Art de la Guerre Tournament, Day One, 15mm Roman period, 200points
by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell, additional photos by Mike Abbott and Tod Creasey
The local gaming club, Ottawa Miniature Gaming (OMG), held a two-day Art de la Guerre (ADLG) event over the May long-weekend. I decided to sign up after only one practice game.
I could only attend the 15mm 200pt Roman-themed event, but was able to drop by and snap some pics of Day Two’s 28mm Dark Ages era tournament, stayed tuned for a future post.
We had 15 players attend, which is a great turnout, despite the gigantic summer storm knocking out power. With an odd number of players, I opted to take the third round bye so I could take some pics.
Round 1
My Achaemenid Persians squared off vs Duncan’s Ancient British horde. This being my third game of ADLG ever, I figured my bowfire could soften up his unarmoured troops and maybe win a few key fights once the horde hit my lines… I took the ‘fun toys’ of the Early Persians: Camels, Scythed Chariots, and the War Towers (War Wagons with Bow).
Please excuse the paper terrain made by yours truly, we had a ‘storm of the century’ the night before which thwarted my plans of stopping by an arts store and buying some coloured felt. They had no power, as did half the city.
The oncoming horde. Duncan’s Light troops uncover my ambush on the right-hand field while the chariots threaten my left. I throw my medium cavalry and camels forward on my right to delay and maybe break up the battle line of Medium Swords coming my way. I have enough command pips to turn one of my towers to face (it can only shoot broadsides, not to the front or rear)
Just when I need a lot of command pips, my left flank general rolls a predictable result. I really needed to manouvre my Heavy Spear to protect my Sparabara…
Likewise, I roll poorly on my right flank, and thus my cavalry is happy to simply DELAY his flanking corp.
After two turns of shooting, all I was able to achieve was 6 lousy wounds across his entire, unarmoured army! Turn 2, I had 12 shots and only scored one wound! Inevitably, the Impetuous Medium Swords crash into my lines with such numbers and Ferocity that he would win the game handily, even killing one of my generals in combat (We kept tabs of Generals killed, as these would be tie breakers for match-ups)
Before my pics of game 2, here are some pics of other battles/armies:
Ben Taylor’s Mithridatic force squares off against Jeff Young’s Armenian Cavalry
Morley’s Sassanid Persians vs Robert’s Classical Indian. Parasols for the win!
Mike’s Romans square off against…. rebel Romans.
Steve’s awesome-looking Egyptian chariots slam into the enemy
Elephants vs Camels…
Top table: Serge Carignan’s Romans vs Duncan’s Ancient British
Not your usual “two lines slamming in the center.” This looks like a lot of flanking on this table.
Round 2
I squared off against Kevin Carignan’s Early Imperial Romans. I was pretty pumped for this, because I have a 28mm EIR army myself. Though I need just a few more units (more cav and some Auxillia) to be able to field a 200pt force with the new lists. He had a Cavalry wing with Cataphractarii, Equites Alares (Heavy Cav) and some Sagitarii (Light Horse with Bow, and then two wings of Legion/Auxillia each supported by am integrated Scorpio.
I chose to defend and hoped my ambush markers and light troops could delay him enough so I could fight him piecemeal. My War Towers meant he could dismount some Cavalry, which he chose to do (Alares Equites became Heavy Sword). I think he overestimated my Camels’ ability to Panic his horse.
For some reason, all the terrain ended up in my center, I was able to move one ‘Brush’ forward and left, and put my Ambush marker in it. Note his camp and my camp have the same tent. His father Serge had made an order from Meeple Mart for Roman Tents (came in a pack of four) so club members bought the rest, myself included!
The Romans marched forward, and I was able to get some good command rolls. Thus, I am able to move up my cavalry to delay, and deploy my Camels from Ambush in the Brush (Camels count brush as open terrain), and am able to turn one tower to face.
Hot Dice is the reason I am able to inflict SO many shooting wounds to armoured units when I couldn’t scratch any scantily clad ancient British, I’ll never know! His 2x Cataphractarii crunch into my War Tower, only to find out it has +2 to Cavalry! Similarly, his dismounts slam into the other tower and find it is fairly resilient. Meanwhile, my Levy does Levy things and hold the center field against his Roman Auxillia against all odds.
More Hot Dice, this time I am able to hold his Legion while the rest of my troops inflict many casualties by rolling hot and winning many critical fights and turning flanks. I hate to win handily because of dice rolls, but Kevin’s dice were also cold, nothing he could do.. I force his morale to break.
Results: