This was Wednesday, at the beginning of April, in midweek... no one around but me... and I laid out my gridded table cloth, a field of 2- inch-squares, on the ping pong table. Out came my 25mm ancients figures, and the battle was on, solo style. All my ancients figures are mounted on 2-inch-square bases, hence they fit neatly into the grid structure.
I didn't use the entire table, and the actual dimensions of the battle area were 23 squares in width, by 25 squares deep, i.e., across. Each side had about 11 units, each of 2-stands (22 tokens per side). There was provision in the sequence, at the end of every half bound, for reinforcement stands to appear. These reinforcements could join any like-type unit on the field, for a maximum unit size of 3-stands. By the end of the third bound, therefore, many of the units, both sides, were up to full strength.
An additional source of reinforcements was that the winner in a melee recruited one stand, dicing for its type.
In my ancients games, everyone comes out of the box, and so we have Romans and Assyrians and Greeks and Huns and Thracians and Avars and who-knows-what. Ancients is ancients, I always say.
That great leader of men, Brimm the Obnoxious, won the initiative for the first half-bound. In the first phase of the sequence, he sent out his missile troops, archers and mounted javelineers, all units going a distance of 3 squares. The second phase permitted his opponent, the dreaded Drak of the Ax, to counter the movement of these missile troops and drive them back out of range.
I had assigned each side a set of required parameters:
| Parameter | Brimm | Drak |
|---|---|---|
| Control | 70% | 75% |
| Morale | 75% | 70% |
| Block | 60% | 60% |
After Brimm's missile troops advanced, Drak used his Control percentage... he nominated a cavalry unit, pointed to one of Brimm's archer units, and tried to toss under his Control percentage, 75%, to have the cavalry unit send the archers back out of bow range. There's no actual movement in this phase... it's all done with mirrors and dice tossing... and the results can be:
- a. The cavalry are successful, the archers fall back and receive a casualty marker
b. The cavalry fail, the archers hold position, and the cavalry receives a casualty marker.
In this instance, Drak's cavalry failed their dice toss, taking a marker. Five such markers on a unit and it flees the field. This initial failure was a bad portent for Drak... I should note that on Bound 5, he gave up the ghost, leaving Brimm on the field, victorious.
But now, in the first half of Bound 1, Brimm's archers, not being driven off, fired. The bow unit starts with an 80 percent chance to hit its target. For every square the target is distant, there's a 10 percent reduction in the probability of hit (POH).
Here, the archers aimed at one of Drak's heavy infantry units, 5 squares away. Thus the 80 percent was reduced by 50 to a final POH of 30 percent. A dice toss under half the POH (in this case, under 15) and the target receives 2 casualty markers. The archers tossed extremely low, Drak's heavy infantry took 2 markers, and took a morale test.
Note on the chart on the previous page, the Morale Level (ML) of all of Drak's units was 70 percent. The ML is reduced by 10 percent for every marker on the unit. Here, the initial 70 was reduced by 20, to a final ML of 50. Alas! the heavy infantry couldn't hack it... they failed the dice toss, fell back and took another marker.
I should note another usage of the Control parameter. Brimm's archers were not directly facing Drak's infantry. Ordinarily, archers fire straight ahead, and the total width of their fire field extends to one stand to either side. Drak's unit was off to one side, within a 45 degree arc of the missile unit. By using Brimm's Control parameter, a good toss, below 70, permitted the archers to fire at a 45 degree angle to their facing.
Using his own Control number, 75, Drak tried to strike back. In Bound 3, a Drakian heavy infantry unit changed formation and charged into the flank of one of Brimm's units. Units must go straight ahead, in the direction of their facing, unless they pass the Control test. If they pass, then, prior to movement, they can change formation, can change facing, and amongst other things, can side-step 2 squares.
But Alas! yes, another Alas!... for Drak. After movement comes the firing phase, and Brimm's archers put a hurt on Drak's heavies... they took the requisite morale test, failed, fell back, and never made contact. I'
I'm afraid the battle had many an "Alas!" for Drak... it just wasn't his day. His people could do nothing right.
Brimm took two of his heavy cavalry units, a total of 5 stands, used his Block parameter of 60 percent, and formed the two units into one 'block' or 'division'. In melee, the combat values of all the stands in the block are totaled. Here, with 5 stands, each with 15 combat points, the block totaled 75 points. Ordinarily, a unit of, say, 2 heavy cavalry would total only 30 points. The block lets you brigade units into a more formidable entity.
"Is the 'block' function a true replication of the mode of ancient warfare?", you ask. I simply ignore you. You probably play DBA, or IN THE GRAND MANNER, or WRG, or EMPIRE, or VOLLEY AND BAYONET, or some other silly set of rules. In refusing to answer (just like Monica Lewenski), I exercise my right of keeping my big mouth shut, and permit you to continue to suffer with whatever you're currently gaming. You'll find no sympathy here.
Back to the battle. On the gridded field, Brimm's block of heavies broke completely through Drak's line. In melee, the two opposing units sum up their per-stand combat values, and add a percentage dice throw. The Brimm block (75 points) attacked a medium infantry unit of Drak's (a total of 27 combat points), and simply rode it down. And that was only the beginning.
Drak was unable to counter the Brimmians. Whereas Brimm's force seemed to pass all its morale tests and control tests and block tests, and toss high in melees, poor Drak of the Ax stumbled and stumbled from bound to bound. Toward the end, I could hear his cry: "Put me back in the box! Please!" And I did.
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© Copyright 1998 Wally Simon
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