Galatians at Wintercon 2014

[LawrenceG1]

More by luck than judgement I was able to attend Wintercon again this year. THe competition was DBMM200 using 240 AP armies with a Republican Roman theme. Time limit was 2 hours plus a few random minutes.   As usual, I didn't have a suitable army with me, but Peter Barrett offered me his Galatians, which I happily  accepted, as in theme a warband army should be quite effective. The theme was likely to throw up plenty of elephants and psiloi, so I took a Pisidian ally to ensure I had plenty of psiloi of my own. As I wasn't expecting to do anything fancy, I prioritised quantity over quality and went for the WbO "less enthusiastic" period, rather than WbS initial conquest period.
My list was
CinC CvO, 15 WbO, 1 CvO chariot, 5 CvO, 3 PsI supporting the cavalry.
Sub CvO, 21 WbO, 3 AxO (Paphlagonians), 1 CvO chariot
Pisidian ally general LHO, 1 LHO, 12 PsS
2 BgeI army baggage.
(all troops are irregular)

The concept of operations was to fight with the warbands, using the other troops to protect the flanks and the CinC's cavalry to take on opposing cavalry if necessary. I would try to narrow the field with difficult terrain so the enemy would not be able to get out of the way of the warband.

Game 1 Vs Karl Hamlyn, Later Carthaginian.

Karl invaded, but had to deploy first. This gave me a big advantage because I could use terrain to reduce the mobility of his LH and also avoid deploying warband in front of the elephants.

Karl deployed between a steep hill and a BUA close to the centreline. His centre was a large command of Spears, Elephants and Gallic Warband. On my left, near the BUA was a command of  5 cavalry and 6 Spanish AxS, on my right, next to the hill was a small command of 5 LH including a subgeneral and 2 PsS.

I set up opposite, with my CinCs cavalry opposing some of his and the Pisidians poised to charge over the steep hill. Much of the CinCs warband had to face cavalry, but I had many ranks against a single rank.

Karl used his better command and control to get some Spanish through the town to outflank me, but I was able to counter this threat with some cavalry. He also managed to outflank my 12 psiloi with his two, but my numbers and dice beat his superior positioning.



In the centre we both advanced to contact and one elephant smashed the single rank of warband in front of it, then a rank of psiloi, but by then had advanced so far that I was able to move warband into contact with its rear and destroy it. The other elephant, after initially bouncing off, destroyed 2 warband and a psiloi, but by then the Galatian warbands had destroyed most of the spears and some of the Gauls, breaking the command. The 1ME penalty broke the LH command,  so it was game over, possibly 23-2 though I didn't write it down.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 2 vs Dave Quilty, Camillan Roman.

I defended and narrowed the field with a steep hill and BUA at opposite ends of the centreline. Dave placed some gentle hills in his half of the table. I deployed with the sunbgeneral on my left, Pisidians front right and Cn C rear right. The Romans deployed on the hills, a small command of psiloi and blades in front and a large (36ME) command of spears and a few cavalry behind. Nearly all his army was in front of my subgeneral's command. The Pisidians were facing cavalry.

I thought the most likely result of a frontal charge would be my subgeneral taking a lot of casualties against psiloi and blades uphill, probably winning, but then getting broken by the spearmen further uphill without being able to do significant damage. I therefore decided to refuse my left and try a right-flanking attack with the CinC and ally, with the ally hooking to the right via the difficult hill to avoid the cavalry. 


Dave's psiloi came forward to attack my subgeneral's command. I spent PIPs  to get a hard-flank on a psiloi element as a kill might later turn out to be the 0.5 ME  needed to break the command. However, the first two combats were 6-1 against me, so that plan faltered and I ended up trading lost warband for spent psiloi and an occasional blade element for the rest of the game. Meanwhile Dave pre-empted my attack on the right by attacking my CinC's warbands on the plains with his cavalry.



The Romans caused a lot of casualties, took a few losses, and eventually were forced back onto the hill by the threat of the Pisidians coming down from the steep hill behind their flank.  At this point time ran out for a 12-13 to the Romans. Perhaps I would have been better off massing the warband 5  ranks deep for a frontal attack up the hill.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 3 vs Doug Melville, Gallic.

I invaded and Doug was able to place some small woods in positions very inconvenient for me. A wood in my centre front would be an obstacle if I deployed in it. To the right of it my advance was partially blocked by another wood, but if I ignored this area, Gallic cavalry could use it to get into my rear area. To the left, I would have to attack uphill. To make matters worse, I had to deploy first. I decided to deploy to the left as the least worst option and stuff the wood and the space to the right of it with Pisidians to slow down any on-table flank march. The CinCs warband was mostly in column to expand out into the flank zone. His cavalry was well to the rear as a reserve ready to go left or right. The subgeneral's troops were 5-7 ranks deep, their frontage constrained by the wood.

Doug deployed A spanish ally opposite my CinC, Warband in 6 ranks opposite my Sub and chariots opposite my Pisidian ally.



Luckily the Spanish were in front of the hill, not on it, and there was a delay while they brought up more auxilia from ambush behind the hill and cavalry from reserve, which allowed my CinC to deploy out his infantry and bring up his cavalry.
Meanwhile my sub rolled a 1 and had to advance and expose his flanks. The Pisidians had to figure out a way of delaying the Gallic chariots without taking too many casualties. The Gallic army advanced and battle was joined.



Warband versus warband is quite frightening as the compulsory pursuit leads to lots of overlaps and elements die two at a time. The Gauls got the upper hand in this fight. The fight against the Spanish was quite interesting. 8 AxS, 4 PsS and 4 PsI were up against 15 WbO in 3 ranks. I was losing 0.5 ME per element, while Doug was losing either zero for a spent Ps, or 1 ME for Ax, sometimes more then 1 ME when I could catch something in the zone of death. Probably more Ax died in their own bound than in mine, when the S made them much tougher. Although both of us had to pursue, the shallower based warband could remain out of combat when it suited them so I didn't suffer quite as much as him from adverse overlaps. The infantry were fighting between two patches of rough going.  This was a finely balanced fight and at one point I had to use my CinC's (cavalry) element in the rough going to prevent a breakthrough. The other cavalry were in 2 BW of good going at the table edge. Here we both suffered the -1 free overlap for the table edge in the enemy bound, but I had psiloi supporting my cavalry, which neutralised the disadvantage and eventually proved decisive.



After a protracted melee, everything happened suddenly. The Gallic cavalry finally forced their way to my baggage and looted it. The 1 ME loss transmission disheartened the sub's command. The Spanish broke, then the Galatian sub's command broke in the next bound, coinciding with the time limit. My total losses were 24 out of 51, not quite broken, and the Gauls had lost just over 40%. However, the 1 ME loss transmission to the other two Galatian commands brought the total to 26 ME, which was just over half the army, so it was 8-17 to Doug.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 4 vs  Anton Verster, Ancient Spanish.

Likely to be a tricky opponent as his numerous auxilia would beat my psiloi and he could also have a lot of light horse so my flanks and rear could be very vulnerable. I defended  and  placed a difficult hill on the left hand end of the centreline. Anton placed a rough hill at the right hand end, other terrain played no part.

I didn't fancy attacking uphill against AxS and PsS so I deployed according to the standard Galatian plan of "Straight up the middle and bags of smoke".  The Pisidians were at the bottom of the difficult hill to contest it and suck up Spanish PIPs if he decided to fight there.

THe Spanish deployed on and behind the two hills with light foot, cavalry and light horse. In the centre and well back was the CinC's command of Auxilia and BdF, plus a couple of cavalry, all in a single group. It looked as though both my flanks would be crashed in until the Spanish CinC delivered a frontal coup de grace.



There wasn't much I could do other than  start my advance into the valley of death, leaving a couple of cavalry (one a chariot)behind to interfere stop the Spanish marching down from the rough hill. The Spanish light horse advanced off the hill and attacked the flank of the chariot so it turned to face and had no recoil. Luckily I won this combat and had enough PIPs to counterattack with more cavalry, killing one light horse and picking up the spot prize for first person to kill a mounted element this round. Eventually I was able to pick up all three LH elements, but the Auxilia then came to the bottom of the hill to pin down my cavalry.

Meanwhile the Spanish had enough PIPs to move numerous columns of auxilia onto the steep hill, but then too few PIPs to exploit this very much. There was some combat between them and the Pisidians, but my losses were limited.



The CinC's warband outstripped their flank protection enabling the Spanish cavalry to start inflicting casualties. Eventually I was able to engage the Spanish CinC's command, with casualties on both sides. Time ran out for a 12-13 in the invaders' favour, but I had done significant damage to two of the Spanish commands and felt I would have been in with a reasonable chance of a win if the game had continued. 

[LawrenceG1]

Game 5, Michael Stone, Later Hoplite Greek, Thessalian.

I defended, but Michael had to deploy first. Significant terrain was a difficult hill at my rear left and a small rocky flat at the right hand end of the midline. THe Greeks deployed resting one flank on the rocky flat, a  line of cavalry, psiloi and hoplites angled back towards their base edge. Some more cavalry and psiloi were in front of the steep hill. I deployed also diagonally, facing the enemy hoplites. This meant my left flank would be exposed to the Greek troops in front of the  steep hill. The Pisidians were positioned to guard against this.



THe Greeks advanced their cavalry and psiloi  and manoeuvred the hoplites into columns behind them. The cavalry and psiloi engaged the Galatian warbands and cavalry.



After protracted fighting, a few warband got into contact with the hoplites, but time ran out before significant damage could be done.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 6, John Garvey, Later Carthaginian.

I defended and narrowed the field with the difficult hill on one flank and a BUA on the other. A patch of rocky flat was in the centre of the table. We both deployed in the flat area between the to difficult going features. THe Carthaginian army was mostly spears and elephants with a few cavalry and LH in reserve and a big mob of Libyan javelinmen poised to advance through the BUA.  I had put the Pisidians across the rear of my army so they could advance through to take on the elephants whereever they appeared. Unfortunately they were unreliable, so I had to advance without them.

However, I had plenty of PIPs for the Galatians and was able to prompt the ally as well as evacuate warbands from in front of the elephants by forming columns in front of the spearmen.



The three elephants smashed through the thin line of warriors remaining in front of them. I was able to throw in a few  more warband and the Paphlagonians to keep them occupied while the ally came back onside.



One elephant (inferior) was killed by warband. The others continued their inexorable advance and I was able to turn the flank of one so its recoil was blocked by the other. I won this combat so that was the elephant threat eliminated and John had nothing behind them to exploit the space.

The Libyans took the town, but I managed to cover all my flanks in that area. The main battle lines clashed and the warband beat the spears, breaking the Carthaginian army.



Two wins, a narrow loss and three draws was enough to get me second place. With the benefit of hindsight, it was clear that 2 hours was not enough time to get many results in an infantry-heavy theme, even at 240 points on small tables. 
Many thanks to all my opponents, to Michael for organising and to Peter for the loan of the Army.


Lawrence Greaves

[mic]

Thanks for the reports. Great games.
 Im a big fan of 240 point DBMM it gives a good game in a reasonable amount of time. I would prefer 21/2hrs for a game conclusion.
It is unforgiving though you cannot make to many mistakes and need to deploy deep.
regards Mick