Something went wrong: La Rosiere 1347

So last week, I had a game of Armati at the club; once again probably the last big game I'll get for a while.

A French army of some 130 foot and 40 horse faced around 150 English foot and 20 horse; well over three hundred models filled the little club table.

Chris commanded the English and with a little advice deployed in the classic English formation of bowmen interspersed with heavy infantry, and a small flank guard of Sergeants and Knights.

I as the French opted for similarly classic lines, i.e. cavalry to the front en-masse, infantry lines to the rear and the left.

Thick lines of French infantry back up the knights. Figures include Games Workshop, Essex, Blacktree Designs and Prince August.

English Billmen. Games Workshop 5th edition Bretonnians.

French knights, Foundry and Essex miniatures.

English mixed lines. Bowmen by Irregular and men at arms from Foundry and Copplestone castings.

Flemish allies and English longbowmen. Essex and Games Workshop figures respectively.

Anyway. The battle itself. Being Armati, it was a fast affair, less than two hours to set up and play, despite the size of the forces.

The French essentially charged the English lines to minimise the effect of massed archery. They were spectacularly lucky on their first turn to take only one hit from the bowmen. Wood on the right hampered their supporting mounted men at arms, but not seriously.

However the English were able to manoeuvre their limited cavalry reserves to threaten the advancing French flank. And as the cavalry approached more casualties were suffered. Elsewhere the French infantry halted to support their Genoese crossbowmen.

The charge went in regardless of the threats...

And in doing so, it smashed the English lines, causing several routs. In return one unit of knights was destroyed. The French reserves were able to counter the flank attack of the English Sergeants, who were unable to do more than stall the French knights.

And soon it was all over. To many English formations broke, unable to do more than slow the initial tide of the attack. The French eventually beat the English 8-3 on unit losses with a requirement to Break 7 units to win and have 5 of their own broken to lose.

Yes, that means I won.

Whoopee!

Finally, a bit of luck.

The battle of Via Cassia - 391bc

Sunday afternoon; ideal for a game.

In an effort to have time for other things, but get maximum numbers of men on the table I set a game of Armati with Chris. Republican Romans versus Gauls; a grand total of about 450 figures.

Opening deployments - conducted by drawing maps, Chris managed to deploy his elephants wisely to face my cavalry, and thanks to some very decent advice from me (it was only his second game with these rules) formed a conventional but very handy centre. Being Celtic I had no alternative but to form big long lines...

Those Gallic masses:
Tight bodies of Romans:

Opening moves; the Celts rushed forwards, whilst the Romans addressed their flanks.

Turn two and Gallic skirmishers gave the Roman velites a bloody nose in the woods.

Turn three; the Celtic hordes smash on the wall of Roman shields. The had no success. But time was being bought to exploit the huge gap in his defenses that Chris had left...

Several units of Celts are lost, but a crucial Roman unit is lost on the flank, is it too late that Chris has realised he is being enveloped?

Arrrgh! the second line, including slaves, old men and women, goes in.

The Elephants charge into the cavalry. unfortunately for them their approach was badly harried by Celtic skirmishers. They then got flanked by the same. They lasted only seconds in battle.
Celtic cavalry tried to exploit the loss of the Elephants, and an Allied Latin unit fell on the far left, but the centre held firm in a massive melee.

And ultimately it was a comfortable win for Rome.

This was a big game, core armies plus 40 points of bonus troops. Nevertheless, because of the swift and reasonably believable game engine of Armati, it was all over within 2 hours. One of the reasons I like this set of rules. Their great for moving lots of models around, and yet getting a result (or two) within the sort of length a club night allows.

On the downside, Armati don't cater for anything other than stand up fights. But if you are not aiming to run a campaign, or small scale actions, they are just the job!

Armarti - the war against Etruria

OK, so for a bit of variety I took Armarti to the Leeds club this past week. It was another opportunity to 'display my wares' so to speak, and Armarti as a set of rules have the advantage of being very simple to run through in an evening, even with players who've never played the game before.



As makes sense, I'd preselected a couple of matched armies - Early Roman Republicans, and Etruscan Greeks (i.e Greeks with a warband ally for novelty value, a simple tweak of the Armarti Greek list). Once the players had the basics of units explained they deployed based on their map plans.

Armarti is dependant on the map deployment, like historical generals of the time players plan the fight with no idea what the enemy will do for sure; I wish more games used so simple a method, it produces fascinating results. Here the Etruscans deployed wide, whilst the Romans deployed deep and entirely refused their right flank.



Battle commenced and the Romans moved aggressively to try to outflank the Etruscans. Armarti dictates armies have a fixed number of available formations in a game. This limits tactical flexibility. The less flexible Etruscan army had to deploy a huge line, which spent the early game redressing to face the enemy.



The Cavalry battle eventually went the way of the Romans, though the horse were battered, their commander tried in vain to rally them. Eventually chosing to attack the Etruscan psoloi in the rough ground. An error as psoloi fight at their best in difficult ground - each unit has three combat factors, one for fighting in good going, one for difficult ground and one for being hit in a flank; in this case foot troops are better han cavalry in rough going. This as a result allowed the psoloi to hold the Roman flank attack up, whilst the phalanx closed with the Roman centre.



The figures used were from my extensive 20mm ancients collection. A mixture of Zvezda, Hat, Nexus and Revell in this case.



Late in the day the Etruscans clashed with the Princeps in the centre. At the rear the Etruscan general was lost along with the warband, to a cavalry charge in its' flank. In the end the Etruscans crumbled first in the cantre, largely through not being willing to attack the available flank of the Romans. It was a straight 5-0 break point victory to the romans.

Armarti is a good game, hampered mainly by only being suitable for stand-up fights. It is however quick to play once you are familiar with the conventions it uses you can get two games in, in the shortest of evenings.

My figures attracted a fair deal of favourable responses too, which is always nice!