Better Late Than Never

We've done quite a few South East Asian games, but they've always been my Burmese vs one of Wayne's collection, so for a change I borrowed some of Wayne's troops to do an historical match up that we haven't tried yet: Siamese vs Khmer. This time I took the Siamese.

Khmer El(X) are invaluable against elephant armies

It's a tricky match up for the Siamese as the Khmer El(X) relegate your elephants to the role of fat boys hanging out at the back. This leaves two options; take regular generals and fight a war of maneuver, or try a frontal assault with irregular fast blades. The Khmers have lots of tough auxillia superior, but I figured not having to follow up would give Siamese regular guards an edge, so my first attempt at an army list featured regular generals, and all eighteen permitted regular fast blades. This yielded a very small army though, and with a list stipulation that there can only be six guards per command, the three commands all came out quite similar, and not really looking like they'd make good use of a regular structure.

So for the actual game I decided to go for the blunt force trauma approach with massed irregular blades charging straight up the middle. A command of auxillia and Ps(S) would protect one flank, and the C in C the other, the latter also having some blades and some light troops. The fat boys were split between the two flank commands to disused any Khmer cavalry from stealing round the ends.

Actually I didn't think such an obvious plan would work on an open field, but if it could be sprung with an element of surprise, there might be a chance of overwhelming the Khmer centre while other troops were out of position, and before reserves could be brought up. My plan then was to ambush as many of the blades as possible in a central position, let the Khmer come to me, then spring out in a mad impetuous rush.

Initial Deployment

 Sadly the terrain didn't fall as I'd intended, my side of the table being an open plain, with the only useful terrain being a wooded hill on the far right. Wayne's side of the table was by contrast, replete with all sorts of useful hidey holes, so much so in fact that he forgot that, as the attacker, he was only allowed one ambush. Not wanting to reveal my hand too early, I therefore decided to delay the main blade command, while carefully deploying the other two commands to leave a big enough gap for it to come on. The C in C command went on the left where his extra pip would help protecting the open flank, and the light command was set well back on the right, in the hope that any assault on it would be delayed by the need to clear the wooded hill where four Ps(S) handgunners waited in ambush.

The battle unfolds

Khmer elephants redeploy from left to right

 With two widely separated  commands and many troops obviously absent, I expected Wayne to attack me pretty aggresively, however his center and left stayed put pretty much, while he shuffled his elephants across to his right to face of the few blades he could see. Meanwhile his CinC on his right advanced rapidly around my left flank. When my first pip rolls gave a one and a two for the on table commands, I figured it was going to be one of those days.

Khmer C in C in chariot

 Over the next bounds Wayne continued lining up his elephants, and pushed his CinC and column of auxillia further round my flank, encircling but being strangely reluctant to close. The general and a couple of blades made a half-hearted adavance from the center, but otherwise this stayed put. I split my C in C's command to face off the outflankers, while holding the rest of the command.

Didn't expect that!

Seeing his left was weak, and wanting to sap pips from the elephants that had switched flanks, I advanced tentatively with my right, and moved my handgunners out of ambush to investigate what was in the wood on Wayne's left. As they advanced towards it, five Khmer cavalry elements sprang out and attempted to run them down, but the lead psiloi outrolled the opposing cavalry 6 - 1 twice in a row to push it back into the wood. Eventually the cavalry prevailed, killing three of the four psiloi, while one made it into the wood and beat up several elements of Ps(I). Trying desperately to command his elephants on one flank, and his cavalry from the other, the commander of the Khmer left spent most of the battle camped in the center circle.

Eventually Wayne got everything arranged to his liking on his right, and began closing in on my left, but then at long last (bound 6) my central command arrived. The general and some psiloi were detached to shore up the left against the impending elephant attack, while 20 elements of blades stormed up the center.

Reinforcements finally arrive

Siamese blades about to crash into Khmer center

Meanwhile on my right, I'd moved up my auxillia and elephants to apply pressure. I foolishly allowed the Khmer bolt shooter a couple of shots on the general, but fortunately he survived, and my foot closed in and killed it, precipitating a fight there. Khmer quality and numbers were beginning to give them the edge, when my center command arrived, and quickly carved up the disorganized Khmers, while my right rallied killing two more elements with successive 6-1 rolls, effectively crushing that end of the Khmer line.

Khmer general in a bit of a pickle

On the left I managed to fend of the outflankers, while putting together enough of a reception commitee to stall Wayne's elephant attack. The later then came under heavy pressure as my center stormed past their exposed flank, and detached a few elements to turn it. Another unlucky roll killed an elephant leaving a gap that allowed the Khmer central general to be outflanked and killed,  and my El(S) C in C attacked another Khmer El(O) killing it and the one behind, leaving only some mopping up needed to complete the battle.

So was nice to get a win with my first attempt at Siamese. I do think Wayne let me off the hook a bit though by doing too much maneuvering on my left, and not pressing the attack quickly before my center arrived. I definitely had much the better of the combat dice though, as on another day the Khmer cavalry would have swept away my psiloi, and the artillery would have killed at least one elephant general. OTOH maybe they owed me for the unfavorable terrain, and long delay in my central command arriving.

Siamese Short-time Hospitality

The Burmese pass through the Kingdom of Ayutthaya.

The Pre-Amble

After our last disaster I had a modified plan which comes in several parts.

*  We (the models and I) are persevering with using regular commands and as many regular troops as possible to out manoeuvre the irregular enemy.  Thus we hoped to avoid having a ElS on ElS slogging match.

*  We are taking impetuous blades to hunt, on a aim and release basis, enemy foot as the blade are the local elite foot.  Being in groups of eight they can be put in ambush to hold their impetuous nature until required.

*  We have psiloi, including superior, plus the auxillia to run interference against the Burmese elephants looking to tie them up rather than take risks of death by attempting to destroy them.  That will be done with ‘flank-locks’.

*  Terrain is important in the above.  We will look to keep terrain away from the Burmese and on our side so they have nowhere to hide inferior troops and protect their flanks while we’ll obtain ambush positions for ourselves. 

Simple plans, maybe, but sure to be modified on the day once the battlefield and enemy dispositions are known.  Once contact is made then it’s no doubt they’ll be discarded!!

[Please note that Burmese Bob has posted a splendid rendition of this battle on this blog titled “The General Who Couldn't Afford An Elephant” so this is just a shorter perspective from the other side.]

The Game

Last night* the Burmese hordes invaded.  The terrain didn’t get set according to the plans with Bob having to discard his river (brought to avoid using area terrain?) and of my three ambush points, one was lost to Bob’s table edge** and the other two were very wide and unlikely to be of much use.  We used them anyway and one came into play but too late to do the required damage. 

With Bob having a split deployment zone my CinC, with high PiPs, and the elephants were placed centre and away from the front so that he could manoeuvre his regular troops either way to do the damage.  The elephants were to create a flank threat to any Burmese general advance.  Ambushes were to be sprung on passing enemy if I could draw then in and therefore we were to hold our line to receive the Burmese advance with only the CinC advancing.

Deployment Plans

Well the Burmese advanced alright.  A massive wave swept forward and threatened to swamp us from the word “go”.  They clearly had business to attend to much closer to the Mekong away past our rear.

We attempted to cut the Burmese in half and draw them as close as possible to the left hand ambush.

Their elephants are in fear of a lone ArtI plus, maybe, also of our elephants to their flank.  They stall.

“We are going to be needing that ambush any time now!!”

A great slogging match develops where we aren’t going to hold out in the long run with some unfavourable matchups (Bd on Ax, Bw on Ps) and being outnumbered.  The CinC gets bogged down with random Burmese running interference.

There is some elephant on elephant combats with foot running around the edges.  Casualties mount on both sides.  Burmese CinC disheartens, Siamese CinC gets dangerously close as well after a ElO manages to block our own foot into a bad situation.

Ambushes are launched.  The left one makes contact and starts to chew its way through the Burmese foot.  Unfortunately an impoverished Burmese general (on CvO instead of ElS) uses longer movement, tricky repulse outcomes and a mud covered SH to escape it’s BdF assailant and get behind the Siamese line. 

“Left wing looking good now – just one small issue that's about to go seriously bad ......”

Having broken free of his pursers the low class Burmese general turns and fatally rear ends a combat engaged Siamese ElS general.  In the same bound the Siamese elephant corps is decimated by a PiP flood induced series of hard flanks.  The Siamese break and flee the field.

The Burmese have now passed through the Kingdom of Ayutthaya and were last seen heading eastward towards the Mekong .......

A Note

To clarify Bob’s blog’s comment about artillery target selection.  I hadn’t forgotten per se, initially I was forced to continually engage the interspersed rBdF in front of his iElS CinC because the general was actually out of range.  Not by much but having measured it I knew it was enough that I couldn’t justify it.  Maybe in the end-game when the CinC moved I may have missed one opportunity but I think he was usually combat engaged.

The After-Match Round-Up

I don’t like playing the Siamese much.  It’s frustrating.  And as I’m buried in the history, I want to play the strong versions, not the average, bland, “could be any nation” ElO & Ax versions.  But the strong versions are difficult to get workable, remarkably small for an irregular troop army due to super-expensive but required rElS generals plus (semi-)compulsory ElS and high warrior minimums.  To make it work in the local environment it needs to also maximise its regular troops (in my opinion anyway)

But it’s the wife’s (rWfF***) home team, I’m largely responsible for the list (see no special pleadings – I can’t win with it!!), Bob likes the historical match up with his Burmese and now it’s a damn challenge to overcome my generalship deficiencies and finally win with it.

So it’s a love/hate relationship which means I’ll keep playing with it, I suppose. 

A Further Note

Bob Forgetting the Axioms (or Suicide by Elephant)

 See the 14 August Post.  The axiom is “don’t stand infront of the guns or behind the elephants” for obvious reasons.  So how does Bob deploy??

Spot the Dubious Deployment

One slip of the draw rope, one elephant shot in the rear thus one artillery piece turned to splintered matchsticks in the ensuing stampede.  I really laughed when I say this and insisted on the photo.  Of course it was a non-event, the artillery piece never moved nor fired and the elephant charged off with the Burmese masses to die elsewhere on the field.

The Irrelevant(?) Stuff

* = Not quite.  While I wrote the 90% of this the morning after, my fantasy world (the one with wives, employment, house construction and assorted responsibilities) got in the way of my real world (the one with DBMM games, models and terrain construction) and delayed me for almost a week before I could match up the photos.  Of course in the interim Bob’s done an outstanding job of detailing the game.

** = Having lost the terrain piece (a Wooded Hill) to the dice roll it was of course placed in the most annoying place, centre of his deployment zone cutting it in half.  The elongated WH was placed end-on rather than laterally as I’d have used it on any other edge to provide ambush launching stations. 

In our Kushan/Parthian/Aramenian/Steppe encounters Bob is often annoyed by a stray (diced to his side) marsh messing up the centre of his deployment zone.  The early terrain choices are usually always usable on any side except the opponent’s long side when they are used as an annoyance.

*** = Old story.  See 24 July post for the details.

The General Who Counldn't Afford An Elephant

Well there was a slight hiatus in the gaming routine due to sickness and schedule changes, but play resumed shortly after teatime last Wednesday. After the recent visit by the Siamese to Burma, the former kindly agreed to play host, and let my Burmese invade them. We agreed that the the year was 1962 * .

I always enjoy the Burmese vs Siamese fights, they tend to be fairly straightforward affairs without too much maneuvering, and are often very close games. They're also generally have lots of flavor with elephants clashing amid hordes of expendable foot. The fact that the Burmese always seem to shade the games, sometimes by the odd half ME does nothing to diminish my enjoyment.

I elected to invade in the wet season (as they wouldn't expect that) which meant selecting spring in DBMM although in SE Asia that's the hot season and the rainy is.. well now. Anyway it appeared that the rains came late in 1962 since the river I had elected to invade along was nowhere to be found. They did arrive shortly before the battle though, giving us mud which affected all of one combat roll. Otherwise the terrain was a wooded hill cutting my deployment area in two, and a wood on Wayne's right, and a scrubby hill to his left.

Deployment

I didn't have much of a plan for the battle (selecting a river for my terrain was just an attempt to bluff Wayne that I did), so I decided to line up my elephants to the right of the hill and charge. The command to the left of the hill would hide behind its barricades and defend, but the good troops in it were formed into a flying column to go elsewhere if Wayne tried to ignore it. However as the defender Wayne deployed first, and seeing his set up I placed my guard blades between the elephants of the center and right hand commands, as there were some juicy auxillia standing in the open waiting to be beaten up. My rightmost command was lead by a third cousin of a minor wife who was so much of a nobody, he couldn't even afford an elephant like a proper general, and was instead classified as Cv(O).

Deploy not in front of the artillery, nor behind the elephants. Hmm...

Wayne deployed with a big column of elephants in the center opposite the wooded hill, which were accompanied by foot guards (regular blade F) and the CinC. On his right (my left) was a small command with a cannon, a general, and a couple of guards. It wasn't too hard to guess that there were more of them lurking in the woods nearby. On the other wing was another cannon. some auxillia and hand gunners (Ps(S)) (How come the Siamese can have 4 of these while the Burmese only get 2) and not much else besides an elephant general.

Siamese advance their centre, Burmese advance their right

On the first move, Wayne's central column advanced and the elephant general and guards from his right advanced to support them. His army was obviously missing quite a few troops, but I didn't worry too much about where they might be, and just pushed my right two commands forwards as fast as possible. It wasn't long before we came to blows all the way along the line right of the hill with Wayne charging in first with some elephants from his center and the hand gunners from his right. His initial hit went well, killing two elephants quickly (one from the center and one from the right), but I got lucky when one of his elephants attacking the head of a column of auxilla that had come off the hill, was recoiled. This allowed me to move elements out of the column to flank lock a couple of his guards and level the score. This attack also pretty much blunted his central thrust as his CinC turned 90 degrees toexact some revenge, relieving the pressure on my left.

Although I'd lost two elephants already, the situation was looking good for me at this point. The center was pretty even, there were only a handful of elements attacking my left. and Wayne's line of psiloi and auxillia on the right was pretty thin, and looking like it would be outflanked too. At this point though. he unleashed his ambushes. On my left 8 irregular blade F stormed impetuously out of the woods, and on the right a similar force did the same from behind the hill. The force on the left was no surprise and wouldn't arrive in time to affect the outcome, but the force on the right was a diiferent matter as it would quickly crash into my deep columns of Ax(O) and Bw(I), which would be unlikely to end well for me.

Ambush!!!

But the man on a horse has a plan

 Now up until this point, the minor wife's third cousin (who had been studying some Parthian battle manuals) was hanging out at the back of the infantry column as close to the table edge as possible. Seeing that with his general already engaged, Wayne would struggle to find pips to turn any of his impetus horde round, he stepped out to the flank and advanced boldly behind then, while my foot stepped up make sure all of Waynes troops behind my SG were ZOCed. On his next turn Wayne did find the 3 pips to move his one free element up and attack my SG in the flank, and forcing him to turn. However, the latter won the combat and elected not to purse. In my bound he moved backwards up the muddy scrubby hill. While I would get a -1 for the rough terrain, Wayne would get a -1 for attacking up the muddy slope, increasing my chances of a kill if I won the combat, but more importantly, if I lost it, allowing me to repulse right along the rear of his line.

Confused Fighting in the center

 Meanwhile in the center, the fight had broken up with lots flank and rear attacks. In one bound I was able to kill two elephants with rear attacks, but failed to kill another which I'd hard flanked. Wayne demonstrated the principle that he who attacks from the rear, shall himself he attacked from the rear, and downed another of my pachyderms, demoralizing my central command. Luckily my CinC was able to resume the attack on the previosuly hard flanked elephant, and return the favor. Both centres were now close to breaking, but I had a bunch of 1/2 ME Auxillia in the fight, which meant Wayne needed to kill more elements than I did to win, so I was able to survive his turn with my center half an element off breaking. Wayne also forgot that artillery can choose their targets and neglected to fire his cannon at my C in C ( I do feel a little bit bad for not pointing this out at the time).

The final bound

So my center would collapse if breathed on, and my right was being carved up by an impetuous horde of Siamese men with big choppers. Luckily Wayne's center was no better off, and the man on the horse had managed to (obviously on purpose) lose his combat on the muddy hill, and was now standing close to the rear of Wayne's elephant general who was distracted by the huge column of Burmese levy archers he was busy stomping through. He made the obvious move, and in the middle I had enough pips to move an elephant into one of Wayne's blades, and move up my CinC to attack the sole Siamese elephant (O) next to it. As it happened, the CinC rolled well killing the elephant (O) and moving up to help dispatch the blade too, and break the Siamese center. The only thing that could spoil things now would be Wayne's elephant (S) C in C killing the demoralized auxillia he was fighting, and breaking my center too. Luckily we held on, and the man on the horse got the job done on the right flank, breaking the Siamese army.

Man on a horse is a pain in the butt.

 So another fun and tense game, with Burmese again just coming out ahead. The man on the horse really saved the day, as my center was almost done for, and my right flank wasn't going to hold up too long under the assault of the Siamese swordsmen.

*1962 in the Buddhist calender that starts 543 years before the Gregorian one.

Pretty Tiered Umbrellas Aren’t Weapons of War

The Siamese pay a fleeting visit to Burma.

Bob’s Burmese, his original 6mm army (mine were Khmer), is really large in elements (not so in ME) and has a reputation for BwI machine-gunners (who needs BwS longbowmen) which have on more than a couple of occasions bought down an entire Khmer elephant line before contact.  It’s major weapons are the compulsory ElS and the swamping effects of masses of inferior foot.  It also gets enough upgrades to regular/’ordinary’ to be useful and against historical enemies can well outnumber everyone with cavalry (albeit mostly clumsy ‘inferior’) so can outflank them.  In SE Asia it’s the flexible, pick-in-mix army of choice.  Being irregular commands only adds to its sheer bulk.

On very rare occasions a game is just not meant to be, and last night’s was one of those.  

I attempted to engage Bob’s Burmese with my Siamese (Ayuthaya Kingdom) after he issued the challenge last week and below you can follow the list of disasters, both natural and self inflicted to see why I shouldn’t have bothered turning up.

#1)
SE Asian armies all have elephants as prime impact troops.  To take non-ElS up against ElS is suicide (done that several time with the Khmer too) so I needed a ElS version of the Siamese plus the BdF to stand any chance of cutting through the masses of foot.  The only point of difference when you are going to be noticeably smaller than the enemy is a regular command structure and as many regular troops as possible.  Regular ElS generals are super-expensive!!  And then I like four commands. 

The new (haven’t used the Siamese for a while, since the “Elephant Too Far” battle) very experimental Order of Battle was a compromise in all directions and a daft idea.  Four commands, only two regular, plus one an ally, at 21 ½ ME the CinC was all regular troops plus psiloi and El), the regular sub-general at 21ME (iBdF), and two at 12ME, one a sub-general that could ambush in its entirerity, and an ally.  All commands too small and fragile (and some elephants downgraded to ‘ordinary’) and I knew I’d need to use terrain to make this work by keeping his mounted at bay and narrowing the frontage.

There will be a ritual burning of the OoB today.  This list was self-inflicted stupidity.

#2)
Even with lower aggression I invade.  The required terrain selection quantities are lowered.
Bob minimises his terrain selection numbers further reducing the terrain count (and I feared Yuan ally approaching but he later mentioned his army date excludes them).

#3)
Terrain falls badly.  Only one piece on my side and it’s a long wooded hill in my left flank.  Despite it being blatantly obvious I decide to ambush an entire command from here.

#4)
I decisively out dice Bob on deployment.  As invader I now deploy first.  With no options on a basically flat open field ALL surprise is lost.

#5)
I’d totally forgotten the Burmese have TF and Bob’s uses it regularly.  My impetuous iBdF are left aimed directly at the TF manned by iBwI because I’d deployed first.  There is an inexplicable gap in the TF’s centre with an ArtI in place.

Also Bob has significant cavalry, to my nil, and they are on his left flank (my right) and have a unchallenged path into the rear of my biggest command or my army as a whole.

I tell you "There are twice as many Burmese as there are Siamese".  And my position is rubbish.
I wish I had someone other than myself to blame.

#6)

I allocate coloured dice to each command and use them as irregular totally forgetting two were regular.  In doing so I transposed a 6 with a 1.  Doh! 

#7)

Death by stupidity - and a 1-6 roll!!

Having bought the maximum two ArtI myself I had placed a lone iBdF with one to meet the compulsory ‘deploy in groups’ rule with him going impetuously back to the rest of the command in the first couple of moves.  By coincidence it ends up facing the Burmese ArtI without the TF.

I double move it to get close as possible and to take a cheap shot in a later bound.  No problem, ArtI range is 240p.  Not so says Bob, its 320p and you’re in range (of course he’s correct, but who remembers these things when there’s not been a ArtI fired in anger for a year or two).

So it’s bound one and we have an unintended engagement already.  The blade DIES on a 1-6!!

#8)

Having now realised I have two regular commands to use by allocation I roll my second bounds PiPs as 1-1-1-2 and the 2 belongs to the command entirely in ambush on the flank Bob’s is avoiding due to a scary looking wooded hill.

So that’s basically decision made, the massed iBdF, comprising the biggest command (but only 21ME!!) is going impetuously into the bow defended TF, on an angle.  Having seen the Rus spear do a similar thing I know it’s a slow but ultimately possible task.  If it is achieved it would seriously damage the Burmese and cut them in half.

#9)

That's as close as we got.

The blades were mostly double ranked and a couple got to combat (no wins but all recoils not losses) but the bows did the damage (my dice were rubbish – by this point I commented I’d thrown more 1s that all other numbers combined!!) – the command disheartened, lost its impetuous status and stood there to be broken by another bound of bowfire.

I had lost my biggest command without inflicting a single casualty on Bob.  Very clearly game OVER – in theory anyway.

The story unfolds further...

At this point Bob goes conservative to see if he can win without taking any casualties at all. 

The soon-to-break command would leave a big hole - desperate measures under way.

I had managed to get the CinC with his rBdF guards (free PiPs) over to the right to cover the incoming cavalry with help from the (now broken) sub general and his two guards.  It neutralised that threat for the length of the game but was always only going to be a holding pattern only.

Having halted the Burmese cavalry the CinC and elephants are too broken up and surrounded and are about to get swamped and be added to the casualties that break army.

Ambushers come off the (sparsely) wooded hill. 

On my left I released the ambush so it could cover the open space and co-ordinate with the ally command (remember both are just 12ME commands – fragile) to try and hassle Bob’s single (CinC’s) command on this side. 

I did make a fight of it on the left, disheartening the opposing command taking out a few elements and 3 ElS using my ElO and BdF.  However Bob’s few rBdF were close enough and quick enough to fill gaps and his CinC got actively involved and we ran out of punch.

Ambushing the Ambushers.

A funny moment occurred when my ambushing command, having appeared and charged across the open ground was itself ambushed from its outside by a group of AxO from behind the crest of a RH that was on the table edge.  

Luckily we were far enough away that we had time to align a couple of our BdF to deal with them.

What was going to be our shortest game ever did eventually play out to normal length and it was still great fun (I did laugh a lot – so as not to cry?!?) as usual but the result was always a foregone conclusion.  

Burmese elephant buttocks - all but the CinC (right)
failed to survive the battle. 

Once the big command was destroyed I was just plugging gaps, getting broken up and awaiting the bound where low PiPs would see me surrounded and squashed.  It took longer than expected before it happened and in the meantime I did some damage but eventually it occurred.  

The result at 5-20 was respectable in the end considering 0-25 after 3 bounds was almost a certainty.

My Siamese were originally morphed out of the Khmer but I added a Thai elephant corps of 6mm conversions where I added polearms and weapon racks to the elephants plus the correctly shaped and coloured multi-tiered command umbrellas. 

Modifying 6mm isn’t easy but the perfectionist in me said that you can’t use Khmer elephants for Thai when they are clearly so visibly different.  I made a few for Bob as well to use in his general elements as the research show that Burmese and Thai generals were almost identical.  Before any re-published Book 3 arrives I hope we can revisit the Burmese list with some improvements on the details. 

But as I discovered, having correctly attired elements adds absolutely nothing to their fighting ability.  Nor to the commanders rational thought processes!!  Back to the drawing board today.

Yes where have all the elephants gone.

After five games in the Parthian civil war saga, we felt it was about time we wrapped it up, and played with something else, so we agreed on one final battle to settle things, with the loser going to into exile in Dubai.

So Watagases marched from the East with his bastardized Indo Parthians, and Bobarsaces summoned the renowned (or not) elephant slayers from Armenia, and the slightly less renowned cataphract slayers from Sarmatia. Although the elephants would still be a problem, I was confident that with the right ally they could be contained.

I tried to keep the battlefield fairly open to allow an opportunity to outflank the pachyderms and to avoid being forced into fighting them head on. The terrain of note was a BUA on my left, several gentle hiills spread throughout my deployment area, and small marsh in the center of Waynes deployment area. I deployed the Armenians in a long line from the BUA on the left along the hill nearest it, with the CinC and main cataphract force behind. The right was held by another command with some cataphracts and the bulk of the light horse. The Sarmations would play a wait and see game as a delayed command. The idea was that putting the Armenians in line out front would mean that it'd be hard for Wayne to avoid activating them if they were unreliable, that their light troops could contest both the BUA and the the little marsh, and that wherever the elephants were, there'd be some auxillia nearby to mask them.

My opening set up

Wayne's deployment surprised me a little as I didn't expect him to rest his catapract command's flank quite so closely on the BUA when I was likely to have better terrain troops. The absence of elephants was also a surprise, but without anywhere obvious to hide them, I assumed they were flank marching, and could safely be ignored as Wayne's flank marches only ever arrive when they've been pushed back by one of mine.

Initially I thought I'd try to break Wayne's small Saka ally first, but when that rode out far to my right, and he moved a whole lot of other light horse over to support it, I decided not to bother, and instead to set things up for the cataphract fight by occupying the BUA on the left, and the small central marsh that was to the right of where the main action would be. This meant sending most of the light horse from the CinC's command and the Armenians over to the right between the Saka and the reinforcements that were moving towards them, and sending a column of Armenian auxillia towards the small marsh to support the horse archers. The action in this salient essentially became the battle with both of us sending in more troops.  On the right side of the salient I had horse archers from three commands, but one command had poor pips, and the Armenians had other things to do, so Wayne was able to keep the initiative in the light horse fight, and inflict a large number of casualties.

An Armenian sneaks into the marsh while the battle rages on either side of their column

The salient fully formed. My heavies coming up in support

In the center of the salient I had more success getting one Armenian into the marsh, and forcing Wayne to throw Watagases himself into the fray, and also send in his remaining light horse reserves into the teeth of my advancing cataphracts. Watagases decided to go for glory and rode down an auxillia in the open, totally neglecting the one behind his flank. Needless to say the next bound he found himself flanked by it, attacked in front by another cataphract,  his horse archer flank support stripped off, and more cataphracts from my C in C's command threatening to get behind him. Indeed Bobarsaces attempt to close and finish things mano a mano was only thwarted by a light horse who needed to win by plus four on the dice to live, and did so twice in a row. Nevertheless, when we came to the climactic roll, I only needed even dice to kill Watagases. Unfortunately, he out rolled me decisively, not only not dying, but pushing the attackers back, allowing him to extricate himself from the predicament in the next bound with a smart tactical advance to the rear.

Surely this is the end for Watagases

This left many of my elements facing the hole where he'd previously been, and the rest of Wayne's army behind them. Their disarrayed state led to further losses, and combined with the drubbing I was getting in the light horse battle on the right, led to the loss of the army. Both Wayne's flank march and my Sarmations turned up before the final bell, but too late to make any difference.

While I did have a good chance to kill the opposing C in C, that was mostly down to Wayne.s mistake  rather than my great generalship. My battleplan has several shortcommings, most notably giving the Armenians way to much to do (take the BUA, take the marsh, and take part in the light horse battle), pushing a salient out between two light horse forces was always going to be tricky, and starting the Sarmations off table was a dumb idea, bourne mainly out of recent habit and good luck in the having them arrive in a timely manner. Oh and on the left, I screwed up the attack on the BUA my hanging my flank in the open allowing his cavalry to intervene, and the gap between the BUA and the hill was mainly held with wishful thinking rather than any troop elements.

So congratulations to Watagases for  a remarkable comeback, squaring the series, and as the previous incumbent reclaiming the throne. He's survived three successive defeats in battle, and assassination attempts by egg mayo sandwich, elephant buttocks, and good only fashioned hard flanking. Clearly he is beloved of the Gods, and thus the rightful Great King. I shall repair to Dubai and write my memoirs.

Where, Oh Where, Have The Elephants Gone?? (Parthian Civil War Part Six)

Bobarsaces did indeed survive*.  Just when I arrived at Ctesiphon to be re-crowned, who should show up, in full preening attire and equally vainly attended.  The usurper – again.  Some dogs just need to be dismembered to be sure they are indeed dead*.

So on the eve of what is to be the final battle (as I’ve issued no quarter orders and will execute all above brigade level if his head isn’t on a spike set before me by the end of tomorrow), we are encamped in position on the open ground with our right flank resting on a BuA (supplying the usual urban delights for the nights feasts and entertainment) and our encampment stretches out over the plains into the distance.  Off in the horizon is a minor orchard, that may be so significant that I’ve ordered it’s not to be recorded by any of my scribes or artists (read – it’s not in any photos).  More of the ‘invisible’ orchard later.

The enemy, lead by the usurper Bobarsaces the Unspellable, the vain-glory lackey of big business date traders, are skulking in the hills being unable the face the glory of a real King of Kings in the light of day out on the open plains that are Parthia. 

The sun has risen and I ride forth to smite the enemy.  On the open plain, except for two micro-march areas, I stand with my wall-of-steel cataphracts stretching from my right all the way to the BuA (source of last night’s female delights) commanded by myself and a loyal general Watshisnameces.  Mucking around conspicuously** at the rear of the BuA are a bunch of Watshisnameces’ Indian foot. 

The cataphracts have their screen of horse archers plus I have more looking to our left flank plus a bunch of these Indian useless levies standing back by the baggage.  The Saka I hired this month are out forward and centre just in case they get ideas not to honour their contract***.  The other loyal general, Obsurarces, was sent early this morning away around the right flank to come on upcountry and roll over the hills from the outside. 

Before us, are four large gentle hills with five valleys where the enemy CinC lurks a long way behind a large expanse of Armenian allies.  On the right (his left) was one of his cronies leading a small but similar command.  Something was definitely missing although the minimums had all been met.  Given the rough behind our BuA I didn’t expect Bob to flank march on that flank so expected our off table command to be quite safe until it arrived.  Actually given the open enemy free expanse it should advance onto, including access to the enemy baggage I was quite looking forward to its arrival.  Bob was assuming it contained the missing elephants.  I anticipated Bob’s missing command would flank march on from our left past the ‘invisible’ orchard.

Usurper to the left, genuine King of Kings to the right

Cowardly leaders to the rear.

Impenetrable Wall-of-Steel (& screen) protects a micro-marsh.

 Despite invading, we deployed first and should move first. 

I, insignificant scribe of the great unrelenting fighter, the King of Kings, Watagases I, humbly known as Unnamedarce have been instructed to finish this tale of great martial and valiant feats of arms. 

As before we opened with great starting PiPs including a six for the allied Saka and a 5 for the flank march (which needs a 6).  Over the first four turns the flank march rolled four 5s in a row for PiPs and on the 5^th attempt, needing a 5 or 6, you can guess how that went.  

With 6 PiPs the Saka went mad and ran off right around the outside of the enemy so that they threatened to immediately be in the rear of the outside command and in dangerous numbers.  Our glorious CinC had to send some horse archers after them to be sure our army wasn’t cut into two pieces.  The wall of steel just juggled its position slightly and on the right the idiot Indian foot, who’d messed up the ambush tried to get themselves back into order.  The opposing Armenians didn’t scare us, at worst it would be a stalemate but to be sure to win on that flank we awaited our flank march to arrive as they would arrive into the exposed enemy wing.  In the meantime this side would just do the minimum to keep out flank guarded, no aggressive action was intended.

Saka have gone long and wide (front right) and in response the enemy withdraw unto the hill.

At this point, barring the enemy’s missing command causing havoc, we had both enemy wings under pressure (I verbally slipped up at one point and indicated where our flank march was but Bob had already guessed, I think) and a continuous and strong front line threatening 80% of the enemy’s frontage.  The point of weakness, which I planned to use as a trap, was between the overly mobile Saka and the left end of the CinC’s command.  He had sent some LhF to the left to at least give a sense that we wanted the gap covered.

Apart from two micro-marches**** we were on a huge expanse of open terrain (with GHs only whose only effect is uphill combat factors, all other terrain touching table edges in the table corners) and on the left wing it felt like a open plain light horse duel, with lots of moment, circling, stopping and watching  but little closing to combat.  They was no actually fighting intended unless you had a clear advantage – and an exit option. 

To gain some advantage Bob sent LhF from three commands into the gap between my CinC command and the Saka ally along with some AxO aimed at a micro-march my side of mid table.  A column of cataphracts came behind to add some weight if needed.  Initially I didn’t feel threatened as the advance was containable and was drawing resources and future PiPs away from my awaited flank march.  Unfortunately an element of AxO got into the micro-march, from which it would be very hard for LhF to evict it, and caused some annoying threats to element flanks.  I countered by TZing it, and luckily moved my CinC into the area as heavy support but we suffered a time of lower PiPs and lost the local initiative. 

Bob pushes into the faux weak spot faster than expected.

Watagases himself comes to add some heavy support.

As Bob had started a more general advance that would use his advanced salient as a flanking benefit I decided I needed to deal with it before the flank march looked like arriving.  I intended to cut off the exposed salient with a pincer movement using two commands but again ran short on PiPs at an inopportune time. 

Ready to attempt the pincer attack.

The great warrior King of Kings, Watagases was leading from the front and got himself exposed and surrounded.

Enemy to the left of me, enemy to the right.

Despite the support this doesn’t look good.

 In an effort to extract him alive we tried both sacrificing LhF elements and removing Bob’s straight ahead moves so he needed 2PiPs per move to make contact with KnX and/or AxO.  At the point where the martial expert Watagases was hard flanked and fighting cataphracts, Bobarsaces sensing a decisive moment approaching, moved himself quite close to the action (and for the first point in the battle wasn’t the element in his command [or the army either by that point] that was the closest to the table edge) ready to take the glory earned by his minions.  And of course our desperate efforts didn’t work.

We had to resort to Plan ‘B’ *****.

Plan ‘B’ – Dicing your way out of trouble!!

At this moment our flank march announced it arrival, to support our troops who had been filling in time skirmishing and probing the Armenians in and around the BuA.  Immediately after Bob’s missing command turns up as a delayed command, so arrives on table before us.  It’s the Sarmatians (he had two allies!), the anti-cataphract all iKnF version and he chooses to aim them at our wall-of-steel (rather than try and support the mid-table battle of the salient) and run a risk from charging across the face of our flank march.  Maybe he expected the missing elephants to slow down our progress across the table due to a slower speed.

At this point knowing where everything now was located and where our flanks would or won’t be exposed, we ordered a general advance.  Bob had been taking a few casualties over his three on table commands and some decisive combat action could push any of them to dishearten soon and with our flank march now going to be in the enemy rear and into their baggage we needed the frontal contact for both damage and to control his options.

Our flank march came on, consisting of all light horse (both F and O) plus a KnX general.  No elephants in sight!!  With reasonable PiPs it split into two groups of light horse, the fast getting into baggage strike range and the ordinary marching over the first hill while the slow general was abandoned to his own devices.

Arrival of both the Sarmatians and the flank march plus a general advance on the main battleline.

As Bob had spent the game dealing with the potential of elephants arriving from somewhere, and had played with the thought of elephants repeating their previous carnage of his cataphract line*, it seemed only fair to now put him out of his misery. 

We released the news that the elephants were in fact picking dates in the ‘invisible’ orchard on the very left corner of the table.  So out they came, in column, but with half a table distance to cover to reach the battle they were never going to arrive in time. 

Date laden elephants wander out of the orchard.  Contribution - Nil.

Having extracted a much relieved****** Watagases we were in a position of having the upper hand in several positions across the table and used out superior numbers, troop quality (KnX on LhF) and dice rolling skills to wear down and break commands and thus the army. 

Final Positions - Bob's left flank.  Armenians broken, Sarmatians taking attacks in the flank.

Final positions - the Salient, Bob's right.  Commands and army broken and surrounded.

Bobarsaces himself, being a long long way from a table edge (almost in the dead centre of the table) didn’t escape this time and was captured [imagine the likely possible event the available LhF in the rear of a fleeing KnX].  In a moment of mercy he wasn’t executed but branded, castrated and exiled to a suitable neighbouring city-state.*******. 

A FINAL OBSERVATION

Watagases is yet to return to active leadership due to needing to clean-up outer and inner garments after so much personal exertions and danger.******  Unlike last week where the potential loss of the CinC was unintentional, this week I did it on purpose after much deliberation, in fact it was the first thing I considered that bound and yet the last action I took.  It wasn’t the move that was the problem it was the expected retaliations that may have been available to Bob.  Uncertainty abounded, yet I was in a strong position if the flank march came on and maybe should have waited for it to arrive.  In the end I pushed the CinC into a very dangerous situation and in the end needed to rely on better dice than Bob to get out him again. 

Putting the CinC is so much danger, was it worth it??  In hindsight, despite it coming off and the CinC surviving the answer is a resounding no.  It was a step too far into danger and the relatively high odds of it going bad on Bob’s subsequent bound could so easily have made it a disaster. 

But this is a rare occasion where doing a daft thing didn’t become a tale of woe for me.  Anyway I add the crown of Parthia to that of the Kush*.  A genuine King of Kings, so what is next??

  

* = See previous instalments.

** = A ambush which was so badly set that it was deployed in conflict with the rules, so was declared on bound one when the error was noted and thus placed on table and the surprise lost.  I had tried to ambush from an unfortified BuA.

*** = Bob can’t help but reactivate them if they become unreliable allies if he mounts any attack across the table centre.

**** = marches that are almost the smallest possible dimensions allowed, approx a 2x1 ½ base width oval, which I designed to be placed early in the terrain layout process to block the opponent’s choices/chances of placing other annoying terrain in the area.  Used especially by open terrain (all mounted) armies to control strong terrain based armies getting overly favourable terrain.  Sometimes they are very successful in their job but mostly disappointing due to the random factors involved.  A mildly gamey ploy to get some advantage from the terrain rules system that I think is both balanced and robust.

***** = Plan ‘B’, for every army I own and every battle I fight is simple – “if all else fails, dice your way out of trouble”.  Doesn’t have a high success rate though.

****** = The offending scribe who suggests the great leader was anything other than confident and capable in all military activities has since been painfully executed.

******* = In Thailand all losers of military endeavours (coups) gets exiled to Dubai.  Those with local political knowledge will understand.

(right) A slightly startled Bob[arsaces] contemplates the exile to Dubai while (left) the victor looks forward to reinstated pleasures.
[Also known as "how does the front camera om this iPad work??]

You will now have noticed I've worked out a lot about how to mark-up the photos now.  A frustrating time but perseverance has paid off, hence it's over use.  Now to work out where the colour changer is.