Mortem et Gloriam - Alexandrian Macedonians vs. Late Achaemenid Persians (3/4/2018)

I should have titled this, "Bigger is Better".

Now that's a great hand - if I had a tribal army!

In my third game of Mortem et Gloriam (MeG), I went with the same Late Achaemenid Persian list I ran two weeks earlier, leaving all my mercenary hoplite and crescent shield infantry at six bases per TuG instead of removing one unit and upgrading the rest of the units to eight bases. I actually played around with the army builder available on The Wargames Zone web site but decided against changing the army composition.

Pretty much the same set up from the previous engagement

Grant went with the Alexandrian Macedonians, having misplaced the Classical Indians from the previous meeting when he went to load the car. This is a pike heavy army with a killer cavalry unit (the Companions). 



Alexander and the Companions

To be honest, I prepared for Classical Indian army - I planned to out-scout him have him set up as much of his army as I could manage in the pre-game maneuvering and then counter his elephants with my formed loose crescent shield infantry and attack his archers with my hoplites.  Regardless, the Persians and Macedonians matched up well.

Grant had to form some of his pikes into line instead of in blocks in order to match my frontage.  This meant he wouldn't get the advantage of the 4 ranks in charge or 3+ ranks in melee.

Macedonian pike block flanked by two pike units in linear formation. My archers managed to slow down and even hurt his flanking unit on the right.

The battle progressed pretty much as one would expect. The Macedonian cavalry on the flank, led by Alexander, smashed into the Persian cavalry. The strength of the Companions finally broke through the Persian left.

Light cavalry start of the action. It was a very even match.

Persians try to hold off the onslaught of Macedonian cavalry.

And in the center, the Persians with long, pointy sticks, faced off against the Macedonians with even larger pointy sticks.

Hoplites vs. pikes. I managed to create a gap in his center but couldn't exploit it before reaching my break point.

Here's where my decision not to field eight stand units affected the outcome of the battle. As I said, the two armies match up well. However, because my units were at six stands and his units were at eight, that meant my units broke at 3.5 kills while his broke at 4.5.  Nearly all of his pikes in linear formation were at or near 3.5 kills when my units also reached that point. Had I run them at eight stands I would have been able to absorb more damage and perhaps caused him to reach his break point before me.

So I'll continue to ponder, is it better to have more, yet smaller units and a higher army break point, or should I go with larger, yet fewer units with a slightly lower army break point?


And now, for some action photos:

Macedonian set up

Impending cavalry battle.

Superior cavalry hit charging pikemen. They're good at impact but this turned into a slog-fest.

Persian spearmen were no match against the pike block. Their supporting spearmen nearly broke the linear pikes but due to the unit size, the Persians broke first. They needed to score 1 kill in this combat before taking one hit themselves.



Turn 3 - right before the armies slammed into each other

Initial set up