How can you tell it's a three-day weekend? Because I have the energy to do a blog post!
I finally managed to punch and set up a game of GMT's
Hoplite, the latest in the
Great Battles of History series. Here are some pictures from my first attempt at this system...
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| Battle of Delium in 424 BCE. Red units are the Boetians and the purple are the Athenians. |
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| Athenian hoplite phalanxes with their leader, Hippocrates |
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| Boetian left: skirmishers and light cavalry |
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| The advancing Boetian left is met by the Athenian light cavalry. The skirmishers draw first blood with reaction fire but are not going to fare well against horsemen. |
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| While the Athenian cavalry has cleared out most of the Boetian skirmishers on the Athenian right, they are handled roughly by the Boetian cavalry who are fresh. Meanwhile, the Athenian left is under pressure from more Boetian light troops. The Boetian hoplites, having taken some time to rest and recover cohesion from their advance up the hill in the center of the field are now beginning their advance back down toward the Athenian center. |
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| A lone Athenian skirmisher tries to hold up the advance of the Boetian right. |
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| An interesting mechanic in the game is the procedure for the initial hoplite advance. Once moving they can not stop until in contact, and when you start them moving each unit (except elites) must roll to determine the speed of their advance. Here you can see some phalanxes advancing at the walk while others are trotting. This means your line will never all contact the enemy at the same time. Very interesting from a command & control perspective. |
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With a crash of spears on shields, the Athenian hoplites spring forward and meet the advancing Boetians! Initial contact is particularly hard on the Boetian center, with a pair of Boetian phalanxes already near breaking. The numbered markers represent "cohesion hits" which are compared to troop quality - the number in the center of the counter. When cohesion hits equal of exceed the troop quality number, the unit routs.
Note that the Boetian light troops have managed to tie down one of the Athenian phalanxes, stopping the Athenians from having a heavy unit in position to flank the Boetian hoplites. |
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The Athenians have torn a hole in the Boetian center, and it doesn't look good for them. Amazingly one of the Boetian phalanxes that routed rallied and is headed back into the fight.
Despite the damage to the Boetian line, the Athenian hoplites are nearing exhaustion. Their cohesion hit numbers are high and there is no opportunity to stop and rest to regain cohesion. |
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| The center of the Athenian line routs! |
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| Three Athenian phalanxes routing is enough to reach the Athenian army break point - just barely before the Boetians reach theirs. With the Boetian general wounded, this is technically a Boetian victory in turn 5, but I would count it a draw. |
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| The GBOH series has really engaged me. After playing a bit of Hoplite I've picked up severl more titles in the series and look forward to playing them. |
I don't play board games (unfortunately) but I have to say that although the map looks spartan (no pun intended, well maybe some pun), those counters are really nice looking - very slick and not overly busy with information.
ReplyDeleteMost of the maps in Hoplite are very plain, primarily because that's the sort of ground those armies had to deploy and fight on. Everybody looked for flat, featureless areas. Any terrain at all tends to break up the tight phalanxes. The rules do a good job of reflecting that.
DeleteOther games in the GBOH series have much more colorful maps, representing a lot of different terrain.
Really interesting mechanics. So do units get eliminated completely? Or is rout the worst result a unit can inflict upon its opponent?
ReplyDeleteUnits can definitely be completely eliminated, but you'd have to attack a routing unit to do it. Phalanxes that rout and don't rally by the end of the turn are eliminated. Other routing units have to exit a board edge.
DeleteKind of like we were talking about the other day, "eliminated" units in wargames for the most part actually aren't. Yes, units take casualties but they don't just have everyone in the unit get killed, for the most part. Particularly in battles up through the Renaissance, casualties in the actual battle weren't that high until one side or the other broke - most deaths are caused during the pursuit.
The reason phalanxes get eliminated if not rallied is due to the running troops throwing down their spears and shields to get away more quickly. Even if you managed to get them all back together again during the battle, you'd still be missing the weapon systems necessary for the unit to be a phalanx. That's not the case with skirmishers or light cavalry, for example.