THE LATIVM CVP

A tournament review.

As promised soon after the CVP final game, I have now had the time to get the review put together.

Jeff Hudelson, the featured player in this review, is the first ever LATIVM CVP tournament entrant to bring his own 'early roman era' army and win every match through the round-robin, then defeat the returning past champion on his way UNDEFEATED to the Grand Championship.


In his first semi-final match, Jeff faced another Greek army, similar to his own, save that this one did not have the light cavalry rather had psiloi.
Jeff had the good fortune to not have to deploy from a heavily wooded area, which interfered with the movements of his opponent, and very nearly shut down his communications (very low 'pips' rolled at the start by Paul R = Jeff's opponent).


While bogged down in the woods the Greeks (seen in blue) were forced into tight columns or along the road, Jeff was able to get to the road exit first and block off easy escape from their cavalry.
Jeff also hemmed in the Auxilia troops at the edges of the woods by superior numbers of spears.

After a long period of maneuvers, where Jeff was able to counter anything Paul R did, the fight began in earnest, with all degenerating into a wild fight in the few clear spots along the main road. Early on Paul was able to push back Jeff, then once out into more open country, where one would have thought the cavalry would have fared better, disaster struck and time after time they were pushed back into the trees and once unable to form ranks got cut apart by the combined efforts of Jeff's spear and auxilia troops.


This then set the stage for the CVP FINAL match, between Jeff's Greeks and Paul S commanding a Camillan Roman armu (II/10. from version 2.0 of DBA).

Thier deployment was done with great care and thought, coming from both players, as neither wanted to 'give away' anything to the other.

Initial action saw Jeff launch an attempt to 'steal' the Roman camp.

This was countered by Paul S, but not before Jeff could use the greater speed of his army to take up a commanding position around the Roman lines.

The Romans managed to block the attempt at their camp, but in doing so (with their General) were forced to leave their other flank, left, well out of communication range.

Jeff was quick to capitolize on the weakness in communications to that far Roman flank and assembled a force to press it. However his own left flank force suffered a loss at the hands of the Roman General.

Now the Romans were starting to feel the pain for having streched their line so far, unable to communicate effectively, the Roman flank got turned, and a Psiloi was ridden down by fast Greek Light Horsemen.

Desperate fighting now began to happen, and the Romans pulled out a minor victory, staving off total defeat at one moment and giving a sense of 'turning the tide' at the same time.


It was only to be a momentary respite though, as command was unable to get both himself closer and re-order the now turned lines.

Chaos was the result, with the Greek army under Jeff able to re-order his lines faster than Paul S could.

Jeff Hudelson wins the 2007 LATIVM CVP