Rise of The Rus

Wayne recently rolled out his new Rus army, so that seemed like a good excuse for a blog post and some pics of the first game. I decided to oppose him with Kushans with the idea for their first outing the Rus would have a fairly straightforward stand up fight.

The luck of the aggression dice found me invading Russia in the spring. Somewhat to my surprise Wayne placed a navigable river diagonally across the board which rather scuppered any hope of a head on fight, and a wood near the river where it crossed into my deployment area further made things difficult.

I thought the bright blue river looked a bit Volga

 

Massed ranks of spears look daunting

Allied Pecheneg war wagons hiding at the back to avoid any unpleasantness with my elephants

I deployed with one mixed force on the far side of the river on my right, cataphract command in the center, and elephants on the right.  The Chionite allies were deployed forward in the center, ready to be send to whichever flank looked the most promising. Wayne deployed two huge spear commands along the river, his Pecheneg allies on my right, and his C in C with Turkish mercenaries and Slav auxillia strung across the back.

Rus general defends the river bank. Nasty Turks behind.

It seemed Wayne was going to play defensively and hold the river, and the only place it really seemed feasible to force a crossing was on my left near his base edge. According I send most of my light horse and the elephants streaming off in that direction. Surprising, his four elements of Turkish light horse crossed the river to my side, a development which I was pleased to see, as I assumed that my vastly superior numbers of light horse would easily sweep them away, and be across the river unopposed.

Light horse of three different commands stream forward to sweep away the Turks

Well it turns out these particular Turks were from the hard nutter bastards from hell tribe, and despite being outnumbered 3 or more to 1, they completely crushed my light horse, without a single casualty, and completely stymied my attempts to turn that flank, leaving me with long columns of Chionites and elephants strung out along the river.

My dead pile. Almost all inflicted my 4 elements of Turkish light horse at this stage

It was at this juncture that Wayne pulled a bit of a (brilliant) stroke, ordering his massed spear into the river. I hadn't expected this, as the river counted as difficult going for foot allowing only moment by column and would thus have required about 20 pips to initiate. However, as he pushed his blocks forward in a group move, I completely forgot this rule and allowed him to continue. On the next bound I remembered, but by this time the Rus were in the river, and were able to storm out impetuously into my exposed flanks, killing and spending several Chionites, which in conjunction with the havoc wrought by the Turks was enough to break them.

Into the river

Rus spearmen storm out of the river into my flank

With everything going wrong on the left, I'd attempted a crossing on the right with a column of cataphracts lead by their general. Wayne bought some spears up to oppose them, but after some initial success the sub general succumbed to a 5-1 die roll which broke the command on the same turn as the Chionites broke, and penalties from two commands going broke the elephants and the army.

Demise of the general

Final situation on the left

So a promising debut for the Rus. Tune in next week for the their second battle.