Mortiem et Gloriam Dacians with Sarmatian allies vs Spartans - a real, face-to-face, game!

After six months of lockdown without face-to-face gaming, our freedom is slightly restored. To clelebrate, Paul came round to my garden for a game of MeG.

He was trialing Spartans, a list not often seen in classical. I was drerading this, and could either use Romans (slug fest), Sassanids (shooty shoot), Picts (Dev charge and nowt else) or borrow one of the many armies I am painting/rebasing/storing for Si.

So Dacians it was, as they are nearly finished for him, and I am building them for myself at the same time. Cheap, nasty, tribal vs expensive drilled elites, perfect! It's not finished yet, so I had to proxy in two units of Nobles (Roman legion) and three cavalry units (Romans and Sassanids), but Paul was also proxying his spartans too...

Word of warning,my dice throws were aided by my 8 year-old daughter, we know how this will go!

Terrain, just about remembered how to do this! On the right is a wood, on the left a forest, and a rough hill at the rear, rocky ground on Paul's baseline, and a lump of open on the left flank represented by the sweet, sweet sweets!

Turn 1 (how do you do reports again?) My Sarmatian allied caalry swings left in front of my line of Dacian warriors (loose, tribal, average, short spear, useless javelins, ablative meat-shield) and my CinC's bodyguard (superior, dev charge, melee experts with a legendrary general, unit breakers)

It's starting to look like a Busby Berkley dance routine! Two of my cavalry cleared the approaching Spartan line, my cinc was lined up nicely, but one unit of lancers was pinned by the Spartan main line - drat!

Apart from the cinc on teh left, that's a decent hand!

Oh those are Paul's Spartiates! (Drilled. close, EXCEPTIONAL, long spear) utterly nasty troops and don't care if they charge superior lancers frontally! OUCH! this is going to hurt!

Thankfully, my CinC's unit was in range to charge them (he's +3 on a charge, I'm +3, plus legendary general EACH, this is going to be a bloodbath)! Oh, and his average, long spear, melee expert line charges my ablative meat shields...

On the other flank, with my mediocre general, a unit of average devastating charge melee experts charges a unit of short spear armed thracians in the wood. He has 9, I have 6.

Impact phase and this is NOT meant to happen! Paul's legandary general with his exceptional Spartiates (+2+2+2 =+6) rolls a red shove, my superior lancers (+1+2 = +3) on a white roll a shatter! This transfers over to the next file, my superior dev chargers gain a +2 to their already inmpressive roll (+1, +2, +2 = +5!) whereas Paul is on a +1 for long spear, +2 for exceptional = +3, so I roll a yellow vs his white and score a skull (thanks Rach). Next door, my cinc gains a +2 from this to put him on a red and white vs Paul's black, and also causes a kill! This is not how the elite of the Spartan army is meant to fight! 

We will ignore the massacre of my cavalry to the south...

In teh wood it's handbags as Paul and I fail to do any decent damage to each other!

Melee phase, and despite being at a massive minus (Paul was +5) he misses (well, double shoves, meh), my superiors wound his file!

Then, much to both our shock, Paul's elite units legs it, even more unbeliveably, his Legendary general is wounded in the rout! Unbelievable! 

My cavalry also broke, but they're only allies..

(2-2)

This does mean Paul's phalanx of Spartans can now flank and chew up my ablative meat-shields.

On the right, three units of my falx armed loonies charge (the Romano types on the left are superiors).

I lined up two charges with my cavalry on Paul's, who will no doubt evade.

While my elites turn about and wonder whether they will make it in time to save any of my normal warriors, as Paul has already blown through one unit. (2-4), while the second is already shaky!

One of my falx armed units fails to reach on the charge, while the other takes and deals a kill, as do teh superiors. In teh wood to the right, despite tking losses, the falx armed warriors deal a pile of damage to their Thracian cousins.

Paul's evade does NOT go to plan! Only going 3BW with his back to lancers, this will not be good.

Paul's next hopilite charge goes in, looking for an easy target, but my ablative meat shield throw their useless javelins and will die happy knowing that despite the odds, they can cause damage!

Beautiful figures Paul.

His light horse flee off the back of the table and count as lost (3-4). Both my units of lancers catch him in the rear. Rolling a 1 means he only goes 3, and both my units were in range to catch him (for those of a nervous disposition, look away now), 3 double reds rolled by Rach later, and Paul's unit is a one molecule thick smear across the table! (5-4)

Another unit of AMS dies to the steamroller grind of Paul's average melee expert long spear troops (+2 vs 0, ouchies) (5-6), while my Bodyguard unit crashes into the rear of a Spartan unit, causing untold damage.

Superior nobles are dealing the hits while the SPartans die,, almost got them! On their right, the two average units are slowly grinding away at the slightly better Spartans, while in the wood the Thracians decide not to stick around (7-6)

Despite having a general attached, a unit of Spartans is destroyed by the Dacian elite (9-6), but my final unit of AMS break (9-8).


But the other elite Dacians finally breaks their target breaking Paul's army (15-8).
 

We played a game! Paul's helots were not quite right, and he is rethinking the balance of his list (ideally he wants about 4 units of cavalry to back him up, as a horse master), but that is a really capable list, especially melee expert spears. He was really unlcky with is Spartiates, but it was just great to play a game again. Here's to many more.