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.