Trying out Age of Hannibal

I am a fan of Little Wars TV and as I watched their Pyrrhic War series it struck me that I could reconfigure my Greek armies very easily to use their 'Age of Hannibal' quick play rules.  All that was needed were some square sabots on which to put two of the infantry bases I normally have in groups of 4 or 6, while the cavalry could be used as they are without any modification.  So, a few months ago I set up a game with my normal sparring partner.  He led a Theban army against my Athenians.

Each of us had a lot of hoplites, the majority of which were rated as inexperienced, backed up by some cavalry and light troops - the Thebans having some more cavalry but less peltasts than the Athenians, the latter having slingers as against archers for the Thebans.  We each were given some points to add traits to some of our units, or to field a couple more units if we wanted.  Both of us opted to improve the troops we had, The Thebans giving some of their hoplites the 'Fast' trait and others 'Veteran'.  The Athenians gave half their experienced hoplites the 'Veteran' trait.

We used the terrain set up, the Athenians drawing nothing but a couple of woods and a stream, all of which they placed on their left.  The Thebans drew lots of hills and a marsh as well as more woods.  They chose to put all the hills in the centre of their side of the table, with the marsh in front and the woods again out to the flanks. On rolling for deployment, I had to set up the Athenians first.   Perplexed as to what the enemy had in mind with his terrain placement I deployed conventionally with the phalanx across the centre, my peltasts on my left where the woods and stream gave some extra protection, Cavalry and slingers on the more open right.

 The Theban general then deployed all his light troops on the hills in the centre with a body of hoplites and all his cavalry on his left.  Less than half his hoplites were on the table, so I deduced that among the terrain cards he had also drawn a stratagem that allowed him to make a flank attack and that this would come against my right where his deployed forces would give it most support.  Could I turn my ponderous phalanx in time to meet the threat?

 On turn 3, the rest of the Thebans arrived on my right flank in a deep mass as expected.  

My centre was holding together quite well but the left-most group of hoplites had broken off to avoid running into bad terrain and the peltasts were still a way from the action.  On the right, my slingers were making no impression on the Theban light cavalry and were running out of room to fall back.

When the clash came the results were fast and brutal. The Thebans failed to co-ordinate their two main attacks, the smaller group hitting the less experienced end of my line first.  They got one push back but lost three of their units without loss to the Athenians.

When the main body of Thebans hit my line, it was like waves dashing themselves on a rock.  Three more hoplite blocks were cut down, along with some of the cavalry that were thrown in to support them.  Only on the right flank did the Thebans have any success, driving back the Athenian slingers but then finding themselves facing a line of light cavalry  placed to prevent any exploitation.  To the Athenian left, the inexperienced hoplites failed to repeat their successes from the previous turn but had a reserve line and cavalry coming to back them up while the peltasts had made short work of the Theban archers.

We called the game at that point as although the Thebans still had a little morale on their clock we had gone beyond our time allowance.

Our verdict was that the game might have gone very differently if we had played on a 4 by 8 rather than 5 by 8 board.  The extra distance gave the Athenians enough time to turn while giving the Thebans a long way to go to get to grips.  Whether that would have been enough to offset the really bad dice rolls by the Theban general is an open question.

As for the rules themselves, they are very clear and easy to play.  Next time we would try using 8 sided rather than 10 sided dice to see how this changes the balance and perhaps require the phalanx to turn as individual blocks rather than groups, which would make things more realistic.  I very much doubt that a Greek phalanx, other than the Spartans on a good day, could have carried off the swing that mine did to get into action without chaos.