ADLG Battlereport: Seleucid vs Roman & Jewish

Making the most of holidays, an ADLG game today. Just the normal 200 points rather than 300. I used my Seleucids against Matt's Romans with Hasmonean Jewish ally. Here's brief report with photos.

My Seleucid force was once of those overly complex Selecucid assemblages of elephants, camels, scythed chariots, pike, cavalry, and lights. The Roman force was a more sensible one of two blocks of heavy infantry with a few supporting lights.

My camels, lancers and light horse press the Roman flank, while the scythed chariots mill unhelpfully around in the rear unable to get into action. The Romans advance their centre and other flank to oppose.

The Jewish light infantry gets ready to shoot up the Javelinmen protecting my Elephants.

The lines clash, elite Legionnaires facing the Pike. On the left my heavy cavaly defeats the first of two enemy cavalry, while the Numidians are forced back. My rightmost Elephant swings out to try and chase off the Jewish General.

Pike vs Legionnaires. A disastrous start as I throw three ones in a row for combats here...

Holes open in the Phalanx under the assault of the Legionnaries. My Army Commander leading the pike on my left defeats the Auxiliaries in front of him, but just to his left the Roman Cavalry General manages to defeat my Lancers.  On my right, despite being mounted the Jewish General manages to defeat my right most Elephant which has been weakened by slingers.

The Roman General swings into the flank of the Pike Block with my included General and breaks it. 

And on the other flank the Jews are successfully stampeding my elephants. Half my Pike are dead including my Army commander and with all the attrition already taken on other elements, my army breaks. Game over! Selecuids have reached their break point of 20, while the Romans have lost only 9/22 attrition.

So a defeat, but was pleased I got to use my camels (medium camels bow mediocre) for the first time in any real action, and they were quite helpful against the enemy horse. Poor tactics with my Scythed chariots who should have charged into something heavy on the chance of causing some disorder (not a great chance against Romans but better than nothing!).

KOW Battlereport: Abyssals vs Free Dwarves

Holiday's here and gave my new Free Dwarves an outing in their first game today, against Vaughan playing his first game with his new Abyssals!

My Free Dwarf list was:

2x IronClad Regiments

2x Shieldbreaker Regiments with mastiffs

2x Ranger Regiments with mastiffs (1 Herneas's Elite Rangers)

2x Ironbreaker Cannon

1x Mastiff pack

Herneas the Hunter (using the new Female ranger for him this game, must be his sister, Hernietta)

Banick Kolearm

Vaughan's Abyssal list was:

2x Moloch Horde with Imps

2x Succubi Regiment

1x Abyssal Guard Regiment

1x Flamebearers Troop

1x Gargoyles Troop

Chroneas

Efreet

The Game

Here's the setup, with the plunder mission. Five objectives across the centreline, with the egg and the monolith two victory points each, and the other three one victory point each.

I win first turn, and have done my scout moves and had first turn. Realising I have a shooting heavy force with these Dwarves, I mostly hold back and concentrate on blasting the Abyssals. On my right I also have some good cover for Hernietta and her Rangers.

Molochs, Chroneas and Flamebearers in the Abyssal centre, some great looking units from the Wrath of Kings line Vaughan has here, including some nice 3d printed Abyssal looking terrain bases :)

Abyssal first turn sees a general advance, and I realise that most of their units regenerate (my own Abyyssals are mainly Succubi which don't!). Thus I really need to concentrate fire better and take them out one at a time to stop them doing this! Flamebearers flame my central Shieldbreakers doing some damage and the Cloak of Death from Chroneas also does a point.

Vaughan also has two Succubi regiments which are making their way towards my left flank.

Second turn and we are already in combat, I pound the Abyssal units ahead with shooting, and my Shieldbreakers thump into Chroneas doing some damage. On the left my other Shieldbreakers and Mastiffs charge and waver the first Succubi regiment, but Succubi have Fury ability so can still counterattack.

Abyssals second turn and almost their whole line charges, with Molochs crunching into my Ironclad doing ten damage to each unit and wavering them... Chroneas kills my Shieldbreakers.

On the left, Gargoyles break my Mastiff pack and Succubi waver my Shieldbreakers.

My turn 3, my three wavered Dwarf regiments all pass their Headstrong checks (Headstrong is the main Dwarf special ability!), and two charge back in, while the third falls back to let the Cannons blast away. The Cannons and Banick waver the first Moloch unit which won't be able to charge now at least. My Rangers and Hernietta also shoot down the Abyssal Guard on my right. My Elite Rangers charge Chroneas and damage but do not kill him.

My left Shieldbreakers take out the first Succubi unit (the 11 damage behind the Succubi below is from them), but are now about to be sandwiched between the next Succubi unit and the Gargoyles.

Abyssals turn 3 and my left Shieldbreakers and an Ironclad Regiment are lost, and the Efreet and Flamebearers pile damage onto my Rangers.

My turn four, Hernietta has had enough of the Efreet and jumps the hedge to give it a good smack. She doesn't kill it, but at least it won't be able to cast its 'Fireball 15' next turn!  My Ironclads flank and kill the first Moloch unit (and thanks to Vaughan for pointing out this charge to me as I didn't see it!) with some assistance from Banick. My Elite Rangers manage to kill Chroneas with their two handed hammers, and my other Rangers shoot down the Flamebearers! Things have gone from looking terrible to rather optimistic! 

Turn four for Abyssals and the Gargoyles swoop in and kill a Cannon, and the Molochs kill the Ironclads.

Turn 5 my remaining cannon gets lucky and hits and destroys the Gargoyles. My Rangers and Banick charge the Molochs hoping to kill them and claim the central two objectives....

But I fail to kill them....

And instead they kill my Rangers...

And that was the game! And reviewing it now I think I recorded the turns wrong and there should have been another one, but we thought it was turn six and rolled and failed to go to turn 7 so ended it there. We added up the victory points at this point, and Vaughan had 3 points and I had 2, so victory to the Abyssals! Well done Vaughan.

Conclusion

A fun and useful learning game for both of us, with Vaughan seeming to have a very good handle on things already despite this being his first game. And thanks to him for suggesting to me a potentially game winning flank attack on turn four!

Lots of lessons for my Dwarves here, like concentrate shooting on regenerating units otherwise it is wasted, and use your throwing Mastiffs (60 points wasted this game, though three of the four units with them ended up in combat before they could use them!).  Edit: and as another local Dwarf player Gordon has pointed out, Free Dwarf Shieldbreakers have Pathfinder but not Headstrong, and giving the Rangers Mastiffs is pointless because you can only use one ranged attack a turn! Abyssals I thought could probably benefit from an inspiring source or two but they mostly managed ok without it this game.

Anyway overall a fun and tense game, good times thanks Vaughan :)