Well, last night at the club, Tim M and I had a Wintercon practice game (comp details on the forum). I fielded a 385 point Alexandrian Macedonian army, while Tim used a 400 point early Tamil army.
I was the invader, selecting summer, hoping this was the best season for rain (I didn't have my weather chart with me, which is far easier to read than the weather chart in the rules).
The terrain included a river, which ran along my right flank then curved away to intersect the right table edge on Tim's side of the table; a wood on the far side of the river, on the centreline; two small difficult hills on Tim's right flank; and a small patch of rough on Tim's left flank by the river. The weather turned out to be strong wind coming over my right shoulder, perfect for ruining Tim's archery.
Thanks to the deployment roll I had to deploy first, and selected 1 Cv and 2 LH as scouts. The scouts found Tim had no ambushes, meaning I could ignore the wood and concentrate all my troops on one side of the river. Parmenio deployed on the right with the Thracian and Greek peltasts (Ax (O) and Ps (S) respectively) in front and Thracian LH (O) and the Thessalian Cv (O) in reserve. Craterus deployed in the centre with the phalanx in four ranks and a line of Ps (O) in front. Alexander was on the left with the companions next to the phalanx, the Ax (S) Hypaspists and Ps (S) Agrianians beyond them and finally the Prodromoi and Asiatic LH on the extreme left. I was expecting to see warband in the centre, archers on the flanks, and elephants everywhere, so my plan was to get the phalanx and Companions into combat as quickly as possible, use the Ps to screen elephants and Wb, and defend on the right. Accordingly, I gave the highest PIP dice to Alexander, the second to Parmenio and the lowest to Craterus. In retrospect the game played out roughly according to plan, although it didn't seem that way as it happened.
Tim deployed mostly as I expected, although he had no elephants mixed in with the warband. The two flank commands were allies, and the C-in-C was in the rear with a small command including Bactrian guardsmen Ax (S). The ally on Tim's left had some Ps and few Wb, while the ally on his right had a couple of Cv (I), no Ps and more Wb. The Wb on the right were placed on the difficult hills, where they'd stand and not go impetuous. The centre command also had a lone Bd (X).
Because I deployed first I got the first move. I used Alexander's good PIPs to wheel his infantry around in front of the Companions, as better troops to take on the archers and elephants. The LH swung out wide to see if I could either get around the flank or draw a response from Tim. The phalanx advanced steadily, as did Parmenio's command. Tim's right wing ally was unreliable, and he used his 1 PIP to move his Cv into a blocking position between the steep hills and his table edge. No way in that way for my LH. The rest of the army advanced steadily, with a column of Ps on his left moving into the river.
On my right, Parmenio's command was able to get several Ax into contact with Tim's archers, but the Ax were chewed up in combat. A column of Tim's Wb went impetuous along the river edge, and into another Ax element. I hit the Wb in the flank with a Ps, but Tim hit it in turn in the rear with an elephant, destroying it. I sent more skirmishers in against the elephant, but it destroyed them all. As a result of all these losses Parmenio's command eventually became disheartened.
In the centre the Ps played a little with Tim's Wb, but Tim always had the PIPs to realign the group, and he soon spent most of the Ps. I then charged the phalanx in. High factors for the Pk allowed me to slowly grind through the Wb 0.5 ME at a time. But every so often the Wb struck back, knocking over pairs of Pk. After a few bounds of combat, both our centre commands were disheartened and on the edge of breaking.
On my left I organised the match-ups I wanted, and generally got the Ps into elephants and Ax into Bw. The Ps started by killing an elephant, but Tim's archers were again highly effective in combat, destroying three of the four Hypaspists and shooting down a Companion element. Another elephant destroyed a Ps element and charged into a Companion. The Kn recoiled the Ele, but the beast soon returned. The centre command's Bd (X) also knocked over a Companion element. In return the Companions helped the Ax destroy a couple of Bw elements. Alexander declared a combat Brilliant Stroke and charged into some Bw, with the result a draw. Then, in the following bound he won the combat, destroying the Bw. As a result, after a few bound of combat both Alexander's command and the opposing Tamil command were disheartened and on the edge of breaking.
So at this point, all three of my commands were disheartened, and two of them were so close to breaking that any loss would push them over the edge. As the loss of a command would add 2ME losses to nearby commands, that would break the army. But Tim's army was in much the same shape. Both his centre and right wing were disheartened; any loss in either command would break that command, causing the other to break, and in turn breaking the army. It was my bound, but I wasn't confident I could keep everything safe. I felt mutual demoralisation was the most likely result. So I pulled back vulnerable troops, declared a second combat Brilliant Stroke with Alexander, charged the Greek mercenary Cv (I) into the Tamil Bd (X), provided overlaps and flank hits where I could, and hoped for good luck in the centre with the tattered remains of the phalanx.
And remarkably, my luck held. Alexander destroyed the archers he charged, the Companion element destroyed the elephant he was fighting, the Greek Cv (I) destroyed the Bd (X), and the phalanx killed a couple more Wb elements. On the right wing the Thracian peltasts finally got a lucky result against the Wb they'd been fighting for most of the game. And I lost nothing in the process.
This was enough to break both of Tim's disheartened commands, and with them, the army. My losses were a little under 30%, so with three disheartened commands the score was 18-7 to me - probably the closest result I've had in a game in which I didn't lose any commands. Thanks to Tim for a very entertaining and very close game.
The main swing factor in this game was almost certainly the wind. Tim had a lot of archers, but with four commands it was unlikely he was going to roll high or low enough PIPs to change its direction. I'm sure than made up for my 15AP deficit.
