Hill Of Watchfires - Turn II: Attack Phase

Note that the Dacian archers near the centre of the hill cannot shoot at my men on lower ground as there is a plateau effect for not being on the edge of the hill

My archers, with an initiative number of 1, attack first. They need 9+ against cavalry, but there is a +1 modifier for being in contact with the Dacians, and anyway I roll 4.

The cavalry counterattack, needing 6+, but with a +1 for attacking into trees. The AI rolls 10, eliminating my unit. Dacian horsemen never advance after a victory, so the unit remains between the wood and the hill.

My legion attacks the forward warriors, needing 6+. I roll 7, forcing the Dacians to flee two hexes, back onto the hill.

First blood to the Dacians

Hill Of Watchfires - Turn II

I could send troops onto the high ground this turn, but a better plan might be to send my cavalry sweeping round the hill to pick off Dacian stragglers to the north

The start-of-turn-event die is again a 2, but again it has no effect as there are no falxmen waiting in ambush in trees.

My archers advance into the wood, while the five units of Dacian archers either remain where they are or make a diagonal movement.

I advance my commander one hex diagonally left so he can control the Roman cavalry as it heads west of the hill.

The Dacian cavalry descends from the hill to contact my archers in the wood, but cannot charge-attack as charging into trees is not possible.

One of my Praetorian units enters the wood, and the other advances alongside the commander.

The Dacian swordsmen on the hill stay where they are, but the other unit withdraws diagonally right, away from my advancing cavalry.

My legion is out of command range, but I roll three dice (4, 1, 1), and consult the compass in the bottom right of the map, using a 1 to advance a hex.

The falxmen remain in reserve.

My spearmen enter the wood beside my archers.

The forward Dacina warriors advance diagonally right to contact my legion. The warriors on the hill remain there, and the warriors to the east of the hill advance a hex.

Two melees to be decided

Hill Of Watchfires - Turn I: Attack Phase

My archers at the only ones able to attack ...

... and they shoot at the warriors who have just descended from the hill.

Archers shooting at warriors need 8+ from two dice to score a hit, and there are no modifiers, but I roll 4.

Hill Of Watchfires - Turn I

Initial dispositions

The start-of-turn-event die is a 2, meaning falxmen in trees can immediately attack any enemy in an adjacent hex, but this has no relevance at this stage of the battle.

My archers have an initiative number of 1, and I advance them a hex.

Dacian archers are next. The three units on the hill stay put, but one of the units to the north of the hill advances diagonally to its left.

Both my cavalry units advance two hexes, while the Dacian cavalry remain on the hill.

Both my guard units of Praetorians advance a hex, but both units of Dacian swordsmen stay where they are.

My legionaries advance a hex, but the falxmen remain in reserve at the north end of the battlefield.

My spearmen advance a hex, and I move the commander into the wood, keeping all Roman units within command range (one advantage of having fewer, but high-quality, units is that it is easier to control them with the commander).

A unit of warriors somewhat impetuously advances off the hill.

The AI's plan seems to be to hold fast to what it already possesses, although one group of warriors is in danger of spoiling things with ill-discipline

Hill Of Watchfires - Roman Dispositions

The Dacians are strong by the river, but have left their other flank weak, which looks to give the Romans their best chance

This suits me as I do not want my men fighting from water hexes (attacks from such a hex carry a +2 modifier, which would be difficult to overcome), and I do not want my cavalry slowed by the river (mounted troops have to halt as soon as they enter a water hex).

If I can seize the west end of the hill (assuming north is at the top of the map) I will be able to mostly avoid having my troops fighting from lower ground

Hill Of Watchfires

THE third scenario in Mike Lambo's solo boardgame book Commander - Romans v Dacians is Hill Of Watchfires.

The human plays a Roman commander tasked with clearing the large hill of Dacian hostiles

The AI receives troops worth at least 38 points, chosen by rolling dice.

Die Unit             Cost   Total

1     Archers       3pts    3pts

6     Warriors      2pts    5pts

1     Archers       3pts    8pts

3     Swordsmen 3pts    11pts

4     Falxmen      3pts    14pts

1     Archers        3pts    17pts

2     Cavalry        5pts    22pts

1     Archers        3pts    25pts

5     Warriors       2pts    27pts

5     Warriors       2pts    29pts

1     Archers        3pts    32pts

3     Swordsmen  3pts    35pts

4     Falxmen       3pts    38pts

In scenario two, the AI had five units of cavalry; this time it has five units of archers.

The latter may be particularly useful in defending a hill as they will have a -1 modifier while shooting at a range of up to three hexes.

I receive at least 35 points, selected similarly, except my allotment starts with the commander, who costs 5pts.

Die Unit             Cost    Total

-     Commander 5pts     5pts

1    Archers         3pts     8pts

6    Spearmen     3pts     11pts

3    Praetorians   5pts     16pts

3    Praetorians   5pts     21pts

2    Cavalry        6pts     27pts

2    Cavalry        6pts     33pts

4    Legionaries  3pts     36pts

An interesting mix, with an emphasis on high-quality, but expensive, units - five of my eight units cost at least five points.

To win, I have to clear the hill of Dacians, so none is on high ground at the end of turn XII. I certainly cannot afford a battle of attrition, as the Dacians have 13 units - five more than I have.

Dice throws determine where the Dacian units start.

The Dacians are strong in the centre, and on their left, near the river

Feeding My History Bug

MY latest great find in a charity shop is David Anthony's The Horse, The Wheel, And Language - How Bronze-Age Riders From The Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World.

In it he investigates how roughly half of the Earth came to speak Indo-European (formerly called Aryan) languages.

Or, rather, he investigates the origins of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European, ie the language that eventually gave birth to German, Latin, Hindi, etc.

If that sounds somewhat dense or highbrow, you are not wrong 

There is no doubt, in my view, that Anthony, an anthropology professor, was writing for an academic audience, as the following sentence, literally taken at random, suggests.

During Tripolye B2, around 4000-3700 BCE, there was a significant migration out of the Prut-Seret forest-steppe uplands, the most densely settled part of the Tripolye B1 landscape, eastward into the South Bug and Dneiper Valleys.

There are many sentences that are more jargon-filled, and could seem even more opaque, but the book, published by Princeton University Press in 2007, won a 2010 award from the Society for American Archaeology.

And you really do not need to be an archaeologist - I certainly am not - to get a lot of enjoyment from it, and to learn a lot, even if you already know a fair bit more about ancient history than the average person in the street.

How many of the following points about chariots, all taken from a singe section of the book, do you know?

1. War chariots were probably developed and first used in the southern Urals, rather, than, Mesopotamia, Egypt or China.

2. Javelins thrown by charioteers had a significantly greater range than javelins thrown from horseback.

3. Chariot drivers often steered with the reins looped round their hips, to leave hands free for using bows.

4. Some war chariots had single-man crews.

5. Chariots were "incredibly difficult to build, a marvel of carpentry and bent-wood joinery," requiring "a specially trained team of fast, strong horses," and for men to learn to successfully use them took "a lot of time and resources, as well as courage and balance."

The book has given me much to think about, especially in connection with my biblical wargaming rules.

A label on the back shows it cost £15.95, when sold by Blackwell. I found it in a charity shop (I cannot recall where, but it might have been Oxfam in East London's Bethnal Green Road), marked down from a secondhand price of £10 to £5 - what a bargain!

Inevitably in a book this big (500+ pages) and complex, I found something to disagree with, or, perhaps, something I am unable to get my head around.

In this case it concerns the claim that language generally follows a rule known as elite dominance, which argues that people tend, over time, to adopt the language spoken by their rulers, even if the latter are in a small minority.

But examples of the opposite happening spring readily to mind, eg the Franks, a Germanic tribe, after whom Gaul was renamed France, ended up speaking French, the Romance language of the majority of its inhabitants.

Similarly, the Normans had elite dominance in England for centuries, but they gradually abandoned their French tongue for English, the Germanic language of the majority of the land's inhabitants.

Ah well, perhaps I am not meant to understand everything, but at least the book has supplied me with plenty of food for thought.

Dead Good

NIR Arielli's The Dead Sea - A 10,000-Year History taught me a lot of things I did not know about the famous salty water mass.

Some things I did know: it is below 'sea level', ie below the average level of the word's oceans, and it features prominently, or at least peoples whose lands bordered the Dead Sea feature prominently, in the Bible.

I would like to have been told more about the area's ancient history, and prehistory, certainly at the expense of the rather detailed accounts of modern projects in the area, many of which never get off the ground.

Nevertheless I found the book, which is about somewhere I have been to, albeit fleetingly, a good read

Interesting Discovery

A RECENT visit to Bad Neuenahr in Rhineland-Palatinate gave me the chance to do some walking-come-exploring, which led a modest but pleasing find.

I followed a mostly flat trail of 9.9 kilometres (6.2 miles), but that ended with a steepish ascent of 182 metres (597 feet) up a hill that used to be topped by a Roman watchtower

The surviving ruins at the summit are from a 13th-century castle, built to aid the Hohenstaufen cause in a conflict between rival kings of Germany

Impressive  views from the castle walls can be enjoyed of the surrounding countryside, which in medieval times included an important military road connecting Aachen (aka Aix-la-Chapelle) in the West to Frankfurt on the River Main 

How the castle may have looked

The castle seems to have had a fairly uneventful existence, before being abandoned and allowed to decay, but a nearby chapel, also from the 1200s, is in much better shape

Unfortunately I could not go in as I did not have a 50-cent coin for the door, and it would not accept my one-euro coin!

Slingshot Issue 365

THE Jul/Aug edition of Slingshot, the journal of the Society of Ancients, arrived last month, and turned out to make especially interesting reading, at least for me.

Striking cover ... great contents

Sometimes one article stands out from the rest - not that the rest are ever bad -  as being exceptionally good.

But this time that could be said of nearly every article, including Michael Fredholm von Essen's look at the mysterious Heruls, Jim Webber's discussion of Achaemenid logistics, and reports on refights of Cunaxa from the society's battleday.

A thoroughly entertaining read - even the book reviews seemed above average.

Summing Up Our 10th Game Of Empire

CARTHAGE'S victory at the 10th attempt means all four peoples have now won one of our four-handed games of Richard Sabin's Empire.

It was a very convincing triumph, but the final position, with Carthage on 24 victory points and Rome on 10, tells the story - the Romans never got fully going, even during the two decades in which they had Scipio as a great commander.

Meanwhile, in the East, the Macedonians and Persians/Parthians battled gamely, but neither succeeded in decisively gaining the upper hand, despite the latter re-emerging quickly after their homeland was lost in the initial Macedonian expansion.

Here are the updated standings (four points for a win, three for coming second, etc).

ANDY
Game One: 4pts (Macedonians)
Game Two: 3.5pts (Persians/Parthians)
Game Three: 3pts (Romans)
Game Four: 2.5pts (Carthaginians)

Game Five: 2pts (Romans)

Game Six: 4pts (Persians)

Game Seven: 1pt (Macedonians)

Game Eight: 3pts (Carthaginians)

Game Nine: 1pt (Persians/Parthians)

Game 10: 4pts (Carthaginians
Total: 28pts

ME

Game One: 3pts (Carthaginians)
Game Two: 3.5pts (Romans)
Game Three: 4pts (Persians)
Game Four: 1pt (Macedonians)

Game Five: 4pts (Persians/Parthians)

Game Six: 2pts (Carthaginians)

Game Seven: 3pts (Romans)

Game Eight: 1pt (Macedonians)

Game Nine: 3pts (Romans)

Game 10: 3pts (Macedonians)
Total: 27.5pts

RICHARD JOHNSON
Game One: 2pts (Romans)
Game Two: 1pt (Macedonians)
Game Three: 2pts (Carthaginians)
Game Four: 2.5pts (Persians/Parthians)

Game Five: 1pt (Macedonians)

Game Six: 3pts (Romans)

Game Seven: 2pts (Carthaginians)

Game Eight: 4pts (Persians/Parthians)

Game Nine: 4pts (Macedonians)

Game 10: (Persians/Parthians)
Total: 23.5pts

REG

Game One: 1pt (Persians/Parthians)
Game Two: 2pts (Carthaginians)
Game Three: 1pt (Macedonians)
Game Four: 4pts (Romans)

Game Five: 3pts (Carthaginians)

Game Six: 1pt (Macedonians)

Game Seven: 4pts (Persians)

Game Eight: 2pts (Romans)

Game Nine: 2pts (Carthaginians)

Game 10: 1pt (Romans)
Total: 21pts

SCORES BY PEOPLES
Persians/Parthians: 30pts

Romans: 26.5pts
Carthaginians: 25.5pts
Macedonians: 18pts

The main takeaways:

*Andy has retaken the lead from me in our ding-dong fight for top spot.

*Although this was the first Carthaginian victory, they are overall comfortably ahead of the Macedonians, who have triumphed twice.

*With Rome coming last in our 10th game, the Carthaginians are now the only people never to have come worst than third.

Empire X - Turn 20 (160-150 BC)

Situation in 160 BC

The final victory points will be added at the end of this turn.

As it stands, Andy's Carthaginians have four provinces, including double-scoring IBERIA and 'AFRICA', so that is six points, bringing their total to 24.

Reg's Romans also have four provinces, including triple-scoring ITALIA, so that is also six points, bringing their total to 10.

My Macedonians have eight provinces, including double-scoring AEGYPTUS, so that is nine points, bringing their total to 18.

Richard's Parthians have three provinces, all scoring just a single point, so their total becomes 17.

First, the revolt dice land 5-3, meaning Magna Graecia becomes independent, reducing the Romans to nine victory points.

I am drawn first, and I easily conquer Pontus, taking the Macedonian total to 19 victory points.

Reg's Romans reconquer Magna Graecia, so returning to 10 victory points.

Andy's Carthaginians attack Cisalpina, rolling a 4. That is insufficient as there are -1 modifiers for attacking outside of the original Carthaginian empire and for attacking a controlled province.

Finally, Richard's Parthians unsuccessfully attack Bactria.

The final picture, showing a runaway victory, in game terms, for Carthage

Empire X - Turn 19 (170-160 BC)

Situation in 170 BC

The revolt dice land 6-5, meaning Thracia expels my Macedonians.

Andy is drawn first, and he continues the Carthaginian revival by crossing the Alps and taking Cisalpina.

I go for the easy option, and retake Thracia.

Richard's Parthians reconquer Persia, and Reg's Romans retake Cisalpina.

Carthage could end up with more provinces than either Rome or the Parthians

Empire X - Turn 18 (180-170 BC)

Situation in 180 BC

The revolt dice land 6-2, so the Gauls of Gallia add to Rome's woes by regaining their independence.

Andy's Carthaginians are drawn first, and he takes the opportunity to march into Gallia by rolling a 6.

Richard's Parthians attack Macedonian-controlled Persia, but narrowly fail to retake their lost province.

I similarly narrowly fail in an attempt to take the Persian/Parthian homeland.

Finally, Reg's Romans, despite enjoying two +1 modifiers, cannot recapture Gallia.

Carthage must be strongly favoured to win for the first time in our four-handed games of Empire

Empire X - Turn 17 (190-180 BC)

Situation in 190 BC

The revolt dice again land 2-5, but the province of Persia is already independent.

Andy is drawn first, regaining double-scoring IBERIA for his Carthaginians with a 4 (modifiers for attacking a controlled province and for Hannibal's legacy cancel each other out).

Richard's Parthians again fail to retake Persia.

Reg's Romans, who receive two +1 modifiers for the rest of the game (one for Scipio's legacy, and one for their normal boost on turns 11-20 when without a great captain), nevertheless fail to reconquer IBERIA.

Finally, my Macedonians occupy independent Persia.

Rome is struggling to assert its expected dominance

Empire X - Turn 16 (200-190 BC)

Situation in 200 BC

The revolt dice land 2-5, meaning Persia throws off Parthian rule!

Reg's Romans, with Scipio at the helm, take IBERIA easily, but require three campaigns to subdue Numidia. With their fifth campaign, they conquer Sicilia.

Richard fails to recapture Persia, but Andy's Carthaginians throw the Romans out of Numidia.

Finally, I take Mesopotamia from the Parthians.

The Persian/Parthian revival has stalled

Empire X - Turn 15 (210-200 BC)

This is the first of two turns in which the Romans enjoy the services of Scipio as a great captain 

The revolt dice land 5-4, meaning Magna Graecia successfully rebels against Carthaginian rule.

Reg's Romans have to start by reconsolidating control of ITALIA, which, with a great captain, requires 3+, which Reg duly rolls. They then take Magna Graecia, before switching north, conquering Cisalpina and Gallia, but the latter takes two campaigns.

Richard's Parthians end the independence of Armenia.

Andy's Carthaginians receive a +1 modifier for the next five turns as part of Hannibals' legacy, but it fails to help them retake Gallia.

Finally, my Macedonians reconquer Thracia.

Rome is on the rise

Empire X - Turn 14 (220-210 BC)

This is the turn in which Carthage is led by the great captain Hannibal

The revolt dice land 1-1, meaning AEGYPTUS again becomes independent.

Hannibal and the Carthaginians start by conquering Gallia and Cisalpina, then switch south to take Magna Graecia.

An attack on ITALIA also succeeds, meaning the Romans will need to reconsolidate their control of the province. But since ITALIA cannot be attacked when it contains only a single Roman counter, Andy's sole option for his fifth and final campaign of the turn is to attack Graecia, but the naval crossing fails (he rolls a 2, and there are never modifiers for naval crossings).

Reg is next, but he fails to roll the 5+ necessary to reconsolidate Roman control of ITALIA.

My Macedonians retake AEGYPTUS with a 6, but Richard's Parthians also roll a 6 when attacking Mesopotamia.

A dramatic decade in the West

Empire X - Turn 13 (230-220 BC)

Situation in 230 BC

The revolt dice land 6-5, meaning Thracia throws off Macedonian rule.

Reg's Romans are drawn first, and they conquer Gallia, thanks to the Roman +1 modifier in turns 11-20 when without a great captain.

My Macedonians fail to recapture Thracia, but Richard's Parthians also fail in an attack on Mesopotamia.

Finally, Andy's Carthaginians regain double-scoring IBERIA.

In quick succession the Romans have conquered the whole of the Italian mainland and expanded outside of Italy's borders

Empire X - Turn 12 (240-230 BC)

Situation in 240 BC

The revolt dice land 3-1, so AEGYPTUS expels my Macedonians.

I am drawn first, and I immediately reconquer the province after rolling a 5.

Reg's Romans take Cisaplina with a 6.

Andy's Carthaginians again fail to reconquer IBERIA, and Richard's Parthians narrowly fail to take Mesopotamia.

For the first time, the whole of the Italian mainland is under Roman control

Empire X - Turn 11 (250-240 BC)

Situation in 250 BC

Reg's Romans receive a +1 modifier for the rest of the game in every turn in which they do not have a great captain.

But first the revolt dice land 2-3, meaning IBERIA has again thrown off Carthaginian rule.

Richard's Parthians are drawn first, but he rolls a 4 in trying to conquer Mesopotamia, which is not enough as there is a -1 modifier for attacking a controlled province.

My Macedonians similarly fail in a counterattack against Persia, and Andy's Carthaginians unsuccessfully try to retake IBERIA.

Finally, Reg's Romans also fail when they launch an attack against Sicilia.

A relatively quiet decade