For our first campaign I have chosen the Manlii gens and Gordon the Julii. I have summarised below the first four games that we played,they are in summary form only as I only thought about doing a blog of the campaign after we had already fought them. I did take pictures of the end position of each at the very least, and Gordon has also commented on each one.
From game five I will produce a report on each as they happen.
Game 1 – Roman Era 1: Early Republic
Early Roman 6,900 points (Alec) v Volscii 7,000 points (Gordon)
Minor invasion 500 BCE (Meg Magna, 14-Dec-2022).
Battlefield Effects: Roman: Troop late arrival 5 - choice of three
We decided to play MeG Magna for our first game as we had been playing ADLG a fair amount in 2022 in order to get up to speed for the Devonian Classic held earlier in December. So, on completion of the bidding process, our first battle of the campaign saw me taking the Roman’s with 6,900 points whilst Gordon played the Volscii with 7,000 points. I also benefitted from a Battlefield effect – rolling ‘Troop late arrival’.
The Plan
The campaign event rolled was a
‘Minor invasion’ which meant that the Romans were invading, as such I would
earn two Prestige Points if I were to win but would only suffer the loss of one
if I were to lose the battle or if we didn’t finish. The onus was on me then to
get on with it to achieve victory before the evening was out.
As the Volscii were a hill tribe, they operated in loose formations well suited to difficult terrain, so when pondering on my army composition I
decided to take a large Hernici allied command (another hill tribe) in case I had to winkle Gordon’s
army out of some well-placed bad terrain. Additionally, to try to keep him guessing
as long as possible, I decided to send them on a flank march; he wouldn’t know
about the Hernici until they arrived.
I also decided not to select any mounted troops, as I considered it unlikely Gordon would commit his loose formation army out in the open against my close formation spearmen. Gordon has made it clear many times in previous MeG games that he won't commit troops where he believes they will be at a disadvantage in combat which enables me to take advantage of this reticence. This would give me plenty of time for the flank march to turn up. Also if there turned out to be significant amounts of bad terrain any cavalry I had might not be able to contribute much.
The Battle
Whilst I was happy enough for
there to be some (because of the Hernici component in my army) I didn’t want too much bad terrain. I
felt the terrain deployment fell fairly well for me, a secure
mountainous/forested flank on my left and a small wood on Gordon's far right table
edge (from my perspective). This left plenty of open terrain in the centre for
my close formation foot to operate in whilst giving the Hernici a difficult
terrain flank to enter on. My hope was that, after I deployed my on-table
troops with a refused left flank and Gordon saw there was a significant chunk
missing he would assume my flank march would be entering from the other edge.
As I needed three red Command Cards
for the flank march to arrive there was always the possibility that Gordon
would take the aggressive route and try to take it to me from the word go,
despite my troops having the advantage in the open terrain he outnumbered me
considerably and had some cavalry. He didn’t take the opportunity to do so, I
hadn’t considered that as I hadn’t placed any cavalry on the table he would be
nervous about advancing. In hindsight, it has occurred to me Gordon's inaction at
the start of the battle was possibly in case my flank march consisted of the ‘missing’
Roman cavalry. It also probably reinforced the idea in his mind that the flank
march would appear on my right flank as cavalry rather than the Hernician
loose formation infantry that I did choose, which was due to arrive on my left
flank.
I outnumbered Gordon with infantry
on my far right, where I had deployed three TUGs deep, which left him feeling
vulnerable on that flank. My idea was that the reserves would enable me to
close the right flank down by expanding out to counter any cavalry he may
deploy there, to him I guess it looked like I was planning to overwhelm his
left. The game therefore started with
both sides waiting for the flank march to arrive and choosing not to do much
for several turns. This suited me as obtaining three red cards is not easy.
As Gordon had placed an ambush card
on the right in the woods, which may well have been cavalry, I slowly expanded
my infantry out to the right hand side lengthening my line as planned whilst he
sent forward his three skirmish units (SUGs in MeG parlance). He got a
little too impatient with them however, advancing too close to my infantry, so I managed to catch two
of them, dispersing them with my heavy foot. The third ran back to the safety
of the woods on the right. Gordon's inaction otherwise gave me plenty of time to
recover my wounds from his shooting whilst continuing to collect the necessary
red Command cards in my flank marching command.
I initially held back from the
mountains on the left to encourage Gordon to advance into them. After I had
collected a couple of red Command cards with my flanking command I advanced
cautiously forward, I made it look like there was a hanging left flank for him
to exploit and he eventually took the bait, advancing through the mountains in
an attempt to turn the flank of my end heavy infantry unit with a couple of
Volscian infantry TUGs (this is a MeG acronym for “Tactical Unit Group”). Gordon left it too late though, at that time I only needed one more red Command card
for flank march arrival; battle was joined on my extreme left flank between his
two advancing TUGs and my left-most infantry TUG just as it arrived in my hand.
The result was that I managed to quickly take those two engaged units in the
rear with one TUG of arriving Hernici, wiping them out in short order.
I brought three other Hernici
TUGs on the table edge further towards Gordon's rear. Now, the player who has an
unused Battlefield Effect chit has the option to convert it into what the
campaign calls the ‘Universal Battlefield Effect’. This allows the player that
has one to make a die-roll to attempt to use the chit in a way that represents
an order misinterpretation (think “Charge of the light brigade”).
So, given that I hadn’t been able
to think of a good use of the chit in its Troop Late Arrival mode, I decided to
use it this way to attempt to stop one of Gordon's elite ‘Picked Men’ TUGs, which
had been deployed on his extreme right (my left) facing the table edge, from
moving at a critical moment; I succeeded, allowing me to catch it in both flanks
with arriving Hernici TUGs.
In short order Gordon therefore lost both the
flanking units that he had sent into the mountains to flank my line, and one
other TUG caught by my flank march plus one of his Picked Men TUGs was flanked and having taken substantial casualties already could be expected to go under fairly quickly. Whilst that wouldn’t,
in itself, take down his army, with four TUGs and two SUGs out of the fight and
me being in a good position to roll up his flank, the writing was on the wall; consequently
at that point – Gordon lost the will to continue and surrendered. Interestingly
our main infantry lines hadn’t actually yet become engaged, but I wasn’t going
to try too hard to talk him out of it!
Result
Roman victory – two
Prestige Points to the Manlii
Below is a picture I took of the
end point of the game.
You will see from the photo that we sometimes use little coloured flags to delineate which units are in which command, this all helps Gordon make sense of the battle through the camera (it isn’t unhelpful to me either!)
You can easily see the unengaged
infantry battle lines plus the, almost surrounded, unit of Volcsian Picked Men
on the left table edge. In the bottom left is the Hernici TUG that took
Gordon’s two TUGs in the rear whilst they were engaged with the end Roman
infantry TUG (they have been removed).
Gordon's Comments
Pre-game thinking
Volsci are relatively light infantry compared to an army of
hoplites. I need to have terrain on my side. Otherwise I will lose in an
exercise of rolling white dice to green or better.
The battle itself
No terrain! And after deployment we both have wall to wall
infantry and I can’t see his cavalry. He has a flank attack. As above, I am
fighting a wall of hoplites head on – I have lost this game already. I see no
point progressing; it is a wasted evening. However, I don’t want to spoil
Alec’s evening by surrendering immediately.
So, a poorly planned attempt on my part to outflank his left
flank while keeping the rest of the army back awaiting the flank attack results
in a self-fulfilling prophecy of disaster.
Post-game
Sometimes with MeG I look at the deployment and the troop matches and know it is all over already. While there is potential for freak results, the number of dice means that if you are rolling whites in combat all along the line then you have lost. So, choose a better mix of troops or do something clever. The Volsci don’t have a lot of choice of troops, which is fine, I have always liked the idea of the medium/auxilia/javelinmen army. I just rarely play with one, so don’t know how to handle it. Alec did well with his infantry flank march, as getting the three reds is hard – but one can plan for that with the talented general.
[Final comment - I think Gordon was far too pessimistic as to his chances in this game, I have played several games where Italian hill tribesmen have given early Romans a good trouncing. I think Gordon largely handed me the win on a plate on this one.]
Game 2 – Byzantine Era 1: Eastern Later Roman transition to Early Byzantine
Early Byzantine 6,800pts (Gordon) v Avars 6,750pts (Alec)
Minor defence 563 CE (Meg Magna, 21-Dec-2022).
Battlefield Effects: None
For our second game Gordon bid lower than me so
he played as the Byzantines, I fought as the Avars. As it was a Minor Defence
for Gordon I again had to go for it; he would gain one Prestige Point
unless I succeeded in defeating him by the end of the evening, in which case he
would lose two.
The Avars achieved a MeG 'Strategic Intercept' and
I did as much as I could to close down the battlefield for my loose formation
Slavic infantry. After terrain placement, however, all I could manage was a mountainous
secure flank on my left and woods to my left rear, the centre and right
were completely open. There was enough bad terrain for the Slavs to hide in, though it gave them only limited scope to advance.
I out-scouted the Byzantines by 50% so I could at
least ensure there were no horror matchups as Gordon had to deploy half his army
first. He deployed three poor quality, but dart-equipped, Skutatoi TUGs and a
fortified camp on his right and a skirmish bow SUG in ambush in the mountains. I
placed my Slavic skirmishing javelinmen SUG in ambush in the mountains and the
three Slavic loose infantry TUGs in the woods where they should be able to advance into and through the mountains.
Whilst my skirmishers were eventually to take out Gordon's, the infantry on both sides basically sat out the battle. Loss of a SUG is
irrelevant to an army breaking in MeG, only TUG and camp losses are counted.
Gordon, from my left to right, deployed three
Kavallarioi TUGs, two Foederate cavalry TUGs and a Boukellarioi TUG in line followed by a
Hun light horse skilled shooting SUG. I almost matched them with three Bulgar
cavalry TUGs s and three Avar cavalry TUGs.
I had decided that I wasn’t going to try anything
too cute with the cavalry as even though my horse were all bow equipped so were
most of Gordon's (all but the Foederate); if I was to try evading etc. I could
easily be forced out of position or worse. Consequently, as Gordon had obviously
decided to get his Foederate cavalry into contact as soon as he possibly could,
we both moved rapidly forward and, with only a small amount of shooting,
charged into contact.
It was obvious that we would determine the outcome of this battle very quickly. The decider was that Gordon's Foederate, who had the ‘Devastating charger’ characteristic, failed to achieve any ‘Shatter’ results with their initial charge. (In MeG certain units, on rolling well, are also able to Shatter the opposition giving a significant bonus to adjacent combats). From then on, as my cavalry had the advantage in drawn out melee and my luck was generally turning out the better, Gordon's line crumpled first.
I did lose one unprotected Bulgar TUG, so one of Gordon's Kavallarioi TUGs broke through and succeeded in making a run for, and contacted
my camp. It didn’t break it, however, before he lost his fifth TUG and the army
with it.
We did discuss, after the battle, that if Gordon had
broken-off that fifth TUG from its opponent it may have given the camp attacker
time to loot the camp which, given the parlous state of some of my cavalry TUGs
may have won him the battle, but no guarantees. (In MeG when an army has its
camp looted all units in that army have to make morale tests, if an army has several
units near to breaking a few bad die rolls can easily take that army over the
edge, especially with the snowball effect which MeG Magna was particularly
prone to prior to the January 2023 rule revisions).
Result
Avar victory - minus two Prestige Points
to the Julii
Below is a picture of the end point of the game.
I have moved my camp, on the left, into the table
so you can see it better in the photo, Gordon's Kavallarioi is in contact with it. Gordon’s
Kavallarioi that broke, losing him the game, is still on table in the centre
with my cavalry flanking it.
Gordon's Comments
Pre-game thinking
Probably going to be two armies of good and flexible cavalry
doing most of the work. Alec might take some Slav infantry and look for some
terrain for them. I wanted a solid defensive group of infantry to protect the
camp and provide cope with any out-manoeuvring by his cavalry. The Foederati
are there for a quick win (maybe: experience suggests not).
The battle itself
Close down one flank with infantry and put the camp there.
They can have an easy day and watch the battle. Cavalry centre and flank to
break through to his camp and/or outflank through victory. Foederati let me
down and then it was a grind. But a close one. Interesting point Alec makes
about the breakoff – something I didn’t notice during the game. Sometimes I
can’t see the wood for the trees. Or possibly tree for the wood in this case (I
never understood that aphorism).
Post-game
Sometimes it comes down to luck. And not paying attention to
detail.
Game 3 – Era 2: Early Republic - post Camillan army reforms
Camillan Roman (Gordon 7,500ts) v Pyrrhus (Alec 7,500pts)
Major defence 279 BCE (Meg Magna, 4-Jan-2023).
Battlefield Effects: None
A major defence for Gordon, we were again using
MeG Magna with matching points values at 7,500, the notes to the Enemies table made it a refight of the battle of Asculum in 279 BCE. I
accordingly selected a TUG of elephants, Gordon chose units of Anti-elephant wagons
and Flaming pigs.
The terrain was largely open, a few pieces of bad
and rough stuff were around the edges. I had decided to maximise the number of pike
blocks, going with four average and three poor quality, which I lined up across
the centre of the table alternating good with bad.
Gordon decided to go with the maximum number of
cavalry, upgraded as much as possible. He deployed them on his left flank behind
the anti-elephant wagons and flaming pigs, both of which he was able to place opposite my
elephants, which I had deployed first. Gordon deployed his legions in the centre.
The battle quickly turned into an
infantry slug-fest between my pikes and Gordon’s legions. It was essentially a
race to see if my better quality Epirot pike units could beat their opponents before my
poor quality Tarentine pike units became overwhelmed. Gordon's initial Hastati 'shoot and charge' went quite well so I was under pressure from the start but I managed to start
clawing the position back with some effective ‘shoves’ from my Epirot pike blocks. (Like ‘Shatter’ ‘Shove’ gives bonuses to adjacent files in
combat).
As was the way with all MeG
Magna games, with bases being whittled away in combat it would come down to whose
TUGs broke first probably leading to army collapse from the cascade effect of unit routs from failed 'Kill a Base' (essentially morale) tests. As it happened we
both lost a TUG in the centre of the table which both damaged neighbours from
failed tests but neither side collapsed at that stage, just pushing us both
closer to the edge. The following turn Gordon lost a couple more TUGs as I
was able to turn on flanks, and, as predicted, the cascade effect finished him
off.
As we discussed afterwards,
Gordon made a deployment mistake in putting his cavalry behind his anti-elephant units on the flank as they couldn’t do any good where they were
and he couldn’t get them out into positions to support the infantry line fast
enough to plug gaps when needed. That error contributed to the collapse as I
was free to manoeuvre to my advantage.
To add insult to injury, being a
Major Defence battle Gordon opted to try the campaign game ‘Dying a Glorious Death’
option to reduce the Prestige Points lost. Unfortunately for Gordon I rolled a one on that
die roll so his general was captured instead – resulting in one extra Prestige
Point being lost by him. His family nominee is now being used as a foot stool
by Pyrrhus!
Result
Pyrrhic victory – minus
four Prestige Points to the Julii
Below is a picture of the end of
the game. Gordon's Roman unit that broke through the centre is still sitting
isolated, not able to capitalise on the breakthrough due to poor cards.
Gordon's comments
Pre-game thinking
Enemy probably will be big pike
phalanxes and elephants. I have to take some anti-elephant measures as the campaign requires, and to sort of reflect history I might as well take both pigs and
carts. Pikes are a bigger problem, so will have to rely on infantry hurting the
pikes in the first round and sticking around after that while my flanks beat
his. My cavalry should be outclassed, but I need some to protect flanks and decide
to upgrade them.
The battle itself
Terrain is good for two heavy
infantry armies. I will hold on my left with lighter allies and cavalry and
anti-elephant troops. Legions in the centre and some lighter infantry to
protect the right flank using the bad terrain to support them. Legions are to
get stuck into the pikes and break the poor quality ones before he breaks
enough of my legions to win.
Right flank did what I wanted:
protected the legions’ flank. But I put too many troops in too small an area on
the left. I didn’t have room to manoeuvre the cavalry. The lighter infantry there
looked to be doing their job (some lucky shooting), although the Companions
were starting to chew them up. The centre started well, but without support were
outflanked by pikemen and broke before I could break enough of his poor quality
pikes.
Post-game
Poor deployment on my left flank
resulted in a reliance on the legions being lucky in the centre. Complete lack
of reserves in centre left me vulnerable to breakthroughs
Fortune might favour the brave,
but she isn’t going to let you get away with leaving it all to her.
Game 4 – Byzantine Era 2: Early Byzantine post Maurikian army reforms
Maurikian Byzantine (Alec 170pts) v Visigoths in Spain (Gordon 170 pts)
Minor defence 588 CE (ADLG Standard, 11-Jan-2023).
Battlefield Effects: None
I was defending so I chose to
deploy my infantry in the centre where it could take advantage of the hill, I
placed my weaker cavalry command, consisting of one heavy cavalry, two medium cavalry and three light cavalry on my left
and my better cavalry (four heavy cavalry and two light cavalry) on my right. Gordon did the same so we
both had stronger right wings.
Being the invader Gordon went
first, he advanced on his right leaving his centre and refused left standing
still. I advanced on my right with a double move and moved my infantry forward
to take the hill immediately in front of my line.
In order to win this battle I
envisaged that I would have to try and use my superior command structure and
the manoeuvrability of my troops to break up his big blocks and dance round on
my left whilst hopefully winning on the right.
My hope also was that the
psychological effect of occupying the hill would stop Gordon being too
aggressive with his superior foot in the centre.
It worked out pretty much as hoped,
though not entirely, I threw my right into contact as soon as possible and
evaded on the left for as much time as I could. Gordon eventually moved his
infantry centre forward, stopping short of the hill as I hoped, even though
three quarters of my infantry had advanced just off it.
My evading and dancing around on
the left managed to break up Gordon's line to the extent that his cavalry become
hard to command so even though he managed to kill a couple of units I matched
him, plus I killed his general. On my right I lost both units of Optimates but
I slowly gained the upper hand.
In the end, thanks in no small
part to decent though not outstanding luck, I ground Gordon down sufficiently to
beat him 20-10. I like the 12-sided d6!
Result
Byzantine victory – one
Prestige Point to the Manlii
Below are two pictures, the first at the end point, the second part way through the battle.
You can see Gordon on my laptop!
Gordon's comments
Pre-game thinking
My army is impetuous foot and
cavalry. His will probably be regular troops and commanders, with good cavalry.
I have lots of un-manoeuvrable troops and relatively poor commandeers. So, might
as well maximise the number and ferocity and hope to get in close quickly.
The battle itself:
Flanks are clear of terrain and
that works for me. There is a bloody great big hill in the middle of his line –
he is going to put lots of infantry on it. Boo! Hiss!
So, cavalry on each flank for
both of us and infantry centres.
I push forward on my stronger
right and in the centre – simple and works best for my untrained troops. Hold
on the left to protect my infantry from outflanking.
Alec lasted longer than hoped on
my right and I started to have command problems. That also meant that my
infantry got dragged into fighting his cavalry rather than the infantry. There
were not enough command points to do everything, especially as I put my
infantry general into the combat in the vain hope he would give enough of an
advantage to quickly beat Alec’s cavalry and then outflank the infantry on the
hill. The wild variations in the combat dice in ADLG didn’t help me here.
Alas! He outfought me.
Post-game
Not sure I did anything particularly wrong. Focussing my infantry on Alec’s infantry rather than his cavalry might have worked, but heavy infantry are hard to break in the absence of lots of combat advantages (or outrageous luck). With my right flank not doing well that would have left me vulnerable to being rolled up.
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