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Thursday, January 30, 2020

Nikephorian Byzantine versus Sassanids Again

Another practice game as part of the club's Basic Impetus League competition.  My Byzantines and faced Mark B's Sassanids.

 I was out scouted again.
Not sure it made any difference.

 They advanced, we tried shooting at them.

 I'm getting aggressive on the flanks.
My archery is woeful.

 We are both down a light cavalry unit after three turns.

 But now the grind begins.

 The elephants on the left have been pushed back 
and my light cavalry on the right has prevailed, 
but at horrendous cost.  
The two elite cavalry units with the respective generals keep on fighting.

 And still they fight.

 And fight some more...

Till both units are no more.
Draw.

My new chits worked a treat.  So easy with a laminator, but I'm thinking I might like them a bit smaller and thicker.

2 comments:

  1. A draw is, of course, a strategic defeat for the invader... I have to admit I never really understood the 'out-scouting' thing. In fact, playing DBM, I found the preliminaries involving setting up the game rather tiresome. Fortunately, since I rarely played 'home' games, terrain set-up became the duty of my opponent, which I could vary to a small extent. The rarity of 'home' games? My Nikephorians had 'Aggression 4' - real he-men, eh? - and so was the invader in all but maybe a couple of battles. Ever. So I made the slight switch (same figures) to 'Konstantinian' - Aggression 1. Hardly made a sod of difference: for every 'home' battle, I think my guys fought at least two, and probably nearer three, 'away'.

    But my guys won more often than not anyway, in some very interesting terrain (militarily speaking)!

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    Replies
    1. The Impetus terrain setting is fairly simple and I generally use it to secure flanks or more frequently just to have something to break up the table edge. I discussed this with Mark W in our last game (the 6mm one) and decided that most battles were on fairly open terrain.

      My opinion might change when I start to run my new army that I have just acquired...

      I never played DBM but played a lot of DBA. Terrain was much more critical in that game. I'm guessing it was left to the defender to mostly set it up in DBM as well. In Impetus it is basically taking turns to roll for a piece and then place it. What is more important is the deployment sequence and being able to place your troops to the best advantage if you can see where the enemy has deployed. Again Impetus has a phased sequence in four stages, heavy infantry, then missile troops, then cavalry and finally skirmishers. In each stage the defender deploys first followed by the attacker.

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