Ptepic groaned as the world twisted again. Ptraci rolled her eyes at her brother's inability to deal with time travel. Arbath Ray looked up from the racing pages, took his wire rimmed glasses off his nose and grinned wryly. "Looks like we are attacking into Myceanean territory, anyone busy for the next few hours?"
Youbastard the Camel looked at the scene, and calculated the odds. Being the greatest mathematician had its advantages, but at least he knew with his plan and calculations, it would end better than their last encounter, if only the humans would listen to him...
Mark and I agreed a rematch, Biblical armies a go-go. Both lists remained unchanged, could I turn the drubbing I took last time? In the heat of an early September Leighton Buzzard heatwave, we deployed again.
Along with a strategic intercept, I also out scouted Mark by 30%.
Mark tried to take the table as plains, I tried convincing him I didn't need that, as I knew what happened on the plains after beating Lance in 2021, so I took it back to 'Nomral' and a village, a wood, and a large lump of rock ground secured the right flank. Mark also declared early on that he was going to force me the cone to him and not cross the halfway line. I took that as a challenge and none of my units deliberately crossed that line all game!
Many units of long spears approached the centre, pushing forwards swarms of skirmishers. To the right, four more super wheelie-bins acted as a mobile reserve, outside of these Mark had his second archer unit and a unit of nine javelin armed warriors to clear the ground
On my far left, the Medjai light cavalry escorted my two chariot units. A unit of mercenary spears and Egyptian undead spears. My skilled bows and the second spear unit sat in the centre, then another Greek spear unit,. The superior Egyptians were lodged between them and the third Greek unit. Ptepid's command of an Egyptian spears, a unit of protected combat shy archers, and my Diamond Dog poor, combat shy, unskilled skirmishers held the rocky ground to the right.
Here my army lines the mid-table ridge, waiting for Mark to strike. I had suffered three shooting casualties from Mark's archers by this point for no return.
However, my chariot wing hit a snag, or maybe a speedbump, to pull the manouevour I wanted, I needed two greens to shoot and charge Mark's chariotry, one red and two blacks was just not enough, even with a general upgrade. Looks like I would have to risk an evasion from his fast chariots. Standing and shooting not a great plan here.
To be honest, my other commands were not doing much better!
Even Ptepid, my mediocre commander, joined in the naff card fun!
.
In the centre, my Greek spears clashed with Mark's heavy foot. This time my generals decided this time they were not going to get involved with the fighting. Decent cards were few and far between as it was!
Centre right, or right of centre, I had managed to achieve my aim of combined arms attack with my superior Egyptian spears and Greek mercenaries eyeing up a Mycenaean block. The Greeks had suffered from Mark's slingers. Behind them, average Egyptians moved to cover the flank, and act as ablative armour against the threat of Mark's superior chariots To my right, my archers started a firefight with Mark's bows, while his loose javelin men threated my poor, unprotected, combat shy javelin armed skirmishers, killing a base on green dice.
This is the moment of the game.
Inevitably, Mark charged me, my chariots did the decent thing, unleashed a volley into Mark's Ben Hur fans, killing an average base, and a much needed wound on the superior chariots, and scampered to safety. Glad the Chariots I get were superior, as it gifted me extra movement to evade Mark's dangerous boys
Mark advanced a unit of unprotected skirmishers to point blank of my skilled archers. This should have netted me three yellow dice for shooting (starts on a white, goes up to green for skilled, up to yellow for unprotected). Yellow only have a 1:6 chance of missing, and 4:6 of doing something nasty to your opponent, per die. Skirmishers only need the equivalent of two bases and a wound to break, quite easily achievable with these dice. Or not!
Three blanks! .
Yellow dice.
Several expletives later...
Mark rolled his two white dice and scored two wounds to kill one of my archer bases! I could not believe it! Immediately, I sent Paul and Hammy the picture, they turned round with the odds of 1:1944 of this result happening!
This time, the shoot and charge chariots had enough decent cards to get involved. After the charge, I had lost a base from my unit of four chariots, Mark had lost a base and a half! Against his superior killing machines, we scored enough hits to kill a base, although we lost a base in the process. Psamtik watches on from the rear ranks, lessons learnt from last time, cards needed and units expanded. Mark's third chariot unit turned to threaten the flank of my spears, however, it was now Mark's turn to have a run of dodgy cards.
To their right, the Greeks chewed not-so-massive lumps out of a Mycenaean unit, very slowly, while Mark was somewhat quicker hurting my six of average Egyptian spears. My disgraced guard archers watch on
To the right, my two units of Greek mercenaries, aided by the superior Egyptians, really were putting the hurt into Mark's long spear armed heavy foot.
It had been two and three-quarter hours of fighting at this point, and no units on either side had broken. I was still this side of the halfway line too, apart from with my right hand unit of Greek mercenaries. We had turns where both sides held on, and held on.
Then, as things do in MeG, suddenly it all went off! My blue squadron of four broke Mark's average six Chariots My Superiors got lucky, they lost another base, too bad, but there were enough left to cause the hits I needed to break the monstrous heavily armoured chariots, especially as at one base deep, he no longer stopped my mounted melee experts! His third unit behind lost a base from kill a base tests, and would have been swept away by a rest charge by blue squadron next, unless they evaded, which would allow Red squadron to catch them instead. It did save my left hand Greek spears from taking a rear charge too. His general dropped to mediocre, not like he had much to control. To the right, Mark had brought up a second Mycenaean spear mob, and my Egyptian average spears did not like this, and fled. (4-2)
Which meant Mark would have piled into my disgraced bows, who had lost another base to skirmish fire and would soon be flattened by Mycenaean spears. However, to their right, my two Greek phalanxes had secured pair of victories over their great-great-great-gteat-grandfathers, breaking Mark's two central spear units (ably assisted by superior Egyptians). (8-4)
However, Mark's javelin men, having turned into my spears, had eviscerated them, breaking through. Thankfully, I had a unit of Egyptian spears on hand to counter, as Mark had pulled his second superior chariots back to plug the gap made by my spears. (8-6).I would definitely have units over the Centreline as they pursued now!
After three-and-a-half hours of torpid heat, we called it there. We talked through probabilities, it looked like a win for Psamtik and the Egyptians, as Mark's centre and Chariots were blown. Final score on a great game 10-8 (two extra points each for survival). Apart from a slow rate of getting kills, I was on for a win here. I needed two more units. His camp was open, his second average chariots were catchable, and his bow units in the backfield were tempting too. Maybe, one day, I'll get a 15 off this army. Possibly...
After three-and-a-half hours of torpid heat, we called it there. We talked through probabilities, it looked like a win for Psamtik and the Egyptians, as Mark's centre and Chariots were blown. Final score on a great game 10-8 (two extra points each for survival). Apart from a slow rate of getting kills, I was on for a win here. I needed two more units. His camp was open, his second average chariots were catchable, and his bow units in the backfield were tempting too. Maybe, one day, I'll get a 15 off this army. Possibly...
"Well, that went better," Ptaci grinned from the back of Youbastard the camel. Ptepic looked on as the armies if Psamtik disappeared into the mists of time.
"If you had listened to me, it would have been an easy win, stupid humans!" The camel mused to himself
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