Blood in the Sand
So tonight I ran another round of Hoplon with the younger siblings as we didn’t really get to into the mechanics of the game the last time we played. Although we did not get any melee in due to units not meeting up properly to allow for melee, there was a ton of arrows flying. One thing is for sure, the shooting mechanics working very well and are quite accurate in my opinion. Anyways, on to the battle report, all three turns of it!
So we were running a 1v2 game of 1200 points aside. I was controlling 1200 points of Assyrians split into three Commands for ease of usage. The siblings, Sorcess and BillyBobJoe as they wish to be dubbed, were each fielding identical Geometric Greek armies of about 600 points each. Let’s start with army lists so that you can see what was fielded.
Assyrian Command 1
Ishme, Sub General mounted in Light Chariot
Sha Shepe, Light Chariots 15 elements
Assyrian Command 2
Tukuti, Sub General mounted in Light Chariot
Irregular Peltasts, 36 elements
Irregular Bowmen, 18 elements
Assyrian Command 3
Ashur-ubullit, Commander mounted in Light Chariot
Palace Chariots, Light Chariots 10 elements
Regular Swordsmen, 12 elements
Regular Bowmen, 6 elements
Irregular Peltasts, 18 elements
Irregular Bowmen, 9 elements
Greek Command 1 & 2
Sub General mounted in Light Chariot
Irregular Light Chariots, 6 elements
Irregular Cavalry, 10 elements
Irregular Swordsmen, 24 elements
Irregular Peltasts, 20 elements
Irregular Bowmen, 12 elements
Deployment Phase:
The Greeks won deployment initiative and elected for the Assyrians to be deployed first. After rolling for Command Points, I elected to have the 1st command attempt an outflanking move and so left them off the table. Command 2 was placed on the left half of our six foot long gaming table. Command 3 was placed on the right flank. Both commands than made a single movement bound (10cm) in deployment mode.
BillyBoeJoe [BBJ] opted to deploy against my left flank, not knowing that my outflanking forces were planning on arrive on the side of the table in his deployment zone. Sorcess deployed his forces along my right flank and both players opted to only make one movement bound before the game began.
Turn One:
Sorcess advanced two units of cavalry, one unit of bow and one unit of spear, expending all of his command points.
BBJ advanced one cavalry unit and one chariot unit outside of his command range which caused him to use up double the amount of command points.
During my turn, Command 2 had first initiative and advanced four units of Hupshu militia with bow attachments. Command 1 arrived from their outflanking maneuver and attacked the rear of a Greek Peltasts unit, killing two elements. A failed test caused the unit to route back into the command which in game terms means they were massacred. Command three only managed to advance three units of shock with their attached bow.
Turn Two:
Sorcess won initiative and advanced all of his troops due to a large amount of command points.
Command 1 was second in initiative and marched forward to find the rear of another Greek unit. They fired on swordsmern, killed three elements which caused them to rout back into the chariots resulting in another massacre.
Command 2 advanced 4 units forward and fired at Greek cavalry and light chariots. They managed to shake the cavalry and kill one element of chariots.
Command 3 moved several units forward to close into shooting range. Asharittu archers fired on Greek cavalry and killed three which caused them to route from the field. Another unit Asharittu archers fired on Greek bowmen, killing two elements.
BBJ ended the turn by advancing his units forward as best he could.
Turn Three:
Command 1 managed to win imitative and earn a total of eight command points. It used nearly all of them surging forward to find more prey and fired upon the rear and flank of Greek bowmen, killing three which caused them to route into the chariots for a massacre.
The loss of the bowmen dropped BBJ’s forces below fifty percent and so he had to take a demoralized test to see if his army still had the will to fight. Due to losses, his result was negative which means that every unit has to test to stay or rout. After rolling for units left, two units of cavalry and one unit of swordsmen broke rank and fled, the rest staying put but wavering.
Command 2 closed in on the wavering forces of BBJ’s Greek and fired half a dozen elements at the remaining light chariots, killing three elements and routing the rest.
Command 3 advanced all units forward and unleashed a rain of arrows upon the Greeks. Two elements of BBJ’s Spearmen were cut down, the rest of the unit holding their ground but shaken. Three elements of bowmen belonging to Sorcess were killed, the rest broke and ran. Two other elements of bowmen were killed by Asharittu. The Greek general was left in the open and suffered the shooting of Asharittu and Palace chariots which saw the commander slain. His fall required a demoralization test for the Greeks which resulted in a negative and saw the majority of the units fleeing the field.
We ended the game after that even though a few more round of combat could have been fought just for fun. I think it was a good learning game for the siblings and hopefully we can get them to improve their tactics. I might try to give them a different army, perhaps advancing to the city-states of Greece to see how they do as the Greek at the current era is rather unreliable and fragile.
Just for fun I decided to add up the represented numbers of soldiers present. Hoplon gives you a general range that stands represent.
Assyrian Army
Command 1 750 chariots
Command 2 250 chariots
13,500 infantry
Command 3 500 chariots
11,850 infantry
Slain 0 total
Greek Army
Command 1&2 600 chariots
5,000 cavalry
30,400 infantry
Slain 9,890 total
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