2nd game of Hoplite, here we have a small confrontation between Greeks and Persians. The scenario tells us the mobility of Persia should be challenging to overcome for the Greeks, and historically they didn’t have any solution for the chariots. Lets see.
The first error… all the Persians in one bag was a bad idea, it started with some long sorting.
The setup is quite free. I decide to put the Persian infantry the most backward authorized. The cavalry archers and the chariots go to the front. For the Greek part not too much to think, a line of Hoplite, forward to spare a little bit their legs, and the 4 skirmishers in front of them.
Opening move, the Persian army chooses to go with the Cavalry and with some lucky shots, and a direct draw of the momentum, removes one skirmisher and starts to annoy one hoplite…
… ready to withdraw at the first move in front of them, which is a Greek skirmishers activation.
One cavalry panicked a little bit in the withdrawal fire, losing all their ammo and taking cohesion hit on the retreat.
The Greek army decides to advance en echelon, keeping the right flank on the back to contain the cavalry and be ready to cover the back of the units running forward. But the leftmost hoplite has to deal with a chariot mighty charge.
They survive somehow the charge of 3 chariot passing through their lines. They now have to pray the gods of the dice to win the initiative.
It works. They do a reverse movement, pass their engagement roll, kill the leader in personal combat, remove 2 of the 3 chariots in the battle, roll successfully to avoid the rout, the 3rd chariot does not.
At the same time a running hoplite deletes the last chariot of the formation, who already took way too much damage charging a skirmisher. No point for historical accuracy.
Unfortunately for them, no time to celebrate. On the other flank, the Persian heavy cavalry manages to go around the hoplites supposed to contain them. With a successful momentum they can play again, engage on from the flank, and rout it before they can react.
Round 3. On the right flank, one hoplite manages to form the square, covering his friend running forward. On the left flank, the formation that removed the chariots is completely disconnected from the rest of the army. And in the middle the phalanxes that ran forward are now out of command.
The Persian cavalry surrounds the over extended formations, routing one under a volley of arrow.
Round 4 The Greek leaders try to run to the forward formations. The two last advanced hoplite manage to stay put and survive the next wave of shots.
But coming from the rear, the heavy cavalry has time to go around the squared hoplite formation to confront the one that was running forward. However they are too far to flank it. With a successful reverse maneuver, the hoplite faces them forcing the cavalry to engage through a wall of pikes. The cavalry takes heavy hits, but it is enough, the hoplite formation breaks, and the Greek army runs away.
38 to 20 rout points. Had the forward hoplites reached the Persian infantry, they maybe would have managed to rout enough units to steal the victory. But the poor command decision to not send a leader with them did cost the the precious activation needed to engage. Too bad, the lucky early success against the chariots gave them some good chances.
I think the idea not to send the whole phalanxes forward on first impulse was not ideal. They got flanked anyway and were too late to support the push to the weak Persian infantry.
Fun scenario, 30 rout points is low, battle could quickly turn. I made some poor decisions for both sides. It is one I will probably revisit later.