This game was organised ahead of time with Kevan who was bringing Scythians.
When I was selecting my army I was expecting to go against a horse archer army. As I had only 200 pts of Alexandrian's painted, my choices were fairly easy. However I decided to use a couple of MI Spear from my Carthaginian army as I wanted something that was fast and threatening to horse archers. The rest of my army was a large cavalry corps to chase down the horse archers and a corps of heavy foot screened by shooty light infantry.
Apart from the generals (which were borrowed from other armies) and fortified camp, none of the models in my army had ever been on the battlefield before.
When I arrived at the club I realised I had missed messages from Kevan letting me know he was sick, so I ended up playing Jason's Early Successors instead.
My Alexandrian Macedonian list
Jason won initiative and decided to attack in the mountains. In addition to the compulsory mountain I took another mountain and brush. Jason tried for a coastal zone, but was unsuccessful and put down a road and brush. Jason adjusted the terrain to remove one brush but was unable to move two other pieces. I was able to adjust the other 3 pieces up to 4UD.
Final terrain placement
Note that the mountains near my camp have a gap of less than 1UD to the table edge.
Initial deployment
I put down a dummy ambush. My first placement was Corps III, and Jason responded with his Corps I. My second placement was Corps II, and Jason responded with his Corps II. My final placement was the cavalry Corps, with the main cavalry positioned to go to the left of the brush but a small group on the right flank planning to go around this terrain. My light infantry skirmishers and light horse with javelins were deployed as far forward as possible to restrict how far Jason could march.
End of Successors Turn One
In Jason's first turn the Successor's infantry corps both did double moves forward. The Thracians moved into the rough terrain. Jason rolled low on his command pips for the cavalry corps. He moved the impact heavy cavalry down the road towards his infantry and his medium cavalry to his far left flank. He didn't have any command pips left to move his light horse.
End of Alexandrian Turn One
In my first turn I moved up my light infantry bow to be able to shoot at the Successor light foot, and moved up my main battle line. I moved the light horse up to shoot at the Thracians, and also moved the other two cavalry groups up. No casualties from shooting.
In retrospect, moving up my main battle line forward towards a superior battle line was not a great move. Although my heavy infantry/pikes should hold their own, my MI spears would be facing pikes and elite HI with furious charge.
In their second turn, the Successor infantry has moved up and his light infantry has engaged mine. I decided to hold rather than flee from the charge as I felt that for 3 of the 4 matchups it would be fairly even. I lost three of the four combats, but I was rolling a lot of 2's. His light infantry archers shot without success at my Agrian light infantry. His main cavalry moved up to threaten my light horse.
End of Alexandrian Turn Two
In my second turn my infantry on the left wing charged the opposing light infantry, which fled. The rest of my infantry battle line moved up to align, and to enable my disrupted light infantry units to disengage out of charge range. My light horse moved to try and get behind the Successor battle line, and the Companions moved up to support them by ZOCing the Successor heavy cavalry. One unit of Companions held back to protect the flank of the rest. On the right flank I moved up my secondary cavalry group.
Getting my light horse behind the enemy battle line could go one of two ways. Ideally it would tie up a lot of Jason's units and command pips to deal with the threat. However it could also leave them stranded and unsupported. Additionally moving the light horse up like that meant that I had to move up my Companion cavalry to ZOC the enemy impact HC. This left my Companions with a unit of Thracians on their flank, so I had to use one unit to protect this flank. All up I had to commit 48 pts worth of units to support 12 pts worth of units.
Turn three saw the Successor battle line engage my battle line. I didn't get photos, but as might be expected my MI spears crumbled first giving the Successor's the overlaps. In the pike match ups I managed to consistently roll low and these units also disappeared. I was able to successfully rally a couple of hits off in my turn three, but it wasn't enough.
With my light cavalry behind the Successor's battle line, they were being chased initially by LI shooting at it who were close enough to have me in their ZOC. I exited the zone of control but ended up being intercepted by their light cavalry.
Lack of command pips meant that my cavalry group on the right flank didn't get to move in turn three.
End of Successor Turn Four
By the end of the Successor turn four I was only a couple of points away from
breaking. My Companions had been engaged in the flank by one unit of
Thracians, and my supporting unit hanging back was ZOCed by Thracians in the
rough terrain and took shooting wounds from the
light infantry.
The main item of interest in my turn four was that my impact light horse and supporting Greek HC charged the opposing medium cavalry (just out of the top right corner of the photo). This meant that every unit in my army had been involved in the battle.
Unfortunately in the resulting melee with the right flank cavalry group I lost both combats. My heavy cavalry took two hits despite being at +1 for the overlap and having the armour advantage :-(.
My Companions were routed by their cavalry opponents, though the unit fighting the Thracians inflicted one hit. My javelin equipped light horse routed its opponent despite the disadvantage of an enemy overlap.
The game took just under 2.5 hours from end of deployment to the definite result. A dramatic win for Jason, with the final result being something like 24-6.
Jason suggested that I should have kept my infantry battle line back, anchored on the steep hill. If I had put my MI Spear in there they would have been at -1 from the difficult ground but Jason's HI would have been at -2. I would also have had +1 from the hill (which I forgot about), so would have been at +1 vs the pikes and +2 vs the Galations. In that situation he wouldn't have engaged and would have let me have the overlap.
Jason also suggested that the HI Spear should have been on the right flank of my pikes. The left flank of my battle line had manoeuvrable units, but the pikes on the right side of my battle line were unmanoeuvrable.
If my main battle line was held back and Jason moved up to engage, then it would have been easier for my Companions to threaten their flanks. It also would mean that the heavy cavalry battle might have happened away from the Thracians in the rough ground.
Jason suggested that I should have moved my cavalry command on my right flank more aggressively. If I hadn't been so aggressive with my light cavalry trying to get between his cavalry and infantry I could have used the saved command pips to make a second move on the flank in the first turn, and had the command pips to move it in turn three.
In terms of my army composition, I quite like having some rough terrain troops in my infantry corps but having a micro command of two MI and two LI didn't really work. Maybe I should have two infantry commands, each with one unit of MI. Thracians would have been more effective against the pikes than my MI and HI spears. I did have one unit painted up, but was expecting to fight horse archers so didn't bring it. The Alexandrian army list allows 4 units of Thracians peltasts, so time to get painting.
I should also consider the balance of my army, with 7 units of light infantry and 4 of light cavalry I could reduce some of this to get more combat units.