I played a super exciting game of MeG this week using my Seleucids v my friends Classical Indians. Apologies in advance for any mistakes in the description as I am very much still learning.
I was using the following:
The Indians consisted of fifteen battle groups of thirteen TuGs (Tactical groups) including five units of elephants in twos, two unskilled javelin cavalry and the remaining seven TuGs were Mauryans archers in nines with the front rank being short spear. Also two skirmisher SuGs (Skirmisher groups) in nines. The army therefore had a breaking point of seven. It is important to note that it is the TuGs (main battle troops), not SuGs that determine the army break point.
I really liked the Indian army and suspected I was going to get shot to pieces. I have played it before but got super lucky with a unit of Seleucid elephants (in fours) which rampaged through my opponents army.
The other challenge would be trying to keep my cataphracts away from his five units of elephants. In this list I opted for two units of nine skilled bow Cretan archers. Probably a mistake as they are expensive and took away from more TuGs
My opponent opted to defend and chose Jungle terrain but I had much better cards and was able to shift the terrain to have not much terrain apart from on the right hand edge as this would suit my heavy foot.
We deployed as follows:
Pike in the middle flanked by the other stuf. The Indians alternated elephants and bow.
I had the first turn and pushed my pike forward in the middle but unfortunately I didn’t have good enough cards to double move.
I held my cataphracts back on my left flank. On my right flank I pushed my other cataphracts forward supported with javelins and Cretan archers to deal with the elephants. If I could wipe out the elephants on that flank I reasoned my cataphracts could run rampant.
My opponent pushed his elephants on my right flank and I fired at them causing a wound. I dropped my cataphracts back.
On my left flank I pushed the Spearmen and Thracians towards the enemy but suffered from the bow shots. My Cretans moved up to return fire. Also on the left my cataphracts turned and headed towards his javelin cavalry.
On the right flank my opponent positioned his skirmishers to shield his elephants from the Javelins.
On the left flank my Theoroperei were being shot to pieces, the Thracians plodded on.
My cataphracts charged his cavalry. He unluckily rolled a one for the flee distance and I caught and destroyed the TuG.
In the centre my pike pushed on under a hail of bow fire. I used cards to heal some wounds but even so I was suffering some casualties. I should have taken more and cheaper skirmishers to allow me to shield my pike blocks in situations such as this.
Now the other disadvantage of having taken expensive cretan skirmishers is that I was a TuG down compared with previous lists which as you can see above left the two flanks of my pike blocks weak.
Unfortunately things now got so exciting I forgot to take photos. I pushed on into the centre of the Indian army taking some more wounds. I was charged in both flanks. However my central pike started to do serious damage and TuGs of Indian archers broke off (passing their KAB test) to force me to charge again.
We had reached a position where I had broken two of the Indian TuGs but I had lost three TuGs.
I then on the left flank lost my Thracians that had been fighting spear/archers and cav in the flank (far distance in the picture below) although my cataphracts were closing in to take vengeance.
I was now in a critical position. My central pike blocks were making progress but were taking casualties with my central superior pike one wound from breaking which would break my army.
It was my turn to decide who fights first and I was able to choose a combat which involved a relatively unscathed pike block against an elephant TuG to the left of centre of the main battle. If I was lucky and could kill the elephant TuG this would force a KAB (morale) test on three of the Indian TuGs two of which were severely damaged. If I failed to do this I would almost certainly (and deservedly) lose. My opponent had played better and had the better army.
But yes lady luck was with me again. In the combat with the first column my full ranks of pike killed an elephant. This caused a “shove” effect with the adjacent depleted pike column which improved the factor for them and meant I wounded the second elephant and broke the TuG.
The resulting KAB test (more severe because elephants caused the test), destroyed two more of the Indian TuGs in the centre which saved my severely wounded superior pike. The picture below shows the resulting situation. The orange dice on the left showing where the critical elephant TuG perished.
We were now in a position where I had lost four TuGs and one more broken TuG would break my army. My opponent had lost five TuGs and I needed two more to break him.
Luckily for me I had two opportunities if I could defend my superior pike that were on the verge of breaking. I pushed them out of the way and charged with the cataphracts on the left flank against the spear/archers that had killed the Thracians.
On my right flank I was able to double charge another unit of spear/bow with the cataphracts going into the rear. In the picture below you can see the cataphracts on the left and right flanks readying to charge
Again I was lucky and broke both TuGs which broke the Indian army just before they broke me.
I was extremely lucky in this game and my opponent undoubtedly deserved to win.
Anyway it was a really fantastic game and I am very keen to get some more games in.
The Curious Wargamer 