The other day I got another of my infrequent game days in against Merlin. I hosted this time, and we managed to get in two games, a Clash! game and a 1520 point KoWH game.
I used my newly painted, never before seen Greeks (with a couple of units of Scythian allies) and Merlin used his Spartans with mythological help from a regiment of Centaurs plus hero.
The Clash game was a straight up fight, with honours going to my Greeks. My two phalanxes of hoplites gave me a strong core to my army, and along with the incredibly lucky chance of routing his cavalry early on, the game went very much my way.
Sadly, the dice gods deserted me then, that or my planning and tactics were poor.
We played a variant of the Loot scenario, since I had enjoyed it so much against T'Other One in KoW. This time we were trying to capture, or save, three civilians. Had it been necessary to determine an outright winner, one of them would randomly turn out to be a spy. In the end, Merlin won so comprehensively this was unnecessary. Alas, we wree so tied up in the game that I only took a couple of photos.
The game started with Merlin grabbing one objective with his Criptea Vanguard moving into contact with it. One of my skirmishing units quickly claimed another, but soon lost it to the marauding herd of Centaurs, these, plus there hero, were a tough proposition, and thoroughly destroyed my attempt at a flanking maneuver with my Skythian allies. On the other flank, the Spartan cavalry easily snatched the remaining civilian, and held onto him, despite running down a couple of my units plus my poor priest.
It was only in the centre that I really had any luck, and my three phalanxes held out almost until the end against Merlins Spartan king and routed all his main infantry. Still, it was far too little too late.
I used my newly painted, never before seen Greeks (with a couple of units of Scythian allies) and Merlin used his Spartans with mythological help from a regiment of Centaurs plus hero.
The Clash game was a straight up fight, with honours going to my Greeks. My two phalanxes of hoplites gave me a strong core to my army, and along with the incredibly lucky chance of routing his cavalry early on, the game went very much my way.
The two Clash! forces face off, Merlin's Spartans at the top, my Athenians at the bottom.
Merlin's Spartans (L to R): Light Cavalry, Kryptea, Commander, Spartiate hoplites and Slingers
My Athenians (L to R): Skirmishers with a Phalanx of Hoplites behind, Commander just peeping out from behind a second Phalanx and Slingers
We played a variant of the Loot scenario, since I had enjoyed it so much against T'Other One in KoW. This time we were trying to capture, or save, three civilians. Had it been necessary to determine an outright winner, one of them would randomly turn out to be a spy. In the end, Merlin won so comprehensively this was unnecessary. Alas, we wree so tied up in the game that I only took a couple of photos.
The game started with Merlin grabbing one objective with his Criptea Vanguard moving into contact with it. One of my skirmishing units quickly claimed another, but soon lost it to the marauding herd of Centaurs, these, plus there hero, were a tough proposition, and thoroughly destroyed my attempt at a flanking maneuver with my Skythian allies. On the other flank, the Spartan cavalry easily snatched the remaining civilian, and held onto him, despite running down a couple of my units plus my poor priest.
It was only in the centre that I really had any luck, and my three phalanxes held out almost until the end against Merlins Spartan king and routed all his main infantry. Still, it was far too little too late.
A great fun day of gaming, and we both decided to do more KoWH. it was, perhaps, a mistake to go to just over 1500 points; if we had kept it back to 1250 or so we could have fielded entirely historical forces.
We have both given a lot of thought since the battle to how the lists are built, and have, inevitably, drawn up our own lists in an attempt to reflect how we believe armies of the time were fielded and would fight.
It was another fun day of gaming with much thought given to how we can improve army lists and army selection. KOWH does give a fun, fast moving game so we will be playing more of this.
ReplyDeleteYes, it might not be the most historically accurate, but it is fast and fun.
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