One Hour Wargames - Clash of Spears

 

A quick jump back 2500 years from the Cold War games I've been playing. Inspired by the "short" games at VCOW I've decided to try and play each of the three I played out with Nick. First off was One Hour Wargames and a scenario entitled Clash of Spears. Since I didn't have enough hoplites for Athenians and Spartans I changed the Spartans into Persians. Figures are 6mm. The cloth is actually gridded at 10cm, and the cards were for Nick's reference - although in the end most of his directions were of the "move that one up to the left of the other one" variety.

Here's the remote set up:

The laptop is angled so Nick can see the whole table rather than for me to see Nick! My smartphone is on a Gorilla" style tripod so I can easily move it to where the action is. Each unit has a simple label showing type and strength. We used Jitsi as it has very similar features to Zoom but no limit on call length (or I think attendees) - and although only 2 of us played we have 3 devices on. We rolled for sides and I rolled Athenian.

Expecting him to take the temple for his archers I deliberately deployed more to the S. My lights were on each flank. As we advanced his archers did indeed take the temple - but none of my troops were really in range. On my left flank my skirmishers cam up against his cavalry and lights - as at VCOW.

Unlike VCOW Nick's Persians went on the defensive, forming an open square - not something I'm sure is in the Persian Drill Book! I dispatched one of my hoplite units to help the skirmishers in their 1:2 battle, and a couple of turns the hoplites were the only ones left standing on that flank ( think the hoplites scored 16HP in one turn!).

On my right flank I tried to push the slingers out round Nick's square to get at the Persian Guard., whilst the rest of my hoplites when in against his more accessible heavies.

Casualties mounting in both melees

Nick finally let his archers leave the Temple and they came crashing down into the back of one of my hoplite units. That finally went, and I lost another in the melee with the square, so Nick had his victory conditions.

But before his archers could carry on my hoplites from the L flank, and the slingers from the R pincered the already weakened Persian Guard and wiped them away - so I had my victory conditions too!

An honourable draw I'll call it. Only took about 30 minutes, but I did forget the armour rule early on, so casualty rate should have been halved - so 60 mins would have been plenty.

A fun game again, but interestingly Nick's reaction as the same as mine to the Portable Wargame, "it felt more like chess". Certainly worth playing again and working out what works and doesn't, but more of a game in itself - a bit like I feel DBA is.