Early Imperial Romans(85) vs Palmyrns(106)
First game of V4 with Paul Frith
Hardly surprising I didn't do well when I thought I was fighting the Parthians in my first post of this battle!
This was to be my first outing with the new rules. I was therefore keen to compare and contrast the new rules and new capabilities these rules offered. Not least was the need to try out the Integrated Light Artillery option for the Romans.
I went for a rather typical ancient deployment with Legionaries in the centre and cavalry on the wings. Paul loaded his right wing and left his unreliable commander and mediocre troops to defend his left flank. Although I one the toss and decided to defend, even with that I think I out-thought myself with my plan and I could have been a little more imaginative.
Paul kindly lent me the camp as I had forgotten my marching camp!
My plan was to conduct a left wheel for the entire army and refuse my left flank as much as I could. I was hoping to make progress with my Legionaries and roll up Paul's left flank. To do so I would have been better advised to have all the cavalry on the flank; as was one of the options in which I out-thought myself from doing!
Battle is about to be joined. Enough already with the missiles being thrown, let's get down to the hard combat
Battle has been joined and we started to have melees galore. This game certainly demonstrated the increased severity of flank attacks, with the addition of the flanking combat factor! I lost more Legionaries that I am accustomed to when fighting with these Romans. In the end I lost 5 out of 7 Legionary units!
The high point for me, and the low point for Paul, is the gap in front of my Bowmen you can see in this picture. That gap was once a Cataphract unit that the Bows destroyed in combat! Next move his Bows did the same to my Heavy cavalry. Please note that this was not on initial contact but the second round of melee!
At this stage we were both 5 points away from routing each other's army. Paul got there first.
Result
A victory for the Palmyrns, and defeat to the Romans. These Legionaries are going back into training!
Lessons Learnt
- Flank attacks can be devastating, they cannot be avoided however. Expect your games to finish quicker :)
- Integrated Artillery works well, but the rules are a little ambiguous and I have asked some questions in the ADLG Rules forum.
- Go with the first plan, avoid over-thought.
- Create a check list before I travel to games, so I don't forget my camps!
