Night Before Battle

The Nycenaean Camp

“General Callidora, ma’am,” said the young adjutant entering the tent.

“Yes, Leto, what do you report?”

“The spies have returned from the Asterian camp.  They were not expecting us this far south.  Their army is smaller than ours, they have fewer heavy infantry and most of it is unarmored.  The enemy has put the pass behind them negating the one advantage a smaller army would have.”

“Good, good – who is their commander?”

The young woman looked at the ground.  Callidora knew there was something amiss. “Spit it out, girl!  Who is their commander?”

“It is Phoebe, the foot breaker.”

“Hmmm, Phoebe Foot Breaker – we crossed the boundary into Asteria a fortnight ago where we thought they’d least expect it.  Indeed, we are facing an army that was put together hastily.  But one of their best generals is here.  Tomorrow’s battle will be interesting.”

The Asterian Camp

“Have the spies left?” asked Phoebe.

“Yes, general, over an hour ago.” replied Captain Eudora.

“Send a rider back into the pass to Captain Hippolyte,” Phoebe said to her adjutant.  “Tell her to bring up the cavalry and the rest of the light troops.  I want them here at sunrise.”

“Yes, ma’am!” replied the young woman as she sprinted away from the campfire.  The fire crackled as Phoebe turned her gaze to the dark outline of Black Oak Forest.

“They arrived shortly after sunset, general.”

“Yes, Eudora – but will they leave their forest and join us in battle?”

Preparations

Ok, a few weeks ago I announced that I was going to try to paint 275 figures to add to my Amazon collection.  I knew it would take a miracle to paint that many figures.  The goal did help me to organize the figures into manageable batches.  The first batch consisted of 96 figures in various states of completion.  Some figures still required some assembly and priming.  My normal output is 8 to 10 figures a month.  In three weeks, I finished 40 figures.  They were all skirmishers, so that added 20 units to my collection.

The last time I fought an Amazon vs. Amazon battle, I kept the point total the same.  This gave one side a few more units than the other.  This time, I kept the number of units the same.  Each army has 44 units.  The Nycenaean army has 894 points and the Asterian army has 866 points.  Despite the point difference, both armies are very similar in composition.  In addition to the generals, each army has 2 captains, a hero and each army has a magic user pool of one level 2 magic user and two level one magic users.  The Asterians do have more cavalry and light troops, which is why their point total is lower.

In a few hours I’ll set up the terrain and set the final order of battle based on the tactics rolled on page 52 & 53.  Valkae armies use Battle Tactics A, so I used the Type A column to determine the deployment of each army.

The Asterian battle plan is Penetrate Center – 60% of the units in the center (with 10% in reserve); 20% on the left flank; 20% on the right flank.

The Nycenaean battle plan is Encircle Flank – 60% of the units in the center (with 10% in reserve); 30% on the right flank; 10% on the left flank.

In all total, there will be 219 figures on the table.  Most of the figures are from Eureka, but there are figures from Reaper, Shadowforge, Bronze Age Miniatures, and Dark Sword Miniatures included.