An Incense of Franks.

A Headless Body Production
Venue: On Military Matters Book Store, Hopewell, NJ
Event: Preparation for Historicon*
Players: Phil Gardocki running Gauls
               Al Kaplan running M. Franks
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 15mm, 200 points per side.

The Forces:
M. Frankish
The names of the commanders is lost to history
12 Warriors, Heavy Sword, Impetuous, one elite
8 Heavy Spearmen, mediocre
4 Lights, 2 each Javelin and Bow
1 Scouts, Light Cavalry, Bow
2 Cavalry of uncertain type.
Breakpoint around 29

Gallic list 90
The Gauls are led by by the Asterix, the competent, Obilix, the competent, and Bastardix, the ordinary and included. See here if you are interested...
18 Warriors, Heavy Sword, Impetuous
4 Lights,  Bow
4 Lights, Javelin
3 Medium Cavalry
Breakpoint of 29

Display Conventions: When you see a word bubble like "Ouch!", "Autsch!" or "Ahi!", this implies a disorder from missiles. Letters in parenthesis represent some value change for the specific unit. For commanders it is s for strategist, b for Brilliant, c for Competent and o for Ordinary, u for unreliable. For troops it is e for Elite, and m for Mediocre. Other abbreviations, Hvy Heavy, XB Crossbow, LB, Longbow, Jav Javelin, 2HW 2 Handed Weapons, B Bow, Kn Knight, HKn Heavy Knight, HC Heavy Cavalry, Md Medium, Sgt Sergeants, LC Light Cavalry, Chr Chariot, Cat Cataphract, Pa Pavise, LI, Light Infantry, HG Hand Gun, FKn Foot Knight, Hvy Spear, Heavy Spearmen.

"XX" implies a unit killed in that location on that turn.

The Board: The M. Franks win the initiative and elects to attack.

The weather is good.

Dennis Shorthouse is the proprietor of On Military Matters book service. A delightful book store in Hopewell New Jersey that specializes in military books.

Deployment:

My army was big. With a break point of 29, 18 was heavy foot.  As the defender, I placed my first command of 13, 9 of them heavy sword.  Then Al placed his first command of 12 heavies and 4 lights. 

What I did not expect, was Al's first command. 12 Heavy Sword, Impetuous! Just one command!  He was matching my troop types, unit for unit, and just one command matches 66% of my whole army!

I started laughing hysterically.***

The Franks second command was, "only", 8 more heavy foot. Stretching from river to woods. Giving them an advantage in length.

I haven't done the math, maybe some of the spear wasn't mediocre.

Asterix leads his large command of 13 units, 9 heavies and 4 lights.

Obilix leads an identical command to Asterix

Both sides have an unseen command.

Turn 1:

The Referee blows the whistle. The Frankish line run towards mid field.

They pass the ball to the left, it is caught by strikers on horse back.

I don't watch enough soccer to keep up the pseudo-announcer banter.

There is only so many ways to say a big line of troops advance.

Turn 2:

A shortage of command points and the right side Franks are practically just stumbling forward. Impetuous troops advancing the whole line of 12 a full advance is 2 command points. A partial advance costs 4.

The Gallic flank march is coming on this turn, and the Franks prepare to receive it.

Thus distracted, it is time to engage their main line. Asterix orders a general advance.

Obilix didn't wait on turn 1, and now advances to charge range. The Frankish spear are at a disadvantage to the Gallic Warriors, who are +2 and furious charge, to the Franks +1 on contact, and -1 if they roll a 4+.  Asterix's group will be fighting even up down the line except for his right most element. That is poor tactics, I know. But some points have to be gotten there, as the Franks also have a breakpoint of 29.

Bastardix's flank march sees no advantage to trying to get around the Franks flank, and so advances to support Obilix's command instead. With the advantage of hind sight, He should have advanced on the board along the woods edge. That way, even if driven back off the board by enemy spear, those spear would be effectively taken out of the game.

Turn 3:

The Franks charge down the line.

Lining up the whole, stinking line. We could have saved our selves a lot of trouble and just did a dice off before the game.

The Frankish Cavalry lines up on the flank of Bastardix's cavalry.

With the clown show mostly over, the main event! Asterix's charges break in favor of the Franks. He wins 3 and loses 4.

The numbers break better for Obilix. Winning 4 and losing 2.

A bit of charge and evade.

Turn 4:

For the Gallic left, the situation goes from bad to worse.

On the right, it is the Franks that are deteriorating rapidly.

So with a 1-1 tie with the main forces, the tie breaker is on the flank march.

Along the River Styx, the store is 12 for the Gauls.

To 11 for the Franks.

The score is deceptive though. The Gauls are losing all their best troops.

While the Franks are losing mainly their mediocre spear.

And it's not looking good for the Gallic flank march.

Turn 5:

The river is filling rapidly with the blood of both sides.

18-15, in favor of the Franks.

Asterix's line is penetrated and turned.

Obilix's warriors have mostly defeated their foes, but have not yet begun the turn on the flanks.

The hand of Wotan himself seems to be guiding the Franks on the left. A charge, an evade, but too slow!

The casualties pile rapidly higher. The Gauls are now at 21 towards their break point of 29.

While the Franks are at 19.

Asterix takes his magic potion and leads from the front. Charging the hapless Franks. But he stumbles, falls, to the great laughter of all. This would have been a better story if I put Obilix on the left in the narrative. Maybe a rewrite is in order.

For certain though, Bastardix keeps his role as the worse than useless flank march commander.

Turn 6: Win, lose, or draw, this game is not going the distance.

Asterix's command is down to 3 last warriors.

Obilix stands firm with his left flank, He still has 6 units of warriors, but impetuous troops are hard to maneuver once they run out of enemies to fight in the front.

At that point, the Druid Panoramix, summons a dense fog, allowing both sides to withdraw in honor. But the Franks know who won this fight.

What went wrong?  The flank march arrival was mishandled.  It arrived early, sure, but it forced the Franks to detach a couple of spear to deal with it.  If the flank march had stayed off the sideline, instead of coming safely to the front, the Frankish spear and horse would have run it off the board, at a cost of 3 points towards the Gallic break point. Instead, it was destroyed for 6.

And, the spear would never have gotten back into action, and the horse would have taken a couple of turns to recover.  Which would have been enough time for Gauls to take advantage of the overlaps to defeat the Frankish left, and shore up the forces for dealing with the collapse of the Gallic left.

*Theme, Western Europe and their Enemies**: All armies must be between the years 500-999 AD
list 109, 124-133, 141-165. Legal allies may be outside those list #s, but must fall within year range. Options indicating Europe, North Africa are permitted. No others.
**(No Elephants, No Knights, Maximum 2 Cataphracts in army) 

For more information go to the American ADLG Forum.

 *** Not maniacally, "bruh ha ha ha", hysterically, "titter. ha ha ha ohhhh...".