Another
roaring success at the Huntingdon club where Vis Bellica appears to be
the Ancients of choice, even putting the WABers in the shade.
Makedonians
vs Gauls 500 AP provided by Chris in 6mm (v pretty).
Battle
turned into classic pinwheel encounter with my attempt at a refused
right flank and enveloping action on the left almost came acropper due
to overquickly advancing in the centre allowing Chris to bring his right
into the battle.
Fortunately,
Steve as CnC and Cavalry commander was able to sweep aside the chariot
screen on our left and thunder into the back of the enemy line thus
saving the day.
1. With
players who know the rules, the game went like the proverbial off a
shovel.
2. We
decided that if you charged into the back of a melee then you reinforced
that melee in the next melee phase by adding your strength in a form of
mobile bracing. This worked well and I would strongly recommend it as a
possible amendment. Getting into the flank or rear of your
opponent, however, was still allowed as a full charge.
3.
Companion cavalry really are very good aren't they?
Elephants
Everywhere!
We
had our second VB game yesterday (Labor Day holiday here in USA) with a
Romans vs. Romans civil war battle: approximately 350 points per
side, each with 5 subordinate commands, plus a general and a
sub-general. Side A had three legions, a unit of auxilliary
archers, and a mixed cavalry unit, which included a stand of Sarmatian
lancers. Side B had two legions, an allied barbarian warband, and
two 5-base units of war elephants.
Being on Side B, we decided that the elephants would make a good assault
force in the center and would stomp everything in their path into the
dust. Boy were we wrong. We destroyed one archer stand and forced
the other three to rout, but then the legionnaires came in and it was
dying and berserk elephants everywhere.
Before
we could say "Dumbo!", we had lost 6 of the 10 elephant stands
and found that elephants are not Tiger tanks!
On my right side of the field my barbarians went up against part of a
legion and part of the enemy cavalry (led by the Sarmatian lancer). In
very short order the barbarians were in hectic flight, having lost 2/3
of the strengths and, with all the elephant bases lost, couldn't rally.
So Side B decided that their revolt wasn't really necessary, pledged
eternal support for the Emperor, and surrendered.
I'm sure that there were things that we did incorrectly, but we had a
good game. I've also decided that it's no more elephants for this
wargamer!
You
can see pictures of this game at:
www.angelfire.com/games3/jacksongamer/elephants.htm
Jim
Pitts
Indians
and Parthians Times Two
I
had a couple of 500 point fights with another new recruit to VB.
The
first battle was a rather quick one. The Indians were deployed
across the middle of the table on hold orders and basically shot the
incoming cataphracts to bits causing enough of them to start to run that
once the elephants had charged one end a cataphract unit and the 4H
chariots had attacked the one on the other end it was all over. The levy
cavalry then joined in by routing a couple of horse arches and the
Parthians crumbled.
Net result: decisive Indian victory (but a good learning
experience for the Parthians as it was both the army's first time out
and the commander's first VB game).
As the evening was yet young we swapped sides and had another go.
The second time I thought I would try to be clever and screen my
cataphracts with the horse bows while only attacking half his army.
For the first couple of moves this looked good until I got within short
Longbow range of some of his foot by mistake. All of a sudden five bases
of horse arches are running for the rear! I managed to recover two but
from then on my morale was very shaky. There then followed a major fight
between my heavies and the Indian mounted which I just won but by then
the rest of the Indian foot was beginning to close in. Still the
Parthians fought well and inflicted sufficient lumps on the Indians that
the second fight was a very costly draw for both sides.
The main lesson from the battle was quite how dangerous an army where
almost everyone has a longbow can be.
Cynewulf44
A
New Hannibal
Romans
vs Carthaginians, with me playing the Carthaginians. I drew off
one flank with the Numidians (the skirmisher amendments helped), feinted
at the other flank with the Carthaginian cavalry until the Roman flank
was committed, then withdrew them fast towards the centre, while hoping
to get enough points to cure the disorder of moving outside the flank
angles.
Meanwhile,
the foot just stood still and hoped that the cavalry would get back in
time!
They did, and the Romans were massacred!
John Watts
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