Art de la guerre. A successful demo?- part 1

A week ago, I went to the club to make a demo of Art de la guerre. Clive and his Greeks was here. I had already made a list for him, and I wanted to play my Chinese. Here are the armies compositions. Beware, they're not optimized:

La semaine derniere, j'ai fait une partie d'initiation a Art de la Guerre avec CLive, qui aime bien tester de tout. Il est venu avec une armee grecque soclee warmaster. J'ai pris mes Chinois, et voici les listes jouees:

Greeks:

- brilliant general included
6 Elite heavy spearmen ( Spartans)

2 skirmishers javelins

2 light horses javelins

- competent general

3 skirmishers bow

2 Thracians ( medium foot with 2 handed weapons)

4 javelinmen

- competent allied general

6 heavy spearmen

2 skirmishers bow

Chinese

- competent general

4 skirmishers bow

4 Elite impact heavy chariots

- ordinary general

3 crossbows

4 heavy foot with 2HW

- brilliant general

2 light horses bow

1 heavy cavalry

4 crossbows

2 medim foot 2HW

 Because I arrived late, we agreed to play on a ready made table, and gave him the initiative roll. In Art de la guerre, you usually roll for it with a d6+ initiative value. The winner decides if he'll attack or not. If you attack, you have a +2 bonus to know if you move first. In that case Clive will move first.

Here is how we deployed: my chariots were on my far right to cover my wing, while the rest of the army would attack on my left. Clive put his Spartans in the middle, his light corps on his right and his ally on his left.

Le terrain a ete pose arbitrairement pour gagner du temps et j'ai donne le bonus d'initiative a Clive. Il a deploye ses allies a gauche, les redoutables Spartiates au centre et ses legers a sa droite. De mon cote, mes chariots protegent mon flanc droit tandis que je me concentre a gauche...

Then we move: each corps is activated with a die, modified by the general's bonus. Then you'll have your points to perform actions. It's a bit like DBM, but better, because good leaders can do a lot of things... In Clive's case, he moved his Spartan and his light troops, but his ally proved to be unreliable and so didn't move...

During my turn, I moved my light horse to shoot at his skirmishers in the field, and scored hits! To do this, you have to roll more than your opponent, but you have bonus/malus against his protection value. Then the rest of the army moved forward to seize the hill and my chariots tried to threaten the Spartans..

Son allie s'est revele non fiable et je vais essayer d'en profiter. Le reste de ses troupes avancent et bientot il se retrouve a portee de tir de mes arbaletriers...

As Clive pursues his advance, my men start shooting, and inflict some cohesion losses. In Art de la guerre, units have differents cohesion levels, called cohesion points. As soon as you take hits, you lose cohesion and fight less well. If you reach your max level, you rout. Easy heh.

Mes premiers tirs se deroulent plutot bien, mais l'allie grec finit par se bouger le derriere, surement motive par les promesses viriles du general spartiate en cas de victoire. Mes chariots se sentent du coup un peu isoles...

Then the Spartans continue to advance, and their ally finally becomes reliable, thanks to the messengers the Spartan general sent ( in ADG, you can use some command points to help a general becoming reliable). Damn, my chariots might be overcome by sheer numbers then... The Greek light cavalry chase my skirmishers, who have to evade, otherwise they would be in trouble: in these rules, skirmishers are automatically destroyed by anything heavier than them, in the open. In any kind of terrain, that's a different matter.

Oh look, a chariot charged for free (initiative range) a unit of light cavalry, now look who's in trouble. Darn. Ok, I moved too far , but I wanted to show Clive what would happen if a unit presents its flank...

Meanwhile, everyone is now ready on the left flank: shooting is quite effective and Clive doesn't want to risk a charge, though his troops are better than mine. But on the other end, my cavalry is severly hit by skirmishing snipers ( they took 2 hits out of 3 before I retire them, and one unit of light horse simply disappeared...)

Les affaires commencent a chauffer: mes chariots vont essayer de gagner du temps en se mettant en position de charge, tandis que Clive se rapproche. Bon en fait, je manoeuvre de telle sorte qu'il puisse voir certaines situations particulieres. Au centre, les Spartiates avancent toujours mais les legers grecs sont terrifies par la grele de carreaux d'arbalete et n'osent pas charger... Bref, tout est pret pour le second acte et le denouement... Qui va craquer en premier? Aurons-nous du porc au caramel ou bien des feuilles de vigne au diner? 

How will this end? What will be served? Dim-Sun or Gyros with white sauce? Did Clive enjoyed the game? Well, you'll see it tomorrow, because I have still quite a lot of pics to sort out.