Last Friday Dirk from the Yahoo DBMM list was in town, and joined us for a game. Wayne and I listed the armies we have, and Dirk said he'd like to try Kushans, and since the only thing finer than a Kushan army, is two Kushan armies, we decided to make it a civil war.
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| Dirk |
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| Some other guy |
After some messing around with some six sided random number generators, it was decided that Dirk would partner Wayne, and that I would play solo. I was the invader.
Wayne and Dirk's army list featured two mixed commands of cataphracts, elephants and a few foot, a command of 11 LH(F) and a Chionite Ally with 11 LH(S). I played a newly concocted list with a command of elephants and cataphracts, a command of cataphracts, a command of remnant Greek Pk(I), Indian Pk(F) and Bw(O) and a Parthian (Hyrkanian Rebel) ally with cataphracts, horse archers and Ax(O). Each command had exactly six LH(F) attached. The plan was for the cataphracts and elephants to be the decisive arm, the pike and bow command would form a center that would push forward and be hard to ignore, and the small blocks of LH would either be reserves, or could concentrate on a flank spreading the losses from a LH fight over several commands, and increasing the pips available.
As it happened though, the gentlemen opposite placed a large difficult hill in my center, so the pike command ended up defending the right flank next to the oasis, the Hyrkanians were to their left with their auxillia on the hill, and the other two Kushan commands of cataphracts and elephants were to the left of the hill. My plan was to sweep round from the left, with the Hyrkanians holding the hill and supporting the inside flank, while the pikes and bows on the right would defend.
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| Deployment | |
Wayne and Dirk trundled forwards cautiously on their first turn, with Wayne's horse archer command on my left racing for the open flank., but when it was my turn to roll the dice, I came up with a handful of ones and twos, including a one for the Hyrkanians, making them unreliable. My run of horrible pips continued for several turns, with the C in C unable to get the three pips needed to even attempt to activate the Hyrkanians.
This lead to a slightly cagey opening as I lacked the pips to do anything really, Wayne was cautious on my left as I clearly had the superior force, and on my right Dirk didn't want to get too close to the Hyrkanians and activate them. On the left the light horse forces spread out into two opposing lines, with neither side willing to advance and give the other the first charge.
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| LH stand off on the left. |
On the right, Dirk surprised me with his Chionites as rather than attempting a flanking move around the oasis, he lined up in front of the pikes, and moved his bows up in support. I got the first charge in with pikes, but having forgotten that the rear rank doesn't count against light horse. it didn't achieve much.
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| Chionite LH(S) face off against pikes |
The bows and horse archers carried on attacking the pikes, and started to inflict a few casualties. It looked very likely that they might get the four element lead in elements killed, needed to cause the Hyrkanians to change sides. When the Hyrkanians got a six on their pip dice, I took the precaution of turning the them around, so that if they did change sides, I could charge them in the rear.
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| Situation my left. Hyrkanians turning around as a precaution. | |
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Still if the Hyrkanians were to change sides, it would be effectively game over, and being behind 4 to 1 in cassualties, it looked like they would unless I did something dramatic. On my left Wayne had brought some LH(O) over to support his LH(F) and this had enabled me to inch forward to within LH(F) charge reach, but outside of LH(O) reach, so that if he attacked me, not all his elements would reach. I rolled my pip dice, and finally some decent pips.
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| LH clash on the left |
Facing certain defeat otherwise, I used the pips to charge forwards and take my chances in the light horse lottery. Luckily, I had a winning ticket, as lady luck compensated for my dismal movement dice, with excellent combat dice, letting me even the casualty score, and gain a decisive edge on the left.
Still with it now being Wayne and Dirks bound, the pendulum could easily swing back the other way, and if it did they might yet nab the four extra elements needed to secure the services of the Parthian rebels. To this end, Dirk opted for maximum attack on my right, throwing his Chionite general into the fray in attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible. The general duly obliged, dispatching a Pk(F), and following up into the second rank element.
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| Demise of the Chionite general |
It was at this point that Dirk, who had hitherto played a flawless game, realized that he'd made the classic DBMM mistake of covering his general's flank, but forgetting to allow for the pursuit. Not wishing into to look a gift horse in the mouth, I flanking him with one of the light horse who'd been skulking in the oasis, and destroyed him. This together with the one casualty I'd previously inflicted was enough to break the Chionites (only a 16 ME command) and secure the loyalty of the Hyrkanians.
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| General stomping |
On the other flank Wayne didn't inflict any significant damage on me, and a hole opened up in his line allowing me to hard flank his general too. This one survived but in his next bound declined to follow up after a victorious combat, allowing me to pull out LH he had been fighting, and replace it with an elephant general. Wayne needed a six one in his favour to survive, but it came out the other way, for a grand total of 12 factors to 1. This broke Wayne's light horse command on my left.
While I'd now broken two commands in three bounds, it was still far from game over. On my right the Chionite assault, supported by some withering fire from the bows in the C in C's command had done a lot of damage to my pike command, and a bit of stomping by some elephants finished them off. This left Wayne and Dirk down two small commands, and me down one large one.
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| Kushan elephants almost reach cataphracts |
On my right the now active Hyrkanians faced off against Dirk and the C in C's command of cataphracts, elephants and bows. I tried using the Hyrkanian LH to get round behind him, but Dirk moved the bows to counter, and promptly shot down three of them, leading the remainder to retreat back whence they'd come. It was now just a matter of time before Dirk's elephants got into my cataphracts, and there could only be one outcome from that.
So now it was to race to see if I could finish Wayne on the left, before Dirk stomped me on the right. Wayne assisted me somewhat my moving forwards round the hill and engaging in an indecisive cataphract fight, while I rallied my forces from pursuit and closed in on his flank. His lone elephant on that side was making a bit of nuisance of himself, so I hatched a wizard plan to lure it forwards with some sacrificial horse archers, and allow me to attack it from the tail end. In the end the plan worked, but I'd forgotten that the two sacrificial elements came form a command that had already taken quite a few losses, and once I realized I was convinced that the extra two would be enough to break it. Luckily, a recount of losses saw me with 7 dead ME out of 21, half an ME short of breaking.
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| The final act on the left |
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This let me dispatch the elephant and an outflanked cataphract breaking Wayne's command and the thus the opposition army, just as Dirk was closing in for the final kill on the other side of the hill one. One more bound, and the game would have gone the other way.
A big thank you to Dirk for joining us, he played excellently despite his unfamiliarity with either the army or the scale, and it was great for us to put a face to one of the names from the Yahoo group.
