Alexander the Brief - human playtesting

 My long suffering pals on the Tuesday/Wednesday night Zoom call seemed quite keen on trying out 'Alexander the Brief', so I set it up as a sort of players-eye view of the proposed participation game. It also got me thinking about props and transportation.

Here is the first go at my  planned setup. I'm (once again) using my old batttle board which I first made for 'WW1 in Three Turns' many years ago and has done sterling service ever since. It helps to delineate the playing area neatly and I also have a load of map pins stuck in it which can help record battles won/lost and units lost.

I fiddled around a bit with various iterations of figures, but this lot will all fit in one A4 box file, along with the dice tray and dice just visible to the right of the picture.

Alexanders army is familiar from before. One element each of Companions, Thessalians and peltasts plus two element units of pikes and hoplites with an extra pike unit to swap for the hoplites at Gaugamela. All led by my shiny new Alexander figure.

Here is Alex leading the companions.

The Persians have the same mishmash of units required for the three battles. Here they are set up for Granicus, with more stuff in the box for Issus and Gaugamela. In this case they have a front line of two cavalry and one horse archer in the front line and reserves of two archers, some generic Persian infantry and the Greek mercenary hoplites. I've also added a third rank of a 'Persian horde' who are there to add the impression of mass.

To play the game I had Tim, John, Mark, Jim, Jerry and Simon. Alexander and his 'greek chorus' of Parmenio, Ptolemy etc. We decided that for each battle we'd let one of the team take the lead, while the others provided helpful advice.

Tim took on the role of Alexander at Granicus and went for a conventional deployment with the Peltasts taking on the horse archers, the pikes the centre and the Companions the Persian cavalry. We had a bit of a debate about what best to to with Alexander, and his 're-roll' capability. At first I was in favour of moving his figure around, but we agreed in the end that he would always ride with the Companions, but his influence could apply anywhere once per turn. Favour of the gods and all that.

After a couple of rounds of fighting both the Macedonian Peltasts and Thessalians had been routed(!), but the Companions had crushed everything before them, using up all the Persian reserves. With one last effort the Companions rode down the Persian archers and broke the Persian army,  leaving the poor old Greek mercenaries to be surrounded, captured and executed by Alexander.

Jim took over as Alexander for Issus. In this battle the Persians went with an infantry/archer heavy front line and Darious himself turned up to watch. Jim went for a very aggressive approach, pikes up against the Kardakes in the centre and all the Macedonian cavalry against the serried ranks of Persian archers on each flank.

The 'mini' Agincourt went about as well s expected and both the Thessalians and Companions went down in a hail of arrows, despite Alexanders re-rolls. The Persians were considerably thinned by the Macedonian infantry but the Persian cavalry managed to turn the Macedonian left flank, just as in real life. 

Things were looking a bit sticky for the Macedonians now, reduced to two units and with an open flank. The Persians were on three units. 

Alexander personally led the hoplites against the greek mercenaries but the combat was inconclusive despite a re-roll. Parmenio saved the day however and broke the Persian centre, at which point Darius legged it, taking the rest of his army with him. That was rather exciting! A costly Macedonian victory.

Jerry took over as Alexander for Gaugamela. The Scythed Chariots turned out to be rubbish, as usual, and the Persians were forced to commit their Immortals in the centre. The Companions managed to rout the horse archers opposing them.

Things got a bit sticky when both the Thessalians and Peltasts were routed, but continued slogging by the Macedonians broke the Persian left and once again Darius ran for it, only to meet his sad fate in Bactria.

So at game end we had three Macedonian victories and six units lost in the process. Timing wise, it took around 40 minutes remotely, but we'd had a lot of chit chat so my estimate of 25-30 minutes seemed OK. There were some suggestions about rules clarifications, possibly adding some terrain representation and more generally about how to streamline it to keep within a 30 minute time limit. The team play seemed to work well and we've done that with other notionally solo participation games, so we'll keep that.

OK, time to try it again on Wednesday night with a few mods and a different cast of players.

So here is the new setup, this time featuring the Granicus river. It doesn't do anything to the game, but it looks nice...

We only had myself, John and Tim for Wednesday, so John took Alexander for Granicus. He led with the Macedonian cavalry with the Peltasts to take on the Persian horse archers. For this variant, to reduce umpire decision making and specifically to avoid the umpire actively playing against the player, I've further restricted the Persian reserves. They can ONLY deploy forward in their initial sector. 

And this has the nice result that the Macedonians can now do flanking attacks too if they muller one flank (the Persian breakpoint of two largely precluded this before). So Alex storms across the Granicus, scattering all before him and gets to wallop those Mercenary Hoplites in the flank. 

The hoplites duly collapse, and game over. A thumping Macedonian win. That is more like it.

Tim took over for Issus and boldly put the Thessalians up against the Persian archers on the right flank, while the Peltasts took on the other archers and the Macedonian hoplites the Kardakes in the centre.

The Thessalians were put to flight, but committing the Pikes on the right overcame the archers and on both flanks the Persians were forced to commit their cavalry. The hoplite struggle in the centre dragged on inconclusively.

The Pikes and Persian cavalry managed to mutually annihilate each other on the right, and Alexander led the Companions once more onto the Persian flank. I really like the way the fixed Persian reserves are working here.

And once again, the flank attack by the Companions proved decisive and Darius turned and ran away. Another Macedonian victory, albeit more costly with two units lost (despite careful use of Alexanders re-rolls).

Finally John was back it the saddle for Gaugamela. We kept Alexanders pike upgrade for the infantry, and John put in Peltatsts, Pikes and Companions against the Persian horse archers and scythed chariots.

The Pikes and Thessalians saw off their opposite numbers, but the Peltasts and Horse Archers remained locked in inconclusive combat. The Persians committed the Immortals and reserve cavalry.

The Pikes tore the Immortals apart and Alexander routed the opposing cavalry, once more opening up the Persian left, but he was saved the bother of charging further as the Peltasts finally drove off the the Persian horsemen and Darius legged it for Bactria.

That went very well, with the overall combat resolution well under 15 minutes, although game chat would add more time, so we listed it to the show organisers as a 30 minute game. After that we had a chat about some extra props and various bits of admin, but essentially we are good to go. Alexander the Brief was at Partisan in May, and will probably be at COW in July. If I'm around we will perhaps do it at the Other Partisan as well and the Society of Ancients conference in September..