Phil on Ancients: 2025

A Headless Body Production

Venue: Lancaster Convention Center
Event: Historicon 2025
Theme: Mandate of Heaven, Round 1
Players: Phil running Yi Korean, list 282
Paolo Paglianti, of the Milan Pagliantis!, running Ming Chinese
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 15mm, 200 points per side.

Italians, Koreans, Chinese. Quite an international board.

The Forces:
The Ming are commanded by unknown commanders of excellent quality.
2 Guardsmen Heavy Cavalry, Bow, Elite

4 Heavy Cavalry, Bow
4 Halberdiers, Medium Spear, 1/2 Bow
2 Halberdiers, Heavy Sword, Polearm
4 Mongols, Light Cavalry, Bow
2 Bowmen
2 Light Infantry
2 Light Guns, Integrated Artillery
Breakpoint of 22

Korean
The Yi are commanded by the Brilliant Kim-Lari, his Brilliant brother, Kim-Dari, and his other brother Kim-Dari, who is somewhat Ordinary, and Unreliable.
4 Heavy Cavalry, Impact, 3 Elite
5 Steppes Horsemen, Light Cavalry, Bow
4 Heavy Spearmen,
2 Guardsmen, Heavy Swordsmen, Polearm, Elite
4 Hwacha's, Integrated Artillery
2 Crossbowmen
2 Light Infantry, bow
2 Light Infantry, Firearm, Elite
Breakpoint of 25

Display Conventions: When you see a jagged word bubble like "Ouch!" or "젠장!" or "好吧太糟糕了！", this implies a disorder caused by missiles. Letters in parenthesis represent some up or downgrade 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.

Inappropriately capitalized words are used to highlight terms that are specific to the game. For example Brilliant, Competent and Ordinary have specific game values for the commanders.

Any ambiguity as to what was moved or who is being referred to is to be considered Fog of War and part of the fun.

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

Deployment:

As I went through the pictures from top to bottom, I began to suspect errors in the annotation here. The Guards may not be guards, the polearm might be spear/bow.

The artillery though, that is solid.

Close ups of the finely painted figures will be presented later.

Kim-Lari, who is Brilliant, not Competent as annotated, takes the Korean horse on the left flank.

His brother takes the center with the heavy foot supported by 4 integrated artillery. His other brother has a weak force of crossbowmen and light foot.

The view from the top.

The commander's stands are well displayed.

Great back drop, and will you look at those shields!

On the Ming left, their Mongol ally.

Pictures from a quick bio-break before turn 1.

The Historicon centerpiece

Western ships attacking a Chinese city.

Turn 1:

Lari orders his cavalry forward. The tribal horse turning the flank.

The main block of foot advances to 4 away from the Ming ambush.

Noticeable here, which I did not realize until next turn was a deployment error. The left two Hwacha's are off by one. They need to be behind the spear, not the guards. They can only shoot over the spearmen. In addition, they cannot shoot through their own light foot.

Such are the first games of the day...

The Unreliable brother, Kim-Dari, is still at the levy.

The Ming foot face the Yi horse.

Taking advantage of Kim-Dari's waffling, the Ming begin to redeploy their 4 heavy horse

Love the ambush marker.

THE main display in the hotel lobby.

Iwo Jima awaits the American invaders.

Turn 2:

The Korean horsemen put pressure on the Ming right

While their foot approaches the flanks of the Ming line.

It is at this point I realized that my Hwacha's are misaligned on the left. Paolo offered to let me fix it, but this is turn 2 of a tournament, and too late to fix a deployment error.

The Korean right breaks out their jacks and balls for some light entertainment

Ming heavy horse arrive in theater. In an excellent move, their red dragons enter the field, their place in the main line replaced by their yellow dragons.

Changing the annotation of re-identified units.

Excellent shield work.

ditto

Turn 3:

The Yi heavy horse charge hoping for a little luck. But also to stop being shot at by Ming artillery.

The Yi foot advance. They are on the flank of the Ming "Red Dragons", of which so is the Yi cavalry off panel on the left. The rest of the Yi foot approach the ambush, revealing a brace of light foot.

The Ming heavy horse run off the Tribal lights. Their heavy foot advances and ZOC's the Yi heavy cavalry.

The spearmen in the field blatantly turn the flank of the Yi heavy foot.

Turn 4:

The dice represent the command rolls for the unresponsive command of Kim-Darri

His brother, not much better.

Kim-Lari has been rolling mostly 2's for command rolls, which is the same as a 1 for "brilliants". He recalls a heavily disordered heavy horse, and launches a very effective charge against the heavy polearmed Ming foot. That is a tower of 3 orange pips.

In the center left, a desperate charge that comes up short. Center right has spearmen investing the field, flanking a bowmen.

Ming horse counter charge. In the center, their foot turns and routs two spear units.

Realizing that the Yi unresponsive command is never going to matter, the last of the Ming horsemen begin to redeploy.

At the bottom of the 4th, the score is 13 of 25 for the Yi, 7 of 24 for the Ming.

Turn 5:

The collapse of command continues.

The horse commands trade units.

The battle in the field goes hand to hand. Ming having two units routed.

Ming horsemen dressage into the flank of Yi Guards cavalry, routing it.

Ming archers bugger off. Their mission is complete, distracting 5 times their points.

The Yi are just one away from demoralization.

The Ming are comfortably at 9.

Turn 6:

We called it here, as the Ming could get a point in any number of locations.

Oh, what went wrong...

An easy target is the unreliable command. But you have to accept that could happen when you cheap out on 3 points. But my opponents response was to redeploy part of his command, using command points and time to go elsewhere. And he left 4 elements of light horse to watch him. 24 points watching 19. Effectively a win there for me. Also included in that calculation, is the Yi camp stayed protected. Is there any doubt that 8 heavy and light cavalry wouldn't run over 2 bowmen and 2 light foot and sack the camp for 12 points?

The mistake on deployment of the Integrated Artillery was critical. Not because of the lost shots, but because it made me comfortable entering the field with the one spear unit expecting to attack the line of Ming behind their flank. I would not have entered at all with the artillery. I would have spent another turn maneuvering, and shooting to gain that position.

The cavalry command did ok facing off against the foot. Charging in to avoid being shot, then breaking off when the charge faltered. Their main problem was a shortage of command points, only rolling over a '2' once the entire game.

Other pictures from Historicon: