Persian problems DBA 6 x 6 AAR

After my slight diversion in South East Asia, I got back on track with the 6 x 6 challenge this afternoon and played my newly painted Spartans and Persians against each other.

The Persian army

The Spartans opposite

The Spartans were the attackers and so the Persians chose lots of terrain which thanks to some fortuitous rolling all ended up on the table. It included a difficult hill, a woods and boggy ground, as well as the compulsory 2 ploughed areas. I thought that this might play into the hands of the Persians quite nicely, and wanted to see how it might work in their favour, so the Spartans chose the emptiest table edge to deploy on.

Persian deployment took advantage of the woods and difficult hill.

The Spartans took advantage of having a big long line of spears, with more spears in behind. The helots ended up in the bog, because really, who cares about the helots?

The Persian light horse started off with a magnificent flanking manoeuvre, and by the second turn they were beginning to disrupt the Spartan army.

Except a 6 and a 1 on the die rolls saw them run away!

Never mind, next turn and we'll have another go with the Spartan frontline.

Persian shooting knocked back a spear element and began to disrupt the Spartan line - this was the Persian plan - make life hard for the Spartans by getting them to need piles of PIPs and turning the flanks.

A second shot knocks back spears on the other side of the general while the Psiloi speed bump are forced to recoil behind the spears.

However, the initial Spartan charge pushes the Persian left back.

And next thing you know a bow element explodes, exposing flanks and causing all kinds of worries for the Persians. All is not lost though. The Persian left flank bows are on difficult going which is going to disadvantage the Spartans more than them, and an element of Persian cavalry is hovering for a flank attack.

The next Persian move gets 2 pips. This is enough to spring the trap on the left and kill off a spear element, but on the right the Spartans just begin to make a bigger hole.

Which they happily go through and close the door to turn the auxilia... 

...Who go splat. That and the defeat of the bows on the difficult hill ends the game.

The comparative losses - Spartans deliver a thrashing. The final score is 5-1 as the first double based element lost counts as 2. The final 2 elements were both lost in the same turn.

I think I deployed the ploughed areas wrong - they both should have entered two board quarters. I'm not sure if they have to be deployed in the same quarter as each other - that might be a question for the Fanaticus forum.

In terms of the battle, I don't think the Persians did anything wrong as such. The plan was pretty sound, but there were a number of 6-1 opposed dice rolls that went in the Spartan favour, and low PIP dice for the Persians in the last couple of rounds. Spear armies are certainly more effective than they were under DBA 2.1, and the mass of spear elements did an impressive job on their opponents. I'll definitely be taking these two armies for another run soon to see if I can develop tactics for the Persians. I think the Spartan tactics are pretty straight forward.

Nate