Gallic warlord writes a Manoeuvre Check his army can't match (Okay that was a stretch and was terrible. Sorry.)
I chose to command a Gallic warband army and my opponent (who's miniatures, terrain and rulebook we were using) selected a Pontic army for a head-to-head clash. In Strength & Honour, players take turns deploying units one-by-one and generally each unit must be placed in contact wit the last unit you placed to simulate each army marching out and forming up into battle array. Gallic warbands are strong when grouped together, one unit behind the other, going straight forward at the enemy, with as little manoeuvring as possible. Knowing this, the Gallic warlord (i.e. me) decided to attempt a brilliant checkerboard deployment in a anti-clockwise snailshell manner to cleverly wrongfoot the Pontic phalanxes, outmanoeuvre their light cavalry archers, sweep around the enemy and seize their fortified camp, and develop a strong right hook with supported battle-line through a breath-taking display of tactical brilliance with series of obliques, pivots and evolutions worthy of well-drilled professionals under an orderly and disciplined command structure ...
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| Approximate positions of the Pontic and Gallic armies at the beginning of the day. |
... and you can imagine where it went from there.
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| About mid-way through the battle, with the Pontic cavalry and lighter infantry having totally outflanked the Gallic warbands (mostly top-right of picture, with enemy horse archers behind them). The Gauls are only just beginning to get themselves untangled from their own formation. |
Cutting apart the Gaulian Knot (Did I really write that? This is getting worse.)
Only with advice from my opponent about movement options and the favour of the Gaulish god of fortune Improbulus on a few lucky defence rolls at critical moments were the Gauls able to hang on and avert total catastrophe.
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| The disordered Gaul warbands manage to about-face just in time to face the Pontic cavalry (the bases of tiny 2mm miniatures show swirling columns of horse archers wheeling and firing). |
With some likewise lucky manoeuvre rolls to cut through the knot they'd gotten themselves into, the warlord and his core warriors swung around just in time to counterattack the Pontic flanking force that had them surrounded. In concert with a rear-guard of Gallic elite cavalry that arrived just in time to charge in on the enemy flanking force's own flank (ironic), the Gauls were able to rout the lighter Pontic formations.
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| Pontic light cavalry (with yellow Disorder marker) about to rout from the table, past a unit of Pontic soldiers who are about to be smashed into by Gallic cavalry (just off to the lower-right). My plan worked insofar as we were able to avoid the deadly Pontic phalanxes (being pointed to at top-left). |
The Gauls did manage to get in their right hook with other Gallic cavalry. On this flank the Gallic elite cavalry drove back a formation of Pontic infantry in successive turns and eventually drove them off, but at the same time our supporting light cavalry was eliminated by arrow fire. Two foot warbands went to pillage the Pontic camp, hoping to force the enemy to draw a 'Disaster Card' (that's a bad thing) but the camp proved too well-defended.
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| The phalanxes are bearing down on the Gauls, but too late. (In the distance at the top you can see the two warbands I sent off to try to take the enemy camp). |
After several hefty victories of warbands and elite cavalry over lighter Pontic units, I called 'Humonculus' (whereby the enemy checks his score of facedown Setback and Disaster Cards to see if their total exceeds his Army Break Point). The Pontic army did indeed break and flee the battlefield! In fact, my opponent's bad luck had carried over into the Cards, and his army would have broken some turns ago if I'd called Humonculus earlier (he'd somehow drawn something like 43 points against a 17 Break Point Army). Upon checking my own Setback and Disaster Cards it turned out my army would have been ready to break and flee some turns previous as well, so it was a very close run thing.
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| The Pontic medium cavalry (foreground) and skirmishers giving trouble to the Gallic warlord's band, but to no avail, as he gets in a 'Humonculus' first. |
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| Manoeuvres during the battle. |
Strength & Honour, especially when played with these cleverly designed 2mm miniatures, really gives the feel of a mass battle in the days of Ancient Rome. Having a workable battle plan is important (but evidently not everything), complicated manoeuvre is challenging for less skilled forces, and can result in disaster if they come unstuck, the forces are similar enough to be easy to understand but have subtle and not-so-subtle nuances that the movement, combat and morale systems bring to the fore. At first I disliked how difficult it seemed to manoeuvre units but after this, my second game, I now understand and am ok with this as a key aspect to battles of the era.
Speaking of this being my second game - the rules are easy enough for me to learn in a couple of hours' gaming from just the QRS and direct experience. The rules are absolutely worth buying, learning and exploring. I believe they will be perfect for a multiplayer map-based campaign: they fit the politico-military circumstances of the period (empires, warring tribal confederations, civil wars and shifting alliances), the importance of terrain and deployment is evident on the battle, and they will lend themselves to an efficient campaign due to the decisiveness of the large battles.
Also 2mm miniatures are ideal for representing these battles. The LaserCast miniatures look the part on the table, with orderly formations, numerous masses, wheeling horse archers, shining heavy cavalry, pike blocks, skirmishers and even elephants and chariots all distinguishable though the simple and neat style, with a bit of care in the painting of dots (helmets, coats and shields). Most formation bases are flexible enough to represent a variety of armies and the miniatures, as well as the simple 'zoomed out' terrain required, are remarkably efficient to store and transport. You could carry everything you need for a large battle in a suitcase.
Strength & Honour, as with so many Lardies' (and Lard-adjacent) products, are just great.
