The Battle of Megara 432BC - An Ancient Greek Batrep

Seven Rejects got together for a game last weekend. Postie put on an Ancient Greek game!! Can't remember when we last played a game with these, its got to be at least 5 years!!!!

Look out for the Spartan side of the story on Fran's blog soon.....

As normal in Ancient Greece, peace never lasted long. Sparta has accused Athens of breaking the Thirty Years Peace Pact, that was agreed in 445BC. Both sides have gathered their forces and various allies looking for glory and plunder. The armies have met on the plains just outside of the town of Megara on the Corinthian peninsular.

The Game

Both sides can deploy a maximum of 20 inches on the table and will only have 10 minutes to deploy and discuss tactics.....The Oracle will be consulted before battle commences???

The Sides

Sparta - Richard

Boatons - Fran

Tegeons & Corinthians -Dave

Athenians - John

Phocians - Surgit

Thebans - Ray

The Initial setup

After a very quick 10 minutes we, the Athenians and allies had our battle plan. it was quite a simple plan. Surg on our left would pull left and envelope the dreaded Spartans, John would smash the centre, while I would attack on the right and try and get my skirmishers and cavalry around the flank......simple!!

Sparta, Boatia and the Tegeons & Corinthian Alliance

It!

The Athenian Alliance's Hoplites

The Boatians

All was going swimmingly until just before the first move......... 

We all had to throw 2 D6, to see if the Gods were on our side?

Guess what dick through a double 1??

Yeh me!!

I was abandoned by the Gods, therefore my morale was a tad off??

While everyone else was either favoured by the Gods giving them bonuses, I was condemned to a slow and painful living death in Hades....oh goodie what a great start to the game!

My punishment was for the first 2 turns of the game I was unable to move any troops, if any of my command were charged they would flee from the battlefield. On turn 3 I could, If I was still there throw once again for favour of the Gods.

So?? Our battle plan was well and truly up the swany!!

A quick change of plan, we decided to hold in the centre and hope that Dave, couldn't get to my troops very quickly. As expected he threw all of his light troops forward in a mad dash to get to me.

John moved his archers on the hill, it was more of a sacrifice, to stop Dave's archers 

and slingers battering me to a pulp!

My two cavalry units, enjoying the weather, blissfully unaware of the

oncoming onslaught!!

The Athenians stand firm while the Phocians move forward, the Spartans and allies advance.

The Corinthian archers on the hill take a pounding, but our Athenian archers destroyed

 but a hail of arrows and shot.

Surg continues to move around the Spartan flank.

The Spartans themselves!!

The line holds steady...

It was time for me to re-throw my luck of the Gods dice.....

Phew!!! I threw well this time a 10!

So well infact that the Gods now favoured me. I could add a plus 1 to any 1 of my melee's

Just in time as well, me and Dave charged each other...

The Corinthians

Lots more firing knocks casualties from my Horse archers and Dave's slingers 

Dave won the melee by 1 and knocked me back 2 inches.

Nearly there!!!

Our right, Surg looks to double team a unit of Spartan Hoplites.

Richard's Spartans are the first to lose one of many Generals to die this day!!!

Come on Surg!!!!!

I'm getting battered on the right, I'm throwing well but Dave's taking the pi$$!!!

It's gonna be one of them days!!

And they meet!!

Rich's unmatched Spartan unit marches straight through the gap

The words mullered spring to mind!

Out of 9 melees we only won 3

The cream of Boatia smash through the ranks of Athens...

My Thebans, one of our only three wins this turn.

Surg's Phocian's our only other win

Apart of course of the double teamed Spartan unit, who flee

Two shots of the victorious Spartan's and their allies.

The next turn got even worse for us.....

The Spartans and allies smashed back into our retreating units.

Destroying and routing units with ease!!!

The dice Gods were definitely on their side, we couldn't do a thing?

It's a bit confusing but most of the units in the pic are theirs, my beaten Thebans can be 

seen retreating at the bottom of the picture surrounded by the enemy!!

Most of John's Athenian's are dead....

While on our left there is still a little life left, but its all far too late...

As only a mere third in command, I begged my Commanders to sound the retreat, but they refused!

So I, for fear of my beloved Thebes left the field of battle with my remaining men, much 

to the scorn of my side, but with honour, from my foe.

I, for one would live to fight another day......

It was a great days gaming, Dave's dice throwing (and I'm sure his side, Fran included will admit), were bloody ridiculous!!!  But me throwing a double 1 for the Omens......what can I say???

ACW batrep - Battle of the Academy

The Initial setup

 Last weekend some of the Rejects got together for an ACW game using Fire and Fury rules. Me and Ian were the Union, and John and Surg were the dirty Rebs!!!
It was a hard fought battle, possibly the game was one and lost on the first throw of the dice???

My command move on the table in column.

Myself and Ian's challenge was to defeat the forces of evil, John and Surg's Confederate force and try and take the Rebel Academy as a great piece of Propaganda for our war effort.

The Academy

My left wing was out in the open, but facing them on the road were 4 units of Reb Cavalry. They were also in column, but move a hell of a lot faster then my troops.

Ian's command on the other hand were on the wrong side of the river, which meant he'd have to get across  the bridge to play a part in the game, BUT although he had a lot of units the 4 in the front were Green units, which if you've played Fire and Fury, you'll know that's not good!!

We lost the first move which enabled Surg to get a unit to the bridge before Ian. 

An early battle winning opportunity lost perhaps???

As my and Ian's Commanders were on opposite sides of the river we were unable to talk or even make a pre-battle plan. I knew I had to get some if not all of my troops over to the bridge to aid Ian's crossing. this turned out to be a lot harder than we both thought. While the evil twins were allowed to converse freely as they were attached from the start of the game.

John moved his Cavalry round to my flank, forcing me to deploy rather sooner than I wanted too.

Surg's troops continue to enter the table, all heading for the bridge.

In a bit of a puzzling move, John moved 2 regts of Cavalry towards the centre of the table??

So I unlimbered my 2 artillery pieces, to give the Rebs cavalry a few shots!!

Ian was having a real bad day at the dice, while Surg wasn't!!

Surg moved a unit to try and challenge my forward movement.

Taking advantage of John's movement I shot both infantry and artillery at long range, knocking 

off a stand from each unit.

The Rebs didn't like taking the casualties, so I fired again, both units received a yellow marker, denoting them as "Not Fresh" anymore.

It just wasn't happening for us on the bridge....If only we'd won the first move!!!

I carried on moving my right flank troops up to the bridge.

In a daring move Ian, managed to get a unit across the river, but it was in such a state, he just tried to get it out of the way, before it retreated back over the bridge and disordered all of his troops!!

I charged and smashed one of John's unit's of cavalry that he'd just dis-mounted, they were

 destroyed to the man.

Now it was Surg's turn to charge!! His dice rolling was crippling!!!

Luckily he failed to charge, Ian's Green unit in the flank!

I carried on my movement to the centre of the battlefield and the Academy.

It was looking bad.............

Our Union reinforcements turn up, unfortunately for us they were only 2 units of cavalry, while the Rebs received 5 units of Reb infantry!!! We thought it looked dodgy before?? How wrong we were!!!

Luckily for the Rebs, they were trying to flank us with their cavalry, when our reinforcements came on. So were in the right place at the right time.

Me and Surg squared each other up!

By now Ian was getting quite sick of Surg and his lucky dice rolls!!! 

Git!

I dismounted a unit of cavalry, with just average dice I should see off the threat from the Reb Cavalry?

We were never going to get over the river, Surg threw well again in melee and Ian was thrown back 

over the bridge. The game was nearly up....

Our last and only hope was for me to defeat Surg on the hill and follow up towards the bridge...

I outnumbered him 2:1, but the dice gods bit us on the arse again!

I threw a modest 4 to Surg's 10!!!

We threw in the towl without even working out the result!!!!

Fire and Fury strikes again!!!