Kushan Civil War Part 1

My Kushans on the left, Wayne's on the right

I finally got enough figures painted to field a Kushan army, and since Wayne's been campaigning with Kushans for a while now, we thought it'd a good idea to have a civil war to sort out who's the real King Kushan, and who's just an item of soft furnishing.

Kushan on Kushan is an interesting match up as the list contains copious numbers of cataphracts and elephants. The clumsy cataphracts desperately try to avoid the elephants, while attempting to find some light horse to kill. The latter swarm around like mosquitoes exploiting gaps and latching onto flanks.

Our army lists were pretty similar with both of us choosing a late version with a Chionite ally of LH(S) and being light on cataphracts and heavy on elephants. Wayne was determined to crush the upstart early, and was the attacker. Notable terrain was a BUA protecting my left flank, then a gentle hill just on the other side of the center line, and a rocky hill towards my right, which somewhat hampered my deployment there.

Deployment. View from behind my left flank

Generally when campaigning with Kushans Wayne has a couple of commands of mixed cataphracts and elephants, so my plan was to mass my elephants and try to smash one of these, however here I was guilty of preparing to fight last week's battle, and Wayne was far too cunning to set up in such way against a fellow Kushan.

I deployed with my massed elephants in the center, supported on the flanks by psilioi with horse archers behind. To the right of them were the Chionites, positioned so they'd be in the thick of things even if they were unreliable, and to the right of them beyond the rocky hill was a command of cataphracts and light horse hoping to avoid elephants by being out wide. To the left some auxillia held the BUA and a force of horse archers and elephants faced the central hill and linked to the elephant thrust.

All the action took place in the central region as neither of our commands on the right flank got many pips, and on the left Wayne  sent mixed force to occupy the hill, who then didn't fancy coming off it, while my guys didn't fancy going up it. In the center my elephants advanced rapidly towards Wayne's Chionites opposite them. LH(S) vs elephants is a nerve racking match up for both sides, but with 4 nellies including the general in a line, I thought I'd have the edge. Nevertheless Wayne charged into them on his second bound, hoping to destroy the supporting psiloi on the flanks and get some overlaps. The light infantry held up magnificently though, and the elephants scythed through the light horse breaking the command in a few bounds. The Chionites did get lucky once though killing an elephant in my bound, leaving the victor in position to rear end my C in C. Luckily Wayne's next pip roll was a one, and being demoralized already he couldn't take advantage.

Towards the right I'd placed a long column of 7 cataphracts beyond the rocky hill hoping that Wayne wouldn't put his elephants opposite that terrain. However, as he deployed second he was able to place a trio of pachyderms towards that side. The Kn(X) column began moving wide but never got far due to lack of pips. On my first move I threw my Chionite command between the elephants and the cataphracts.

My Chionites go right to save the cataphracts

Wayne send some light horse to hold it up, and wheeled his behemoths to attack the flank of the Chionite column. The attack proceeded slowly though, only having three elephants, and having to wheel to get into position. Despite heavy losses my Chionites were able to hold on, killing several of his LH(F) and eventually got lucky and bagged an elephant too.

Wayne's Pachyderms attack

Finally Wayne brought up some cataphracts to support his attack, but these got rear ended by horse archers from my victorious elephant center command, breaking their command, at which point Wayne conceded the game.

Not one of our most tactically nuanced games, but close fought and enjoyable nevertheless. In the end the difference was that I'd hired the real Chionites and Wayne hired some LH(F) in (S) clothing. Next game night will be a rematch.