Fatimid Egyptian vs Byzantines

[Phil Portway]

500 Points using Sword and Spear Egyptians had 16 dice and Byzantine had 15 dice.

Egyptians won scouting and Byzantines placed first, The set ups
Byzantine:




Egyptian:




Turns 1 and 2 were of position and manoeuvre.

Turn 3 saw the first clash:
Franks smash into a Ghilmen unit and caused only one casualty and received 1 Casualty 


Egyptians also lost 2 light horse units to shooting



Turn 4 & 5:were very bloody for both sides and I forgot to take pics for turn 4,

Turn 5











Here are the casualties:
17 points, Discipline tests were all passed 



19 points and a Captainfailed 3 Discipline tests. The units that failed took a casualty


Last turn - 6:
Egyptians got the luck of the draw.










The last turn, the Byzantine lost another 2 units which took them over half their army points and they broke. A Fatimid Egyptian victory. caused by bad dice rolling on the Byzantine side of the table. Although the Egyptians rolling was just as appalling in the early stages of the battle.

A hard fought enjoyable game.   

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

Very nice looking armies, but where's the terrain!

[Phil Portway]

Very nice looking armies, but where's the terrain!

We started a bit late, so did away with terrain. We are still learning the rules too, so we want "action" to see how the different troop types work

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

We started a bit late, so did away with terrain. We are still learning the rules too, so we want "action" to see how the different troop types work

Fair enough. How did you find the rules?

[monkeylite]

Yeah, Looks like a great battle. I'd be interested in hearing about Sword and Spear, too.

Also, how many points for a wagon wheel?

[julesav]

Lovely game! I wondered about the 'wagon wheel' too!

[Phil Portway]

Fair enough. How did you find the rules?

We are really enjoying them. We have a group of about 12 now into Ancient and Medieval wargaming again. Gives me the opportunity to break out the 10 or 12 15mm Armies I have!

Well worth a try!
 

[Phil Portway]

Yeah, Looks like a great battle. I'd be interested in hearing about Sword and Spear, too.

Also, how many points for a wagon wheel?

They are there for scale!

[Polkovnik]

Great looking game. Good to hear the game went well and you are enjoying the rules.

[Phil Portway]

Great looking game. Good to hear the game went well and you are enjoying the rules.

Mark, they have definitely made an impact on our club, and the ancient players are coming out of the woodwork to play in both 15mm and 28mm.

A fine set of rules, with no house rules either! Yaay!

[Little Odo]

Wagon Wheels have come on a bit since I were a lad - they were about the size of my hand 40 years ago, now they are as big as 6 armed men on horse back - plenty enough to feed an all conquering army. 

[warchariot]

Fair enough. How did you find the rules?

I also wonder what people think of the dice mechanic that drives the game. We have played three different battles with these and we're having issues with dicing for actions. What I mean is, most troops need a 4 on a D6 to activate, higher to do anything other than basic moves. You pull dice at random for both sides and then roll your dice. A one is a failure while you need to meet or exceed your discipline number to act. A commander improves your discipline by one if attached. This means 2s work only for 3 rated units with a commander. You receive one die for each unit, each turn, none for commanders. You then lose dice one-for-one as you lose units.

This means a lot of troops can't do anything, or very little in a turn. It also means that your opponent can dictate the battle at times in some parts of the field because you can't do anything about them. I get this is the command control part of the game and that both sides are under the same constrictions, but I wonder if it is too restrictive?

We last played several months ago and are now rereading and looking for mistakes we may have/probably made. For example, we last played Marathon. We used 8 units of  Greek hoplites. There were three discipline 3 units and five with a discipline of 4. They were in three commands along with three light units, one a Cretan Archer unit rated as 3 the others were 4s. 11 units total, four 3s and eight 4s with three commanders.

The Persians had 14 units total, 10 rated as 4s and four as 3s, also with three commanders. Now the battle went okay except for the major problems we had moving units. It caused us to wait with units instead of piece-mealing them in. it became frustrating for us to the point we put it away for awhile. We had other issues, but feel we could fix these-heavy armor is a great advantage even when hit on the flank/rear by multiple units-see link below.  

So one fix we're thinking about going from D6s to D8s for activation and leaving everything else as is...ideas?

Here is a link which might give you so more information/tactic/ideas from their forum:

   http://polkovnikproductions.freeforums.org/first-game-of-s-s-greeks-v-persians-t676.html

I like a lot about this games, just not sure about turns where I can't do much or at times, anything.
 

[monkeylite]

I also wonder what people think of the dice mechanic that drives the game.

I didn't think about using bigger dice, but it did cross my mind to, say, stick 6 more dice in the bag each, and draw out 9 at a time.

That way you're more likely to get to move most things, and also get to play with some doubles.

[warchariot]

We talked about adding three more, one for each commander as extras or not removing dice for light troops that die. Each have some advantages and disadvantages. 

[fred]

I'm not familiar with these rules, but can you roll more than 1 dice per unit?

If so is the intention that you focus your dice on part of the battle field for one turn, then another part later on?

Rather than using d8, you could just go with a flat +1 to activate. I know from other games (such as Warmaster and Hail Caesar) that having units that fall to activate around half the time becomes frustrating fairly quickly, at least those systems allow you the chance of multiple moves. It looses the feel of command and control and starts to feel a bit random.