I played my first full one-on-one game of Art de la Guerre ancients rules last week. 100 points of my Numidians versus 100 points of Hellenistic Greeks commanded by my club-mate Freddy.
My Numidian army was:
- 5 Light Cavalry with Javelins, two of which contained my integrated competent generals
- 4 Mediocre Imitation Legionaries
- 4 Javelinmen
- 2 Light Infantry with Javelins
The Greeks were:
- 4 Hoplites
- 4 Mediocre Hoplites
- 1 Greek Peltast Javelinmen
- 1 Peltast Light Infantry
- 1 Cretan Archers
- 1 Slingers
- 1 Thracian Javelinmen
- 1 Greek Light Cavalry
- 1 Greek Medium Cavalry
- 2 Independent Competent Generals
Both players were still new to the game, so play was a bit slow but we had a blast and were mostly getting the hang of it by the end. There's a long way to go to be good though.
The Greeks get quite a wall of spears and my infantry isn't great, so I placed my mediocre Legionaries on my left and the bulk of my cavalry of my right. My intention was to delay contact with the best Hoplites whilst my Legionaries ground through the mediocre Sicilian allied Greek Hoplites. My cavalry would range out wide looking for gaps to get onto flanks or behind the spears.
Freddy regretted putting his cavalry on the closed flank. It might have been better to have my light infantry on the hill too but they were actually quite useful in the end. Essentially we both made deployment mistakes.
The 100 point deployment isn't very wide, so my light cavalry started facing the side in column.
This is after a turn's movement. Both armies advanced quickly, pushing their light troops forward
My mediocre legionaries, sadly my best close combat troops, faced off against the mediocre Sicilian hoplites. Truly a battle of titans.
With the overlap and impact, I thought my legionaries would cut through the Sicilian hoplites quite quickly but a fist of ones later and the Thracian were the ones who had done the cutting.
On the other flank the Javelinmen, having seen off the Greek skirmishers fell back before the hoplites facing them to try and buy time for the legionaries and cavalry to do their work.
The legionaries slowly ground down one unit of mediocre hoplites but the Greek cavalry launched an attack on their flank. On the other wing the Javelinmen had run out of space and turned to face the oncoming hoplites.
My light cavalry could easily out-manoeuvre the Greeks but struggled to destroy them.
Running out of space and with a hoplite unit turning to aid their Sicilian comrades the Javelinmen had to try to fight up close. It didn't go well for them. Some of the cavalry broke off from the flank fight and came to help.
In the final phase the Numidian light cavalry ran rampant behind the Greek lines, launching two successful attacks. The first slammed into the flank the Greek medium cavalry on the Numidian left. Then a mirror image attack against a hoplite unit on the Numidian right. Both targets units were routed but the hoplites on the other wing made short work of the Numidian Javelinmen in close combat.
A count of break points at the end of this turn found that both sides had simultaneously reached their break point and the game was declared a draw.
I really enjoyed the game and the rules. It's a very tactical but that was fun and you do get battle lines that slowly disintegrate, which felt historical. The single dice roll-offs lead to some wild swings of luck, and 6-1 results can be frustrating, but things even out and those are the fortunes of war, even in miniature. We will be playing ADLG again soon.
