The March Massivo

The March Massivo

Seleucids vs Indians at 1300 points a side

1. Background

We booked a room at the local community centre to get a table 14' by 4' set up with 1300 pts per side. As umpire I chose the armies but allowed each CinC (Jon and Gary playing Seleucid and Indian respectively) time to tinker with command composition in light of the randomly generated terrain. I also generated characteristics for each leader based on the optional rules on the website: most ended up average, but a couple had either command and control problems or lacked charisma.

Beside all the prep. before the day it took about 90 minutes for the three of us to get the room set up, table and terrain set, and the troops sorted into commands.

Two people we hoped would turn out couldn't make it on the day, but did pop in to see how it was going. Jon took Seleucus as General with two SubGenerals, Antiochus and Demetrius, and Brian had the third SubGeneral, Polyperchon. Brian is an experienced ancients gamer, but this was his first game ofVB.

Gary took on the Indian general, Chandragupta, with his two SubGenerals, Ashoka and Poros. Stephen, who is an occasional ancients player, had the last SubGeneral Bindusara.

Deployment

Gary deployed the Indians with their left anchored on a dense wood which Stephen took on as his commander, Bindusara, had a leader with four skirmisher bases. The rest of his command was Elephants, chariots and cavalry. The centre was the rest of the Indian mounted under Poros with some bowmen in support. The Indian right was wholly infantry anchored on a hastily barricaded village garrisoned by local levies and the Maiden Guard. Beyond the village was another 4' of open flank so Gary deployed bowmen from the village to the baseline to have an L shaped defensive position as, despite all the elephants, the Indians were most worried about the superior Seleucid cavalry and its highly mobile light cavalry.

The Seleucids had the benefit of their scouting as they saw the Indian bases go down first and I permitted them to deploy one whole command up to the centre line. The first three or four moves were spent in spotting and initial manoeuvering and at the end of this period the Seleucid deployment became clear.

Opposite Bindusara on the Indian left was Polyperchom with Companions, Agema, Line Cavalry, some light cavalry and two elephants with escorts. In the centre the phalanx, just emerging from dense woods in their deployment area as they had been pushed forward to avoid the disorder this would cause. Asiatic and Cretan skirmishers moved ahead of the pikemen and peltasts protected the flank; Seleucus was here with his own Companion bodyguard. This command faced the village from a gentle slope and deployed here were more peltasts and Asiatic skirmishers. The Seleucid left was left facing open air. Assorted peltasts and skirmishers were closest to the village, then elephants and line cavalry, with the far left of the Seleucid line a brigade of Scythian and Tarantine Light cavalry.

The Battle Begins

The action started with shooting from the Asiatics and Peltasts into the village from the hill overlooking it, but the hastily erected barricades proved useful in minimising the effect on the partially shielded levies. The Asiatics providing a skirmish screen in front of the phalanx suffered a bit more heavily, two bases routing after a couple of rounds of shooting from the Indian bowmen on hold awaiting the phalanx. As the skirmishers left, the bowmen started to ply the left part of the phalanx, shaking one of the pike bases. The centre of the phalanx, the Argyraspids, were protected by the more redoubtable Cretans, and continued to close un-molested. The right of the phalanx was faced by a mixture of bowmen, chariotry and elephants from Poros' command and these too started shooting: inflicting serious damage on the peltast unit protecting the extreme flank of the phalanx.

The Seleucid right had pressed forward, the Scythians delivering the first charge to see off some Indian skirmishers (surprisingly only just though) followed by a mass charge against the Indian mounted. The Line cavalry crashed into the Indian levy cavalry and soon routed them, and another Line base successfully attacked an Indian Elephant which panicked and stampeded into an Indian chariot: one of a pair that had just recoiled a unit of Galatian Nobles. The chariot held, but suffered somewhat from the attentions of the panicky pachyderm. Another clash was shaping up here as a base of Agema (affectionately referred to as "the Tin Bonces") created over the rise to face off another base of levies with some Tarantines attempting to distract some elephants already on the hill.

Between the hill and the phalanx, Poros' Indians and the rest of Polyperchon's cavalry clashed. The Indians were in some confusion, and another elephant was charged in the flank by Companions, panicked and charged into another elephant.

With three of the precious jumbos lost in one turn the Indian left was already looking shaky as near the village Seleucus' personal Companions charged and routed a base of longbows as peltasts broke into the village, easily routing the levies.

The Central Clash

Shortly after, the main centre clash came as the Phalanx charged into the Indian foot and almost without exception drove them back with the bases facing the Argyraspids routed or shaken: the Indian spearmen wisely elected to resort to light spear and shield rather than their 2 handed swords, but to little avail.

The village defences were starting to crumble despite a successful counterattack by the Maiden Guard, and the Indians could only despair as they saw the as yet uncommitted Seleucid left descending on them.

The Indian left scored some success with a bold attack from the wood routing some elephant escorts, and the Galatian nobles seen off by the chariots, but as the elephants on the hill stood unassailed, the Seleucid cavalry were elsewhere on that wing pursuing or routing the rest of the command.

Likewise in the centre as a couple of pike bases, weakened by bowfire and losing their momentum, were routed, the rest of the Indian foot were driven back further, shaken or routed.

At this point with the Indian left and centre smashed Chandragupta ceded the field.

Comments

A bit less detailed than the usual reports as umpiring and noting down everything that happened was a bit tricky,

The game flowed very smoothly and was picked up very quickly by everyone; finished in about 5 hours. The board was very wide, but still only 4' deep - which meant action joined about the 4th turn, and the game resolved in turn 8.

The most experienced gamers ran the Seleucids, who had been well beaten in every test game, but making the skirmishers slightly less vulnerable to bowfire (no+3LI but -5SO) meant they screened the phalanx much better on the way in. In contrast, the Indians suffered from not spreading the elephants out more as well as being very unlucky in losing three in one turn to panic.

One incident found Cretan SO BO charging frontally into some Indian CO troops and very nearly beating them: you usually find SO troops are not allowed to charge steady non-SO troops except in flank or rear.

Scythian SO horse also charged SO LI and were very nearly beaten, which also raised a few eyebrows amongst the non VB gamers.

The phalanx made it into contact but the 30-40% attrition rate from bowfire was commented on, but, as you have said, most other VB gamers don't see this as a problem.

Pictures

(click for full size image)

Bowmen in Bother