorb the losses easily. Besides that I enjoyed the game and the feel of the Hebrews and thanks to Paul for being a wonderful sport as always. My biggest mistake was definitely assigning the middle pips to the right when they were just not able to really press the advantage, but oh well.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2649361848556724

[Admin: Here are some of Josh's pics. There are heaps more on our Facebook, making a kind of storyboard of the game.]