Kushan Civil War Part 3: A Comedy of Errors.

Since I hadn't finished painting up enough horde to field Hepthalites, we decided to resolve the Kushan conflict once and for all. We'd both been mulling over our tactics, tweaking our army lists, and dreaming up new and cunning plans. Having spend some time thinking about how to play as the defender, I naturally rolled high on the aggression dice and had to attack. Wayne's new plan seemed to involve having as narrow a battlefield as possible, so he put down a 2 FE marsh on his left flank, and a 2 ME BUA on his right. I put down a wood on my left just in front of the BUA and a rocky hill in the center with it's crest running along the edge of my deployment area.

Me on the left, Wayne on the right

It was difficult to come up with a tactically interesting plan given the terrain so I decided to just charge up the middle with the elephants and hope that by deploying second I'd get the match ups. I briefly considered flank marching, but as it was hard to fit in all four commands, I delayed one in a vain attempt to cause fear uncertainty and doubt. My idea with the wood had been to ambush some cataphracts in it to get them out wide, but since a huge BUA ended up about 300 paces in front of it, that didn't seem a good plan, so I hid the ones that started on table behind the central hill.

Wayne deployed his Chionite allies in front on the hill, with a screen of light horse between them and the BUA. Behind these was a large command of massed cataphracts and auxillia, and the elephants were all massed in a column deployed well back next to the marsh. I deployed with my auxillia on the right ready to contest the marsh, with an elephant, some LH and the ambushing cataphracts in support. On the left between the hill and the wood were my own Chionites. This left the elephants who I started to deploy on the hill in the center. Now gentle reader, the observant amongst you will recall that this was a rocky hill, and thus difficult terrain for elephants, a fact that I had completely forgotten. Wayne was kind enough to point this out while I still had time to reconsider, but after a quick face palm, I decided to put them there anyway and hope I'd have enough pips to get them out pronto.

What sort of idiot deploys elephants on a rocky hill ?

Wayne took the first move with decent pips all round. The light horse near the BUA formed column and retreated, eventually passing along some internal roads and emerging from the front of the BUA near my lefthand table edge. His Chionites moved to cover the hill and make it hard for me to get my elephants off, and some of them moved behind to make a second line. On my right his elephant column began a serious of indecisive maneuvers that led to them playing little part in the game (though one did get mugged by my auxillia near the marsh) .

On my turn my Chionites were unreliable, and I moved my psiloi to the front of the hill to screen the elephants, and advanced up to the edge of the marsh on the right.

New Chionite hats. Wayne assures me that Noddy blue was all the rage on the steppes c 390

Now Wayne had only intended to screen the hill in the center, but his Chionites, buoyed up by the successes of the previous week, their new hats, and that fact that their general only had one pip with which to restrain two groups, decided to launch a full scale assault. They managed to sustain this for several turns, but with unfavorable factors and no flank support they were eventually worn down and broken. Their assault did however bring them close enough to activate my Chionite contingent.

Get off my hill. The Chionite assault is repulsed.

On the left, Wayne's cataphracts moved up in a menacing line next to the BUA and his light horse continued wending their way through the village stopping at all the local attractions.
Over the course of the next few turns the Chionite attack on the hill raged on, my delayed command of cataphracts and light horse came on and moved to face off against his advancing Cataphract line, and most of my Chionites moved off to the left to deal with the LH emerging from the village. A couple though including the general hung around the hill area and picked off a couple of cataphracts who'd advanced beyond their flank support.

Cataphracts face off.

As the battle unfolded, Wayne spotted a chance to rear end an element next to my Chionite general with his own CinC. His cunning plan was then to follow up into the flank of my Ally General, which would hopefully allow a frontal attack to kill it. This was a good plan, with the small caveat that as a Kn(X) his CinC couldn't advance after combat. This left his flank swinging in the breeze, and allowed my ally general to turn on him frontally and to get a hard flank with another LH. The odds were in my favor and a kill would pretty much decide the battle in my favor. If I lost I reasoned the general could repulse beyond range of any follow up (otherwise he could be hard flanked himself).

So far the battle was going pretty well for me. My Chionite LH(S) were getting into his LH(F) near the BUA, I had already broken his Chionites on the hill, and on my right my auxillia and light horse were moving up to attack his elephants. It was at this point that I made my second mistake of the battle. Wayne's Chionites had broken and my central command of elephants and friends were streaming impetuously off the hill to attack a block of auxillia that he'd brought up to cover the hole. I was just about to do the spontaneous move for an element of psiloi, when Wayne queried whether they were in fact close enough to any of his broken command to count as impetuous. A quick measure revealed that were about 2mm out, but no matter said I, that command had pips left over, I'll just spend one to move them normally, totally forgetting that this would put them slap bang in the center of the space that I needed for my Chionite ally general to repulse (the extra 80p for an impetuous move would have taken them clear)

The silly psiloi (bottom left) that cost the battle.

Of course Wayne won the battle of the generals, my general could only recoil, and in his turn Wayne was able to hard flank and kill him, breaking my Chionite command and thus disheartening my center command too. This left the latter's flank hanging, and Wayne was able to quickly outflank an elephant and sweep up some light elements to break it and steal the game.

So I guess for now Wayne remains king of the Kushans, and the rebels will skulk off and sulk in a corner for a while. It's been interesting to play the same battle 3 times in row and gradually hone tactics and organization, but I think we'll do something different next time. With a bit of luck I'll get my painting finished and field the Hepthalites. This is a mad mix of elephants, hordes and light horse that's so crazy it might just work. So long as Wayne doesn't bring Khmer, I'm looking forward to trying it.