Making the Brest* of Things

Damaging the myth of "S" superiority.

Having dealt to the Juan-juan last week we found the Qarakhanids were close behind them and invaded Brittany this week.

Both players were less than a 100% fit due to sleep deprivation (from the long march from the Tamin Basin?) and a gout flare-up (too much consumption of well matured Frankish grapes?) but we like our weekly games so played on anyway.  Of course the excuses were already declared!!

Our defensive position was okay.  I took the time to ask Bob if there was movement room around the Wood on his left flank, to which he confirmed there was although just an element wide.  In his deployment he placed 4 PsO at the inner rearward corner of the wood to obstruct anything circumnavigating it, which left me with many moves agonising over whether it was a ambush trap in the wood.  

We deployed to stretch across the table and pull the enemy back and forward and as planned we were in several groups to give options on where to employ our PiPs.  The Qarakhanids had an smallish ally front and centre (unreliability insurance) and general the Lh forward and the Cv to the rear so it could be deployed to points of need, especially the unexpected regular “S” Ghilman.  Bob also had a regular CinC with irregular sub-generals to utilise some PiP exchange rules.

From the deployment our plan was to run wide right around both flanks, push into a gap we saw in the enemy line allowing us to separate and gang-up on a lone enemy command, plus to hold the line elsewhere.  It involved low PiP requirements for us but should cause higher PiP usage to respond to all the threats.  An spontaneous plan was adopted with their initial 5 PiPs, to march the Franks from left to right and go hunting the concentration of cavalry on the right (Bob’s left).  To achieve that we’d have to smash through the Horde line first, something the KnF do very well.

The Qarakhanids respond to the limit of their PiPs and space but don’t appear to be too aggressive.  Once they see where the Franks are going they come forward en-mass to try and interfere and prevent the Franks getting to the far right where the CvO is the best target and instead force the Franks to engage the CvS behind the left of the Horde line.  This was not something I wanted to do because they would get first charge with “S” on “F” outcomes.

On the left, Bob’s right there is a game of cat and mouse as his all Lh command dances with a mixture of double ranked Breton Lh and some Cv that had formed an inverted “V” to entrap the enemy. 

Once they did engage the Bretons did better from their depth, greater numbers and the occasional Cv at better factors.  Casualties on both sides but the Qarakhanids’ were occurring a bit faster and leaving exploitable gaps.

At this point a phantom elephant passed along the battle field causing much fear in the Breton commander**.

On the right, after agonising over the ambush danger I sent a couple of LhO around the wood.  There was no ambush and Bob commented that after my setup time questions on the route that it would have been so obvious that he never thought I’d do it.  The rest of them moved between the wood and the orchard (containing our PsS ambush) to be a flank threat to the Frank attack expected in a couple of bounds.

Unfortunately these did trigger a ambush from the front left of the wood  and some very canny rules use saw the “turn to a flank attack with no space” situation resulted in my Lh being sucked into the wood and fighting with difficult going factors plus double overlap and no recoil.  From -2 to 2 we diced our way out of it!!

We did spring our PsS ambush on the ambushers but just to scare them away from the fight.  To me this was a side show and I took some casualties here because I didn’t get the PiPs to really try and extract them.  They were holding the line which was their job and should only die slowly anyway!

In the centre I protected the Franks flank to try and get them into the best location but didn’t pick any major engagements. 

On the left we continued to react to the enemy engaging us and gain that slow advantage in casualties and position.

It was all going to come down to the battle around the Franks attack.  I had lots of support around that area, positions to make overlaps and a greater element count.  I was prepared for a battle of attrition.

The Franks are closed down by the Horde and aren’t able to pass along the line as far as desired.  Impetuously they turned in the Hordes ZoCs and engage the left end (my view) of the line rather than the right end.  The Frank general is not engaged but provides an overlap on the far left.

 

Sorry, this is the LAST Photo before operator error cause the loss of subsequent shots.

One bound and the five elements cut through the Horde, to a man.  Of course they are now counter charged by the rCvS Ghilman, that dreaded “S” on “F” situation being intentionally used by Bob.

The dicing is completed and one Frank is dead (of six, the general now engaged and overlapped by LhS), two recoiled, and most importantly a Ghilman and a CvO repulsed.  Survival - now retaliation!!

Retaliate we did, filling the gaps with Breton Cv to maintain overlap factors, the Franks knights charged through, into and over the Ghilman and Cv using the Kn own bound QK.  The command demoralised and teeters near breaking.  And next bound was not looking to dangerous due to the sudden lack of Ghilman, just the CinC plus one surviving and then we could recharge again.

However we had also had a good round of rear attacks and such positional advantage combats that the left hand Qarakhanid (their right) command broke and the knock on effect broke the CinC’s command and the army.  Battle over with losses of only 7ME out of the 91 ½ME  A 8 element ambush was never declared.

The defeated’s closing comments were that the volume of cheaper LhO is better than the lesser numbers of quality iLhS in the light horse fights (cum lotteries).  While it is a premise behind the Bretons to be fair I also think that they need to be double ranked, played conservatively and not stray too far from some CvO support.  Don’t take undue risks, take only advantageous combats and sooner or later a bad PiP role will see the iLhS go impetuous and put themselves in danger (although it didn’t happen in this game).

Today the Bretons again played at being bigger, wider and enveloping the enemy when it was to our advantage and avoiding combat when a disadvantage.  It worked.  Maybe it helped that there was no PiP crisis (but that’s part of the conservative attack plan) and the combat dice may have been slightly tilted in my favour.  The Qarakhanids didn’t have the manoeuvre control or numbers to counter all the probes over such a wide area and had to make some less than ideal counters.  And their Ghilman were a bit unlucky in their one charge that didn’t quite play to the odds.

 

*  =  A major town in Brittany in need of defence.  A few breasts also needed protected from the raging asiatic hordes of barbarians a task that we excel at.

** =  I was checking base positions with Bob’s after his move where a group had developed some gaps within the group formation.

Pointing to the distance between his Hordes and the orchard Bob says  “There’s an elephant*** wide gap down here”.  Hang on I thought, there’s no El on the table, unlikely to be able to ambush into that location and I’m sure CATs can’t have El options anyway.  But my heart skipped a beat because an El at that point would be a disaster.  So I had to ask for fear of having missed the obvious.  Luckily it was a phantom.

*** =  slip of the tongue, should be “element”.