L'Art De La Guerre - First Game

After reading the rules and watching many a turn played by others I played my first battle against my friend Alex last night. Not wanting to get crushed with his own army, Alex borrowed one of mine and off to battle we went. We played the customary 200 point game with Alex taking my Patrician Romans against my Tamil Indian army. I will apologize in advance as I forgot to take photos until well into the battle but the timing was crucial as the crux of the action is pictured and you will see how my night went.

We diced modified by our army Initiative rating and I won choosing to be the attacker. The regional terrain  was Plains. In ADLG there is mandatory and optional terrain based on the Region. Alex and I selected our pieces from the list. Next each piece is diced and placed randomly as laid out by the rules. Then the player who placed the least amount of terrain gets to roll to see if a piece of terrain can be rotated or moved. The final layout did not appear to hamper either side except for the woods right in the center of my deployment area. This caused me to separate my wings more than I would have have liked but not a game-breaker.

Next each player records the relative positions of their Corps on the battle chart. Specific unit locations are not required only the relative right/center/left positions of the Corps when deployed. We opted not to play with flank marches or ambushes yet being very new to the rules. These would be recorded on the battle chart as well. Deployment is an alternating sequence starting with the defender so Alex deployed his first Corps.

The Armies:

Patrician Roman




Alex deployed Corps I (I hate that term for ancients so I will refer to the groups as "wings" from now on) on his left. Wing II was deployed in the center of his battle line with the Huns and Illyricani composing his right wing.

Tamil Indian

                                                                                                                                                          

I placed Wing I in the center flanked by Wing II on its right and the Guard Wing on the left. Each army overlapped the other and this would prove to be a major mistake by me as the Romans were more maneuverable with their heavy cavalry on one flank and the Light Cavalry on the other. As you will see later, deployment is crucial.

The Dance Begins.

In ADLG the phasing player activates a wing and completes all movement with those units. The same is done for each wing until all movement is completed. To see how many activations you are allowed, you roll a D6 and modifiy the result by your Commander's Quality with Ordinary being 0; Competent is +1; Brilliant/Strategist a +2. Divide this result by 2 and round up. This is how many "pips" you have. Units can then be moved individually or as "groups".

I advance all my wings shuffling a bit to the right so as to engage as much of the Roman line later as possible. I keep my light infantry directly in front of my pachyderms to protect them from enemy shooting. Alex swings his heavy cavalry to his left positioning it to threaten my right later as expected. The Huns and Roman Light Cavalry advance to harass and disrupt my center and left. During each player's turn, after movement, both sides exchange shooting with eligible units. Shooting in ADLG is simple and elegant. It is not designed to kill the enemy, although it can with extreme luck, but to cause disorder. I certainly had the missile advantage in this game but my arrows and javelins early on must have been made of foam as the Romans laughed at my waste of ammo.

Alex and I jostled for position and I attempted to force march my Guard wing from my extreme left all the way to the right to counter the Roman heavy cavalry threat. In ADLG, you can move up to 3 times (with certain restrictions) as long as you have the "pips" to do it and do not come within 4UD (Unit Distance - essentially base widths) of any enemy unit.

The Critical Stage.

 And I do mean critical!!!

 The Tamil "center" wing was driving the Roman light cavalry back by threats from 2 units of bowmen, heavier cavalry and light javelin-men. This could allow me to flank the Roman main battle line with my ellies and swordsmen. It would have to be quick as my engagements elsewhere along the front were not going my way despite favorable modifiers. We all blame dice but really, Alex was HOT dice man and you could tell he was eating it up by the impish grin on his face despite his "apologies". In ADLG, units break when they have suffered sufficient cohesion loss. Light troops typically have 2 cohesion; medium infantry and cavalry 3; while heavies can sustain up to 4. When you reach your cohesion level off you go by routing. The poker chips above represent the cohesion hits sustained with Green being 1 hit; Yellow 2 and Red 3. As of this photo, I had already lost some units but the Roman Foederati heavy foot were on the verge of rout but so were my ellies and the Roman Cataphracts had turned my flank. The Roman heavy cavalry are poised for the final charge on my right wing bowmen. It doesn't look like my Guard will make it there in time to stem the tide.

Tamil pachyderms about to rampage!!!

A view from the Roman right

 The beginning of the end

The battle turned heavily in the Roman favor as the Tamil line developed cracks. Tamil medium swordsmen could fight on even terms with the heavies but cannot sustain an attrition battle having only 3 cohesion to the Roman 4. The Tamil elephants routed and as luck would have it, they rampaged forward into the Roman lines causing further cohesion loss before being removed from the table. It was, however; too little and too late. The Roman cavalry made their charge and routed the Tamil right before the Guard could arrive. 

We ended the game due to the time, but the battle was a foregone conclusion. My army break point was close. In ADLG your Army Break Point is your starting number of units. For each unit routed, add 2 and for each disordered unit on the field add another 1. If you reach your break point, the army is routed. At this point in the battle I was at 19 of 26 while the Romans were only 11 of 23. A crushing victory for the Patricians!!! Well played Alex.

I am sure we played some rules incorrectly being our first game but nothing too serious. I cannot speak highly enough of this game. It is simple, elegant and tactically challenging. I look forward to many, many enjoyable games.

Happy Gaming!!!

Franko