Syracusan Hoplites fight at the Swabian Open
In 2010 my first tournament was the Swabian Open in Ludwigsburg/Germany. A special rule for this event is
that you may bring more than one army (one per period, not needed but allowed). I went with Khitan Liao for Book 3
and Syracusan from book 2. This gave me five very exciting games:
1. my Khitan versus Huns played by Elmo (lost badly)
2. my Khitan versus Samurai played by Norbert (draw)
3. my Syracusan versus Alexandrian Macedon played by Marc (see below)
4. my Syracusan versus Late Imperial Romans played by Tilmann (see below)
5. my Khitan versus Gazhnavid played by Gael Richard from France (lost)
Thanks to Neil and Benno for organizing the weekend and to Costa for doing the saturday event: a really brillant
guided tour through the Ludwigsburg palace!
Playing the Khitan is fairly easy: regular Generals with regular baggege gives you enough PIPs to correct all
your major mistakes - just take care not to loose the fast Light Horse, they are a bit fragile. Playing the
Syracusan is a really different story. No super troops, no regular baggage and one of the "underdog" troop types,
Reg Sp(I), very prominent in the list. So I want to share with you how I fared with the Syracusan.
I chose a brillant CinC, Agathokles during his campaign in Africa. This gave me Dsiguised Troops as a
stratagem (6 Hordes, diusguised as 2 rSpI each) and a Numidian Ally who brought some iLHO and iPsS to my army. The
idea was to make the iSpI command look really BIG, have it attacked by the opponents prime killer troops, run
away with the true rSpI, the disguised hordes will die, resulting in a loss of 3ME while I can fight against the
rest of the opponent's army. To make the fight against the fake SpI very slow, I took a galley with a PsO on board
to threaten the flank of the attack.
A] brillant CinC r SpS, rSpS, 12 rSpO, 4rPsS, 4rPsO, 3rAxS
B] SG rSpI, 12 rSpI, 6 iHdO (disguised), 2 rPsI, 1 rPsO, 1rGalF
C] SG rCvO, 1 LHO, 9 rCvO, 6 rPsI
D] AG iLHO, 6 iLHO, 4 iPsS, 2 iBgeI
Train] 6 iBgeO
On to the battle against the Macedons
-------------------------------------
Marc brought Alexander himself with his compagnons, one Pike command, one Cavalry, one LH/Ax/Ps command. I new the
army from a test game - Marc actually painted my Syracusans and he played the same army at our handover game.
Luckily Alexander invaded Sicily and attacked the polis of Syracus.
I placed the sea to my left, a BUA at a road, 60 cm from the right table edge and well 20cm forward from my
baseline. There was a big Rough opposite the BUA in Marcs deployment zone and a gentle hill on my baseline,
far to the right, no other terrain was really important.
I deployed first: command B at the sea shore, command A to its right, Psiloi and Auxilia in the BUA, the Cv
directly to the right of the BUA in column, just one rider out to block marches, the Numidians to the far right,
ready to run around the Macedonian flank.
Marc left the shore line unattended, Alexander opposite my rSpO phalanx in column,
the pike in front of the BUA and a huge number of LH, CV, AxS, Ps against my right flank. So the Numidians and
my cavalry run for their lives to get behind the BUA and defend the narrow part between BUA and the table edge.
The rSpO advance carefully, always staying next to the BUA, the SpI advance as fast as they can (always
dropping some PIPs for the Hd). To Marc this looked widly suspicious - he never cared to attack them. So
I played my bait very badly here although I never told Marc what stratagem it really was.
I struggled to get all the PIPs to rescue my right flank into safety but basically all make it behind the BUA,
that is now defended by many many Ps S/O/I. My rAxS, rPs play some ping pong games with Macedon LH that Marc had send
to draw them out of the BUA. Once my cavalry is safe behind the BUA I brillantly race them behind the rSpO
phalanx with 12 PIPs (doubled a 6) and ready to attack Alexanders KnF wedges. Marc had given Alexander the
lowest PIP dice (usually a 1) so Alexander does not make it into a solid formation before contact. My cavalry
loose a few elements but manage to break Alexander. As my SpO wheel to attack the flank of the Macedon PkO
Phalanx he pulls them off the BUA and reforms them far far away, uses a brillant stroke to pull out his own
Cavalry and LH from behind the BUA and forms a new front against my attack.
Knowing that my rSpI will not arrive in 10 years due to the hordes in the group I decide to run my last attack
with my rSpO phalanx, the remaining Cv and my Numidians that where waiting behind the BUA. The idea seemed ok
as with the Macedon Cv/LH pulled away there where only Ax and Ps left on that side. The weak spot being my own
Ps in the BUA, some of the PsI... but I trusted the Numidians to kill the Macedon Ax and Psiloi faster than
mine would die. What a crap idea! The Numidians killed ONE PsO only while my elements died quickly. As the
Psiloi I of my Cv command died too that command broke, the Numidians broke and the battle was lost with
Marc's Macedons being at over 45% losses. A deserved 15:10 to Marc. I risked very fragile troops without any
real need. My strategic plan played absolutely no role, no SpI saw any fight from closer than 200 paces
distance. Only one Psiloi of command B gave a flank attack to kill a KnF wedge.
Oh, and dice where abssolutely awful - to both of us ;-))
The game versus Tilmans Romans
------------------------------
I was truely scared about that game. Tilmann is good fun to play against but Romans have Knights, Blades,
Artillery that may shoot over legions, some hunnic LHS. Can it get any worse for the beautiful polis of
Syrakus?
YES IT CAN! Some completely idiotic politician decided to attack Rome!!!! I invaded, having only 2FE
of terrain to place, no BUA to hide myself. I finally went for the Sea, Tilmann adding an orchard placed
at the shore, 12 cm from his baseline, a paved road from his coastline to my baseline, half a BUA placed in the
center, and a vineyard on my table edge touching the sea.
Tilmann deployed first: baggage behind the orchard, knights between the shore and the BUA, one Psiloi was
placed in the BUA, some KnF, His Blades (supported by Ps) and ArtF Monster-Spear-Killer command and some
Hunnic LHs to my right.
I deployed the galley well forward, the SpI and the SpO phalanxes in a diagonal from the sea to my baseline.
AxS and PsS/O ready to attack the BUA. The Cv next to them and the Numidians to the far right - leaving a big
gap between the Cv and the Numidians.
The romans draw back their knights from the sea and run behind their BUA versus my right flank. Hell I cannot
remember who played that trick before... The monster-spear killer command wheels to meet my Cv and Phalanx.
The Knight rushing to support them. The Huns fan out to smash the Numidians.
Brillantly my Cv turns back and runs to my far right forming up with the Numidians to eat up the Hunnic
barbarians. The rSpI are stuck a bit, because I thought Vineyards where rough going... The SG pushing out
column per column. Not that bad but four columns needed to move twice. Three of them had Hd hidden in them.
That was a real PIP pain!!! Now develop two different sub battles:
1) my AxS, Ps S/O attack the BUA, an ambush is revealed that has nearly the same strength as the
attackers. The galley disembarks the Psiloi to help - just to discover that there is a second ambush
in the orchard. The SpI run as fast as they can (which is not much, and Tilmann thinks that I am being
overly careful).
2) My LHO and CvO clash with the Hunnic LHS. I throw a series of bad combat dice, shout at my bad dice
luck and after the dust clears: two dead LH the others did flee. So the Numidians are still in the game
dispite a series of 7 '1' just lightened by a '2' and a '3'.
The fight on the right started badly but slowly I get the upper hand. My SpO turn to meet the Blades,
the third row of REAL rSpI split of to help. The battle for the village is even and bloody but the
Galley Psiloi survived the attack of 2 AxS and 2 PsO and cheers up everybody on the greek side.
Tilmann splits the monster Spear killer command to deal with some Psiloi, Cv, LH threatening its
flank. The Huns die and this releaves my center from some KnF (who where part of the broken
command that contained also the Huns). I slowly win the battle for the BUA, both sides bring in
Generals and everything that 'might' kill somebody. The Winning greek Cv rampages in the back
of the Romans killing an ArtF. Blades and SpO meet and ... nothing happens in the first clash!
Just one or two SpO die.
Time is called, it is a 15:10 for Syracus; both sides could have still won without the time
limit.
What do I learn from this:
--------------------------
- do not yell at your dice, learn from Tilmann who took bad dice with stoic calm
- sneaky ideas win battles
- beautiful figures really make for good excitement. I saw many beautiful armies in Ludwigsburg
- Syracus is definitely NOT a tournament winner but I had fun and I made 25 points with them in two games.
So it is not without some possibilities. BUT is has not much of a reserve if you make mistakes (neither
in PIPs nor in ME)
- My plan to get the fake SpI attacked never worked. I actually attacked one AxS with HdO (having double
overlaps). The AxS recoiled my fake spears did not pursue. So it did not reveal the disguised troops.
- Cv, AxS, PsS, LHO are your prime attack force - so choose carefully where to attack. Run away if the opponent
will win - running away is a brillant art!
- CvO with two reserve CvO AND enough PIPs AND will win against KnF wedges. Once you can attack a Kn
flank they go down.
