Post by gonatas on May 27, 2020 13:56:06 GMT
Many years ago Attalus I of Pergamon defeated the Galation tribesmen who were devastating his bit of Asia Minor.
Yesterday Diades and I took advantage of a slight relaxation of the English lockdown rules, and of some excellent weather, to play a distant, but face to face, game of DBA. Attalid Pergamene v Galatian.
Diades, demonstrating his well known organisational skills, had set up a table and chairs in the middle of his lawn. Either side of it, and two metres away, were two more chairs, each with a side table and a bucket. He had engineered socially inclusive isolation! We could play a game while at no time breaching Dominic Cumming’s advice about distancing. Genius!
Each bucket contained a large dice easily visible at four metres range. This ensured fairness and integrity were maintained at all times. It also added an enjoyable "Its a Knockout" element when rushing backwards and forwards to set up terrain. Diades had taken care of the essential exercise element of leaving home as well.
I had taken my newly painted Attalid Pergamene army (the first figures I have waved a brush at for about ten years – and it shows) under their nervous General Neveratalos, and they found themselves trying to face off Diades reasonably newly painted, but much more battle hardened, Galatians.
I defended and placed a difficult hill in the middle of each of quarters 1, 2 and 3. That in 2 was topped by a fort. A small wood also found its home in quarter 3.
Diades attacked towards me, perhaps hoping to drive forward into the open part of the 300mm square table.
I set up with Cretan archers in the fort, 6 psiloi and a light horse in a continuous line at the front edge of my deployment zone and a jittery phalanx of two pikes together with two knights forming a second rank a couple of base widths behind the front line.
Diades had a few problems. He had two difficult hills dominating his deployment zone, one of which was fortified, although this also presented an opportunity for an assault. He had a scythed chariot, but didn't want that entangled in my psiloi. His warband could become something of a target for the Pergamene knights.
He solved the dilemma by deploying a cavalry element on his right, which could chase down a retiring garrison, and two warband at the foot of the fortified hill ready to assault it. In the middle, facing off against the line of psiloi were two more warband, two psiloi and the cavalry general. Finally on his left, beyond the steep hill were two more warband, another cavalryman and the scythed chariot.
In some ways this was the high point of the game for the Pergamenes. I was in a fairly compact position in the middle of the board facing a somewhat scattered enemy who would face command and control problems if Diades was not careful (who am I kidding - Diades is always careful). I could, therefore, try to isolate the Galatian left wing and destroy it before most of the rest of the enemy army might get involved. Excellent. I had a plan!
I hefted my bucket and rolled my massive dice. A one.
Three psiloi and the light horse wheeled right and trudged across the plain complaining loudly.
I retired to my vantage point and settled down for a long wait, like a snooker player resigned to watching his opponent clear the table. The bucket rattled, the enemy dice emerged. A one.
"Oh ho" I thought. "Bad luck" I said. Diades left flank warbands shuffled themselves from column into line and went back to sniffing the flowers.
Now was my chance. Come on bucket. A two.
Let me digress for a moment. Mrs Diades uses the dice as a teaching aid when she is inculcating French into young students. I was beginning to wonder if the youngsters ever got to the bit where the cats actually sank.
I needed to rush the right hand hill, advance to pin the opposing centre and get the reserve pointing in the direction of the enemy left flank. Still muttering the first group of psiloi continued their plodding advance towards the hill while the remainder lethargically advanced straight ahead towards the enemy centre.
With hindsight this was probably the second highest spot of the game. I sat back.
Diades bucket flashed in the sunshine and out rolled a six. No cats were drowned on that bound. Cavalry blocked my garrisons line of flight, scythed chariots were neatly parked safely away from lightly armed men with tiny throwing weapons, the Galatian General did his Wellington impression always being in the right place at the right time, and I heard the sound of doors closing all over the battlefield. An iron Celtic curtain was descending across the hills of Pergamon.
It wasn't quite all over. I was able to get on to the hill and to attack the Galatian psiloi - but I could not get a decisive result.
I think that one good plan for a defensive hilly army is to try to take out the enemy light troops with your own as quickly as possible. You will probably outnumber them in that department. With luck you should be able to win this part of the battle before nibbling away at the tough stuff.
Sadly for me Diades' psiloi were made of tough stuff too. Also you have to get there the fastest with the mostest - and I failed to do that yesterday.
When my knights eventually arrived to threaten Diades' left wing his bucket emptied, there was a screech of gravel, a handbrake turn and my most potent troops were facing, not a warband and cavalry, but a scythed chariot with its engine revving and snarling. Whoops.
I backed off and shuffled a bit. He advanced, but rather faster. The upshot was that his chariot hit my knight. Ouch. Next bound Neveratalos, pinned, had no better move than to actually charge the chariots. He girded his loins, spurred his horse, closed his eyes, failed to kick that damned bucket... and survived. Result. However the home side were still three elements to one down and were threatening nothing much when another psiloi, loudly complaining as always, died having been flanked, inevitably, by one of those hard as nails Galatian javelinmen.
History did not repeat itself but hey, who cares. It was a really enjoyable game against excellent opposition, outdoors in the Herefordshire countryside. I would recommend it.
Did I learn any lessons from the game? Well on the way home I realised that looking at a board of 15mm figures from 6 feet away is a great test of eyesight. Who needs to drive thirty miles to peer at a castle to do that?
Yesterday Diades and I took advantage of a slight relaxation of the English lockdown rules, and of some excellent weather, to play a distant, but face to face, game of DBA. Attalid Pergamene v Galatian.
Diades, demonstrating his well known organisational skills, had set up a table and chairs in the middle of his lawn. Either side of it, and two metres away, were two more chairs, each with a side table and a bucket. He had engineered socially inclusive isolation! We could play a game while at no time breaching Dominic Cumming’s advice about distancing. Genius!
Each bucket contained a large dice easily visible at four metres range. This ensured fairness and integrity were maintained at all times. It also added an enjoyable "Its a Knockout" element when rushing backwards and forwards to set up terrain. Diades had taken care of the essential exercise element of leaving home as well.
I had taken my newly painted Attalid Pergamene army (the first figures I have waved a brush at for about ten years – and it shows) under their nervous General Neveratalos, and they found themselves trying to face off Diades reasonably newly painted, but much more battle hardened, Galatians.
I defended and placed a difficult hill in the middle of each of quarters 1, 2 and 3. That in 2 was topped by a fort. A small wood also found its home in quarter 3.
Diades attacked towards me, perhaps hoping to drive forward into the open part of the 300mm square table.
I set up with Cretan archers in the fort, 6 psiloi and a light horse in a continuous line at the front edge of my deployment zone and a jittery phalanx of two pikes together with two knights forming a second rank a couple of base widths behind the front line.
Diades had a few problems. He had two difficult hills dominating his deployment zone, one of which was fortified, although this also presented an opportunity for an assault. He had a scythed chariot, but didn't want that entangled in my psiloi. His warband could become something of a target for the Pergamene knights.
He solved the dilemma by deploying a cavalry element on his right, which could chase down a retiring garrison, and two warband at the foot of the fortified hill ready to assault it. In the middle, facing off against the line of psiloi were two more warband, two psiloi and the cavalry general. Finally on his left, beyond the steep hill were two more warband, another cavalryman and the scythed chariot.
In some ways this was the high point of the game for the Pergamenes. I was in a fairly compact position in the middle of the board facing a somewhat scattered enemy who would face command and control problems if Diades was not careful (who am I kidding - Diades is always careful). I could, therefore, try to isolate the Galatian left wing and destroy it before most of the rest of the enemy army might get involved. Excellent. I had a plan!
I hefted my bucket and rolled my massive dice. A one.
Three psiloi and the light horse wheeled right and trudged across the plain complaining loudly.
I retired to my vantage point and settled down for a long wait, like a snooker player resigned to watching his opponent clear the table. The bucket rattled, the enemy dice emerged. A one.
"Oh ho" I thought. "Bad luck" I said. Diades left flank warbands shuffled themselves from column into line and went back to sniffing the flowers.
Now was my chance. Come on bucket. A two.
Let me digress for a moment. Mrs Diades uses the dice as a teaching aid when she is inculcating French into young students. I was beginning to wonder if the youngsters ever got to the bit where the cats actually sank.
I needed to rush the right hand hill, advance to pin the opposing centre and get the reserve pointing in the direction of the enemy left flank. Still muttering the first group of psiloi continued their plodding advance towards the hill while the remainder lethargically advanced straight ahead towards the enemy centre.
With hindsight this was probably the second highest spot of the game. I sat back.
Diades bucket flashed in the sunshine and out rolled a six. No cats were drowned on that bound. Cavalry blocked my garrisons line of flight, scythed chariots were neatly parked safely away from lightly armed men with tiny throwing weapons, the Galatian General did his Wellington impression always being in the right place at the right time, and I heard the sound of doors closing all over the battlefield. An iron Celtic curtain was descending across the hills of Pergamon.
It wasn't quite all over. I was able to get on to the hill and to attack the Galatian psiloi - but I could not get a decisive result.
I think that one good plan for a defensive hilly army is to try to take out the enemy light troops with your own as quickly as possible. You will probably outnumber them in that department. With luck you should be able to win this part of the battle before nibbling away at the tough stuff.
Sadly for me Diades' psiloi were made of tough stuff too. Also you have to get there the fastest with the mostest - and I failed to do that yesterday.
When my knights eventually arrived to threaten Diades' left wing his bucket emptied, there was a screech of gravel, a handbrake turn and my most potent troops were facing, not a warband and cavalry, but a scythed chariot with its engine revving and snarling. Whoops.
I backed off and shuffled a bit. He advanced, but rather faster. The upshot was that his chariot hit my knight. Ouch. Next bound Neveratalos, pinned, had no better move than to actually charge the chariots. He girded his loins, spurred his horse, closed his eyes, failed to kick that damned bucket... and survived. Result. However the home side were still three elements to one down and were threatening nothing much when another psiloi, loudly complaining as always, died having been flanked, inevitably, by one of those hard as nails Galatian javelinmen.
History did not repeat itself but hey, who cares. It was a really enjoyable game against excellent opposition, outdoors in the Herefordshire countryside. I would recommend it.
Did I learn any lessons from the game? Well on the way home I realised that looking at a board of 15mm figures from 6 feet away is a great test of eyesight. Who needs to drive thirty miles to peer at a castle to do that?
