Art de la Guerre, Ancients in 15mm: Persians

“So I entered an ADLG tournament the other day…….”

 

 

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

 

What better way to get my 15mm Persian army painted than to randomly enter a local tournament!  Art de La Guerre (ADLG) is an ancients ruleset from France that has more figures than DBA and covers a WIDE timespan, roughly from a few thousand BC up to about the Renaissance period.  See Paolo’s interview with the Author here:

It’s a fairly popular game over on this side of the pond, from walking past all the Ancients games going on at events such as Fall In, Cold Wars, and Historicon, it certainly piqued my interest. Taking a bit of breather from competitive Flames and Team Yankee, I figured Ancients is a time that I knew little to nothing about. I mean obviously, I know there were the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and all that but not all the smaller and lesser-known empires.

I have 28mm Romans (for Hail Caesar but also based for ADLG) but most of the events seemed to have a 15mm component.  Not wanting to paint MORE Romans, I went with something… different. Persians.

I knew literally nothing about Persians except they fought the greeks a bunch of times, and that one time their king was a 7-foot-tall androgynous guy with more jewelry accessories than a meeting between Johnny Depp and Steven Tyler.

All jokes aside, the more I looked into the Persians the more I wanted them.  They had the first large Empire, had neat units such as Chariots, Siege Towers, and Camels, and certainly look different uniform-wise.  They also allegedly pulled some next-level psychological warfare against a cat-loving child Pharaoh (look up Cambyses II and the battle of Pelusium).

So I went and bought an army from Forged in Battle with grand plans to build and paint and enter some US events. Then the Pandemic happened. Locally, there is a group that has picked up on ADLG and is putting on an event at the end of the month. My army was half painted and I’ve played one test game of ADLG. Step one, speed paint a 200point list and get a practice game in 2 weeks before the event. Here we go.

I started with what I already had painted (which luckily was also some of my mandatory choices) which was:  4x Medium Cavalry with Bows, 3 units of Light Camelry w/ Bows, 6 units of Sparabara (half short spears, half bowmen) some Light Infantry with Slings, and 1 General on Horse. Looking at my book I needed to paint Light Horse, Chariots, the two 3d printed War Towers, and two more Generals for my test game. In one week I was able to get it done, with bases being edged the morning of the test game.

I squared off against Jeff Black’s Romans. It’s at this point that I learned there was a new version of ADLG (Version 4, only v3 and v4 have been translated into English) and also learned my army list had changed slightly (more on that later).

My army deployed with Lights and Medium infantry in the terrain features. Jeff’s 4x pink chariots in the back left are supposed to be Cavalry (he packed the wrong list) with a solid line of Legionnaires(blue) and Auxilia (red and white)  My plan: Delay his main infantry line and shoot at them while dealing with the right flank with my light horse and stalling him on my left with my Chariots and Camels.

 

As the attacker, Jeff simply moved his Romans up, his Cavalry wing staying just out of my Bow Range

 

I moved up a bit in my center. I need my War Towers to turn as they fire Broadsides only, not to the front. My scythed chariots turn in towards his Cavalry.

 

 

After some bow fire, I decide to try and smash his Cav with my Scythed Chariots while my right flank starts to threaten his red Auxillia

 

Camels dare the Cav (remember his pink chariots are Cavalry) to charge, I have light horse in reserves as the Plantation and his Ambushers block me from spreading too wide on this flank.

 

I keep pouring on the bow fire as the Romans get within charge range. Meanwhile, my Chariots somehow are still in the mix.

 

My right flanking maneuver forces half the red auxiliary to turn and face, meaning my Sparabara line is only facing 2x legions, 2x Auxillia.   His spear are now into my Chariot and I roll a 6 for combat and stay on!  My dice are REALLY hot today.

 

Close up of Jeff’s wound counters. My own infantry is trying to keep my Chariots alive while my Camels are keeping the rest of his Cavalry off my flank.

 

Stalemate.  I could charge his auxiliary with my Medium cavalry and support with my lights, but was hoping to just pepper them with shooting until I learned not all the units shoot. One shoots the rest support. Lesson learned.

 

 

Against all odds (and primarily my super hot dice) the Chariots keep staying in the combat. Romans are also rolling poorly in the Command phase so Jeff is not able to move as many units as he wants, nor Rally off some wounds using his Generals.

 

More detailed shot of the left flank. My light camels and light horse fail to wound his Peltasts in the plantation, which are blocking my Camels from charging in. One of my chariots would get destroyed once a Javelin stand falls to the Romans and flanks my line.  However, Jeff counts up all his wounded and destroyed units, and I have broken his forces.   Victory for the Persians!

Big thanks to Jeff Black for taking the bad dice like a champ and showing me the ropes. Also, big thanks to the rest of OMG (Ottawa Miniature Gaming) for hosting, there were 4 other ADLG games going on, plus a Flames of War campaign game. Here are some pics of the other games:

 

There is a Renaissance period set of lists, so ADLG-R.   The above is Rus vs Arabs, almost like a game of Age of Empires IV!

 

 

25mm game of ADLG, had a few other new players in the mix.

Looks like the two full lines just marched forwards towards the road..

 

How many Chariots in this game? Yes.

 

That’s a lot of casualties… life as a soldier in the Ancients period was short.

 

Not sure where those heavy Knights are going, but the battle lines are stabilized prior to the lunch break.

I have since this game, finalized my list with the new book, which meant rebasing the 3x light Camels w bows into 2x Medium Camels with bows, rebased and reorganized 4x units of Mediocre Heavy Spears, painted up a Camp, and reorganized my Light Infantry into 4x Slingers/bows and 2x Light Javelinmen.  I also made 2x Ambush markers.   I need to figure out the terrain, and maybe play some test games on Tabletop Simulator.

I’ll post pics of the event.  I hope to face some Spartans 🙂