Alexander the Not-So Great

Impetus Alexander Campaign Turn 1 & 2: Battle of the Granicus River

This is the first battle of the Alexander campaign in Extra Impetus 4. One of my new years resolutions has been to play more campaigns this year and the Alexander campaign is the second one I started. It's also the first one I completed because the campaign is basically a series of linked battles recreating Alexander's famous battles, and it goes on until Alexander loses. As it turns out I lost the first battle so voila, a successful campaign done and complete in one night.

So this battle has already been blogged about and detailed by my opponent on his blog
http://themonkeythatwalks.blogspot.ca/2012/03/prince-of-persia.html. I wanted to add a few more pics and since my blog is primarily dedicated to AAR's I wanted to document my Alexander campaign.

My colleague already described the battle in detail so I won't rehash everything that happened other than to say I tried to replicate Alexander's actual tactics from the battle, I got unlucky and while Alexander's unit passed their rally test and was able to take a double move forward, the rest of the cavalry supporting him failed their tests and lagged behind. This got Alex isolated and although he fought an epic couple of rounds against three enemy units he eventually broke and it was downhill from there. I initially put Alexander on the opposite side of my enemy's strong horse archer force to avoid getting worn down from missile fire.

Kudos to my opponent for using some good tactics to beat Alexander and demonstrating how a Persian army could've theoritically defeated Alexander. I think of Impetus as a game rather than a simulation but I still think that the Persians could have used their light horse similar to how my opponent did, by harrassing the enemy formation and causing his lines to lose their lose cohesion rather than taking Alexander head on.

It's interesting to note that in the actual battle Alexander found himself isolated and even got injured before his support caught up to him. So this is a very realistic alternative outcome, imagine how the history of the world would've been different.



Persian and Macedonian Army Deployment

Macedonian phalanx in the centre

Persians have a strong left wing

Alexander and his cavalry on the Macedonian left advance through the river

The Macedonian right skirmishes with the Persian horse archers

Alexander is across the river but the rest of the Macedonians are slowed down

Alexander's fateful and heroic charge

The phalanx advances under a hail of arrows

Alexander very uncharacteristically running away

The phalanx is finally across the river and engages the Persian centre

Meanwhile the Persian left has totally wiped away the Macedonian right wing. This is about where the game ended with a Macedonian loss.