Akkadian vs Later Sargonid Assyrian

 Today was a David vs Goliath matchup, the Akkadians being the Goliath and the Assyrians the David (unfortunately without his lucky slingshot). The Akkadians won the initial dice roll for posterity and invaded in Coastal terrain, after drawing a higher card to decide the starting square on the terrain grid.

The terrain was a 4BW coastline on the Akkadian left to which they anchored themselves and a wood which covered their right flank. 

The first unit to fall was an Akkadian Skilled Archer unit, against Guard Cavalry. Despite having a Superior Melee Expert guard unit in overlap, the Cavalry was still alive by the skin of its teeth. It did, however, eventually die when the Akkadian Chariots scored a skull. Funnily enough, the Chariots had previously succumbed to a flank charge because I stupidly hadn't turned them to face forwards. Therefore a skull in Melee by the Cavalry meant the Chariots died too.

Essentially, the game devolved into a huge grind, with a few units falling on each side. The Akkadians however had one extremely bad round, where on 9 green dice, they rolled 7!! blanks and 2 wounds. Rubbish. My opponent, Ian, was able to gain the upper hand against my Long Spears with his tough Assyrian Infantry, which would eventually be supported by a Chariot unit hitting a flank.

I was threatening Ian's units' flanks rears with Long Spears and a Guard unit in return, but he skilfully avoided the consequences of leaving his flanks and rears exposed by charging. By the end of the game, we decided that we weren't going to reach a conclusion within 3 hours. There were units of Ian's that had a good chance of breaking, given the combat factors they were facing (Cavalry against Long Spears and Average Short Spear against Superior Melee Experts.

I think the 10-8 that myself and Ian had agreed was a reasonable score. I think my moan of the game is my combat dice were well below average but it was a really enjoyable game.

The 9s of Long Spear were in hindsight probably better off as 8s, given how quickly the files in each of those units were reducing. Would I take the Sumerian ally again? Possibly. I think also that the Skirmishers were a complete and utter waste of points, as the Long Spears have Shield cover anyway, and the Skirmishers just get in the way.

Assyrian casualties are fairly small, but a few units in the army were also small with a few on the verge of breaking.
Akkadian casualties are huge but not too many units have died.
The forces have clashed and suffered lots of casualties.
True David and Goliath matchup, loads of Long Spears in the Akkadian army.
Terrain, a sea on the Akkadian left and a wood in their right.


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