Eight Obols a Day (A one unit AAR)

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I've gotten intrigued about the idea of picking up a campaign and starting an AAR just using one unit. Only taking control of that one unit during battles, maybe expanding it to a couple if they get attached to another one later on. But putting all the other units under AI control. Have had some fun so far - just a couple of test battles and then one that I'm recording for this AAR. It will be a brief one, and not heavy on the graphics as I've got other stuff elsewhere to work on, but I had so much fun that I consider this a little like advertising for other folks to see that this is a quite different way to approach either an AAR or campaign (or at least a way I haven't seen yet), but it's a fun one. So, anyway, on to the show:

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Eight obols a day: it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Winter, 264:
Not that it would concern you much, but before I begin the story that will explain how I have come to this point, I should say that my name is Diores, son of Hyrtakos. My ancestors were Korinthians who founded Potidaia, but when Philippos destroyed it and dispersed our people, my father came to Dion, under the shadow of Mt. Olympos. He did not fight for the Makedones, as he was injured while still a young man. But my grandfather’s armor and shield he preserved for me and my children. When I was younger, I made my way into Aitolia and fought as a misothophoros for seven years in that rocky place. I took a wife when I found myself in Lamia for a year, and three years later I brought her here to Dion after she bore me twins. One child lived and another was born here last year, but my way in life is a miserable one and I will spare you the mundane details of the unsuccessful efforts I have undertaken to increase my wealth here since I returned.

Three months ago I had made up my mind to buy passage to Mysia, and hire myself out as a hoplite there. But a few days before the last ship of the fall was being prepared to sail east, word arrived that Demetrias had suddenly fallen. Remnants of a Makedonian army poured into Dion and the wounded were treated here and many of them were forced to remain. The healthy men continued north and probably are in Pella now, waiting out the winter rains with some measure of comfort. The ones still here are miserable, but one fellow I befriended had told me the Athenian army that sailed into the gulf and laid siege to the city was heading north in the late spring. It was pretty obvious something was going to happen soon; stores were being hidden, lots of land were being sold off, cheap, and some were taking their families further into the hills, away from the coast.

Then, last week, early one morning as I was talking to my brother in law in front of his house, if you can call it that, a man familiar to him rushed up and told him that the Athenians were a few stades from the city. Word spreads fast, and other incredible details followed: the Athenian strategos, a man I had never heard of named Chremonides, had arrived with chests of Aigyptian silver, looking for any men who were able bodied and willing, and could handle a spear. He had with him, to my amazement, several Spartiates and mercenaries from Boiotia and Krete, even more than a few men from Demetrias and still carrying Antigonos’ royal emblems upon their uniforms. The lure of silver is great indeed, too great for me certainly. Before the day was out I had made up my mind that this was my opportunity. My property was not worth saving here, and my wife and children would probably be happier staying at my sister’s house than they would in the place we were in, even if she was likely to be treated badly by my sister.

The rivers have just now slowed enough to cross without much danger, and these men are anxious to go north. There will be no waiting for harvest time and drier weather. The army marches out of Dion tomorrow and only the gods know what will await us when we leave the protection of this city’s walls. Whatever it is, if I live through it, maybe I will have enough silver to live the rest of my life in some comfort.

[Wolfman]

Interesting new approach TA. So how does it affect battles? Are they more tense, epic, and harder to win?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Yeah, they are harder as the AI is controlling your army. But it's more like you are a unit commander and have to make decisions just for your guys. On the battlefield that is. It's hard to role play like that on the strat map, but I'm trying not to cheat too much in that respect, like using spies too much or something. I wish the army I started with was smaller, but this is my first go at this and that was just a mistake I made.

I think near the end of battles, it sometimes is going to be hard to restrain though. But it's definitely given them a new twist.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Spring 264:
Leaving Dion, we began to be harassed almost daily by very small numbers of Antigonos’ cavalry. Only a small number of men were found in Thessalia last summer, so rushed were the Athenians to continue north. If they had taken time to send word, and evidence of their ability to pay, more men from the interior tribes would have surely come forward. But as it is, we have very little in the way of cavalry now to help guard our flanks.

Still, we reached Pydna and then the outskirts of Methone with very few casualties. Most men here believe our early advance has caught Antigonos off guard, but we will have to wait and see. We did not waste time sieging those places. We continued to march north and it soon became obvious that the crazed bastard was trying to reach Pella itself before other reinforcements could arrive to help defend the city. We weren’t even sure if Antigonos himself was there at that time, but we began hearing that the city was well defended.

We had plenty of food and although we had begun to tire from the hastened marches, morale was good among the men. The other men who had signed up to serve with their aspis and spear included about twenty from Dion and the surrounding farms. Most of them were from Thessaly, though two brothers I had once fought alongside in Aitolia also had joined the group.

When we arrived in sight of the walls of Pella, to that point in time we had faced very little opposition. I remember drawing closer to the city, a place I had visited several times in the course of my life, and seeing the abandoned carts, and burnt farmsteads, most still smoking, evidence of the last minute decisions to torch them before we arrived. We began to lay siege to the city within a week of our arrival. Word was that they thought Antigonos was inside the city, but we had no real idea. Many riders had gotten out before the circumvallation was complete, and certainly if he was there or elsewhere, messengers were searching the countryside for available men to oppose us. A quick attack would have been preferable under these conditions, but we would have to storm the place, and preparing even that would take precious time.

[user999]

Sounds like a fun idea, I like to roleplay in battles in my campaign, trying to keep one guy (officer or standard) alive, or setting up a unit to have to defend or hold a point "heroically" until help arives, but have never thought of this, will keep reading.
Thanks

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Late Spring 264:
The city walls had to cover such a large area that there were several points where rams could breach them if we were given enough covering fire and time. That was our intention, at least. A month after we started the siege, we became aware of the approach of another army from the northeast. It did not seem very large, but it was intent on disrupting our construction of the siege equipment.

When the besieged soldiers saw their reinforcements approaching, they rushed out of the city as well, confident of their chances of creating havoc along the lines of the siegeworks. By that time, we had received better reports from inside the city, and they seemed sure that it was Alkyoneus, Antigonos’ son, who was in charge of the army there. Where Antigonos was was still anyone’s guess. But Alkyoneus was no slouch. He had fought in many battles and was a good tactician, according to these reports. When Chremonides heard this, he became more cautious and pulled our army back away from the immediate walls of the city. Within sight of the place though, we prepared for their armies and sure enough, Alkyoneus did not disappoint. He led his soldiers out at the same time the reinforcements arrived, and Chremonides’ first great battle in Makedonia commenced.

Possibly because of our combined inexperience, we were not placed on the front line of battle. Chremonides had bought the services of enough men with sarissas that they formed our front ranks. As our lines were deployed we were told to watch the left flank, and be ready to relieve men there if problems occurred.

The reinforcing army approached first, and it became clear their ranks were not very deep and they had no cavalry. Our peltasts rushed forward to throw their javelins. As they separated themselves from our line, from our vantage point it was clear that they had made a terrible mistake. Alkyoneus did not have much in the way of cavalry, but the men surrounding him, his personal bodyguard, were heavily armed cavalrymen themselves. They had bolted out much quicker and ahead of his main army, and now were going to smash into our peltasts, who were concentrating on doing serious damage to the smaller reinforcement army. Although it looked bleak for our men, they were close enough to our line that some of them did make it back, and the others held off Alkyoneus long enough to cause him some damage. His bigger problem though was that in rushing out to attack our skirmishers, he had left his men in some serious manner of disarray. His first phalangites were approaching our line at this point, but others were lagging behind them, and some had hardly moved since he sprinted out in advance.

Akyoneus saw our lack of cavalry on our left wing and attempted to flank our line, but at the end of it, Chremonides had placed some Spartan soldiers, who bore the brunt of Alkyoneus’ charge. Our line was loathe to turn towards him, leaving a gap, so it naturally fell to us to push further to the left and reinforce these Spartans. A few minutes earlier it appeared as though we would not have to take part in the battle, but now we suddenly were ordered into the most important point of it.

As we ran towards the Spartans, Alkyoneus then ordered his guards to pull back. They withdrew a few paces, and the Spartans took off after them. The rest of the line held, and we took the place the Spartans had held a few minutes prior. Sure enough, it was just a ruse to get them out of formation. Alkyoneus swiveled his men back around and onto the charging Spartans. Under other circumstances, those Lakedaimonian blowhards would have been done for, but the horses of the prince were tired at this point. After a brief encounter, he ordered his guard to hasten back towards the center of the battlefield, and as they galloped, the Spartans followed right behind, glory hounds that they are. The right flank of our line was now engaged with the phalangites of Alkyoneus, and more of his men were approaching in the center of the field.

Chremonides saw that our left line was somewhat out of the fray now, and ordered the line to be strengthened at the center, but the men in the center became confused at this and started to turn, expecting men to take their places. Alkyoneus saw their backs and rushed in upon them. It was a daring move, but his guard was already half the size it entered the field with. My unit continued to hold the furthest left flank, which had been pulled in considerably closer than it had earlier in the battle. A unit of infantry approached us on their own, but we were rested and they were somewhat out of order. A group of thureophoroi was given the command, along with us, to charge out and engage them. As we turned, with our backs partly exposed to the middle of the fray, I heard several thuds. As I turned to look, a man behind me and two rows over fell. The Makedonian slingers were targeting our unit, and two more men dropped before we took ten more steps. We ignored their bullets, and quickly charged in, catching the Makedonian infantry as they were turning back toward the middle of the battle. Most of the rest of the battle had already been decided, but the thureophoroi turned back toward the middle, leaving us alone now and further in advance than any other unit on the field. But they soon charged back and after they threw their javelins (which I might add did not all hit Makedonian targets – four of our men fell like a flash of lightning), they crowded into the left flank of the Makedonians. The enemy routed quickly, but we were not about to follow them. A group of peltasts also approached, and we began to pull back into our main line. But our thureophoroi charged out even further and became caught between the enemy. Our line held though. A few of our peltasts were mopping up in the center of the field, but the thureophoroi we were fighting alongside now were being attacked by a much larger group of Makedonian peltasts. No signal was given, but everyone felt the person next to them take one step, then two, then three turned into a quick jog. There was little other danger, so we rushed alongside, and then around the flanks of the enemy peltasts, and just as the thureophoroi felt us approach, cries of victory could be heard among them and together we began to push the peltasts hard to their left. It didn’t take long before they crumbled, a couple of our men were struck by slingers’ bullets while we ran across the field, but we lost no one else in the fighting there. Only a few slingers remained on the center of the battlefield, and our men were close enough to catch them in a sprint.

Now a battle hardened element of Alkyoneus’ force remained at the rear of the field, but we had had our share of the day’s fighting. We jogged back to the safety of our lines alongside the thureophoroi, whose lives we had saved, and remained there for the rest of the battle. The enemy was peppered with our Kretan mercenaries’ arrows, and when the body of the line engaged them, it did not take long for the battle to end. Some of my friends were able to find a few choice pieces of silver and trinkets worth saving, but I found nothing worthwhile, except for an aryballos that looked vaguely eastern, or maybe it was just old. It had a faint smell of perfume, but just a few drops of oil left in it. I put it with the rest of my belongings and rejoined my unit. By the end of the day, we had lost a few more than we expected, and none of our seriously injured men were able to rejoin us. Most of our injuries had been at the hands of slingers, and a few spear wounds.

We did not lose much time in heading towards the city, but the remnants of Alkyoneus’ forces, including the man himself, had made it back into the city and shut the gates. It was going to take a full assault still, but a much easier one as long as no one else showed up to the party. Chremonides received word that a few other men had arrived behind us who wished to take up his offer and serve for pay also, and he brought them in. They were mostly men with spear and aspis like myself, but not many in number. They had fought for the Athenians in Boiotia and had been told to head north and join our army apparently. I would have rather seen some cavalry join us, but what’s done is done. Now Pella awaits us and we are hoping for an easy go of it.

[Ower]

very enyojable

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Very good idea indeed. It's something completely different to hear of a battle from the point of view of a simple soldier, and not from a god-like general. Really thrilling.

[Imperator]

I agree- excellent AAR you've got going here

[Owen the Mighty]

Cool....I like the idea of being in control of only one unit.....ah, good-ole Classical Hoplites. You gotta love those hoplon shields....

Great so far!

[Warmaster Horus]

Yep, nice stuff. Keep it going!
BTW, if the AI is doing something really stupid (Cavalry into phalanx front, for example), will you take charge of the situation, temporarily? Suppose your great General, who will have won so much but died because of AI stupidity. You wouldn't want that, right?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

In this particular case, I'd let them do something stupid if my unit couldn't change it. My hoplites were next to a fractured allied unit in my next battle, and they were isolated from the rest of the force, so I "took command" of their unit as they didn't have an officer any longer and were about to do something stupid too. But I wouldn't take the general and save him or someone else that my guys couldn't have reasonably given orders to.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Normally I don't read AARs, but found yours to be quite surprising and entertaining. Get back to your AAR, Teleklos.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Hehe. I've got *way* too much to do right now, and I don't even remember which build that was. Still, the reason I tried it was because no one else had done one like that and I really just hoped to inspire someone else to do a better one. Just imagine following around and playing as one unit of Spartans or one unit of Thracian mercs in Persia or Galatian mercs in wars against the Seleukids or anything else like that. It would be awesome.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Hmmm, I'm just training some Galatian Kuruatoroi (sp?) in my everlasting Mak campaign, so why not? But I would not give away the command in battle, I would just think of "how do those guys see the battle / campaign". I'll think about it.