AW

Ancient Warfare magazine

Monday, September 5, 2016

Defense in Depth - Testing L'Art de la Guerre

       So, how effective was Roman deployment in multiple lines anyway? Or, more specifically, how well does deploying in depth work using the L'Art de la Guerre rules?

Both armies are deployed! The Romans have a very narrow front, depending on their cavalry to protect the flanks.

       During the Roman republic it was quite a common for Roman armies to deploy in multiple lines - in this case three.
  • The first line was made up of the less well armored hastati.
  • The second line was made up of legionaries with a tad better armored - chain shirts in this case, called principe.
  • The third and final line was made up of not only the best armored troops, but the most veteran - the triari.
One might also count the velites - light skirmish infantry - as a separate line as well, being well positioned ahead of the army ready to pitch their javelins at the advancing enemy.

The Gauls were a good mix of warriors on foot and on horseback.

       Curious as I am, I wanted to see how well my favorite ancient rules hold up using a deployment such as this. I saw right away I would have to make some adjustments to the rules, although minor. For one, I would not be using the standard rules for deploying armies in left, right, and center corps. I would still divide the army in to three corps, just not being so strict as to where each was deployed. In addition, since I would be using only two legions, I decided that each legion would be a separate corps. The third and final corps would be the armies general, consisting of only the two units of triari. These would be positioned in the third line and in the center. Each of the remaining two legions would deploy on the right and left and would both be deployed in two separate lines, representing the first/hastate line, and the second/principe line Each of these two legions also included some non-legionare troops in the form of cavalry - both Roman and Numidian. Each legion also had a couple of units of velites. These were deployed ahead of the hastate/first line. In addition, to avoid front units routing and causing cohesion hits on rear friendlies, I left gaps between each line of just over 1UD each.

       The Gaul army had a nice mix of med. and hvy. infantry which were impetuous. They also have a good number of cavalry on both flanks - more than enough to handle the meager Roman cavalry.


As the attacker in this scenario, the Gaul army surges forward on all fronts, quickly engaging the flanks of the Romans
       Right from the beginning I knew that I would have issues protecting the Roman flanks, preventing an envelopment of the legions - thoughts of Zama spring to mind here. However, I decided to carry on with the battle.


As the Roman flanks are engaged, the initial wave of Gaul warriors crashes in to the Roman defenders. This first wave was made of the med. infantry. Also note the intense and close run cavalry fight on the Roman left. The Numidians went toe-to-toe with the Gaul cavalry here for some time during the battle.

Although the Roman right flank was defeated in detail, the first Roman line remained intact after losing a unit and receiving heavy losses. I knew at this point that I would have to commit some rear line troops to defend that right flank. Not exactly what I wanted to do.

It was obvious to me that the flanks would play a huge role in the battle's outcome. Of course, this is not unlike what occurred historically in many battles.

The Gaul left penetrates deep on the flank of the Romans, pushing back the velites, forcing a unit of triari to commit. Also note the first line of Romans has weathered the initial assault and

At this point, with no on-board camp to worry about, I considered going on the offensive with the legions in order to hasten the fight in the center. However, since this was more of a test to see the value of the defense in depth, I chose to stay back and see how effective the rear ranks would be in defending against flank attacks.

As the main Gaul infantry approach, the rear ranks become more and more engaged as the Gaul cavalry defeat the Roman left wing as well! Both triari have been committed, as well as the second line. Not what I expected.

At this point in the battle the fighting was all over the place. The first Roman line, although battered initially, still was intact. The rear lines were all but fully engaged and committed to the fight on the wings.

The battle was pretty much over at this point, with the Gauls withdrawing from exhaustion. The Roman first line is once again assaulted - this time by the more worthy heavy Gaul infantry.

The Romans are engaged on all fronts! There is no doubt that the Romans at this point were in trouble. However, being less resilient than their opponents, the Gaul forces initial impetuousness was spent. It was only a matter of time before they would fatigue and withdraw from the fight.

       The battle was over. It should be noted that I kept playing the fight longer than I should have. The Gaul army was defeated a tad earlier, but I kept the game up regardless. Even so, it was a close fight for both sides.

       Although the test didn't go the direction I wanted - testing out the defense in depth against a frontal assault, it did show how effective the deployment was at protecting against flank attacks. The Romans were able to shift forces relatively quickly against the less able Gaul cavalry, dealing with them quite effectively.

       Realistically, having a much smaller frontage, the Romans would often deploy rear ranks to extend the front. Optionally, the flanks could have had more troops as well.

       Overall, it was a fun battle. Exciting throughout - as the L'Art de la Guerre rules tend to be, I enjoyed every bit of the fight. Although not having been able to test out the durability of the three lines against heavy frontal assaults - at least in the manner I planned, I did learn a lot about the effectiveness of the system to adapt as needed. I also learned the vulnerability of the flanks! Again, I kept thinking Zama as the flanks each crumbled.
http://www.artdelaguerre.fr/en/index.php?lang=en&PHPSESSID=2ab3235fd56c9c9241a791617fc30a4c
      
       I hope you enjoyed the article. I hope to have another like this soon. In fact, I am already planning some scenario type battles for use with L'Art. More on these in the coming months.

Until next time...

~K





Friday, September 2, 2016

Rome v. Gaul: L'Art Action Online!

       Last week I saw myself fully engaged in running a fantastic game of L'Art de la Guerre for some of the members of the TtC community. This was basically a two player game, although several different players took command as the battle raged. I myself also took command of one side to fill in for a missing player. Was a really enjoyable battle that really brought out the best in the L'Art rules.

The rushof the Gauls on the Roman battle line.

       This was a 200 point battle featuring the Republican Romans against the army of Gaul. The battle lasted a total of nine turns and saw the Roman army under the command of David Nickols pull off a close contested win - Gaul exceeded their break point by four points.

The Gaul army quickly defeated the Roman elephant and gained control of the Roman right wing.

       I really enjoy the L'Art rules system. It seems a perfect blend of some other well known and popular sets of rules, such as DBx, FoG, and Impetvs. Not only that, it allows for small armies for the beginner, as well as larger battles on a typical 6' x 4' table, or larger. These rules have really caught my attention and I am pretty sure they have now become my "go-to" rules for ancients gaming, along side DBA and Impetvs. I still need to try the Hail Caesar rules, however.

Some things I really enjoy about the L'Art rules:

  • foot elements - called 'units' in L'Art - look more impressive, being 2-3 bases deep;
  • allows for small DBA-like armies, as well as bigger armies;
  • lots and lots of army list included in the rules;
  • analytical rules without being overly complex;
  • similar feel to both DBx and Impetvs;
  • feels like an ancients battle!

These Numidians would be soon driven from the field.
       Of course, the rules are not perfect. I always liked unit reactions to combat, such as push-backs, recoils and retreats. L'Art has none of that - it does allow some limited disengaging from melee, however. The rules themselves could have been better organized and written in some respects. It can be a chore remembering some of the more fiddly things. All minor complaints really.

We used these markers spread between the various commands as a visual aide for players.

Late in the fight. You can see the Romans have completely defeated the Gaul right, and Gaul has all but broken through the Roamn right!

The Romans cleaning up the Gaul right flank.

Very early on the Gauls were very aggressive and launched head-long into the Roman lines.

A close up of the Gaul troops breaking through the Roman right. All that remains is a lone Creten unit.

Last turn of the fight! Rome wins!
        With the battle over, I have now moved on to another scenario - a SOLO affair. Perhaps I will post this one later. I will be pitting my Republican Romans against the horde of Gaul once again, this time using some historical deployments to see how the Romans fair. Stay tuned.

Until next time...

~K



Wednesday, June 22, 2016

A Naval Project?

Hi everyone. Been a long while since I did an update here on the Wall of Shields. For one thing I had to shut the blog down for a while as I was attempting to re-organize all my blogs in to one. Didn't work out too well. So, here we are once again :) This time I will be keeping the blog separate from all my other blogs as I know a lot of people have more interest in ancients wargaming as opposed to my other interests, such as WW II.

https://ospreypublishing.com/poseidon-s-warriors


Anyway, just ordered the newest Battle Mat from Cigar Box, Caribbean Waters, and it looks FANTASTIC! This of course is for a new project of mine - ancient naval! Always wanted to do this, so I am pretty stoked to get an awesome mat to go with the project. Way better than just a solid blue piece of felt!

http://cigarboxbattlestore.bigcartel.com/product/caribbean-waters-4-x6-plus-350


In other news, I am trying to get back in to finishing up my last DBA campaign - Rome and the Gauls! It's been a while and I really want to get back to working on my campaign rules. Should be interesting after all this time has gone by.

Anyway, glad to get back to posting something on here and plan on doing more.

Till next time,

~K

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Some Plans for the NEW Year

Well, after some adventures with my Napoleonics (which I am quite happy with at the moment) I am itching to get going with some plans for my ancients hobby. First up I have quite a ways to go expanding my Gaul and Polybian Roman armies. I try and add a new unit for both every week or so, and so far so good. The painting continues.



Some of my completed ancient armies.
Hosting some LIVE plays over on the Tabletop Commanders has been a blast. Recently I did some Blucher games and learned a lot about how to improve the quality of the videos. For those not in the know, a LIVE play is a game session played LIVE over Google+ Hangouts. For more on this check out the Tabletop Commanders link here on my blog. Anyway, I will be planning a Basic Impetvs battle next month for everyone. Been a while since I last played this awesome system. Although L'Art de la Guerre  is my rules of choice for ancients wargaming, Impetvs will always have a place on my bookshelf. Regardless, stay tuned for that as I will have more information on the details of the event - and results - later.
Another thing I want to finish is my last DBA campaign between the Gauls and the Romans. If you check my past posts here on the blog you will notice I never got around to finishing that last campaign - I think we did two battles so far? Anyway, I definitely want to pick that up soon as well. That campaign, by the way, is a playtest of our two-player campaign rules we have been working on. You can find the latest version of that in the files section here on the blog.

As far as what NEW projects I want to get to this year, I am not so sure. My options are plentiful, that's for sure. I still want to build some NEW armies for the early dark ages, as well as some early Greek stuff. However, first up will be the period that has my attention the most, which is the early republican Roman ear. I already have a start on Later Seleucids and Numidians, two armies which I will be expanding soon. Carthaginians and more Successors (Ptolemaics and/or Macedonians?) will eventually be in the works as well. But again, my hands are full with my current plans, so I will not get ahead of myself yet. Oh, and there is of course my massive re-basing of my Feudal English armies as well! As many of you might know, all these miniatures were mounted for Impetvs. However, I have since lost faith with that mounting system - the bases are just too big and clumsy for me as I like lots of terrain on the table. SO now I am re-basing everything over to the DBx standard. This will take some time.


King Henry III of England: mounted and ready for battle!

Some of my Impetvs based feudal English in need of re-basing.

So there it is; plans for the year - or at least the coming few months. I hope you all stay tuned as I get more and more done and add some awesome content to the blog.