I noticed a lack of recent battle reports, so thought I'd add one of my recent battles to the forum for everyone's reading pleasure.
A couple of months ago I took an Alexandrian Macedonian army against Tim M's Late Achaemenid Persian army. My command structure was very similar to Alexander's at Gaugamela, with Alexander commanding Companions, Prodromoi, Hypaspists (Ax (S)), plus some Ps and Cv (I). The centre command was Pk and some Ps with a Kn (F) general. And Parmenio had the opposite flank with the Thessalians, Thracian Ax (O) and LH (O), and some more Ps and Cv (I).
Tim's army had Darius commanding the bare minimum in AP of Sp, Kn (I) and Art; a command with Cv (O) and a Kn (I); a command with a lot of Reg Sp (O); and a Lykian ally with Irr Sp (O), Cv (O) and Ax (O).
I deployed second and, thanks to Darius's Inertia, moved first. Tim placed his Cv command on his left, next the Sp command, then Darius, and the Lykians on his right. I got the right match-up, with Alexander on my right. I deployed the Hypaspists facing the Persian Cv, with the Prodromoi ready to move out and around, and Alexander and the Companions in column in reserve. The Pk command in three ranks faced some of the Sp, with the Thracian peltasts covering the rest of the Sp line. Parmenio's Cv faced Darius, and the Thracian LH sat in ambush behind a hill in front of the Lykians.
In short, nothing worked.
The Hypaspists died at a steady rate against the Persian Cv, and the same happened with the Pk facing the Sp, although we realised partway through the game that in someone's bound (I forget whose) we were giving the Sp an extra factor. The Prodromoi hit the flank of the Persian Cv and bounced. Darius sent out a column of two Kn (I) which Parmenio personally tried to mug with a double overlap, but even with factors of 4(O) to 1(I) all I could manage was a recoil, and Parmenio was killed a couple of bounds later when the Kn charged back in.
The Companions ended up being committed piecemeal to fill gaps caused by dying Hypaspists and Pk, and even Alexander's combat Brilliant Strokes achieved little. The loss of a heap of Hypaspists and a couple of Companions broke Alexander's command. When added to the accumulating losses of Pk and Parmenio's demise, the army soon collapsed. I think I might have come close to disheartening the Persian Cv command, but the result overall was pretty diabolical.
The Lykians never came close to combat.
What did I learn? I should have deployed the Companions in the line, aimed at the hoplites. This would have allowed me to deploy the Pk in four ranks, also facing the hoplites. With a couple of combat Brilliant Strokes from Alexander, I almost certainly would have been able to break the hoplite command in a few bounds, during which time the Hypaspists could afford to be cautious. The Companions could then wheel right to hit the Persian Cv, while the Pk wheel left to aim at Darius. Now Alexander's command might have become disheartened from the loss of some Hypaspists and a Companion or two, but that wouldn't affect the Companions, while once the Persian Cv were disheartened, they would be affected. In the process of all this, the Thracian peltasts would have been available either to face Darius's Kn (I), or act as a reserve for the Pk.
In summary, in this particular type of match-up, Alexander works best by concentrating a powerful force of Pk and Kn (F) against an infantry-heavy command and breaking it quickly, then exploiting the breakthrough aggressively. It's a high-risk tactic when it involves leading the attack with the Commander-in-Chief, but this was the way Alexander worked. And one thing I enjoy about the Brilliant/Inert General rules is that they help bring out the character of some armies. This is particularly the case with Alexander, but I also felt it a bit with John Tzimiskes leading my Nikephorian Byzantine army.
Cheers
