Alexander the Great vs Medieval Scandinavian
Pregame
My second tournament game. After a draw in the first game I would be expecting to play someone that had drawn their first game as well. My opponent turned out to be Dave Palmer. I had previously met Dave at WFB tournaments, and last seen him 8 years ago when we played against each other at the Flames of War (WW2) tournament Castle Krieg back in May 2015. On that occasion his German Recce defeated my Canadian Rifles.
Army lists
My Alexander the Great list
Dave's Medieval Scandinavian list was
The Game
I won initiative and chose to attack in the plains.
Dave chose the mandatory field and two plantations and a hill with a plantation. I selected two fields.
Initial Deployment
Dave's army was themed, with Danish, Swedish, Norwegian corps. He had his four mounted knights in the centre of his line. However as I had elephants, Dave dismounted the two impetuous mounted knights whilst keeping the two mounted knights on their horses. Dave had two ambushes.
I had a similar deployment to my last game, with the elephant corps on the left flank to go through the fields, the pike in the centre and the cavalry on the right flank. Having had the right flank of my pike corps enveloped in the last game I put the HI Hoplites behind the flank of my pikes rather than forming the right hand end of the battle line. .
With my cavalry I had my light horse deployed as a line rather than a group of 2 x 2. I had three dummy ambushes deployed in the plantation on my right flank.
End of Alexandrian Turn One
In my first turn the light horse moved up to investigate the ambush on the Scandinavian right flank, which turned out to have two light infantry crossbow. The Companion heavy cavalry moved forwards and towards the centre of the battlefield.
Not knowing what was in the other ambush, my elephant and pikes corps moved just straight ahead. However in retrospect I can see that resulted in much of my elephant corps with no visible enemy in front of them.
End of Scandinavian Turn One
The remaining ambush turned out to also contain two light infantry crossbow. The majority of Dave's right flank corps moved up and to the left, further refusing my elephant corps any opponents.
The central corps was unreliable and threw a one. However my light horse of within 4 UD of his light infantry so they went active and moved up. His left flank corps also moved up. In the shooting phase three of my light horse units took hits from the enemy crossbows and light infantry.
End of Alexandrian Turn Two
My elephant corps charged the Danish light horse, which evaded. My pike corps moved up to align with the elephant corps, but pushed the light infantry forward to shoot at the enemy foot. I was also pushing the medium cavalry unit out to the left flank. In retrospect a mistake as I already had overwhelming force on the left and badly need to plug a gap on my right.
My cavalry corps fell back. I had to protect my injured light horse. My Companions did a double move - turned and moved back and then on the second move turned to face the enemy again.
End of Scandinavian Turn Two
On the Scandinavian left flank, the Norwegians pushed forward to continue to pepper my light horse with crossbow bolts. One unit of my light horse was routed.
On the right flank, the Danes pivoted part of their battle line. The crossbows were still facing directly towards me but the rest of the battle line was now at an angle. In the centre, the Swedes were also wheeling to come in at an angle.
End of Alexandrian Turn Three
The elephant corps charged as a group against the Danish light infantry in the field and the light horse in the open. Rather sensibly the subject of the charges evaded. I ended up with a unit of Thracian MI 2HW against the crossbows at the end of the line, but only inflicted one wound.
The pike corps tried to charge as a group against the Danish heavy foot. However only two units were within charge range. Dave suggested that I slide right and charge to get the extra unit in. I ended up with one pike unit against Danish pikes with simple support, and one pike unit with support against foot knights. I lost both combats.
The Companion heavy cavalry moved forward so as to be in a position to help protect the flank of my central corps.
End of Scandinavian Turn Three
The Scandinavians brought the Swedish unit of foot knights (with included general) into combat against my pikes, and also supported it with moving up a unit of Swedish pikes into simple support. The other Swedish heavy foot moved up to ZOC my Companion heavy cavalry. The light infantry inflicted a shooting hit on my HI Hoplites
End of Alexandrian Turn Four
My Thracian MI 2HW conformed into the second unit of crossbows, and the elephant charged the flank. The crossbows were routed in the resulting melee and the elephant pursued (after the photo was taken) but ended up just short of the flank of the adjacent unit.
My Companion heavy cavalry were ZOCed by Swedish pikes and halberds. As they are impact heavy cavalry, if I wanted them to exit the zone of control they would become disrupted. The other option would be to charge heavy foot with pointy things. (I didn't consider just staying put). I decided that charging in was the the lesser of the two evils as I might do some damage. I moved up a LH unit in support. The other two light horse units I moved back out of shooting range.
In the centre my right most pike unit was routed by the Swedish foot knights.
End of Scandinavian Turn Four
The end unit of Danish polearm HI turned to face the elephant. From the photos it looks like they might have been ZOCed but we didn't realise it at the time.
At the other end of my battle line his pikemen charged my HI hoplites, and he also moved his knights in to support. With the battle that the Companions were engaged in he moved up his crossbows to charge my supporting LH, which evaded. This meant that I went from having a unit in support and him not, to him having a unit in support and me not.
End of Alexandrian Turn Six
The dice turn markers are saying turn six in the photo. I have had a unit of pikes and a unit of Companion HC routed. On my left flank I have charged the Crossbows with my Thracian MI and also moved my MI spear into support. The elephant is not in support, but was displaced by the Thracians charging in.
End of Scandinavian Turn Six
Dave charged his foot knights into the flank of an engaged unit of pikemen, which routed. My Hoplites HI and Companion HC were also routed, and I also lost my general. The Norwegian MI and LI were moving up to threaten my surviving LH.
End of Alexandrian Turn Seven
In my final turn I couldn't do much with my light horse as I had lost my general. I probably tried to rally. My centre corps only had a single unit of MI spear and three units of LI. On my left flank it looks like I moved the elephant into support and moved the separate group with elephant to threaten his camp. I lost two units of light horse to shooting.
The game finished at the end of the Scandinavian turn seven.
My notes on the flow of the game was
Turn 6/5 I had lost 16 (24) army points
Turn 6/6 I had lost 21 (24) army points
Turn 7/6 I had lost 23 (24) army points
Turn 7/7 I had lost 26 (24) army points and inflicted 9 (23)
Post game comments and lessons learnt
The game felt closer in the middle turns than the results indicated. I needed to bring my elephant corps in sooner - half the corps never got engaged. Dave was able to collapse my right flank before I was able to use it effectively. Also for the second game in a row I moved my medium cavalry in the centre corps off towards the left flank and then left it stranded there for the rest of the game whereas another unit on the right would have been more useful.
Perhaps I should have held off charging in with the pike until the elephant corps had moved up. This was probably one of my two major mistakes.
Charging the Companion HC into the pikes and polearms was the other mistake. I should have evaded out the ZOC (even though this was have caused the units to be disruption), and then tried to take on the medium infantry. However this would have meant the right of my battle line may have collapsed earlier. As it was the Hoplites deserved a medal for holding out as long as they did. I think that I used them more effectively than the last game.
Dave's use of angles caused me problems. In particular when he wheeled his heavy Danish heavy infantry and then advanced slightly in front of the crossbows. This created a ZOC in front of one of the crossbow units, protecting it from a frontal charge (although also potentially limiting its shooting arcs). It also meant that if I charged his battleline that potentially the end unit of crossbows would be behind the line extending the front edge of my unit and potentially open to a charge.
We may have got a couple of rules wrong. When I charged in my group in turn three, Dave generously suggested I could slide right before charging to get more units in contact. Checking the rules, this was probably not correct as I then had a unit make contact when it was possibly out of charge range at the beginning of the turn. According to the forums, when charging with a group I could charge the whole group at once and once I made contact those in the group all units could slide/wheel up to 1UD to keep aligned, but only make contact if they were originally in charge range or the enemy.
In terms of my army composition, the cavalry command didn't really work and the light horse bled points. Although the elephants caused Dave to dismount two units of knights, for the rest of the game impetuous MI swords at 6 points (not that the army has the option) would have been as effective as the 13 point elephants. The pike block with the spearmen on each end did get into combat, and could have worked. In the first turn of combat one unit was up by 2 against the foot knights and still lost the first round of combat. Ofcourse they would have worked much better if I had used them better. The medium cavalry unit was wasted.