This is a Battle Report post, hopefully just a warm up game for the two more I have scheduled for September! (woo hoo)

This was a battle between Peloponesian War Athenians, and the Dacian hill tribes. Somewhat ahistorical, but my Romans are not close to being finished, and the Dacians are at least of Thracian stock.

The game was played at Games and Comics and Stuff, under the purview of the Army of

Central Maryland club. To my delight, there was another ancients game going on (15mm Thrace vs. Romans, Might of Arms rules) with a full boat of six players. I plan to run Ancient

Warfare there periodically, I just need people with 25mm armies who want to join in!

I played the Athenians, while two new players (one an old friend, one a pick up from the club) took the Dacians.

The Dacian horde was spread out across the board, with a second line and reserves as well. Additionally both flanks were being marched, the west by Sarmatian Lancers, and the east by Warbands.

The East flank was fairly open terrain, but with much delaying terrain in the Greek and Dacian deployment areas. The middle of the board was clear however, and was well covered with Dacian archers, backed up by their supply train. The west flank was geared for a major warband push through a large patch of rough terrain, and my wily opponents ancipated the Sarmatians coming in to save the day like......cavalry.

The Athenian list does two things well. It brings lots and lots of units to the table, and it maximizes numbers of both Hoplites and skirmishers. The army had an amazing eight unit break point (compared to the Dacian eleven), and although there were no Veteran quality units at all, there were 39 stands of the Heavy Infantry, well covering the center of the table. Unfortunately, the Greeks were not particularly well led, with two generals only able to give three orders each. The combination of many units plus lower than average orders made the Greek army somewhat ponderous and reactive.

The Dacian players were new to the game, but they had formed a solid strategy. Their plan was to advance no further than mid board in the center with the horde, and use all available orders on the flanks, to pick at, and eventually overwhelm the Athenian flanks.

At first, however, it was the Greeks who used their armada of skirmishers to pick at the Dacians, lure them close to the Peltasts, and charge them with the "mighty" Greek Cavalry. Despite being terrible statistically (warrior morale, lightly armoured, and shieldless), the Greek cavalry actually accounted for two Dacian units, one right at the start of the game, and the final stroke against an overperforming unit of Dacian skirmish cavalry. Of course, this comes from charging disordered and fragmented units already missing whole stands.

The Dacian push on the flanks drew out most of the Athenian orders to combat it, and led to a see saw battle between various forms of light and loose order troops. Although they took casualties coming in, the Dacians slowly got the better of the East flank as their archers got across some terrain and set up to disintegrate the shieldless Paphlagonian skirmish cavalry. Even at long range, the arrows were deadly. The loss of two units of skirmish cavalry, plus forcing the retreat of the cretan archers put the Dacians in a very favorable looking position...except for being faced with the prospect of pushing a phalanx off a hill. They faded back and waited for the flank marchers to press any attacks home.

On the West flank, both sides took tremendous casualties from an Olympic style javelin throwing contest that lasted three turns. After losing the first warband to an almost clockwork routine of skirmish infantry drawing a charge/peltasts raking the flank with javelins/Greek cavalry charging home to finish them off and draw out more frenzied charges, the Dacian player commanding that flank put this flank too, in stasis, issuing a series of orders to halt, and use the one time per game javelin toss afforded to the Various armed warbands. In this environment, the skirmish infantry on both sides proved the most survivable and deadliest troops, and there was fierce fighting over the patch of rough terrain by the light troops. At one point, every warband on this flank was disordered either by failed frenzied charges or by a casualty induced morale test. Those Sarmatians can't arrive too soon!

For their part, the Athenians used a pair of hills as handy places to anchor their lines. On the East flank, they aforementioned phalanx took up a strong defensive position, and dared the Dacian archers to move in. They did not, needing time to resupply having exhausted their arrows by rolling so many 10's.

On the West flank, a monster 12 stand unit of Hoplites formed a square on a hill top, creating a virtually impenetrable ring of spears. With the ongoing battle of the lights seemingly at a draw, more orders became available to work the center, more skirmishers were sent forward.

This influx of yet more skirmish troops overwhelmed the Dacian ability to hold back their warbands. Two units rushed the skirmishers only to wind up within charge range of the center hoplites, and disordered, and then charged themselves the next turn. The hoplites made short work of them, and in two turns were done with the mopping up.

Five Athenian units total had become disordered in this action however, and a turn was spent re-ordering the line.

Unfortunately, that is when the flank marches arrived in force. The East flank troops disappointingly never got to see real action, as the Athenian line was by now so far away, and time was up. The West flank, however, got in several turns of furious fighting.

To the Dacian players' surprise, the Sarmatians were stood up at the line. A unit of Hoplites punished the Lancers for daring to charge close ordered, long spear armed troops, and began to grind them down. Another unit was held off by Peltasts, who managed to lock the Sarmatian lancers, and then beat them the following turn! It should be noted that not once in the whole game did any cavalry unit anywhere roll higher than a "2" for their charge bonus. Just wasn't a good day to be mounted.

The effect of the flank marching cavalry was decisive though, as the Athenian line was turned wholesale to face the new threat, it exposed a corner to the long held Warbands, who finally pushed through the rough terrain, chased away the skirmishers, and hit the remarkably successful peltasts in the flank, sealing their fate. The previously successful Greek cavalry was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and routed while retreating from Armoured cavalry, only to be contacted while routing the next turn by Sarmatian heavy cavalry. Ouch. While this was happening, the massive 12 stand block of hoplites moved in to cut the corner of the game table on the heavy cavalry, and was in the process of inevitably sealing their doom when the time was called. It was clear that they were going to bag two units out of three of the Sarmatians, plus a general.

Tallying up the final results, the Dacians came up on top, with five units defeated, or inevitably doomed. The Athenians were close, with three units shattered, plus another two units and general trapped in the corner of the board. The game lasted far longer than expected, largely due to one of the new players, who, besides being new, kept leaving the game area to chat up his web based business...argh! Still, we took our time and went over the rules very thoroughly each phase, which helped tremendously to cut down the learning/remembering curve!

Lessons learned next issue.