AAR Hittite v NK Egypt (Sword & Spear) 12Mar18

I have not met up with Ian for a few months and he wanted to get his newly painted Hittites on the table, so I gave him a match with my NK Egyptians. We were using Sword and Spear rules (S&S) with 350 point armies. The battlefield was very open although Ian restricted the width by placing a coastline on my right flank. Both our deployments matched up, with the medium foot facing off against each other near the coast, and the chariots opposing one another on the open flank. Because of the deployment we both expected this to be a bit of a slog, but it turned out to be anything but!

View from the Egyptian side, following deployment

Quite early in the game Ian’s Gasgan foot smashed a hole in my centre due to their ‘Impact’ ability, which I had forgotten to take into account. This was a bit of a surprise to both of us, although Ian clearly hoped this ability would yield an advantage in the initial stages of the combat. Meanwhile the chariot clash on the flank seemed balanced, especially after my Nubians KO’d a Hittite chariot unit by charging into its flank whilst it was engaged to its front. This proved to be the only highlight of the game from the Egyptian point of view. Unfortunately I had left a fresh Egyptian chariot unit (plus the flank Captain) exposed to a flank attack, which Ian duly administered. I thought I could survive for a turn at least, maybe suffering a hit or two which I could rally off reasonably easily. Instead the unit was KO’d (I failed all discipline tests for casualties) and in addition the Captain was killed. The destruction of this unit resulted in further tests for other close units, which were all duly failed because the lack of leadership and this chain reaction just blew my army apart!

Ian's victorious Hittites

All-in-all, a strange game and I’m not entirely sure why I lost. I cannot blame the ‘dice gods’ because both Ian and I threw poor rolls at times (Ian actually threw 3 dice for activation and got 3 1’s). I don’t feel I made catastrophic mistakes in deployment or tactical moves either. I certainly did not give the Gasgans enough respect, and allowing my chariot unit to be flanked were clear errors, but equally Ian must have been annoyed by my Nubians. With hindsight I could have avoided the flank attack on my chariot by moving it directly ahead and out of Ian’s path of attack, but I was confident I could survive the attack and punish the ‘pinned’ Hittites in following turns. I do think that luck deserted me at a few critical points such as when making discipline tests and this was combined with a degree of ‘rustiness’ with the S&S rules. I definitely need to play more games, and I congratulate Ian on a decisive victory!