Romans vs Persians -- My first Hail Caesar loss

Recently I clashed with GG of the Richmond Leisure Society. I have been expanding and prettying up my Persian army, and GG has been doing the same for his Romans, who saw some action against my Greeks in months past. So we get the (unhistorical, but who cares?) match up between Early Imperial Rome and Achaemenid Persia.

My Persians

Persians

GG's Romans

Romans

This overhead shot shows you a beautiful sight -- look how much bigger a 420ish point Persian army is compared to 420ish points of Romans. That's because my troops are cheaper, carrying flimsy wicker shields, wearing their pajamas for Pete's sake. But almost all of them have bows.

Neither GG nor I suffered from the phenomenonof bad command rolls. My line all moves in the first round. I don't want to close with the Romans, who are superior in hand-to-hand combat. But I don't want to hug the table edge either, lest they force me off.

Here, I get some early good news. GG's medium cavalry charged my medium cavalry before the real clash ever got started. But on their way in, I got off a closing shot (my cav have bows). The dice liked me and frowned on GG, so his cavalry was routed before it even got to melee. I was actually feeling sort of bad for that improbable roll and the significant early advantage it gave me.

Here you can even see my line starting to envelop the Romans.

This is me maintaining a nice 12" distance from most of GG's line. My plan was to do the standard Persian thing: shoot so many arrows that they blot out the sun. Here's the problem: Romans can take a testudo formation which makes them pretty much immune to casualties from missile weapons. A few lucky rolls with bows held GG at bay, forcing him to retreat six inches here or there. My arrows could have wiped out his archers and remaining cavalry if my rolls had been luckier.

The other cavalry engagement: On the north wing, GG's medium cavalry ignores the Nubian levies and faces off against my light cavalry and camels.

GG destroys my camels. Hail Caesar doesn't give camels any special rules (some games give them the ability to frighten horses), so this was just a small, light unit of cavalry (mine) versus a medium unit (his).

Here are some of my chariots not quite managing to flank GG's legionnaires.

And now for what I failed to photograph: Eventually I impatiently charged GG's line, without waiting for my cavalry to round the wings and get in the Romans' back field. I had designated my elephants and chariots as reserves and they never even touched the Romans. My infantry hit his with superior numbers and, in one case, a flanking bonus... and it was for naught. The unarmored Persians just got outfought by the better armed, better trained Romans. A unit of sparabara routed. The game was not unwinnable but it was past eleven on a school night and GG clearly had both the points and the momentum. So I flipped the table. Just kidding.

This loss was OK, useful even. It's my first Hail Caesar defeat, which is good, because if you win all the time, nobody wants to play with you. Useful tips for me next time I play Persians: Don't hold back with elephants and chariots. Crush his flanks before you engage the main body of infantry. And for the love of Ahura Mazda, paint up some more sparabara and light cavalry so that I don't have my (gorgeous but ahistorical) Sherden guard or Saracens mucking up my Achaemenid ranks. Always something to paint!

Hoplites versus Legionaries

Gladius against Kopis; Scutum against Hoplon; Hasta against Dory. When Greek discipline meets Roman relentlessness, who will win, and who will be left punctured on the battlefield? The answers to your burning questions in this log entry. After rescheduling last week, I met with GG at the Hub to play some Hail Caesar. Let us look at the armies.

The last time I had a brief, inconclusive match with GG, I learned that I needed a considerably larger band of Greeks to match his Roman legions. I painted industriously over Christmas break, but I was painting light cavalry -- not for new units but to make my existing units not look so skimpy, peltasts (cheap as shit) and archers (cheap as shit even when upgraded to Cretan marksmen) and slingers (cheap as shit even when upgraded to marksmen from Rhodos). So I ended up with about 350 points to GG's 400. Wanting the fight to be somewhat even, GG allowed me to bestow bonuses to my men, so I upgraded every hoplite to Elite and Stubborn. In this picture you can see my medium cavalry (hippeis) and some low-born peltasts and just the extreme right wing of my long line of phalanxes, including my heretofore invincible Spartans.

 

 On the other side of the table are GG's legions. I think we are looking at a veteran legionary unit in red, a regular legion with blue plumes, and some lesser warriors -- hastati perhaps? in the rear. Of note are those archers. Roman archers are not skirmishers; they're light, or in some cases even medium infantry. On the round base is their commander. How unRoman of him to lead from the front. Who does he think he is, Alexander?

GG had been busy painting, too. The last time we met, I was looking at a lot of white primer. This time his men looked good, in bright colors, high contrast. He had based or re-based a lot of men. The army looked good. I wonder if GG believes, as I do, that the only purpose of the game is to parade out your beautiful little toys.

 GG's equitae, medium cavalry, on his right wing. On this side of the field, I had no cavalry to oppose him.

 Fuzzy close up of some Greeks. Slingers march 3" in front of phalanx. If the slingers need to evade, they can pass through the phalanx without disordering it. Witness the Hippocampus standard, my own invention.

 Long shots of the same gang, my left wing.

Rounding the usually-tranquil sacred spring of Aphrodite (a nice piece of DIY scenery you can read about in the previous blogg entry), the Greeks get aggressive, attacking the Roman center. GG is going to win a little shooting match before the real slaughter begins, making my archers and slingers fall back behind the hoplites.

GG is trying to slip around my flank. A bunch of the hoplites on my left wing break off to stop them. He's going to flank me anyway.

GG leads with his elephant. He considers the beast useless -- when he meets my Persians, I'll show him how you use an elephant.

An elephant never forgets the first time he charges into a thicket of eight foot spears. (the elephant did force another unit of skirmishers to yield ground)

This is happening on my left. My slingers are slinging, his archers are shooting. My hoplites are way distracted trying to stop his equitae and so neither of us are doing much on this part of the field. Between us, we had probably 4 units standing around scratching their balls for most of the battle.

GG has a good round on my right wing, driving my light cavalry back and obliterating the unit of peltasts (fast-running hammipoi). But note how many of my units are in this area even after the peltasts get removed.

Here, in the center, we see Greek infantry doing what Greek infantry does best -- charging, spears level,supported by many ranks of comrades. His archers stood and shot, found it hard to get a hit against heavy infantry in closed ranks, and got pushed back. Pushed by the general who bears the Golden Fleece, my hoplites did a sweeping charge into a veteran legion. That legion has no support from nearby Romans, and the dice didn't grant GG a reprieve -- they were shish kebabed. They got cocky and turned into souvlaki.

One of the supporting phalanxes on the sweeping charge carried on into this group of archer auxilia (medium infantry with bows). I am not sure this was 100% legal. These guys were in the way of this phalanx, which had been supporting the Spartans) joining the Spartan sweeping charge. If any reader knows Hail Caesar and wants to comment on whether we played this right, I'd appreciate it. Here, too, I won big, with the hoplites annihilating these lowlies (they had already taken hits from shooting).

Those equitae cavalry had gotten their swords nicely wet, but now they were on their own against my light and medium cavalry which hit them in the front and the back. We chewed them up as well. Round 3 was a terrible round for the Romans.

 What I didn't get a picture of is how his other medium cavalry, after utterly outmaneuvering my slow hoplites on the opposite wing, got shot and driven off the table, I mean battlefield, by the same archers an GG had driven back with his elephant and missiles. Their earlier defeats had put them in a good position to defend my phalanxes' backs. This was important -- those cavalry could have been devastating if they hit the rear ranks of engaged phalanxes.

Everybody on the right continues to bravely do nothing.

 GG's legions continue to fight the Spartans into the fourth round. The Spartans are taking casualties (see the rings on the dude's spear?) And another veteran legion is about to join the fray.

 GG's left wing finally gets moving, enveloping and murdering this phalanx, the one that had broken their archer comrades. Hit from the flank and rear, these brave Greeks had no chance.

Fairly evenly matched melee combat in Round 4

GG did all right in Round 4, but he had not inflicted the kind of damage he needed to make up for Round 3, in which he lost a division because more than half of the relevant units broke. He threw in the towel, probably the right decision. Greece is victorious. The Romans flee the field, and the alliance of the democratic poleis will resist the Western empire, at least for now.

Why did we win?

My army had a lot of stubborn hoplites. They were damn near invulnerable to missiles. The book doesn't describe hoplites as all stubborn (Spartans are) but I added that trait to make up my army's deficit in points, paying the points the rules call for. Stubborn heavy infantry seems to be a really efficient combo. I wouldn't say it's unbalancing but it is mighty helpful. Now I'm painting another 32 hoplites so I can have a larger army with fewer special abilities.

GG had this idea of a collapsing center in which his wings would envelop the guys who charged his center. It didn't work. I think the reason is division routing. GG's center was made of an elephant, two equitae, and two medium infantry. GG hurled the elephant out front, ensuring that it would die, exposed the cavalry to considerable danger trying to flank my wings, and then presented the medium infantry as front-line targets. The danger was disproportionately heaped on the units of the central division, which weren't the steadiest units to begin with. GG's best move was getting a cavalry unit all the way behind my force.  With his cavalry, he definitely brought the hammer into play, but he never really got his infantry into a solid front, and thus lacked an anvil. Of course, there may have been some dumb luck on my part, such as my archers being forced to yield ground that put them in position to shoot at the flanking horses. Next time, I may not want to concentrate all my cavalry in one place. 

I'm happy with how my skirmishers performed. Although they got out-shot by GG's, that was to be expected -- his were more expensive. The main advantage my skirmishers have is, since they're skirmishers and not infantry, they can die, and I don't have to care because these lowly thetes don't count towards divisions breaking. Hell, my peltasts never even got off a volley of javelins and I'm still glad I brought em because that left wing cavalry charge ended with GG killing a unit of peltasts instead of somebody who was worth a bent drachma. 

All in all, an enjoyable, challenging game. I know I'll battle GG again. He's talking to me about a post-gunpowder scenario and that isn't my area of prime interest, but I'm a good sport, so I guess I'll check it out.