Republicon is a club night comp we've been running in Canberra to test out DBMM. It's limited to armies and enemies of Republican Rome. My army is Pyrrhic. Battle reports will follow of the various games I've played with the army, annotated with what I've learned since the games. This is the report of Round 1.
= = = =
Brenton and I met in the first round. Brenton's army was Camillan Roman, while my army was its historical opponent, Pyrrhic.
I was the attacker, and selected a couple of gentle hills to limit the amount of bad terrain that Brenton could place. Brenton selected a number of rough-covered hills, an orchard and a patch of rough terrain. In the end, the rough terrain didn't make it onto the table. But of the terrain which did, the only relevant pieces were a rough hill on Brenton's right flank, and the orchard on my right flank.
Brenton deployed first, with a mix of heavy infantry forming most of his main line, but with two anti-elephant war wagons in the line as well. On his right flank were some psiloi (I), and on his left was an allied command of Samnite auxilia (S). He kept his cavalry in reserve, along with triarii spear (S).
I then deployed the pike phalanx in the centre, with an elephant and some hoplites on each side. Pyrrhus the Brilliant led some knights on the left, and a sub commanded some cavalry on the right. The front of my army was screened by psiloi. Some more psiloi sat in the orchard, out of harm's way, but at least fixing the attention of the Samnites. I spent a few psiloi in scouting Brenton's army, and confirmed he had no hidden troops.
My tactics were fairly straightforward - I advanced straight forward. I deployed the knights on my left to face some spear (S), and used a brilliant stroke when Pyrrhus charged in. The elephant and hoplites on the left also charged in. The result was that Brenton lost two elements of spear (S), one element of spear (O), and the general. That was enough to break his right wing. At the same time, Brenton deployed his cavalry against the pike phalanx, with a couple of losses each way. I kept the pressure up on Brenton's right wing, and in a couple of turns it was shattered, though I still lost an element of spears in the process.
On my right, the Samnites were hamstrung by low PIPs - nothing more than 2 for the first five bounds. I was happy for such a slow advance, as it gave my victorious knights a chance to regather themselves and move towards the centre. As we ran out of time, the Samnites and the blade on his left wing began to make contact with the cavalry and psiloi on my right, and one of his psiloi killed the ghostly (unpainted) elephant on that flank.
We ran out of time with Brenton's army 1 ME or so from breaking, but none of my commands was in too much trouble, and I still had a brilliant stroke left to use. 15-10 to me.
= =
It wasn't until after the battle that I learned that Irr Sp (O) were spontaneous. We were still very green about the rules at this point.
Both Brenton and I were intrigued that his Incendiary Pig was more effective against my knights than my elephants, even though they were designed to take on elephants...
