Well, last night my Sub-Roman British took on the might of Jon's Early Achaemenid Persian army. After the debacle a fortnight ago, I redesigned the list, back to something very similar to what I first used - no Brilliant General, no regulars, just the original pillow of death army, as follows:
Command 1 (25.5ME/6.5/9)
General as Irr Cv (O)
5 Irr Cv (O)
2 Irr LH (O)
18 Irr Sp (I)
3 Irr Ps (O)
2 Irr Bg (F)
Command 2 - as above, except led by Ally general
Command 3 (21/5.5/7.5)
Ally general as Irr Cv (O)
3 Irr Cv (O)
18 Irr Sp (I)
2 Irr Ps (O)
2 Irr Bg (F)
Command 4 (14.5/4/5)
Ally as Irr Cv (O)
2 Irr Cv (O)
9 Irr Sp (I)
2 Irr Bg (F)
I was the defender, and weather and time of day played no part in the game. Jon selected two Woods, while I chose a Gentle Hill, a Difficult Hill, 2 small Difficult Hills and a Paved Road. One Wd and one small DH combined to close off Jon's right flank, with the other small DH closer to me but still over on the edge. The 1FE DH split Jon's deployment zone a little to the right of his centre (as he saw it). The GH was on Jon's left rear table edge, the other Wd was on my right flank, and the road passed from my right rear to the right table edge near Jon's table edge. Essentially this left a decently wide space for Jon to deploy his army in on his left and centre, but narrow enough that I thought I could cover that space with the Sp of my first three commands. I therefore decided to send Command 4 flank marching on my right. That in turn made me place Command 1 on the right as well, so that even if both on-board allies were unreliable, I could still be active.
So I deployed first, placing Command 1 on the right, with the Cv and LH deployed out beyond the Sp, Command 3 in the centre with its Cv in reserve, and Command 2 on the left, again with the Cv and LH deployed beyond the Sp. In the case of Command 2, the Sp were actually in 3-4 ranks, in order to come close to having room to advance inboard of the DH in Jon's deployment area. The Cv and LH therefore had the job of covering the space beyond the DH, which I assumed would be empty.
Silly me. Jon deployed three commands, of which the command on his right was out in that open space I assumed he'd leave empty. That command included some Cv, LH, Bw (O), Sp, Ax and Ps - a little more than 5 Cv and 2 LH could hope to deal with. In the middle were the Sparabara - Irr Bw (X/O) and supported Sp (I), supported by some LH, some Hd near the baggage, and some Ps which sat on the DH. Then, over on Jon's left were the Immortals, massed Cv, and some more LH.
My plan was to attack strongly in the centre in an attempt to break through the Sparabara, and a little less so on the right, where I intended to wait for the flank march to arrive before I got too carried away. Over on the left, I decided to advance with the front two ranks of Sp in support of the centre, and swing the rear ranks around to take on the Bw (O) beyond the DH. This would then free up the Cv to attack the opposing Cv.
Well, things got off to a good start in that all the allies were reliable. I advanced steadily, although the redeployment of the Sp on the left took a long time after a series of poor PIP dice. Jon, on the other hand, played a cautious hand, shaking out the massed Cv on his left into a long line, which my right wing Cv matched, though neither of us made any move against the other.
In the centre, Jon's Sparabara immediately found the range, knocking over two elements of Sp (I) in the first round of shooting. The shooting wasn't good enough to stop me getting into contact, but it had two major effects. Firstly, by breaking up the front rank, it often meant I needed a lot of PIPs to get the Sp into contact - my first charge required 6 PIPs for the centre command, to get effectively six separate columns into contact. Secondly, he still inflicted casualties - I lost 10 elements of Sp (across all three commands) before I got into contact. Because these casualties weren't inflicted evenly, I had a couple of single-ranked Sp getting into combat, troops which had little chance of ultimate success.
I had an early success in killing a Sparabara DBE, but Jon was easily able to cover the gap with his LH reserve. Jon then charged his Cv into mine on my right flank, killing a Cv, and forcing me to commit the C-in-C to combat. Meanwhile, on my left, the redeployed Sp finally managed to turn back into line and start advancing on the Bw (O).
The next few bounds involved copious combat across the whole line. On my left, my Sp killed a Bw, but lost two of their own. The Cv also clashed, with me losing one element. In the centre, the Sparabara proved just as good in combat as in shooting, knocking over stacks more Sp, particularly from my left wing command. In return, it took several bounds before the Sp killed another Sparabara and a Sp (I). Jon covered the growing gap with his LH, while I covered the massive hole in my line with the reserve Cv from my centre command. On my right, I supported the Cv with some Sp, and this combat to-ed and fro-ed with only light casualties. However, the Immortals shot down all of the Sp in front of them, in another display redolent of the Flanders in 1917 (okay, I was deploying my infantry similar to the way Haig did).
Then, finally, my flank march arrived. By this time, the Cv lines had spread so close to the table edge that the Cv in my flank march were able to move directly into contact with the flank of Jon's Cv line. The Sp in that command spread out from there to Jon's table edge, sealing off his left wing. Suddenly, Jon's left wing started taking casualties. And Jon was crippled late in the game by rolling three 1s for PIPs, two turns in a row.
Soon after, the Sp in the centre killed another Sparabara element, opening up a hole large enough that Darius had to go to the rescue. He pushed the offending Sp back, but pursued into contact, and I was able to wrap him and kill him in my bound. This was sufficient to break Jon's centre command. The 2 ME penalty had no effect on the flank commands, but by this time it was getting late, so we agreed to call time.
All three of my on-board commands had taken about 5-6 ME losses, close to disheartening (though I now suspect my centre command did become disheartened right at the end). Jon was fairly certain he was going to lose, but I'm not nearly so confident - if any of my commands broke, the 2 ME penalty would almost certainly have broken another command, and thus my army, and anyway, my commands would have been crippled by being disheartened. By contrast, Jon's wings were still in reasonable shape.
In conclusion, this was another great fun game, for which I should thank Jon. I had to laugh that I'd lost 27 elements, while Jon had only lost about 15. But that's what happens when you field a pillow of death army.
