I like gaming chariot-on-chariot armies in the era before cavalry replaced chariots. One good match-up is the Early Assyrians against New Kingdom Egyptians. My question is how do others gamers succeed against armies with multiple Archer stands like the NKE army fields? In my solo games the Assyrians time and again lose hard-fought battles, killing 3 or 4 Egyptian stands, but still reach the magic 16 points lost before the Egyptians. I blame the Egyptian Archers.
I generally intersperse the 3 or 4 Egyptian Archer stands between their two Heavy Infantry and their one Elite Infantry stand in the center, leaving the Assyrians a choice of: A--lining up their Raiders and Chariots also interspersed in the center battleline and trying to bull their way through, sending the Raiders to close with the Archers while the Chariots take on the Heavies and hope for a shattering dice roll---or B-- put the Assyrian Chariots on one flank along with their Bad Horse/Bad Camels and push that flank while only threatening with their center and the other flank.
Like I said, both Assyrian tactics seem to provide close and bloody games--which as a solo gamer I strive for--but the Egyptians keep proving too resilient. I'm wondering if I'm missing a key element to counter the Archers?
Suggestions? Thoughts?
Taking On Those Pesky Egyptian Archers
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Philip McBride
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David Kuijt
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Re: Taking On Those Pesky Egyptian Archers
Is this solo gaming, Phil?
I ask because solo gaming has some ... weaknesses. One such is the lack of surprise. It is hard to catch the enemy mentally off guard, when you are that enemy. Another is that you can rarely win in the deployment phase, because you aren't likely to see any weakness in the enemy deployment that you just put out a second ago. In real life (2-player games, I mean) it is not that difficult to get real advantage in the deployment phase, where the enemy is going to have to desperately hope for command points to redeploy to answer a heavy assault on one or the other flank.
Archers are very resilient, and attack on both player turns. But they are as vulnerable as any other troop to getting misdeployed. Because they are slow. Not as slow as they look, because they can shoot another 3MU after moving 3MU, but slow enough to burn mass quantities of command points if you are trying to redeploy them across multiple turns. It's hard to do an on-map flank march that catches the enemy in a command-point vise when you are playing both sides, though.
When you say Early Assyrians, do you mean Middle Assyrian and Early Neo-Assyrian? If so, do you take the Hupshu Militia? A group of 3 Light Foot with a couple of Skirm can serve as an excellent on-map flank march team in difficult terrain, where the only NKE troops that can stand against them (in difficult terrain) are the Archers.
If you fight them frontally, I'd agree with your assessment -- the NKE are one of the toughest armies of the Biblical Period because of their archers. But they aren't impossible. But I wouldn't fight them frontally. (Of course, I don't really fight much of anyone frontally -- unless I've got them to break up their main frontage in a desperate attempt to answer a flank sweep first).
I ask because solo gaming has some ... weaknesses. One such is the lack of surprise. It is hard to catch the enemy mentally off guard, when you are that enemy. Another is that you can rarely win in the deployment phase, because you aren't likely to see any weakness in the enemy deployment that you just put out a second ago. In real life (2-player games, I mean) it is not that difficult to get real advantage in the deployment phase, where the enemy is going to have to desperately hope for command points to redeploy to answer a heavy assault on one or the other flank.
Archers are very resilient, and attack on both player turns. But they are as vulnerable as any other troop to getting misdeployed. Because they are slow. Not as slow as they look, because they can shoot another 3MU after moving 3MU, but slow enough to burn mass quantities of command points if you are trying to redeploy them across multiple turns. It's hard to do an on-map flank march that catches the enemy in a command-point vise when you are playing both sides, though.
When you say Early Assyrians, do you mean Middle Assyrian and Early Neo-Assyrian? If so, do you take the Hupshu Militia? A group of 3 Light Foot with a couple of Skirm can serve as an excellent on-map flank march team in difficult terrain, where the only NKE troops that can stand against them (in difficult terrain) are the Archers.
If you fight them frontally, I'd agree with your assessment -- the NKE are one of the toughest armies of the Biblical Period because of their archers. But they aren't impossible. But I wouldn't fight them frontally. (Of course, I don't really fight much of anyone frontally -- unless I've got them to break up their main frontage in a desperate attempt to answer a flank sweep first).
DK