Narrow win for the Late Achamenid's vs Lysimachid

[stev1485]

Hi folks - thought I'd post a report. At WAR (Reading UK)we are now playing a couple of games each week - not as much as the Warhammer crowd, but we're carrying on regardless!

LAP - Darius III, 4 x Kn I, 2 x Scyth Kn I, 1 x El, 6 x Cv, 8 x Cv I, 2 x Bw O, 2 x Lh O, 4 x Exp O 1st dice
        Bessus: Cv s SG, 2 x Reg Kn I, 4 x Cv I (Didn't want to give him too many troops)  4th dice
        Greek Command - 5 x Sp O, 2 x Reg Ax O, Art O,     3rd dice
        Flank command. SG Cv S 2 x Kn F,5 x LH O, 1 x Hd O, 3 x Ax O, 4 x Ps O.   2nd dice
        8 army baggage giving 4 ME to each command.

Lysimachid - CinC, 12 x Pk O, 4 x Kn F/I Wedges, 1 x El, Ax S x 12 , 2 LH, and hordes more Ax + Ps at the back.
                  SG (Kn F wedge), 20 x Ax S, 2 x LH O, more Ax O filler at the back

                  SG Kn F, 2 x Kn F, more Ax s and On + Ps in quantity. about 4 LH in this command as well.
                  No baggage.
                  Averaged dice
The Persians deployed 1st of course, and then got to move 2nd, a great but not unusual start.

They deployed with the Hoplites in the centre, 1 move behind the TF's, with the Art O behind the fortifications. The Cinc's command was perched on a GH to their right, the flank command to their left, and Bessus cowering behind at the back with the baggage.

The other significant terrain was a GH ahead of the left hand command, and a CH on the left hand board edge, which stopped that command being outflanked, sort of.

Due to very good movement pips throughout, the battle revolved around the low hill to the left. The Persian Lh got there 1st, and their General + Kn F also. They faced off the Ax S and flanking LH x 2, with the advantage of having their back end bases on the hill for the most part.

The Kn F eventually succumbed, and a couple of the LH, but by then they had disheartened the Ax S command that was facing them. They were .5 of an element from being disheartened, and managed to avoid losing that to the reinforcement Kn F that were coming toward them. 
By this stage, Bessus had arrived with his bodyguard, and dealt the final blows, again Kn I downhill into Ax S is quite a good fight, if you're a knight.

Immediately to the hill flank, the hoplites had gone into column, and weaved round their own defences, ending up flanking the hill. The moving even on a 0 helped!  They stood off the Lysimachid pike, who had deployed in 2 ranks.

To their right, the Scythed Chariots had advanced, to manage to destroy one element of Pk before disappearing. Some Cv I followed up behind them to perform a holding action. Do they still get spent even when flanked and therefore destroyed? That's what it looked like.

The two elephants met, and fought for most of the battle, until I managed to flank the Lysimachid El with a Cv O, these had ridden round the flank, with a fight against the defending LH O + Kn F general. Even when hit head on by the wedge and flanked by some enemy Ax, whio had been holding a CH at the back, they still held on. Saying that, every time I flanked the wedge, it beat me off, so fair's fair.
Some Lysimachid wedges dealt with one Scyth wedge, again by hitting it in the flank. Most of the Kn I never got near to combat, due to lack of movement dice.
 
After 3.5 hours I'd broken one command, and was 3 ME away from getting the CinC's command, due to El, Lh and other odd losses. I'd had every enemy Kn F general double overlapped or flanked on more than one occasion, and still didn't get any of them.
On the other hand, my Persian Cv O stood off every thing that was thrown at them, so honours were about even.
The main factors were definitely better movement from the inert Persians, due to good dice and the Lysimachid decision to average.
I know that this is going to make no difference, but why do regular generals cost more? The allocation of pips is a drawback rather than an advantage, for the most part. Averaging when you round down is even worse. Saying that, the Persians had a field day of movement, with 4 dice each round working well. 
   
  Steve Rathgay     

[toby]

Thanks for posting that - interested to see your LAP army as its an army I am part-way through building up myself. Maybe I'll get around to finishing it off at some point.

[Barritus]

You talk about TFs in the LAP army. How many did you have?

[Barritus]

The main factors were definitely better movement from the inert Persians, due to good dice and the Lysimachid decision to average. I know that this is going to make no difference, but why do regular generals cost more? The allocation of pips is a drawback rather than an advantage, for the most part. Averaging when you round down is even worse.

I think the cost of regular generals is higher than it should be, compared to DBM. But it's certainly more useful than the fixed dice assignments for irregulars. The fact that regulars can change their assignments is the main advantage. The fact that few people have done so successfully isn't proof that the system doesn't work. Instead, it's something you have to plan for. I suspect the people who will turn out to be good DBMM players will be those who can read a game's development better than others, and who consequently know when to change their dice assignments.

As for averaging the PIP dice, there are ways to do this, and averaging all three is definitely not the way to go. That sounds too much like someone whose only plan was to advance evenly across the front. In the case of a Macedonian army with Pike and Kn (F) wedges, that's not smart thinking. For example, the Pike blocks get free PIPs, while the Kn (F) wedges are impetuous. Those two points alone suggest that the command with the Pike can survive with a low PIP dice, while the Kn command will probably benefit from a higher PIP dice.

For those armies which get a regular PIP dump (either a small command or baggage), the preferred system seems to be that the complicated command gets the highest dice, the PIP dump gets the lowest dice, and the other two commands average the middle dice. That's worked very well for my Nikephorian Byzantines, where the Bw and Kn DBEs in the C-in-C's command necessitate a lot of PIPs, while the two Cv commands work well with around 3-4 PIPs each turn, and the baggage usually copes with the lowest. Having said that, the one game I've lost with the army is one where I should have changed my PIP assignment - the baggage are mobile, and needed to run from Irr LH (S). And I could have done it with a Brilliant Stroke from my C-in-C. But I was so caught up with using the BS in combat that alternative uses for the BS didn't occur to me.

[stev1485]

You talk about TFs in the LAP army. How many did you have?
 
Had all 6 - they focus the oppositions' attention, and make Sp quite useful! The only qiuestion in my mind was whether to put the Expendables in with them, so that I could place those in front using the Unnusual troops stratagem, but that would have got difficult in terms of dice assignment.