Doing some chariot stuff

 As I was away the week before last, I missed the initial trial of Ian's chariot rules, "Rein-bow Warriors". As Ian is the man to talk to about bronze age chariot warfare it was good to be about for game number two. Especially as game number two featured Jon's 28mm Hittites and Egyptians.

This is what we can do now. The umpire's in Cornwall, the figures are in Washington state and the players are scattered around Northamptonshire. Chris K and I were the Hittites, and Phil & Steve the Egyptians. We're nearest the camera, with the stream to our right.

Now, you have to bear in mind that the players are feeling their way forwards with a newish period and new rules. This period is Ian's passion project, and has been as long as I've known him. Some of us have dallied with his ideas over the past decades, but now he's retired he can really get them sorted out.

You should know that he sees chariots like helicopter gunships crossed with WW1 fighters. They dominate the battlefield and engage in dogfights whilst the infantry cower in fear.

Right. Turn one. We launch our chariots off from our front line, followed up by the reserves. This leaves holes in our lines, but no worries. We'll see what happens.

The smoke clouds represent the dust being kicked up by the chariots and shows the area that they are fighting in (the "dogfight arena" Ian calls it). Infantry cannot go into this zone, and can't shoot through the dust clouds.

Our respective light infantry skirts round the outside, looking for opportunities. The white and black dice represent the unit's "mettle". When it is hit this goes down and the unit takes a mettle test, which sees it drop again if it fails it. Whilst you are on the white dice you can do what you like. When that's gone, your actions are restricted. 

The green dice represents arrow supply for chariots.

We had discussions about why the Hittites would deploy to create holes in their lines, and how easy it was to close them up. Ian changed his view on the latter point during the game - it's why we playtest - but for now it was a hard thing to do. I tried to move my infantry across to the right to close up and get at that open flank. And avoid the Egyptian archers.

This is Jon rotating the chariots as they whirl around each other.

As the chariots shoot at each other, the light infantry exchange missiles too on the left and right flanks.

In the far distance, Phil is moving his infantry across to cover that open flank. 

We've lost our light infantry on the left, and on the right both units have caused their opponents to rout.

Having shot off their arrows both sets of chariots retired to resupply. This sequence caused some vexation. Ian wants to use simultaneous movement, which is hard to do on Zoom. In his face to face game you have move chits you place on the units with your orders.

Our cunning plan was to throw all of our chariots round our left wing, and envelope their right. Phil has closed off their left by the river.

We outnumber them in chariots, so we should win this. The infantry that moved during the resupply phase has reduced the size of the dogfight arena available. 

As time was marching on, I continued to shift our infantry to the right, so I could at least get into combat and fight something before I went to bed.

On our left our cunning plan was unravelling as Chris simply couldn't hit anything where he had a 3:1 advantage. Simple probabilities would have indicated that he would destroy this unit or force it off with a round of arrows still to spare. In practice he hardly scratched the paint work. Dice, eh? What are the good for?

The demand for a close up of the action meant the Martians landed. In the centre the Egyptian archers were shooting lumps off me.

Unit destroyed by archery, followed by a debate about what happens when they rout and when they actually rout. Meanwhile my other infantry unit charged home, hitting two opposing units. This may have not been wise.

Whilst the chariot melee continued, with Chris still being pretty much completely ineffective, I got stuck in with my other infantry. These were slash & hack troops, and really did a lot of damage on the archers, but didn't break them. My spear troops, however, were broken and fled.

Final turn when we stopped. Ian had got over his coyness about infantry movement in other than the straight plane, and allowed the infantry on my right to wheel right round and engage (compare this to the amount of wheeling I was doing in the first few pictures). That killed any chance of me breaking through, whilst on the left the chariot melee ended in a protracted discussion about whether retiring for resupply was automatic or not and other associated issues.

It was a stimulating evening, giving a different model of Bronze Age Warfare than that usually followed. There are a number of interesting ideas bubbling away here, but I don't think Ian has got the mix right just yet. No doubt we will see them again, in refined form. Our private email group is already kicking around suggestions and likes/dislikes. It is important for Ian to be happy with the outcome, and we need to get on board with his "vision" of how it looks and plays, even if we think it could be done differently. That's the case with my own rules. I get a lot of feedback from the MNG. I listen to all of it, but I have a clear idea, usually, in my head of how it should work. This means we may have a difference of opinion about what should happen. If we do, I get the deciding vote on my rules, as does Ian on his.