On 26 Jan I played my second game of Dawn of Battle, a wargame that is a sort of hybrid boardgame/hex & chit game. Published by Worthington Games, written by Mike Nagel. A “Designer’s Edition” of the game is available at Blue Panther (https://www.bluepantherllc.com/products/dawn-of-battle):
The "Dawn of Battle" is a hex-and-counter war game system that allows players to experience battles before the modern era. The game spans 3,000 years of combat, from the age of Greek generals to the invention of gunpowder.
The game system is straight forward and action packed. Players will depend upon the quality of their army's leadership to provide orders needed to maneuver their armies and stroke against the enemy. The better an army's command, the more flexibility it has to move, rally, and attack.
First of all, I will say this is an excellent game!
For the AAR, I have some notes that I scribbled during the game, and a handful of pictures.
The setup
We played Scenario 3: PELUSIUM
A battle between the Persian King Cambyses II and Psammeticas III, the last Pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt. An interesting note about this battle is the Persians painted images of cats (or maybe hung real cats) on their shields. The cats were holy to the Egyptians, so this gives the Egyptian troops a penalty in attacks.
Both forces have light infantry and missile troops. The Persians have three units of heavy cavalry while the Egyptians have three units of battle chariots, which are subject to the Impetuous rule. The chariots need to make a morale check at the beginning of each turn to refrain from charging headlong into battle with the closest enemy.
Turn One
The Persians gain initiative, and 3 AP (Activation Points). The infantry moved forward and spread out, while the cavalry were kept in reserve. One AP was retained for later activity.
The Egyptians had 5 AP and right away the chariots would have failed their morale check, but E played 2 AP to modify the result in his favor. E’s left flank advanced to the center of the field, while the chariots moved forward and fired missiles at the Persian slingers in the center, who were then disrupted.
The Egyptian missile troops on the left flank had ineffective fire, while the Egyptian light infantry on the right flank advanced. The single unit of light cavalry moved all the way to the Egyptian right, behind the lines.
As I had no opportunity to play either of my Event Cards, I decided to “spend” the remaining AP on Victory Points. By turning in one AP on the first turn I picked up 5 VP!
The field at the end of Persian turn one:
Egyptian turn one:
The yellow cubes are placed to indicate units that have been activated, but can still melee later in the turn, red cubes for those that have activated & used a missile attack.
Turn Two
The Egyptians seized the initiative, with 4 AP this turn, and the impetuous battle chariots failed their morale check. They charged the closest Persian units, but failed to score any casualties, aided by my playing of the “Perspiration” event card, giving my Persians +1 to melee results. However, all units in the melee were disrupted.
For my Persians, the left flank advanced, while the slingers and archers fired for no effect. My light infantry were able to gang up on the Egyptian leader, and he drew a 6, killed in action!
My heavy cavalry advanced far up the right flank and were able to win a series of melees against the Egyptian light infantry while becoming disrupted themselves.
Turn Three
As you can see this game moves quickly, with the abstract combat chart mechanism being very fast and easy to resolve.
For turn three the Persians once more gained the initiative, but an attempt to rally the disrupted troops on the left flank failed. The archers and army leader moved to turn their facing toward the approaching enemy light cavalry.
The Egyptian formation moved forward on the left flank, to the center, and were able to eliminate the Persian slingers.
The Persians returned fire with their archers, to no effect.
The Egyptians were unable to rally any troops either!
On the right flank, the Persian commander was able to rally his infantry and then he attacked with the heavy cavalry, pressing the lone remaining Egyptian leader. The Persian heavy cavalry were able to soften up or destroy the Egyptian infantry. Next the Persian infantry followed up and attacked the remaining Egyptian infantry with the last leader.
Both Infantry units were disrupted and the Egyptian leader drew another 6!
This was the end of the Egyptian army, as they failed their Panic Test, as there were no commanders left to return to the field.
I believe the Egyptians had also lost enough troops to be below the Panic threshold for continuing the game at all.
Thus ended the Battle of Pelusium, Psammeticus was taken captive and Egypt fell to Persian rule.
Closing Thoughts
I really like this game. It has a lot of nuance for such a simple combat mechanism. I also believe that the game could be played without a hex map, using the chits or miniatures on stands to represent the troops, and measuring the Move rating in inches.
I will be playing more of this game, both solo and with other players. I am also going to make some hex-counters for terrain features, hills/forests/rivers, to make maneuvering a little more interesting. There is an expansion pack for the game that includes additional scenarios, supplemental rules, and terrain hex counters (if you’re not craft-y).
It is a little on the expensive side, but the quality of the game board and pieces (Caveat: I have the Worthington Games edition) is top-notch. I will give this game a rating of five stars.
Please check out the unboxing video on the yootoob channel: Purple Druid Presents Dawn of Battle and share this post!
I really like this game and and it was nice to see how it plays