Last night at the club we had a crack at playtesting the new Gripping Beast 'Milites Mundi' rules. Originally designed for smaller scale battles (10mm, 6mm etc) it was decided by Simon and Lester to run a quick encounter game using 28mm.
This larger scale was fine and just meant that we had to reduce the size of the units. The main thing was to navigate the rules and work out what on earth we were doing.
Naturally the army lists for New Kingdom Egyptians and Hittites contained some interesting specialities. The use of 'chariot runners' adding an extra die for the Hittite assault chariots would show its worth later on. This, it seems, is the key to Milites Mundi: getting those bonus die and using them carefully to break down the enemy with pressure. It seems the more you initially succeed, the more bonus die you will receive for your next round. Giving an example of impetus I suppose.
On mine and Lester's side the Egyptians had taken some points to upgrade their troop choices. So we had a unit of Sherdan Guard and added armour and 'superior fighters' (I think that's the term) to the Chariot arm.
I noticed a while ago that there was much debate amongst Ancient wargamers about the previously assumed idea that chariot troops were some kind of wonder weapon - just bashing into the enemy line and scattering all before them. Rather they are now considered to have been used in a harrying and pursuit/flank attack role.
Disregarding such nuances at first I decided to just throw everything forward and see what happened. This....is a bad idea when using chariots against close order infantry! (I'm not a seasoned Ancients player by the way). We received a few bonus points for charging, superior fighters etc. But the close order infantry started on six dice per unit compared to our three per chariot. I had added an attached commander to get some more points, but together with some poor dice rolling from me it turned into a slugging match. The infantry had a distinct benefit from supports and the best I could hope for was pushing them back to break their battle line.
On the other side Lester was having similar issues, but at least he had better dice rolling in his favour. The crunch came when the center of the Egyptian army came under pressure and a unit of Marines were pushed back and the Hittite chariots hit them in the flank. Although in the last stages I managed a similar success by wheeling a chariot unit around and adopting the tactic I should have used all along, bashing into a disordered unit and wiping it out.
I really enjoyed the tension of the game, reflecting the push and shove of hand to hand combat as points are added and lost to the dice rolls. The momentum points (as they are called) really make you think about where you need to spend them and achieve success. Especially if you're on the back foot and the amount you have get fewer.
Hittite Chariots fly into the attack
The armies square up for a fight, while the players feverishly try to work out the rules
Trying to keep the cohesion of your units as the enemy fire and casualties are taken.
An Egyptian commander urges his chariots on.
Hittite infantry looking fierce!
More Hittite infantry causing a headache for the Egyptian general.
