When in Rome.. Art de la Guerre games at the Club
by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish” Campbell
I have been blessed to live in Ottawa for a few reasons, but one is the strong gaming community we have here. I think ours is larger than Montreal and is definitely larger than Toronto’s, cities with 2x and 5x our population.
I know back when I played WHFB and 40K back in the golden era (1996-2006) we had a very strong showing of Ottawa-based gamers at tournaments including the Grand Tournament. When my group of players switched over to Flames of War and started hosting tournaments, we organized a decent following and hosted the Canadian Nationals for many years.
Now that I have dipped my toes into Ancients and other historicals (Napoleonics) I find that, yet again, we have a strong following, this time in the form of the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers (OMG) some of whom are consistent Art de la Guerre (ADLG) rankings, players. So, I have started attending club nights which are held typically twice a month, and as luck would have it, their rotation of games had ADLG so I tidied up some of my Romans in 28mm and showed up to get trounced!
Game 1 vs John Cowen’s Gaul’s. Pardon the lighting, we are in a meeting hall/church basement so the lighting isn’t top-notch. My 200-point list was a flank corps of Heavy Cav and Light Cav with Javelins, a center corps with Legionnaires/Auxillia battle line, attached Scorpio and Slingers as light infantry, then the other flank corps is basically the same, with javelin light infantry instead. John’s force was two corps of furious charging semi-naked Frenchmen backed up by medium and light cavalry. Norm would join John after turn 1 to help crush the good guys, aka my Romans, who are only trying to civilize the french…..
John’s Javelin Light Horse
John’s Light Infantry screening his advance
More light horse on the other flank, screening the medium cavalry
Gaul Medium Cavalry
Meanwhile my lone slingers to prevent him double marching…
My Light Horse w/ Javelins
My heavy cavalry, who I would mis-use and give up an excellent charging opportunity…
Roman Auxilliaries (blue shields) and Roman Legionaires (red shields) these are the old 2011 Warlord Games plastics that paint up decently.. I’ve recently retouched them.
On another table Ben T and Duncan play 15mm ADLG..
With Jeff Young and Jeff Black also playing 15mm, Jeff Y with his Samurai force looking great with all the back banners!
Back to our game, Norm moved up the Cavalry (left) in line with the center corp of infantry but my light cav prevented their right flank from double moving, and I had my Heavy Cav in a decent position (so I thought) My center corp, in hindsight, should have stayed on the hill on the left but I moved up, eager to beat some civilization into these heathens!
Its about at this point in turn 2, when I want to charge into his infantry, that I realize how badly Heavy Cavalry would fight in that terrain piece, which is Rough Ground – Brush.
My slingers fail to dismount his Light Cavalrymen..
John’s druid commander, ready to add some roman heads to his skull pile….
John and Norm advance towards the romans…
Turn three: I had moved my Hvy Cavalry back (lower right) where I should have left them or repositioned them slightly, otherwise my battle-line stayed stationary. My attached Scorpios did nothing substantial.
My javelin light cav charge into the medium infantry, fail to break through, and are themselves surrounded later in the Gaul’s turn…
Norm decides he wants some blood and works his light cavalry around my Legion to charge my Scorpio crew… being on the hilltop swings the melee my way, and we score a wound on the horse! My Legionaries win combat vs his Chariots and they break off. Note: Norm has Medium cavalry coming for me (upper right)
In my next turn, I move up the Slingers to support my Scorpio crew, who win combat again, killing the flanking Gauls! Norm had repositioned his Medium Cavalry again, some to my front, not sure why.
Closeup of John’s other corps commander.
Gaul infantry furiously charges my Auxillia on the left battle line, while his main force slams into my legionnaires on the right.
Just about every model is in combat now, the Gauls great in the first round due to Furious Charge but my armour helps me hold on…
.. so that I can grind down the Gauls in sustained combat, inflicting severe casualties. The Romans eke out a meager win (inflicting just enough wounds/casualties for the Gauls to break and retreat back to their forests…
Game Two, 300pts vs Parthians. We were discussing tournament lists and I decided I would never take non-roman allies and just stick with my Early Imperials. There is a big ADLG tournament at ‘Hot Lead’ in Barrie ON, and Tod was also going to field the 200pt version of his Parthians at Historicon, so he wanted a tune-up game. This would be a two-on-two game, with Martin and Tod fielding the Parthians vs my Romans, with Sean Unger on the roman side with me. Parthians = Cataphract-meta!
Martin and Tod.
‘Martin, how much Parthian cavalry would you like to field?’
“Yes” was his answer.
Facing this I had only 2x Light Cav with Javelins and 4x Heavy Cavalry… an uphill battle!
Our plan was for the medium infantry to take the Orchard, my Cavalry to delay as long as possible Martin’s Cavalry forces, and hopefully Sean could locally overwhelm with his infantry on his side.
I decide to charge uphill on turn 2 and actually rolled SUPER HOT vs Martin. To be fair, he was using the unlucky France dice, much to his horror.
Meanwhile, our center advances, and the Camel Cataphract reposition to slam into the easiest targets: medium bowmen. At far right, 2 lines of Legions ought to be able to sort out that Cavalry right? RIGHT???
Unlike roman infantry, roman cavalry does not do well in sustained combat vs heavier foes, and we would start taking wounds but not yet breaking…
View from Sean’s flank, while John and Steve L chat with Martin in the background.
Roman light infantry flees from the charge, and the Parthian cavalry rolls low for the charge, meaning they do NOT engage the Romans…
…meanwhile, the roman cavalry starts to collapse…
.. and get surrounded…
… and are finally routed, but by now our medium infantry are in the orchard.. but what can we do from in here? Not much.
The medium bowmen are somehow still alive after being charged by the camel cataphracts while Sean is rolling hot dice and working through the Parthian cavalry on his end. But with time running low and Martin’s entire Cavalry Corp about to flank charge these bowmen in the foreground, we call the game due to time and.. frankly, inevitability.
Great games, thanks to everyone. The next game system in the rotation is some Lasalle, so I’ll need to get my french Napoleonics ready for battle. See you then!