Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Bill Chriss]

While waiting for Scott's answers to my hellenistic list questions, here's
the battle report from friday's Hellenistic Greeks v. Carthaginians with
Dave Beeson.

First, Dave e-mailed that drop me from the list message because he's
changing e-mail addresses/accounts, not for any other mysterious reason.
He was getting double e-mails. Not to worry, Jon.

Dave's Carthaginians had a couple of 5-6 base units of nasty Celtiberian
types w/ HTW, JLS, Sh, the usual Poeni spearmen in small 4E units, and
several 2E reg Spanish/Punic LMI, JLS, Sh. He had one 2E unit of El and
one 2E unit of boltshooters drawn by oxen. These were pretty evenly
divided among three commands, with the Art and El in the center. Each
command's Gen had an extra element of HC, JLS, Sh as bodygd, and the two
flank commands had a unit of LC each and a couple of units of trashy LI.
That's all I remember. Dave had 3 open spaces and a hill, which went in
his right rear.

I rolled minor water feature on my left and marsh just under it and
extending out towards the midline of the table left to right, right at
table centerline. I also put a brush in his forward zone on my right
flank, where the fightig figured to be, since my entiore left flank was
protected by the river.

Skipping directly to the chase, I learned (relearned) an important lesson
that cost me the game. On bound 3 or 4, out on my right flank, one of my
thureophoroi were poised to strike Dave's HC general with bdygd that were
tangled up with another LMI unit he charged that passed their waver
previous turn. The problem was that Dave had an LC unit within range to
charge my poised thureophoroi in the flank, cancelling their charge. I
also had an LC unit in reserve that flew in at his LC to prevent them
contacting the Thureos.

Problem was that my LC did thid by moving into his LC's charge path...They
were positioned frontally so no flank charge was possible. Result: My LC
hit his LC short of the Thureos and saved them from being hit in the
flank, but the thureos STILL COULDN"T CHarge the Carthaginian HC because
my LC did not CANCEL or PREEMPT his LC's charge upon them. My LC fights
his LC (draw). His now overlapping HC (My preempted thureos couldn't
charge into his open element frontage) break my LMI, while the well setup
thureos just sit and watch. The LC wavers for the rout nearby, and then
the entire flank collapses as Dave finds additional targets of opportunity
in the gaps now in my line.


Moral: just because your unit charges and hits an enemy charger, blocking
it from its original target, doesn't necessarily mean the target is now
free to execute his charge on a fourth unit. His charge will still be
preempted if the enemy's charge is not preempted, but merely obstructed by
your other unit "moving into its charge path."

Did we play this right?


Greek