I have never played Armati or any of it's variants in this case Armati II. I have now played two games. Trajanic Romans v German Tribesmen and the classic match up of Greeks v Persians. After the game of ADLG a couple of weeks ago (see xxx) we discussed the pros and cons of ADLG and Trebian said he could see where some of the game mechanics had come from. This turned out to partially be from Armati. One difference he pointed out was that units were much less maneuverable than in ADLG which to him it felt more like an ancient period battle. After all command and control wasn't a huge feature in most ancients battles especially in the barbarian armies!
Armati does indeed restrict maneuver or to be accurate there are limits to what can be achieved while maintaining a unit's order. Like ADLG it has 'hit points' for each type of unit and when these are gone so is that unit. Unlike ADLG light troops don't count towards an armies break point and lights are quick killed by contact with certain heavy troop types, representing light troops being dispersed beyond recall rather than wiped out. Movement is not directly linked to base widths although like ADLG and other games it does use the standard WRG base sizes. There are restrictions on how many maneuver groups an army can have and different armies have different initiative modifiers. In the game the Romans get to add 7 to a D6 roll us Germans only get to add 4. The difference between the Greeks and Persians was less marked being 5 and 6 respectively.
On to the Games
The Roman game was played in 15mm using Peter Pig figures, which are really rather nice, its a shame they only produce a limited range of armies for the ancient world. Trebian and Phil umpired and provided tactical advice and the remaining four us commanded the troops. As I had been on the winning side last time out I elected to try out the German side as they are very much the under dogs when facing the cream of Rome's army.
Another interesting point in Armati is that after terrain is deployed a screen is used to allow table top deployment without either player seeing what the other is doing. That actually works really well and it means deployments are never guaranteed to be optimal.
The terrain provided two areas of woodland on the front edge of the German deployment area and a small hill on the Roman right. When the screen went into place we decided to deploy the heavy german foot with the ends of the line anchored within the woods, a cavalry heavy right flank and a lightly defended left as we expected a lot of Roman light troops in that area. When the screen was removed we saw the Romans had deployed an infantry box in their centre with horse in reserve behind that and light infantry out on their right.
The Romans won the initiative roll (they never lost this roll all game) and the game was afoot. Long story short the germans moved forward to occupy the woods (Roman legionaries are at a hefty disadvantage in them) and pushed forward on the flanks. The Romans elected to advance as well. Once we had our Infantry lines set they stood to wait the oncoming storm. We pushed our flank units of light infantry and cavalry forwards. The Romans just kept on coming. On the left we swept aside most of the Roman Light Infantry and sent our own Light Infantry up the low hill hill to pin down the single unit of Roman cavalry. It worked for one round of shooting! On the other wing the Roman Horse was pushed right back and they were forced to break a cohort of legionaries off the main assault line to protect the now open flank. These were supported by auxilia.
The two centres clashed and the legionaries started to chew up the warbands. However the flanks of their line were not doing so well and because Germans are cheaper than Romans there were more of us than them and we elected to turn our flanks inward to envelop the Roman Infantry. This cost us initiative points as everytime you split a command your initiative bonus is reduced by one.
Long story short....the Romans broke our centre but we rolled up their flanks and won. By one breakpoint! The consensus was that if the Romans had coordinated their flanks and centre more efficiently the Germans would have been badly beaten.
In the second game it was obvious from the start that the Persians had a huge advantage in cavalry numbers while the Greeks had better infantry although in even numbers to the Persians. The Persians flowed round the Greek left in jig time and swept away the horse and peltasts who were defending their then hit the hoplites in the flank once they were locked into combat with the Persian foot. The line simple dissolved with rear and flank attacks providing quick kills on the otherwise powerful Hoplite line. The Greeks lost 7 - 1!
Armati does give a good game and in these games at least it was clear that the game was lost by poor deployment and decisions as much as from the enemy making good decisions. Deployment really matters as the ability to reset the line of combat troops (especially the close combat formations) is really restricted. It is vital to try to guess at the potential deployment you will be facing when the screen is removed and deploy to counter those threats. Oh and it helps to have an ex-world champion player on your team!
