I am... or, rather, was... engaged in an e-mail ancients campaign with Don Bailey. Unfortunately, in the early days of this month, my army received its final bashing at the hands of Donald the Grim. Yes, I, Walterius the Bloody, went down to defeat after merely three campaign battles.
We followed the procedures laid out by Roger Underwood in his articles in WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED, issues numbers 10, 11, and 12, way back in 1988. In these magazine articles, Underwood sets up a number of tactical options for each side, and after the parties select their particular option (for example... hold position, or fall back, or advance), the choices are compared with one another, and the article then describes the resultant situation and, if a battle is to be fought, the terrain, and the initial disposition of both armies.
If each side has, say, three options from which to select, then what is set up is a 3 x 3 matrix of events, or nine possible outcomes. Underwood describes each outcome and details the set up of the ensuing situation. In fact, Underwood describes more than just a single matrix of nine outcomes. He provides a number of confrontational situations, and each of these, in turn, yields another 3 x 3 matrix, another nine possible outcomes. Underwood has done his homework in fine fashion and provided the background for a number of campaigns.
With only a few slight adjustments, the material is adaptable for almost any era. The original articles were based on using the WRG rules systems, but these can easily be changed.
In our ancients campaign, both my army and that of Donald the Grim had their contingents of heavy cavalry and medium infantry and light cavalry and foot archers, and so on, and what we did was to divide the units of our respective armies into a van, a center division and a rear guard. Once so divided, that's the way we marched for the entire campaign.
First Turn
On the very first turn, our armies sat, facing each other, and the option that I chose was to attempt to withdraw to a better defensive position. Donald the Grim, in contrast, chose a rapid advance and caught my forces by surprise, in column, as they were attempting to cross a river.
My army, in attempting to reach the new defensive position, was strung out in reverse... my rear guard, traveling first, had already crossed the river to be followed by my center division, and my van was now acting as a rear guard during the maneuver.
What saved me from complete annihilation in this first battle, was the fact that the Grim's rapid advance was too rapid... in fact, said Underwood in his text, the Grim's van had outstripped the rest of his army and would fight unsupported for three bounds, at which time, the remainder of his force would show up on the field.
The result of this first encounter was that I lost a couple of units, while Donald the Grim recruited a unit or so, based upon his victory. In our campaign, the only way to gain reinforcements is to win a battle.
In our next tactical encounter, the Grim chose to negotiate and form up his victorious army, rather than immediately advancing against my depleted force. Again we selected our options, and compared them. The result here indicated that one of the Grim's heavy cavalry commanders was so irritated by the Grim's desire to 'negotiate', rather than to follow up and finish me off, that he just packed up his tents and went home... and took his men with him. Thus the Grim's army was one heavy cavalry unit the less... a stroke of luck for me.
Once again, we chose our options, and this time, the Grim, apparently unhappy by the response of his deserting heavy cavalry, selected a rapid advance against my army. My choice of the options given to me, was to 'maneuver', and I did so, thinking perhaps that I could swivel and sway enough to find myself on the enemy flank.
But no... again, the Grim came in on my army right in the middle of its maneuvering... he caught my troops in column of march, and again I was saved just short of annihilation. This time by the fact that most of my units took advantage of a 'reaction move', enabling them to turn and face the aggressor.
I think that up to this point, we had had some four or five campaign moves, including two battles, and we had never referenced a map. We had simply followed the provisions of a 'paper campaign', without any need to set out our forces on a map. Another item of note is that, for each battle, Don and I each played it out on the 'home court'... he's in Colorado, and I'm in Maryland.
We each use our own rules, which change from game to game as we desire, and after battle, we e-mail each other as to the results so as to come to an accord concerning losses and recruitment. Using two different sets of rules, battle outcomes can vary significantly, but thus far, we've been able to agree as to what's right and reasonable.
Another Option
And so, now, after two battles, we found ourselves in still another confrontational mode, and each ready to select yet another option. My choice, with a rather sad-looking, somewhat reduced army, was to deploy and set up my defenses and get ready for what I thought was to be a guaranteed attack.
And sho'nuff, here comes the Grim. In contrast to my 'deploy' tactical selection, my opponent chose a rapid advance and an attempt to close with an inferior force. No more desertions for him.
But, says the text, once again the van of the attacking army has outdistanced the center and rear guard divisions... these larger, heavier divisions would arrive on bound 3 and later.
My own army was filing into position along a ridge line, the center of which I termed 'Senlac Hill'. Sometime ago, Senlac Hill had been the site of another crucial battle... and its defenders hadn't done too well... I hoped for better things. But in fact, I wasn't really in too good a shape. While my van and center divisions were already on the ridge line, in a fairly fine position, my rear guard was just moving into position, and would take a turn or two to arrive.
For this glorious battle, I set out my 25mm ancients armies. Jeff Wiltrout took the part of Donald the Grim, and commanded his 16 units. In contrast, due to previous losses, my own force consisted of 9 units.
Examining the field, one might be inclined to laugh heartily at the feeble attempt of my brave men to hold off the onslaught. For example, my van, if it could be called a 'van', consisted of one single unit, while the Grim's van was composed of 7 units.
All units were composed of 2 stands. We decided not to remove stands, but to use data sheets for each unit. Six hits on a unit removed it from the battle.
In assessing victory conditions, in addition to the removal of entire units, a second provision called into play a number of victory points. Each time a unit was hit by missiles or suffered casualties in melee, one or more casualty figures were placed beside it. At the end of every half-bound, the effect of the casualties was assessed... we diced and determined if each figure was each worth either 1, 2, or 3 victory points to the opposition.
At the end of some 8 Bounds, Jeff had totaled over 150 victory points... my own total was 68. And I had lost 6 of my 9 units... the heaviest unit in my army was one of medium infantry.
Initially perched on Senlac Hill, were my two remaining heavy infantry units. I expected great things from these units... I had trained them myself. Alas! The first unit, the dreaded Black Shields of Falworth, failed to even deploy for the first three turns.
Any sort of maneuver other than to advance straight ahead required a unit to pass a 'control test'... percentage dice were thrown and the test was passed if a toss of 70 appeared. Apparently, the Black Shields of Falworth were quite nervous about their exposed position on Senlac Hill, but eventually, I quieted them down, and they deployed and formed line atop the hill. Their sister unit, Caesar's Own, was much better behaved.
On Bound 3, on to the field marched the Grim's center division, a huge behemoth which, as Jeff remarked... "was larger than Simon's entire army!"
It looked to me as if very few of the opposing heavy units, infantry and cavalry, got into the battle. For example, there were two enemy heavy cavalry units, and three heavy infantry. With 6 boxes apiece, this gave the opposing heavy contingent a total of 30 boxes. Yet, at battles end, the five heavy units had crossed out, amongst themselves, only a total of 7 boxes.
Which said that Jeff was using his lighter units to continually bash my forces, softening them up for an attack by the heavies. But so few units did I have that there was never a need for a grand attack by the heavy contingent on Senlac Hill. The lighter units had ground my troops into dust.
At battle's end, a final attack up the slopes of hill matched Jeff's Fibulan Heavy Cavalry against Caesar's Own. Jeff tossed percentage dice... the Fibulans needed a 70 or less to charge up the slope... they did so. We each then drew in a supporting unit by having it pass a morale test.
Since Caesar's Own had the hill-top, they had a positional advantage, and this was matched by the 1-point advantage of heavy cavalry over heavy infantry. And since both units had successfully drawn in supports, this final encounter was an even-up melee.
"Boys," I said, "The Emperor is watching. Remember, you are Caesar's Own. Die, if you must, but die bravely." These words were all Caesar's Own needed... they died bravely.
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© Copyright 1998 Wally Simon
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