March of the Elephants - Age of Hannibal AAR

My first game of Saturday was a chance to play Little Wars TV's "Age of Hannibal" rules, which were recently updated to a second edition. 

The scenario was recreating the battle between Alexander the Great and King Porus of India, along the banks of the Jhelum River. 

Carl, who was running the game, had come up with a very clever pre-battle mini campaign to help randomize some of the game's setup. 

The two players commanding the Macedonian forces had to pick an area to cross the swollen Jhelum. Alexander's crossing was one of four king cards, placed at points A, B, C, or D. The Macedonians also had four noise cards, which represented Macedonian forces causing distractions. 

The Indian players (myself included) could use our lighter cavalry to scout Alexander's position. If we found him, the Macedonians would have to deploy first. But the Indian players also lost any units they used to scout the enemy's crossings. 

The Macedonians placed a lot of noise cards at point D, and a few at points A and B. We decided to have three cavalry units scout points A, B, and C, figuring that the noise at D was just a distraction. 

Our guess turned out to be right, and Alexander's crossing was revealed to be at point A (which included King Porus' camp). So the Macedonians set up first, and had limited cavalry reinforcements for the battle. 

The battlefield was wide open with some fields scattered around that didn't impede the armies' movement. 

The Macedonians set up their phalanxes in a long, thin line, with the river anchoring one flank and the Silver Shield hypaspists on the other. Alexander took personal command of his Companion cavalry, and some mercenary light horse ended the Macedonian battleline. 

The Indians had more troops of lower quality than the Greeks. We set up our main force in three lines; the elephants, covered by skirmishers, followed by two lines of archers. A group of Indian nobles took up the center with Porus, while charioteers and mercenary cavalry squared up against Alexanders' cavalry. 

The two lines of infantry (and elephants) slowly ground towards each other, with skirmishers unsuccessfully exchanging javelins at range. 

The cavalry (which I was commanding for the Indians), however, quickly got stuck in, to predicable results. While the chariots had bows and charge bonus, their poor combat modifier meant that the Companion cavalry had a massive advantage in combat, especially with Alexander in command. 

At best, they would act as a roadblock while the mercenary cavalry moved in from the flank. 

Which they needed to do in a hurry as the Companions gave out DMZ tokens like candy on Halloween. 

The elephants continued to surge forward, crushing the Macedonian skirmishers without taking any damage and only slightly losing cohesion. 

And then, pachydermal mayhem!

The phalanxes were much stronger against the elephants than we reckoned, and while the first grey tide forced the Macedonian line to bow, it certainly didn't break. 

As any good ancients rules should, damaged elephants in Age of Hannibal panic and move randomly until they can be rallied. They can go anywhere; back into your lines, into the enemy's lines or, like we had, directly into each other!

And then, a miracle. A lucky die role saw Alexander captured after the Companion cavalry unit he was attached to was routed. 

If King Porus' army could hold out, Alexander's captivity could mean a bright future for his kingdom.

The first wave of elephants had pretty much petered out without much damage on the phalanxes, who could recover fairly easily thanks to their good morale. 

Worryingly, another unit of Companion cavalry seperated from the line of phalanxes and started moving towards Porus' camp with the intent of rescuing Alexander. 

The second wave of elephants charge in, with similar results to the first. Those phalanxes are tough! But at least the rampaging elephants between the two armies kept the Macedonians from advancing, and the Indians could launch arrows in the gaps.

The Indian lines began to shift with the hope of creating a shooting gallery that might stop the Companion cavalry from getting to their commander. 

In the center, the Indian nobles clashed with the Silver Shields. While the Macedonians were better trained (like everything else in their army), the Indians had the numbers advantage. 

Unfortunately, it wasn't going well for my commands. Even surrounding the Companion cavalry couldn't stop them, and I was collecting DMZs left and right. 

The fight between the nobles and Silver Shields was a little more even.

With most of the elephants rampaging, the Indian archers tried to keep clear and sent volleys of arrows into the ranks of the Phalanxes. 

On the riverbank, the last Indian mercenary cavalry unit frantically chased after the Companion cavalry.

In Age of Hannibal, once an army's morale clock (which also determines how many moves their force can make) gets down low enough, they have to give out a number of DMZs to units on their side. 

We had quite a few, and used them to remove the elephants from the table, reasoning that they were as likely to charge into our lines as the Macedonians. 

However, the Macedonians were just as bloodied and also on the verge of collapsing. I managed to knock out another unit of Companion cavalry and brought in a fresh line of nobles into combat with the Silver Shields. The Companions along the far back were also caught by the Indian cavalry and took a hit in combat.

With time running out, Carl decided to call the game here. Both sides were battered, but Alexander's capture had tipped the scales in the Indian's victory. 

This was another great game. ADLG had put me off of non-grid based Ancients rules, but Age of Hannibal has brought me back. I will pick up a copy of the rules for my collection, and I could imagine using these if I wanted to start a Successors campaign with some other willing players. 

The Siege of the Emerald City - Wars of Ozz AAR

I was able to play in three full games while attending Fall In this year. Unfortunately my first two games on Friday were cancelled, and I slept poorly enough that I had to skip the first (I wasn't going to drive three hours to Lancaster on the same amount of sleep). 

So after wandering around for a few hours, I played in a siege scenario for Wars of Ozz, one of the newer sets of rules from Buck Surdu, miniatures from Old Glory, and setting from Chris Palmer (who was running the game). I'd seen the rules here any there online but hadn't had an opportunity to play, so I decided to jump in when I saw there was a spot open. 

Wars of Ozz takes place in a post-post-apocalyptic Earth that has ended up resembling the Oz of Frank Baum's imagination with a slight twist, like introducing 18th century technology.

Two brigades of Winkies with Skeleton and Dire Bear allies marched on the walls of the Emerald City. The defenders, two brigades of Munchkins, waited for the assault. 

Behind them, the perfidious Gnomes (or Nomes?), allies of the Winkies, had blown a hole in the walls of the Emerald City and came pouring out. Luckily, the Munchkins' allies, the Quadlings, had been garrisoned in the city and would counter the Gnomish ambush. 

I was commanding one brigade of Munchkins for the game, consisting of the named Zoraster’s Guard regiment, a Munchkin Landwehr regiment, a Heavy Cavalry squadron, and a light gun. 

I was facing off against a Winkie brigade which had a regiment of Skeletons, a regiment of close-combat infantry with spears, a regiment of Marksmen (the only Winkie regiment with guns), and a heavy gun. 

The Quadlings quickly advanced against the Gnomes, with two musket-armed regiments and a unit of Tin Woodsmen. To keep the Gnomes contained in the city, the Munchkins diverted a cavalry squadron to attack the Gnomish rear. 

The cavalry charge was successful, and the artillerygnomes were chases off. 

Meanwhile, the Winkies had moved their Marksmen to their far flank while their close-combat infantry concentrated on the center of the Munckins' defensive line. 

My Heavy Cavalry seemed reluctant to get stuck in the Marksmen, but they were at least keeping the musket-armed Winkies out of the fight. 

The Munchkin forces on the other side of the table were much harder pressed, dealing not only Winkie infantry but Dire Bears as well. 

The Quadling brigade was holding firm in dealing with the Gnomes, who had decided to continue pushing into the city rather than try and break out into the Munckins' flank. After taking a beating, the Gnomes began to rout back into the hole rather than run into any more of the Quadlings musket fire. 

My personal MVP for the game was this regiment of Munchkin Landwehr, who not only defeated the undead Skeletons but also held their nerve in the face of charging Winkies.

Wars of Ozz uses a very clever set of reaction charts that are different for each faction. A unit of Munckins, for example, is likely to fire upon a unit that fires at them, while Winkies are likely to surge forward into melee. This can be modified by the number of bases lost, or if a commander has joined the unit. 

There were several occasions when engagements (like the above) seemed to take a life on their own as units reacted to each other, devolving into a mess of melee, musketry, and eventually failed morale checks. 

The game ended with a victory for the forces of the Emerald City. While the Munchkins had been bloodied, they had rallied back into a defensive line while many of the Winkie units were routing. And the Quadlings were just waiting for the Gnomes to fully retreat before they could march out of the city to reinforce the Munchkins.

I had a great time while playing. The rules were easy to pick up and interesting to play, and the miniatures and table were fantastic. Chris ended up winning the "Pour Les Encourager Les Autres" award for the best game in the Friday night time slot, which was well deserved!

As no one plays in my local area, I only ended up buying a regiment of Munchkin Landwehr to paint for fun, in honor of the brave troops that served so well during the game. 

Painting Update - Strength & Honour Terrain

The blog has been quiet for a bit, but I'm back with some painting updates. 

 

I've been working on some terrain for Strength & Honour. Korhyl makes some great city tiles that are the same size as in-game units, so I bought two of them. 

I also purchased a set of the farms/villas for more, smaller built-up areas. 

Strength & Honour uses camps, and while the 2d paper printouts are nice, I do prefer 3d versions. This half of a Roman cmoamp is perfect for using either out on the frontiers or deal with civil wars. 

 

 

And finally, I also completed a couple of generic wagon circles for any non-Roman opponents.

Failure to Launch - Castles in the Sky AAR

For Septembers SJGA club meetup, I offered to run an intro game of "Castles in the Sky", one of Osprey's newest entries in their wargaming rules series. 

The scenario was an ambush set in the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese players needed to escort, or protect a dreadnought (with no weapons), while the Americans needed to destroy it. 

I let the Americans set up one of their squadrons in a cloudbank on their half of the table as an ambush that would be spotted when the Japanese came within short range distance of it. They chose the center cloud bank.

The Japanese players led the dreadnought around the left side of the table, directly towards the American's ambush spot. 

Long range fire didn't result in much damage, but did put friction on both sides (the ruleset's way of messing with command and control). 

The battle quickly turned into a giant furball as the Americans sprung their ambush.

Unfortunately, the previous turns had taken so long that we had to end the game before there was any decisive results, which was discouraging. Unfortunately I think the game failed to impress.

Observations that I made:

+The group liked the core mechanics of the game

+If the players knew the rules, it would have gone better, instead of a single turn taking an hour or more.

-Players thought I started the fleets too far apart, which did keep the action from happening earlier on. I probably should have started both sides closer by 6"-12", maybe even closer.

-There were too many ships for too many new players. I probably should have only had them running 3, or even just 2, ships each.

-I needed something other than dice to indicate altitude. Chits would have been a better choice.

This project will probably get shelved for a while. 

Painting Update - Castles in the Sky

Here's a look at the Japanese fleets for Castles in the Skies (which I had just finished on the day of the club game).

The Japanese first squadron consisted of a Yamashiro-class battleship, two Akeshi-class light cruisers, a Nagatsaki-class destroyer, and a Mikasa class frigate.

The second and third Japanese squadron consisted of a Yashima-class battleship, a Yakumo-class heavy cruiser, a Nagatsaki-class destroyer, and a Mikasa class frigate.

The objective of the game was for the Japanese to defend a Shinano-class dreadnought that had inactive weapons.