Back to the beginning - a bit of Sumer madness

After last week's game we were all a bit "what shall we do next week?" and we left it loose. Then Jon posted this, and in an attempt to get him to plug my first set of self published rules, I said "What about Sumerians?"

Jon didn't feel he was in a place to run a game yet, so I said "Let's play 'To Ur is Human'!"

Which we did.

The invaders are on the right, and the defenders are on the left. Jon, Phil & Richard were invading, Tim and Ian were defending. The attackers are trying to capture the village between the hills. The mistake I made was to put an irrigation ditch across the table. Otherwise the set up worked okay.

Of course, having rebased my figures so they go with my nice sandy cloth, for this game I had to use my old green cloth with the corners clearly marked so they show up on the camera.

I had created a choke point for the battle carts at the ditch crossing. Jon and Richard had a quick chat about how best to get all their wagons across it. For some reason their Lugal decided to go and hide at the back of their infantry.

Ian boldly moved his carts towards the crossing, shouting taunts.

Due to some player flack on the poor looking nature of the village, I upgraded it to a full ziggurat shrine. Definitely something worth fighting over. 

In the distance you can see Tim's slingers are giving Phil's medium infantry some stick.

The clash of the titans. Ian has moved his Lugal up to give his carts the edge. Jon & Richard's Lugal is caught on the hop at the back of the army.

Jon's carts are driven back, and become Frightened, faced by such a might warrior. However, Ian has fallen into a trap.

Jon and Richard move their Lugal up to lead the charge and counter attack. They get two onto one. Ian loses a base and his unit then breaks and flees. Alas for Jon & Richard, their Lugal is killed in the combat. This is a severe inconvenience to them, but not enough for Ian, who thinks their entire army should have to drop a morale state or suffer some other adverse reaction. He may be right, but it would rather ruin the game.

Here we see Ian's Lugal and his remaining cart gallop past the shrine, presumably looking for Divine Intervention.

Ian's forces on the right have a preponderance of Light Infantry, and are pressing back their opponent's inferior numbers. Perhaps a cart unit will stabilise the situation.

Phil is pushing forwards steadily with the heavy infantry. The ditch slowed this all down too much.

Jon bursts across the ditch and engages Ian's other battle cart unit.

There is much damage done to both sides, and Ian's men become Frightened (the little yellow chip denotes status).

Jon's other cart unit has done a spectacular ride through Ian's army, driving off his Lugal and the remains of his unit, before turning round to threaten the rear of the enemy army.

Ian's last cart unit is also broken, and is pursued towards the table edge.

A quick catch up on what Phil & Tim have been doing. Phil's medium infantry have been playing catch in the woods with light infantry, before emerging on the flank of Tim's infantry, which is trying to hold back the wave of Phil's heavies pushing across the ditch.

Under a hail of javelins, Richard decides his carts would be of more use elsewhere.

Jon's carts, which we saw three pictures ago, smash into the rear of Ian's heavy infantry as they try to cross the ditch.

The defender's centre seems to have disappeared.

Phil is breaking through in the distance. Ian charges Jon's carts to relieve the pressure on his infantry.

Jon uses his superior speed to extract himself from the melee before it all goes horribly wrong. The attacker's carts are causing havoc generally, rampaging around the middle of the table.

Phil has broken the right. This was not entirely due to skill. Tim rolled a series of 1s in his fear tests, coinciding with a series of 6s rolled by Phil. I think it was 5 times in a row. It was at least 4. Any way, this means Phil can release infantry to help the left, so the attackers win.

I was a bit rusty on the rules but it all flowed well enough with some exciting action and heroic charges as the attackers fought like demons to avenge their fallen leader.

Next week we are over to Jon's lovely 28mm Sumerians and his take on what it should all look like. Should be fun.