Chariots of Fire day 2 - Hittite Chariots Roll Some More

 

So after the first 2 games at "Chariots of Fire" I had scored the maximum possible following 2 wins. Could I continue this run?

To find out, read on ...

A reminder of the list I used:

This is a very simple army really. Its aim is to shoot as much as possible and only get involved in any sort of close combat when the enemy is very much worn down by the shooting. It has the maximum number of Hittite Skilled shooting chariots the army list allows and a mass of skirmishing infantry to support them. Open terrain is its friend and room for the chariots to skirmish.

The other lists used at the competition can be found HERE.

The first game on Sunday saw me facing off against Simon Hall who was leading the competition and using The Five Hegemons Chinese - an army where the Superior chariots are going to win or lose you the game so in many ways this was a straight forward match-up.

PBS and scouting went in my favour. Simon wanted to be able to get terrain down to restrict my chariots and that he could exploit with his infantry, I wanted an open field - we ended up with just one piece of terrain, a vineyard on Simon's edge of the table. I also outscouted the Chinese.

Simon deployed with infantry in the centre and chariots to either side - 3 units on his left and 2 on the right. He had a unit of weak archers in the vineyard which helped cover his right. I decided that things were going to be settled in a fairly straight up manner and that there was no benefit in trying to be overly "clever". So I massed skirmishers, the Golden Chariot Fighters and half the Hittite chariots on my right to face off the 3 Chinese chariots. The centre was the Anatolian contingent and the left was the remainder of the Hittite chariots and skirmishers. It was all predicated on the shooting - and it must be said that Simon was not too confident at this stage.

Not too many pictures from this game I'm afraid.

The first turn started badly for me as the Anatolian all was hesitant and so would not contribute until he drew a red card. Whilst not the biggest disaster it did remove some of the shooting I was relying on. Simon advanced across the line but sensibly kept out of range of most of my shooting. On my left I did push the Hittite chariots at an angle and on the right my skirmishers arced round to concentrate shooting.

Next move started well as the Anatolians drew the red card needed to participated and so I had my whole army in play again. Initial shooting didn't do much, but it was not the full amount I had so that was to be expected. However, I did get all my shooting into place for the following turns - prayers to the dice gods were made 😉 I did have to push some chariots up close as part of this, but the risks were acceptable especially as one unit was the Golden Chariot Fighters.

Sadly this is where there is a gap in the pictures 😒 However, the action can be summarised quite easily as it wasn't complicated.

On my right the shooting didn't work - blanks were the order of the day; the prayers to the dice gods had gone unheeded. Clearly my army had done something to offend the storm god of Hatti and he turned his face away. The Golden Chariot Fighters had clearly forgotten how to do the fighting bit as they were broken in a single turn. The rest of the right flank didn't do much better with chariots and skirmishers being despatched with alacrity along with the Hittite infantry unit hiding at the rear. Ouch 😭

Things did go a bit better on my left where we exchanged a chariot unit each. However, it was just getting as many points as I could now.

We did managed to drag things out a couple more moves and I got the other Chinese chariot unit on my left, but that was it and I was soundly defeated.

4-15 in favour of Simon. When the shooting doesn't work things are never good with this Hittite army. Still a fun game though as there were always things for me to try and do even if they didn't come off in the end.

Who I would face in the afternoon was up in the air for quite a while. There was a fair chance that I'd end up facing the other Five Hegemons army, but in the end it was Matt Poole and his Sea Peoples - an historically plausible match-up no less 😁 I've faced this army before when I used a Later Sargonid Assyrian and we had a cracking game that Matt just snuck at the end.

As in the morning game Matt would have liked a cluttered table whereas I wanted an nice open plain. It fell in my favour and apart from a piece of rough going on my left about halfway up the table it was an open field. I then outscouted the Sea People by 90% so basically all the advantages were mine.

Matt deployed his army in a big long line covering as much of the table as possible and using the rough ground on his right to cover his flank from any chariots running around that side. On his left he deployed a unit to cut down my chance of doing so there as well. Additionally most of his infantry were 2 deep so as to minimise the chances of my shooting slowing him. There were some Superior units dotted in the line. Finally the unit of Sea People chariots was in reserve in the centre to be able to rush off where needed. All in all it was a sensible deployment with the aim of advancing and pushing me off the table.

I weighted my deployment to my left with skirmishers massed to go into the rough going to support the chariots who were deployed next to them. I then deployed chariots and other skirmishers a bit intermixed with the Anatolians on the right to basically hold up the Sea People on that side as long as possible whilst the Hittite shot them down elsewhere. It looked like this:

First couple of moves involved the Sea Peoples advancing strongly to about the half way line across their frontage. Probably not quite as far as Matt would have liked but a slight card issue intervened. I of course also advanced to get my shooting underway and also needed to get rid of a couple of irritating skirmisher units who were covering the front of some of the Sea Peoples. This completed my initial shooting was a bit mixed but did hit a couple of units in the centre quite hard.

A bit of "rinse and repeat" followed as I continued to whittle down the advancing Sea Peoples - although one unit of Superior types resolutely refused to take any damage; there is always one unit that does this. However, the continuing damage from shooting was leaving the Sea Peoples centre looking fragile.

A move or so later and the unit opposite the Golden Chariot Fighters was in real trouble as was the badly damaged unit in the centre. This meant that the Sea Peoples chariots were in the unenviable position of needing to cover 2 places at once.

Breakthroughs followed as both the badly damaged unit collapsed and I could push chariots through where they had been. I also continued to chip away elsewhere although I lost a skirmisher unit on my left - small comfort to Matt though. In the centre I had advanced a chariot unit a bit unwisely and the Sea Peoples chariots positioned them selves to charge them.

Alas for the Sea Peoples their chariots proved useless and were quite handily beaten off and reduced to 1 wound from breaking - they had also now attracted the attention of the Golden Chariot Fighters. On the other hand the Sea Peoples advance was now pushing my chariots up against the table edge - I had been causing casualties but things were coming to a head and could go either way.

With some good shooting the following move the Sea Peoples advance was stalled and the chariots and another unt were destroyed. This allowed me to manoeuvre the Golden Chariot Fighters and another chariot unit into position to charge the rear of Sea Peoples infantry in the next turn.

This was the final decisive phase. The rear charges and other shooting broke 3 units the next move and with it the Sea Peoples army also broke.

Ended 15-2 in my favour.

Matt was faced by an unenviable table and, IMO, took exactly the right approach. He pushed as hard as he could and kept it up. He didn't waste any time or resources on a couple of units on his left which were never going to impact on the battle. On another day he could have pushed some of my chariots into the table edge and broken them; however, in the end in this game the shooting did what I needed.

So I ended with 3 wins and a loss which was enough to get me into 3rd place at the end.

Another great "chariot period" competition. Many thank to all involved.