TTS AAR: Classicial Indians and the Achaemenids
/Two remote games of To The Strongest played at the weekend: both featuring my newly painted Classical Indians against a cobbled together army of Achaemenid Persians.
I say cobbled together because I don’t have an Achaemenid Persian army, so what ended up on the tabletop were Assyrians as Persian cavalry, some Medes from an Alexandrian army, some Greek types as Ionians, some Scythian types as horse archers, then Sassanid Persian infantry as Sparabara and, embarrassingly and perhaps the most heinous crime, Greek Hoplites as the Immortals!
Due to lockdown, the game was played remotely i.e. the table and figures were set up at my house, with my opponent being able to see what was going on over Zoom from his house. After last week’s first attempt, I’d invested in a new webcam, so the picture was much improved:
I also bought a little tripod for my mobile ‘phone (you can see it in position, above) so it was also a lot easier to move the “battlefield reporter” camera around as well.
Game One
So a victory for the Indians: a couple of enemy units killed by missile fire, but the main damage was from the heavy chariots punching their way through the centre. After the game, Bevan mentioned that he wasn’t expecting to find “cavalry” in the centre of my line, and this discombobulated his battle plan!
I also feel honour bound to mention that the cards were most certainly not falling for the Achaemenids!
Game 2
So a second victory for the Persians, although things were a lot closer this time.
Massed longbow fire, and the elephants/heavy chariots at the schwerepunkt, proved a winning combination. Both sides had infantry with strong missile fire but weak melee skills supported by decent melee troops (his cavalry, my elephants and chariots) but I had the advantage in both areas: my longbows outranged his bows, and my elephants/chariots were a bit better than his cavalry. These two advantages gave me the win despite having less units (by one!) and less flexibility (three commands to his four).
Still, I suspect Bevan will have his revenge. Next encounter will see me fielding the Indians again, but against an Alexandrian army…gulp!