Classical and Roman at Lisboa 2022
Achaemenid Persian vs Classical Indian
Game 1 Achaemenid Persian vs Sassanid Persian
Game 2 Achaemenid Persian vs Late Imperial Roman
Game 3 Achaemenid Persian vs Late Imperial Roman
Game 4 Achaemenid Persian vs Alexandrian Makedonian
Game 5 Achaemenid Persian vs Classical Indian
With a very speedy and decisive win over their historical (ahem) enemies in the shape of Alexander's army in Game 4, The Mighty Persian Empire was now back on a roll.
With everyone else on my team still playing out their morning game I therefore managed to retire outside to a local cafe to partake in some celebratory refreshments to get the morning off to a good start.
As I returned to the venue lunchtime on the second day happened, and soon we were all having a couple of rolls and a can of drink (erm, beer again) for lunch sitting around (but not sitting on - as the military police regularly warned those of us foolish enough to try) the cannons in the courtyard of the museum.
As we dived back into the thankfully chill basement of gunnery, many of us wondered in passing if Rafa had perhaps over-reached himself by creating a range of near-lifesized casualty markers
The tournament was now entering its end stages, although we were so far away that some of these photos of the main part of the hall needed to be taken by telephoto lens
But, anyway, the final episode in the Achaemenid Campaign would be heading East to India, and a clash against the Classical Indians. Both lists from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Lisboa can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
Classical Indian - so classic that you can almost predict the list design before it hits the table - elephants, with mixed shooters in between the pachyderms, three commands of near identical composition. The only variation is which of these 3 near-identical commands will have 2 LF bow, and which will have a mix of LF Bow and Javelin. Oh, and of course, whether the Crap Medium Cavalry will come out first or last.
With the Indian army guaranteed to be filled to the brim with infantry archers, and more terrain than I ideally would have liked falling on the table I had again sent the "LH" command off on a flank march - this time as much to keep it out of danger as to try and achieve anything of note
The rest of the army was trickily feinting right but was in fact going left and had massed on the opposite side of the board, copying the gameplan from the previous battle with the Magical Mysterious Tower of Archery Nonsense hoping to once again mesmerise and confuse the enemy in the centre of the table while the whole Persian army swings around to pile pressure on their right flank
Bacalhau a Lagareiro! The Indians were in part playing along with this strategy too, but had decided to anchor their right flank in terrain and execute a ponderous wheel on that static pivot.
The net result would hopefully be that the flank march would arrive on my right behind their lines after they were well committed to this redeployment
Azulejos! The brightly coloured Immortals and the eye-paining Siege Tower steamed down the centreline in lockstep, skirting the foothills of the, erm, hills which the Indians had managed to lure the Persians to battle amongst.
The pattern of the future battle was already clear for all to see, with the wheeling Persian army anchored on its right by it's own wheeled anchor swinging in towards the defensively minded Indians
The rest of the elephant-rich Asiatic forces were slowly ambling into position as they advanced agains a very, very thin and cautious screen of Persian light cavalry sent off simply to delay the enemy advance
What's Going on Here Then?
I'm pretty sure I've described what's going on in the actual text of the report. Maybe if you are still confused you should try reading the last few paragraphs again?
Caldeirada and Fado! At last the Immortals finally had an opponent they could confidently look to best in shooting and (if needed) melee.
They carefully lined themselves up against the Indian Mixed Shooters, set up their magical pavises of Persian Carpet design, and started to ping away at distance to initiate the first ever war of attrition they very much hoped to win
The whole army was soon lined up, shooting furiously, and daring the Indians to lurch forward
In response the Kings of the Sub Continent sent forth their own, ahem, Light Infantry tasking them with absorbing arrows for as long as possible and thus saving their own capital troops from the Persian deluge
Whether this was fair on the hapless skirmishers is yet to be determined, but frankly the Persians were happy to shoot at anything really, as the Indian army was sufficiently small in stature that even knocking off the odd skirmisher would contribute towards their break point
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Skirmisher units count just as much as "proper" battle troops towards army demoralization in ADLG.
It's kinda brutal, and initially seems counterintuitive, but it does mean that you can't just chuck out a disposable ablative shield to protect your army from shooting without suffering some consequences, and has the overall effect of encouraging you to both pull your skirmishers back after they have done their initial stuff, and to get your combat-capable troops into battle quickly rather than faffing about for ages as both sides skirmishers dance about to no real effect
The Mobile Display Panel and Advertising Hoarding was now looking like it could be tested against a downhill elephant charge in the very near future, as the Indians swung round and started to form up into combat formation
Caldo Verde! It was a matchup that had never previously been tested, but based on all other previous rulsets ever it seemed very unlikely to be one that favoured the War Wagons against the Pachyderms. This was bad news for the Immortals just beyond the teetering mobile wooden wall.
Rise of the Guptas
Pasteis de Nata! With a trumpety-trump trump the elephants charged home as arrows, spears, pavises and various components of assorted haberdashery rained down on the incoming elephants.
What's Going on Here Then?
The Persian army has just about got its shooting infantry into position to shoot up the Indian right flank, but with the Indians anchored in terrain on their base edge the Persian cavalry on that flank are somewhat neutralized
The Indians however are managing to swing round to face this lopsided attack quite quickly, and are ready to test the Persians flank defence with an elephant charge
With a flank march still off table there is no small degree of risk to the Persians in getting involved in actual fighting at this early stage
Piri Piri Chicken! The wagon seemed inevitably doomed against such an assault, and so with their flanks imminently in danger the rest of the Persian army decided to lurch forward and start to chance it's arm (and whicker pavise) in hand to hand combat.
As the Immortals, Sparabara and Chaldeans all moved up, gaps appeared through which Persian Satrapal cavalry, held in reserve for this exact opportunity, started to charge, scattering the confused Indian infantry in the process
Cristiano Ronaldo's Epic Toenails!
A general melee was now developing and threatening to draw in both armies into close range hand to hand and trunk action
Would the bog standard Indian mixed foot stand up against the better quality Immortals and Persian cavalry, or would the Elephant Corps break through the Decorators Mobile Nightmare Machine and turn the Immortals flank first?
All was to play for as infantry against interior decoration action drew ever closer
OK, so both those things happened at the same time.
The wagon was yet again removed, this time by elephants, as the Indian foot evaporated under the mounted and Immortal assault too.
Much of the rest of the Indian army, and most of their Elephant Corps was now starting to arrive in the key area of the battlefield, storming through the gap that the demise of the Wagon of Wallpaper had created.
But instead of skittling out more Persian infantry the Elephants found themselves breaking through into a wide open plain infested with milling clouds of Persian Satrapal cavalry
Peniche, Nazare and Matosinhos! The elephants were being pulled hither and thither as the Persian Nobles engaged in successive rounds of shoot and retreat
Bolinhos de Bacalhau! As archery damage combined with undefendable flanks, the Persian cavalry started picking off the flailing elephants one by one, neutering the Indians supposedly most potent weapons in the flat ground behind the front line of combat
What's Going on Here Then?
The Persian army is fully committed to shooting up the Indian right wing, but with the Indian elephants rampaging off the central hill they suddenly feel the passage of time shifting against them as the Indian shrug off the Persian archery.
The Indian elephants need to be neutralized, and there is only a skirmishing force of Persian cavalry available to oppose and distract them
The Persian horsmen have little choice but to act aggressively and take chances as otherwise the Elephant force will be in their infantry's flank before the flank march arrives
Vasco de Gama's Sun-dried Underpants! The Indian army was starting to crumble, but the Persians were also not doing entirely well either as the battle started to fragment.
The last unit of Immortals found itself surrounded by Indian skirmishers returing to the front lines to harass and harry the flanks of any enemy foolish enough to engage their own capital troops piecemeal - but despite the odds the classily pavise equipped Persian Guardsmen finally started to live up to their name by hanging on grimply and stoically in the face of these multiple assaults
Yo Dude - The Immortals!
Tah-dah! With a flurry of hooves and a shower of javelins the flank march arrived on table, catching surprised (well, maybe that is pushing it a little ?) Indian infantry as they fled from the onrushing Persian forces
Bola de Berlim! The extra horsemen were now adding combat effectiveness against some of the more exposed enemy units, and thankfully bolstering the break point of the entire Persian army by their very presence as well - two most welcome additions as both armies teetered near the edge of defeat!
As the two armies approached exhaustion, the resolve and resistance of the Indian right wing defensive pivot finally collapsed in a shower of Sparabara archery.
The Persians had secured a great win to end the competition with a 4 & 1 aggregate win/loss ratio!
Click here for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Achaemenid Persian Commander
The competition has ended on a high note for Persian Imperial Ambitions, with a clean sweep of the East and West, extending our dominance far into the future as well by also beating our own descendents too. The proof of this brightly coloured army is in the winning, and by doing all we can to avoid getting our troops into combat, and maximising shooting we seem to have done very well indeed.
Mightiest of all, we managed to find a proper tactical role for the Wagons of Wallpaper. Admittedly that was distracting the enemt with their incompetence and then collapsing in a pile of matchsticks in pretty much every game but at least they kept some of the enemy's best troops distracted and away from our endearingly squishy Sparabara and only slightly les squishy Immortals for a while, which proved usually to be enough to help us to victory
Those little cavalry half-commands of 3 or 4 shooting horsemen worked really well in conjunction with the infantry too, speeding down the flanks and putting unbearable pressure on our opponents wings in almost all games
OK, the loss to the well tooled up Roman army in Game 3 did sting a little, but at the end of the day if someone is going to be so unsporting as to bring Elite Armoured combat infantry to a fight I needed to win by shooting alone then it's not really my fault if my guys weren't up to the job. And we had our chances there too, so all in all a good outcome for this semi-glamorous and well dressed multitude - a long time since their first outing back in Samur!
This wonderful army has seen me finish in 3rd place out of 24 players in my "Book 2" Pool, a result possibly helped a little by the poor showing of my 3 team mates who enabled me to play players at the bottom end of the rankings in almost every game. But, a win is a win..
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
A hard fought win which your reliance on the fortune of a flank march nearly cost you dear as your army slipped towards a reduced break point far faster than it should as your gung-ho idiocy committed men to combat too soon, when shoot and scoot was called for time and time again.
What a thrice-double ass you must be to still imagine the Wagon of Haberdashery could ever stand up to a double elephant downhill charge for more than seconds! It is as if the only fool still transfixed by it's stature is you yourself, as your opponents have seen right through it by now and discard it as the mere plaything of idiots.
Foul spoken coward, that thund'rest with thy tongue, and with thy weapon nothing dares perform - the songs of victory could so easily have been exchanged for lamentations of defeat if those off table horsemen had not arrived until mater in the day.
I have no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, and this army of spectacular pjyama wearers neither, so how you ended with 4 wins is still to this moment beyond me.
The Actual Summary
All in all this was a great tournament, and in a large part because its not The World Team Championships, with all the nonsense that sort of name could very easily involve. Instead it's just a friendly event held by the lovely folks of the Lisboa Wargames club, in a historic venue in a great city with plenty of sensibly-priced eating and accommodation options and quite a bit of history as well. It's also surprisingly close to North America too (and, weirdly, New Zealand and Australia it would seem), which helps bring in yet more old friends and international players from further afield than the European crop of Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, England and of course Portugal - no doubt to be joined by Germany and others next year I'm sure
To see ADLG reach the dizzy heights of 96 players at a single event is also quite amazing - that's a huge number, and to think it could grow further is quite mind boggling
Our scratch team didn't ever really threaten to trouble the engravers, but we did drop 4 pretty much brand new to battle armies onto the table, had 20 very enjoyable games, and came at least 2nd in every one of them as well!
The Persians also proved surprisingly (perhaps) effective, and did so in a way which could not have been more different to the Rus in the last event I attended and did a report for too, which again was great to see that such totally divergent play styles could all succeed
In doing so it clearly helped (like with the Rus) that I actually had a plan as how to use the Persians, and was able to stick to it in at least the first few games, giving me time to work out the little details as I went along such that by the 4th and 5th games I had an even better command of the army and the troop types than when I started (after my one practice game!)
As they say, I'll be back!
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You may also like....
Game 1 Achaemenid Persian vs Sassanid Persian
Game 2 Achaemenid Persian vs Late Imperial Roman
Game 3 Achaemenid Persian vs Late Imperial Roman
Game 4 Achaemenid Persian vs Alexandrian Makedonian
Game 5 Achaemenid Persian vs Classical Indian
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