This is to let you know what transpired during the Havoc Ancient Warfare Demo. Upon arrival at Havoc I was pleased to see that all of the slots were filled. Unfortunately, I flew in that morning from out of the country and got home at 2AM. Since I had been gone the whole week my wife felt it would be good to see my two children and I got a late start. Most of those already signed up, fearing that there would be no game, found other options. Still, those that played all had a good time and enjoyed themselves. Now to the situation.

The Seleucid CinC had a river with a bridge separating his army from the Galatian army. On the left he had a hill feature which had some SI and SC in front of the hill. On the hill were four stands of spearmen. On the right was a large forest Again there were SI between the forest and the river. On the right side of the forest were two units of SC. In the center between the hill and the forest were some loose order axe men in a very thin line. In front of them were 4 stands of long spear, LAI, Trained, Warriors but they were only able to stay in a block (2 wide, 2 deep). Finally, as a reserve the Seleucid CiC had a couple of pike units (4 stands in each) and a unit 'Romanized' troops with pilum coming up to support the troops in the front lines. Problem areas for the Seleucid CiC was only one General (with 5 command points) and a bunch of his troops are skirmish troops.

The Galatian CinC had two Sub-Generals and a boatload of troops. It was divided with warbands in the center to get across the river. They also started each flank with light chariots and in the center was a group of heavy chariots. There was an assorted amount of skirmish infantry and some loose order infantry as well. Their problem areas were that it took a die roll of 10 (on a D10) to get one stand across. After that, one stand from that unit could come across the river each turn. They also had terrrain on their side which was hills and forests which channelized their forces toward the center of the board and thus toward the bridge.

Their were three players: Mathew and George Adamo and Alex Aminoff. Alex and Mathew took the more numerous Galatians and Mathew's father, George took the Seleucids. The first turn was more critical then even I realized which is unusual in Ancient Warfare. The Galatians moved their forces up and allowed their Heavy Chariot unit to move toward the bridge. It had SI support. The Seleucid CiC, George, countered this move by advancing his lone long spear LAI to the foot of the bridge. He also slowly moved some of his SC toward the river. On turn 2 the Galatians reached the river and started rolling for 10s. They also charged the Heavy Chariots across the bridge and hit the LAI Warriors while the Spearman had Defend orders. The morale roll for the Spearmen was passed and in the subsequent exchange they both lost a soldier. Bottom line they both stood their ground. I took Alex aside and explained the possibilities. He could retreat and come back later and charge with the Heavy Chariots. He could retreat and charge with HI warbands, he could slug it out with what he had but without a charge bonus that would be tough. The firing across the river was at this point inconsequential and in fact throughout the battle there would be very minimal casualties due to this type of firing. There also was bad string of luck as no Galatian units were able to ford the river (no 10s and they tried 7 or 8 units).

The next turn found George moving up his Seleucid reinforcing pike (ever so slowly) as well as some additional SC toward the river. Alex elected to slug it out at the bridge with the Heavy Chariots against the Long Spear. This battle would go on for 5 more turns with the Seleucids needing a 4 to do a point of damage and the Heavy Chariots needing from a .8 to a .5 to do damage. Neither side was able to move the other or do any damage to the enemy forces. Because of this the Galatian advance over the river stalled. They did get some SC on the Galatian left across the river but this was vigorously attacked by Seleucid SC and pushed back with the loss of a stand.

Finally some of the Galatian HI came across the river on the right and very close to the bridge. The Galatians charged a unit of axemen who also charged (they were both that close). The axemen lost some men and were disordered and fell back. The Galatians in two ranks lost a man. In the next round the Galatians followed up and poured on the hits. The Seleucid axemen buckled and broke. The Galatians were forced to follow up and they were not keen to do this as their flank would be exposed to SC. They wanted to hit the pesky LAI at the bridge in the flank but this would have taken them 3 turns, something that was impossible to achieve (they might not be their 3 turns from that point). They advanced into the vacant spot toward the pikemen but amidst the other Seleucid units. At this point the 5 Seleucid units had to take a morale check for seeing a routed/destroyed axeman unit. They all passed, even the CiC! He had moved his only General, the CiC close to the fighting in order to be near the mass of units. He passed the morale check but went frenzied! The next turn he charge past the pike unit into the Galatian HI who had defend orders.

The Galatians started coming across the river but the Seleucids at the river could not counter their moves as there were no command points available. Further the CiC started winning and could not stop being frenzied. In short by being successful the General effect the local battle but lost control of his entire army and the Galatians had a field day.

We stopped the game at that point with some lessons learned. First, this is a game that each time it is played runs a full gamut of Seleucids running away (due to the large amount of SI). This is the first time the Seleucids decided to defend the river and it changed the entire game. This is also the first time the Galatians tried to duke it out with Heavy Chariots; not something I ever tested. It was felt that the river should be easier to ford but again I have seen where a few 10s in the beginning make it a cakewalk for the Galatian. Clearly the biggest design issue was the one General on the Seleucid side and this will be corrected.

Finally, this was suppose to be a historical battle in which the Selucid general used a stratagem to "destroy" the Galatian army. The Galatian army was virtually invincible. Because of this in my playtesting I never tried to defend the river. While this was explained early on in the game it was not heeded and so the game did not go in the direction intended. Still it worked anyway due to a very tenacious defense put up by a LAI Warrior Long Spear unit. If that unit had been eliminated quickly the defense would have crumpled. While the intended direction would have been an enjoyable game the end result turned out to be unexpectedly enjoyable all the same.

For those interested this same demo will be put on during Historicon (I believe Thursday) and this is why the stratagem is not being explained during this write-up.