My Cursed Late Achaemenid Persians (LAP vs. Early Seleucid)

You know it's going to be a bad day when you're defeated before you even set up for a battle.

Persian archers are not meant to be this flat.

In the final tune-up game for MillenniumCon, Brian and I met for another round of Late Achaemenid Persians (me) vs. Early Seleucid (Brian).  Since I outscouted him by 50%, while he placed his initial forces I began pulling out my troops. Once again I dropped my box of Persians and some spilled on the floor. The above picture is the result of me stepping on a stand.

I bought and painted the army over 25 years ago and they really reflect a different time in my gaming life. There's a mixture of basing styles, painting techniques and manufacturers. Some are dry-brushed, some are base coated and washed, others are just straight Ceramcoat paint on grey primer. Hoplites and some heavy cavalry have piano wire for spears - and no two spears are the same length. Spears are missing from many figures and some hoplite bases have figures holding thin air.  In short, this army is a mess and because of that I now think it's cursed.

I'm ready to ditch these figures, start over with new ones and get my mojo back.

Short story - I lost 15 to 6 but see the pictures for more explanation.

(Play)testing, (Play)testing, 1, 2...

A few weeks ago the session sign-up opened for MillenniumCon and I quickly registered for a few sessions of Mortem et Gloriam.  My friend Brian also signed up but he had not played the rules since last year's convention. In preparation for the upcoming convention gaming sessions we were able to get in a two games over the past few weekends.

It's been five months since I last played a game of Mortem et Gloriam so I needed to brush up on the rules while getting Brian familiar with them himself.

Attack of the huffalumps!

The First Game - Late Achaemenid Persians vs. Seleucid

Most people probably just want to see the pretty pictures so I'll keep it short.

Who: I brought out my in-munch-need-of-repair LAP army vs. Brian's Seleucid force.
What: Roughly 11,000 points per side but I did have to proxy a few LAP units with my Ancient Spanish figures.
Synopsis: Elephants smashed cavalry, cavalry fought cavalry and the Persian infantry became kebab's on the Seleucid pikes!
Outcome: This was mainly a learning game to see how the different troops fared against each other and to be sure we understood the phases.  Neither side was near break-point at the end but the Persians no longer had a right flank. However, my wallet did reach break-point by the end of the week as I had already purchased more figures to augment/replace my LAP forces.

Mortem et Gloriam - Spanish Iberian vs. Classical Indian (5/5/18)

Or, "How Average is Better".

Indian elephants at breakpoint - The moment when the Iberians win!

I first played Mortem et Gloriam at the MillenniumCon convention in November 2017.  I filled in for someone who left the game early and I think I commanded imperial or republican Romans.  I enjoyed the game very much and although I already had a Late Achaemenid Persian army I wanted to build something else.  That night, indeed during the game, I looked online at the various army lists, did some initial research on miniature manufacturers and then finally settled on an Ancient Spanish army. 

I chose to build a Spanish army because it could be used by itself or the units could be part of other armies.  I can easily field a Celtiberian, Iberian or Lusitanian army. I can add other forces to build a Carthaginian, Roman or even Sertorian army. I'm sure there are other armies I can build using these figures as a basis. I figured that if I didn't like how they played on the table, I had other options and could add different units to get a wide range of options from the units.

But there's really not much to the Spanish forces by themselves.  There's not much formed cavalry; most units do well in charge combat but get no bonus for melee; infantry is tribal which means there's not much tactical nuance. If you want to do anything other than moving straight ahead then you're going to need yellow or red cards in MeG to accomplish this.  But the one thing they have going for them is their numbers. For slightly over 11,000 points I could field two cavalry TuGs, ten infantry TuGs and five skirmish SuGs. Any opponent would have to kill six TuGs (most infantry is eight stand units) in order to win.  

So with amazing speed, I acquired and painted and fielded an army of over 350 15mm figures in less than six months. For the first time in a long time I completed a project - not, "oh I still have four packs of infantry to paint but I'm tired of this project" but honest to goodness, "I have completed the project as I planned and have nada, zilch, zero figures left to paint". Everything I ordered for this army has been painted.

Since the army was complete I needed to get them on the table to be bloodied and Grant obliged. He brought his Classical Indian army who I first faced a few months ago.   

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

Mortem et Gloriam - Classical Indians vs. Late Achaemenid Persians (2/17/2018)

About 25 years ago, when I still lived in Austin, DBM was the ancients rules of choice and I built a Late Achaemenid Persian army. It was fairly balanced and I probably had a 50% win percentage with them. Since moving to Dallas the army has been sitting in a closet and I don't think they've seen a table in at least 21 years. To be honest, until recently gaming in general had become a once or twice a year event for me and when I did game it was usually Chain of Command (WWII), Saga or some version of ACW. 

I was introduced to Mortem et Gloriam (MeG) at MillenniumCon last November. Rob Smith, Bob Huey and others ran a game on Friday night and I was able to sit in, push lead and roll dice. After one turn I was hooked. By the end of the night I had already bought the rules and began researching new armies to buy.  I knew that if I was going to get back into ancients I would need a new army to keep my interest - so I decided on Celtiberians. In the mean time, I still had my very worn, very battered Late Achaemenid Persians (more than one stand of hoplites are missing their long spears).

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WWII Orders of Battle

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