Due mainly to WAB rules and supplements, I finally finished off my New Kingdom Egyptian army and fine they looked too. My 15mm chariots raised huge clouds of dust and discharged showers of arrows at their enemies - great. The infantry plodded along through the choking dust, just in time to engage the shaken enemy in brutal hand-to-hand combat. As an aside I wonder why I just didn't spray paint all my troops 'dust' coloured, because that is what happens to anyone after a short time in the desert. Anyway, back to the saga. A few practise solo games to sort out what to do and what not to do, with the different troops and as usual with a new army there was a lot to learn. Then I decided to challenge a pal at my local club to a friendly game just to see how my guys would work out against his Imperial Romans. I can see the shaking of the wise old heads out there in Wargmers Land, but I had had a couple of practise games against my own Ancient Italians (Republicans, actually) and done not too badly. My evolved tactic was to harass the Romans with archery, both chariot and infantry, get behind them and simply wear them down. At no point were my infantry, protected only with the ancient equivalent of a 'box', to get into any sort of toe-to- toe stuff with the heavily armoured lads from Italy. Great plan and worked well when playing against myself, but there again I do try and play fairly realistically I think. Prior to the great day, it was to be a full Saturday's gaming, Pete said he would like to join his Egyptians with mine and Steve (the Roman) agreed, so he would be outnumbered point-wise, 2: 1. Pete took the Right and Centre and I took the Left flank, against a solid line of Romans positioned in front of a large hill bristling with long range missile throwing devices! I stuck to my plan, while Pete bravely went were light chariots should never go and that is within range of everything on the Roman side. He lost his Army Standard- bearer and a complete unit apart from his Pharaoh in one move (should have done a solo practise). My chariots lost a few to the artillery on the hill but began to worry the Roman light troops and their supporting light cavalry; who were soon fleeing for the rear, needless to say with my ancient sand buggies in hot pursuit! This left the Roman Right Flank wide open and I began to move chariots into position to get behind the Roman cohorts and ride down the artillery, which was causing Pete so many problems. Now my foot archers had gotten into range of the cohorts and along with a few chariot units started to pepper them with arrows, to no avail! The Romans had moved into Testudo and were invincible! I had forgotten this rule in my practises, basically because I use my Romans mainly as 'the enemy' and never as my main army. [I know generally what the Romans will do and I like to have troops that give me a bit more to think about]. So my great plan had come to a shattering halt because with saving throws of 2+, I could have been there all day without a result. However, a brave move by Pete's remaining chariot unit failed when it was caught in the flank by charging cataphracts and routed, which was the beginning of the end for the glorious Egyptian coalition, and the cavalry unit single handily chased off the Right and Centre of our forces. We latter discovered because Steve was outnumbered 2:1 he had upgraded all his troops to 'veteran' status and had promoted his cavalry from normal to cataphracts! There were some good bits to the game but it was so biased in favour of the Romans that we decided never to do it again. It should be noted that not one of the cohorts actually got into combat, they didn't need to, they simply scared our guys off the table! Soloing is a good way to prepare for a face-to-face encounter but ensure you use all the rules that are available to the opposition. Practise was more fun than the actual game in this instance! Recently finished my Lancashire Games Early Libyan Warband army pack, wonder what they are like against chariots? Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #133 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com