Having finished painting my Imperial Romans it seemed rude not to atke them to the Classical themed Derventio. After quite a bit of tinkering, and some excellent advice/assistance from Ray Duggings including 2 good test games, I used the folowing list.
(https://i.imgur.com/8Gti8Ol.jpg?1)
Unlike the quite shooty lists I have tended to use since starting with MeG this one is all about the melee troops 8)
First game was against Pete Entwistle who was using a Later Foederate Roman. Pete's army was a bit bigger than mine but still mostly foot, mainly the Germanic Devastating Charge infantry. We had a few bits of terrain scattered around but they didn't affect the game much, and the combat was mostly infantry vs infantry in the open. That rather suited me, as you might guess, and despite a few Shatters on impact from the foederate infantry the battle was decided by the superior melee capabilities of my infantry. 15-2 to me.
Second game pitched me up against Will Denham with Dacians, including the inevitable Sarmatian ally. Forest secure flank and more terrain on the table than any other MeG game I've played - as my infantry are Flexible I didn't mind that and it would hamper the Sarmatian cavalry. The game was mainly a large and very brutal infantry scrum across about half the table, some in the woods and some in the open (where Will had his Superior infantry). There was an important side action around a wood on my right with the Sarmatians where one unit of my cavalry and the two infantry units with Integral Shooters destroyed 2 units of the Sarmatians for the loss of 1 unit - this inlcluded the small, Superior, foot unit hitting a Sarmatian cavalry unit in the flank in a wood into which it had persued ... The main infantry slog started in move 3 and went to the end of the game. I lost the Exceptionals, 2 Superior and an Average unit but just, and only just, took out enough of Will's foot to win the game - in the turn that won it I broke 3 units and if I hadn't I am sure Will would have had my army next turn. We were both drained at the end. Top game. 15-8.
Third game saw me play Laurence "Cid" Donahoe with a Macedonian successor. Secure flank and enough game to allow me to deploy compactly. Cagey game with neither side really able to push very hard without putting themselves in all sorts of bother. A good chunk of Cid's army was held up on my right flank by the small infantry unit sitting on a difficult going hill - stopped him going round my flank and being Superior with Shield Cover was fairly immune to shooting even from the Cretans. A short flurry of fighting at the end saw a couple of units broken but we ended up 5-4; was actually a much better game than the raw score might suggest.
Last game drew me against Ray Duggins and his Early Macedonians with 4 TUG Spartan ally. We'd played this in practice twice each winning once - best of 3 then ;) Secure flank but basically an open table. Jammily I outscouted ray by 60%. Basically we both lined up our infantry facing each other with cavalry on the open flank to cover. IMO Ray had made a mistake by forming all his hoplites up 2 deep so I was well up for an infantry slog. We both piled forwards, his Spartans leading the way. We soon had quite a few infantry combats, but initially not all along the line. I mainly had the Exceptionals and Superiors against the Spartans. Ray's 2 deep formations now came unstuck in a big way as I rolled skull after skull to reduce significant parts of his line to 1 ranks deep and, therefore, no Long Spear claim. It really was a bit outrageous. For example when his Exceptional Spartans charged in I got 2 skulls in 3 rolls on Green dice :o The Spartans completely evaporated in about 3 rounds and it all ended not long after that. 15-6.
50 points for the comp and 4th place. Made me happy 8)
Brainfart!
Ray also learnt all about the rule on Page 80 - G 1.2 8)
Quote from: nikgaukroger on March 25, 2019, 04:33:38 PM
Ray also learnt all about the rule on Page 80 - G 1.2 8)
Yes ....... won't forget that in a hurry. Exactly 12 months of playing MeG and I'd never used it or seen it used.
First time I've done it.
:-\
Wot rule?
Quote from: mad lemmey on March 26, 2019, 11:14:48 AM
Wot rule?
It's on a "need to know basis" and ...................
It's not always easy to to it. INF needs to be 2 bases width max or you cannot do the move. CAV can do it a bit more easely . I once managed with tribal ones 8)
Quote from: badhabum on March 26, 2019, 08:09:10 PM
It's not always easy to to it. INF needs to be 2 bases width max or you cannot do the move. CAV can do it a bit more easely . I once managed with tribal ones 8)
You are on about G 1.1, I used G 1.2 on Ray and unit width is irrelevent for that.
What are your thoughts about the cav in this army? I wonder about cav, mounted skirmishers, no mounted, etc.
In the version I took the cavalry are just skirmishers to distract, they are not expected to actually fight anything that is what the infantry are for
can someone explain the move to noob me?
Ta
Quote from: Dru on May 22, 2019, 09:56:05 AM
can someone explain the move to noob me?
Ta
9.4 G 1.1 (page 80) is when a UG is in corner to corner contact with an enemy UG and it either aligns or wheels 90 degrees to create a melee combat without charging.
9.4 G 1.2 (page 80) is when a UG is in side-edge to side-edge contact with an enemy UG and turns 90 degrees to create a melee combat without charging.
Richard
Ah thanks. 1.1 is pretty common but I don't think I've seen 1.2 used before. Has me thinking though...
So ..... assuming a 1.1 or 1.2 is inflicted upon you, can your UG align with the inflictor immediately thereafer?
Can inflicted files and/or bases align with the inflictor immediately if a file of the afflicted UG is already in combat or whatever? Or does the afflicted one need to use cards to square of in order to avoid melee phase flanking claims?
Or does the fact that the afflictor's starting position was not on the flank mean no flank factor claim?
Hmmm - a lot of affliction in there for one post!
HH
As usual any alignment will occur at the points in the turn sequence when alignment is allowed -and in the normal way alignment works, nothing special happens/is allowed because of contact being made by the options allowed in these rules.
So if contacted on the flank you would have your normal options as to turn to face.
If contacting the flank you get the flank claim applicable in the Melee Phase (as there is no charge phase for these types of contact).
Poor old Ray!
HH
Do players take turns to do alignments as per normal movement or does the phasing player get all the alignment opportunities?
In the Melee Phase* the rules say:
"Either side may - starting with the Active player - align (9.5A)"
* Movement Phase says the same thing with slightly different wording for some reason.
Still not clear. I would surmise though that active player can do an alignment then non active player has opportunity and so on. Otherwise too heavily biased towards active player.
I think as written it is the active player does all they want and they the inactive.
However, if you compare the wording on the QRS with that in the rules for all 3 phases where you can align they are not entirely consistent* and, IMO, clarification would be useful.
* the wording about aligning in the charge phase could actually be read that the moving player could move opponents UG ...
Seems in conflict with the way the game is structured in every phase which is based on active player does something then nonactive player has his go and so on. The active player getting to do all alignments could in certain situations be a total game decider.
That's Jack and Victor in agreement for an unprecedented second time this year then - shots about feels right!