The Die Is Cast in the style of DBA

This is a battle report of the modifications to the Die is Cast rules for use with element based figures (groups of figures based on a single base of standard frontage).
For this we used two small armies of 12 elements a side (the sort of game you might have in DBA for example).
Greeks used 3 units each of 4 bases;
2 units of Spartans classed as; heavy infantry, armed with long spear, steady, veterans, with the phalanx and stubborn special rules.
1 unit of allied Greeks; heavy infantry, armed with long spear, average, seasoned, with the phalanx special rule
Gauls again 3 units of 4 bases but no reason to do it this way, they equally could have been 12 units, each of a single base.
3 units of Gauls; medium infantry in loose formation, javelins, sword, average, seasoned, with the wild charge special rule.

both armies deploy, the Greeks choose a double line formation to get the maximum fighting power from their long spears. The Gauls gaining no advantage from fighting more than one rank deep, deploy in single lines and overlap the Greeks line.

Both sides advance, with the allied Greek hoplites expanding into a single line to prevent the Gauls getting round the Greek flank.
In the centre a unit of Spartans declare a charge, roll; 5, 3, 3 and 2. They elect to discard the 2 (regulars roll 4 dice and chose one die to discard), so the score is 11, they are fine and charge.

The Gauls roll  miserable 7 (warriors simply roll 3 dice and use that score for their morale), become Shaken and have to take the charge at the halt.

On the Gallic left, a unit moves up and throws javelins at the second unit of Spartans. At short range (the only range close order troops can throw javelins) they need four or less to get a kill. They get 3 kills (see above) not quite enough (four hits needed to remove a base) to remove a base.

After taking casualties from shooting, the Spartans take a morale test, roll 4, 2, 2, 1 and discard the one. On a score of 8 the Spartans are happy. In the centre the Gauls inflict a single casualty on the charging Spartans, but that did not worry them either.

In the combat phase 2 bases of Spartans score a hit with every dice rolled (needing 7 or less to score a hit) the Gauls have a longer frontage, so fight back with 3 bases (6 dice) needing 2 or less to roll a hit and score one hit. That means that the Gauls lose and lose by 4 hits to 1.

Rolling a good score of 13, the Gauls modified morale total is 4 as they were Shaken and lost the melee by 4 to 1, so they Retreat.

Now the Gauls on the left are charged by the other Spartan unit. The Spartans roll 8 (discarding one of the ones) and are fine, the Gauls roll 5 (modified down to 4 because of their retreating friends) and Retreat, taking them out of the charge range of the Spartans who merely move forward.

On the right, the Gauls fighting the allied Greeks cause 2 wounds for no loss. The Greeks would have needed 4’s or less to score a hit because they have no supporting rank.However the Greeks morale is fine and they are just recoiled by being beaten by 2:1 and also lose the benefit of the phalanx formation (having been recoiled).

The overall view, in the centre the Gallic unit has been heavily damaged and continues to retreat, on the left the Gauls are falling back but still quite intact, whilst on the right the Gauls are winning against the allied hoplites.

Another round of combat on the right and the Gauls score 5 hits out of 8 dice rolled. The Greeks only score one hit (the one), so are beaten by 5:1.

The Greeks rolled well and held but are now below 50% strength, so can never be considered better than Shaken and are spent as an offensive unit. The centre unit of Spartans charges into the flank of the Gauls. The result is 3:1 to the Spartans/Greeks and the allied hoplites have been saved from destruction.

On the left the other Spartans charge into the now rallied Gauls and score 4 hits (needing 7’s as they are superior troops with the support of an rank) and the Gauls score nothing. Result the Gauls are broken and run.


Game over. But remember this game was played with equal numbers of elements. If this had been done with armies using a points system then there would have been twice as many Gauls and the game could have gone very differently.
For more details of the Die is Cast rules, please follow the link to the Veni Vidi Vici website where a playtest version is freely downloadable.

Warhammer Ancients Grand Tournament 2012

I have just come back from the UK WAB GT held at Mansfield, using my WF Gallic troops as Galatians.
We were using the lists in the new Armies of Antiquity book, 2800 points each.
My army was:
General (mounted)
a unit of 3 chariots
2 units each of 8 noble cavalry
4 units each of 24 Fanatic infantry
3 units each of 18 Fanatic infantry
with the following Greek allies
a unit of 18 peltasts
unit of 11 javelinmen
2 units of archers 10 and 14 strong respectively
The Galatian army is mainly made of fanatic infantry who are classified as Frenzied. That means that each figure fighting gets 2 attacks each and because of their mixed weapons, get to re-roll misses in the first round of every combat. A fearsome lot indeed. The other benefit of being Frenzied is that they ignore all Panic checks and are immune to Fear or Terror. That means that I will have an army that I can rely on not to break and run if their friends break or they are shot at. The only disadvantage is that I am forced to charge enemy if they get within my charge reach, which a cunning opponent will try to do.
The players and their armies

My first game against Andrew Beer using Dacians. These Dacians have bows as well as Mixed weapons giving them a fearsome firepower

And my Galatian army

My units as they advance toward the enemy. My losses are extreme the unit on the right has lost 2 full ranks and the unit to the front has lost only slightly less, one rank. So I pull back the unit on the right and try a desperate charge with the unit at the front, it fails and the Dacians break them and start pursuing me.

This picture is linked to a bigger version of the picture, so just click on it if you would like to see the larger version.
The view of the right of the table, My chariots and infantry advancing against Dacian cavalry, the Dacians charge and beat my cavalry, pursuing into the infantry.

In the centre I am counter-attacking whilst the victorious Dacian unit moves forward. My broken unit has rallied in the rear but has been severely damaged.

Click on above for larger image
My charging troops won and swept the enemy away. Because of the losses I suffered, it was a decent 23 (to me) - 9 (to him) defeat.
Second game against Tony Garrys Romans, it was fast, I didn't take any pictures and I lost completely 0-32. The Romans just charged me, won all the combats, destroyed my army and I did not cause a point of damage to them. Lesson learned, the Romans can beat me easily if they charge me (other way around is a different story).
Third game against Andrew Kershaws Seleucids. Hard army for me to beat with elephants, pikes and very good cavalry.

Click on above for larger image
I managed to sneak some javelinmen through the woods and throw javelins into the side of an elephant, causing it to stampede. OK one down, another to go.

On my right the peltasts charge my chariots, who beat them, pursue close enough to the elephant to take a Terror test, which they fail and run straight off the table edge. Just one of those days.

On the left I manage to break 2 units of cavalry and start to advance

but the enemy rallies both units of cavalry and counter-attacks, it is a savage fight and could have gone either way. Losses mounting on both sides but I had the numbers to take it. On the last turn of the game I break the enemy and get a slight win 19-13. One lesson I learned from this is that I cannot break a pike block frontally, they strike first and kill so many of my figures that I have no chance to win. And because I have to charge if I can, the trick is to be no where near them in the first place.

So 3 games on the fist day, onto the next day for 2 more.
First up against John Walls Imperial Romans. OK know the drill for this one, get the charges in and win! Sorry I didn't have time to take pictures of this one. It was a hard fought game and John had done well in earlier rounds and I got a 25-7 victory.
Fifth and last game against Bob Stradlings Romans - more Romans well at least I knew what to expect. Bob totally fooled me for deployment as with a hill to deploy his artillery, I thought he would put the artillery there and deploy the rest of the army below the hill using his artillery to act as fire support to his attacking legions. OK he put his artillery on the hill but then put his legions on the other flank.
Bob got first turn, moving aggressively toward me with his legions and getting lucky and wiping out my chariots with long range artillery fire on the first turn, this game was going to be no joke.

Click on above for larger image

On the right Bobs Numidian cavalry first wiped out my skirmishers but were then charged and defeated by my peltasts (rolling the best dice I had all weekend)

My units on the right then swept forward, taking out the Roman skirmishers, almost wiping out the Numidian cavalry and finally charging the Roman auxila from the front and the flank at the same time. I had the option to go for the artillery with one of my units of fanatics but instead turned it left to threaten the Roman centre with a flank attack, so that he was forced to stop advancing toward me and threatening to charge me. So by turning the flank, I had effectively won the game.


Meanwhile I had broken the Roman cavalry on the left, so was swinging round on that flank too. However the Roman general had taken the legions standard and launched a charge in the centre which (as we would expect) broke the infantry in front of it, it then pursued into and broke another of my units. But I had another unit prepared for this and it then charged into the only successful Roman unit on the table, who chose to flee rather than fight it out.

Click on above for larger image
View of the right

an isolated unit of legionaries surrounded by screaming Galatians

click on above for larger image
the end. The Galatian cavalry charge into and wipe out the fleeing Roman general, his army standard and the unit he was with - the Romans fled to this position from the cavalry charge and the cavalry had sufficient charge distance to reach them.

A 30-2 victory for me but my opponent rolled the worst dice I have seen all weekend.
Third place, Ed McDonald with Imperial Romans

Second place, Tony Garry (the guy who trashed me in game 2) with his Romans

And in first place Malcolm Barnfield with Seleucids

And some of the prizes for the event

Andrew Beer is the most sporting player (he was using the Dacians and was a pleasure to play)

Keith Tait gets the prize for the best painted army

Now some of the armies that I did not get to play, in photos
Mike Whitakers Ancient British

Martin Gibbins Late Romans – all these picures below are linked to larger versions of the picure. Just click on the pic for the larger version.


Phil Vernons Seleucids

 
Now I am not sure but I think these are Keith Taits Sassanids

Overall I scored 113 points (23 in first game, 0 in 2nd, 19 in 3rd, 27 in 4th and 30 in 5th game). I calculate that as 99 points scored out of a possible total of 160 and somewhere I picked up another 14 points but the event organiser will know where those came from. And all that was good enough to get me 5th place.
The winner was Malcolm Barnfield Seleucid with 156 points and that is a really stunning total.
It was my first chance to use an army from the new Armies of Antiquity lists and from chatting to the other players it seems that all the armies were balanced to play. I think the Germans and British were always going to struggle, both fairly weak warband armies with little armour. But there seems no need for the ABC balancing system which was in use with earlier supplements. A lot of the special army rules have gone but if you wanted to bring those back, simply use one of the earlier specific WAB supplements and both players choose from that, no problem. But for tournaments (and remember a tournament is just a place for people to come and play people they don’t normally play, not a place to prove how ‘good’ you are) allowing a wider range of armies to play against each other fairly allows more people with different armies to come.
Plans for next years 2013 event are already in progress and you can see what is happening here:

Warhammer Ancients Celts vs Republican Romans

About 2 years ago I used the Wargames Factory Celts to build an army for a local tournament called Toy Soldier.
We were using Warhammer Ancient Battles rules (WAB) and the lists allowed me either to take cavalry or chariots but not both. I chose the option of an earlier army with the chariots. So my army looked like this
General and army standard bearer
3 large units of Gallic infantry (warband) and 2 smaller ones
2 units of chariots
3 units of skirmishers, 2 with javelins/shield another with slings.
I like to mix up the size of Gallic units as different sizes are useful for different things. A large unit is useful to charge into combat with as the extra size takes a lot of punishment and can just overwhelm the enemy. On the other hand a large unit is over-kill if you just want to clear away some skirmishers or are hitting an enemy flank.
My opponent (Phil Stirpe, the cheerful chap in the striped shirt) was using Republican Romans a rather tough army using the triple line formation which allowed him to replace tired units with fresh troops from behind. It is a sad thing that most wargames rules only allow the Republicans to perform this manoeuvre when it continued to be used by Imperial Romans as well but that is a side-track into history. Phil was fortunate to get 2 woods on his side of the table to secure his exposed flanks and thus place his army in the best position to beat mine.
My plan however was simple, to go straight down the middle and out-fight his army. Whilst not being subtle I have found the simple plans work best for barbarian troops. Just in case my simple plan did not work, I also tried to go around both of his flanks.
The situation on the table after my first move

a unit of chariots and a small unit of infantry on the left, 2 big units of infantry in the middle and large and small units of infantry on the right supported by skirmishers. One of my units of infantry has charged the Roman skirmishers and is about to wipe them out.
Close-up on the centre, with the chariots about to fight the skirmishers. You can see the tightly packed Roman army here in a 3 line infantry formation.

the skirmishers stood no chance and were easily beaten. The units of skirmishers either side failed leadership tests and also broke, clearing the way for the chariots to pursue into the Roman heavy infantry. It was a suicidal action but would inflict a bit of damage on the Romans and also prevent the Roman infantry from re-positioning his forces. So I did it.
At this point both my units of chariots have been destroyed, the Roman cavalry counter-attacking on my left very effectively. My only comfort was that the Roman cavlary took so many casualties that they were a spent force, even one round of javelins should finish them off - if I could catch them. But in the centre my infantry had charged home, it was all coming down to my superior numbers. On my right I had no Romans to fight so had swung the forces on the right to help out in the centre.

And the crunch comes. My forces from the right have swept round behind the Romans cutting off their retreat  and although I have lost one of my big units of infantry, half of the Roman army was at this point routing  - I have to say though awful leadership rolls by my opponent.
A hard fought game on both sides and one where both players used their armies strengths to overcome he enemy. Mine vast numbers and his the line replacement system which allowed him to take damaged units out of the line before they broke.