Greeks versus Persians in the Age of Hannibal

Since doing the Pyrrhus Campaign there was some pressure to try the Age of Hannibal rules.  I am more than happy with Basic Impetus (and must get back to Impetus 2.0) but have finally given them a go.

1,000 points per side on a six by four table.

We used terrain and deployment set up from Basic Impetus.

(Because we hadn't assembled the cards for AoH).

Mark B's Persians had out scouted my Greeks.

It struck me as very much like DBA, but with more figures.

In most cases we used two classic WRG bases to represent one unit.

This gave a standard 40mm x 40mm base mostly.

It was great to get my Hoplites on the table again.  

I had started that army back in the mid 1980s.

Unlike DBA, at least at the start, the number of movement PIPs was not a problem.

The rules are very simple and perhaps I over think things when moving a unit.

The big difference to DBA was the use of an eight-sided dice.

I was not very impressed that my die rolls were regularly 1s

and unlike Impetus rolling low is always bad.

The one disorder, two disorder and third disorder dead mechanism worked okay.

The Morale Clock, an interesting idea, seemed irrelevant.  

Maybe dropping one level for every five losses might be better.

The Persians destroyed the Greek left wing.

But the Greeks did have some success on their right.

Getting photos on the big table meant a lot of the figure detail is lost,

so here is a close up.

The club's terrain cloth meant hills can be placed underneath,

resulting in figures falling over,

which you might have spotted in an earlier photo.

Based on just one game it is a bit premature to pass judgment, especially with just the use of one army and not using stratagems or the rule's terrain system.  However, I did find it a bit simple.

I could do to see some detailed examples of play, particularly movement, conforming to the enemy when units are in the way, missile fire at or by units in melee, and handling multiple units in melee.  In the latter case we paired things off if we could.  We also allowed units to fire into a melee but did not allow fire by a unit in melee.