Thursday 14 April 2016

Galia est pacata

I have mentioned before (a) my opinion that in grid based wargames it is crucial to use the game tactics that the rules writer had in mind to replicate real tactics. We ran into this problem when first playing C&C Ancients and again with TtS!. We have played the latter with Wars of the Roses, Punic Wars and Early Imperial Romans against Celts and the problem is far less in the first case. Logic suggests this is because in that case we have two essentially identical forces using essentially identical tactics whereas Romans versus others is asymmetrical. Last night the wargaming annexe saw the same issue replicated.


Now this could all be, as I have heard suggested, because the rules writer loves the Romans. It could also however be because the Romans were simply better at fighting than everyone else; and given that in the periods that we're discussing they won all the wars and had a huge empire there may be something in this. The implication of which is that the Celts need to be slightly smarter than simply aiming for a straight up fight.

Note the crapness of the chariots

Anyway, a straight up fight is what happened, and as usual they lost. The post game discussion revolved around how they might do better next time. The rules give warbands three hits before they die, meaning that they last longer; specifically that they are less likely to be defeated in one melee. It seems to me that the tactics have to be to take advantage of this by withdrawing behind the chariots following disorder, to rally and come again. Being deep units they can't interpenetrate and therefore the deployment must be wide and thin rather than narrow and deep. Meanwhile the chariots and skirmishers can press against the Roman line because should these charge them they will almost certainly move forward, making them more vulnerable to being attacked by the warbands.


(a) The page to which that link directs you is one of those from which the photographs are now missing. You may recall that I was trying to establish what had caused images to disappear across a number of posts. I failed, and the only upside of my efforts was a gratuitous photograph of Agneta's backside; for which I can only apologise and promise not to do it again.


4 comments:

  1. Yes, there are some subtle tactics to the game. I must confess to still be a bit short of mastering them, but we had a cracking Romans/Gauls match up as well some time ago. I took cavalry instead of chariots and it was pretty close. A very nice set of rules, I think.

    BTW, nothing wrong with those chariots of yours (apart from the fact that they didn't win the battle!).

    Cheers,
    Aaron

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  2. Impressive battle lines. Since I have yet to give TtS a go, I cannot comment on that but may be able to help troubleshoot your missing photo.

    One question to begin: did you delete this particular photo from Picasa (or wherever you store blogger photos)? If the photo is still in your photo repository, insert the photo back into your original post. If the photo is no longer in your photo repository, add it to the photo repository and then insert back into your blog post.

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    Replies
    1. You are undoubtedly correct about the photos. I'm pretty sure that the problem arose when I set up a Google+ account. However, I don't recall which images went where or where I got them from so the blog will have to remain sadly mutilated.

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  3. Good to see the crap chariots ,often mentioned, I think they look fine haven't tried tts yet only heard positive things about it up to now
    Best Iain

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