Cataphracts or Cushions

"Don't worry, the tyrant will soon be smothered by King Bobazodeo the Well Plumped of the Kushan Empire. We will bring peace freedom and soft furnishings to the whole of Iran"  as etched on FaceScroll by scribes of that King.

Nashur I lies dead and Nashur II has run for the hills* so Watagases the Indestructable turned his eyes towards the Kushan vassals that had been more bellicose than usual.

King Bobazodeo the Well Plumped Kushan required a lesson in fealty from the King of Kings.

Being from the Kush he was likely to be toting a number of elephants.  Elephants hate artillery, which we don’t use as distance killing is so un-manly (only our vassals ever use bows) so the next best thing is masses of peasants with pointy sticks to throw themselves in front of said menace.  To this end we moved into a newly constructed fortified town [Read:- I spent all the night before constructing, painting and basing a 2x2 PF bound BuAf in Arabic style] and expelled the militias, town guards and peasants out into the field to become elephant bait.

The compulsory BuAf was to be positioned on a road placed as close to table centre as possible, packed with militia to defend and sally out to harass flanks and rears OR to otherwise force Bob into a constricted area.  Hetra was again required to supply a large line of bows to also control a section of the table.

My Order of Battle contained 29 PsI elements which as well as being my elephant delayers bought all four commands to 24ME or a bit more.  It did require me to be the defender but Bob agreed to this option as he rushed to claim a greater crown.

We were surprised to find how little support Bobazodeo had within his nation’s nobility, only the minimum accompanied him and the majority of his force was lowly vassal/conscripted foot.  Such a disappointingly non-glorious enemy to crush. 

Opening Positions - And a 'spur of the moment' plan.

And the only elephants that showed up was a single pair of racing elephants ridden by the CinC himself.  Why have a cunning plan if the enemy fails to bring the required targets??

As dawn arrived on the day of I was forced to execute a number of engineers who had failed to construct roads as ordered [Read:- the terrain dice diced the road out of existence] so the BuAf was eventually place on the table edge of our left flank deep in Bob’s territory.  We started between two marshes, some scrub in our centre rear and an orchard on the centre line to the right.  The Kushans hugged a couple of gentle hills (in more ways than one it turns out).

As our plan to pivot on the BuAf and swamp the elephants with peasants had been rendered useless by the engineers we had devised a new plan once the armies had been deployed.  Hold the centre and right by skirmish and delay and use massed light horse, with a few cataphracts included, to overwhelm the Kushan right (our left) and then push in behind their lines.

The plan had the effect of scaring the Kushans to move more light horse from their left to right (our left) making the option to send a large group of light horse to swamp the few enemy left on that flank.  The Kushan centre stayed inert**, except for Bobazodeo himself of the sole elephant and a few inferior pikes.

We pushed out to our left in large numbers, including the flanks KnX general, and send half the cataphracts into the fight as well while Watagases and the remaining cataphacts plus a few light horse hovered back a bit to cover flanks and keep the enemy foot honest. 

Elephant races light horse between spectator lines.

At this point the elephant bourne Bobazodeo came out from behind his pikes to head off in search cataphacts to stomp so he was mugged at long range by our LhF support who deviously turned him into a no recoil position.  But Bob just as deviously shot the overlap off with bows so the red head-banded elite fast light horse had to fight on for several bounds with limited support but he keep recoiling across the front of the entire enemy bow line with the racing elephants in hot pursuit but against the odds was not destroyed.  Finally the light horsemen fell but was replaced by another on the elephant’s flank that turned him so fast to the left (to face combat) that Bobazodeo fell from his howah and was trampled to death (on a 1-6) along with two bow elements that had moved up to support a flank before the elephant was turned in combat.

How elephant borne Kings die. 

The fight out on the left was continuing as the LH lottery does, with casualties on both sides but with my numbers telling, although by now the Kushans were spreading their casualties over three commands.

We will ignore the action at the BuAf where the Kushans successfully scaled two sections of walk and expelled some of the defenders.  It was a total sideshow with no impact on the outcome and we had mostly recovered the town by battles end anyway. 

On the right my an impromptu LhF outflanking manouver ran over the gentle hill in column at full pace straight into a line of bows in ambush behind the crest!! 

Oh bugger!!   Ambushed!!

We took a couple of casualties before we U-turned and retired in (not very) good order.  Thrilled at their success the bow line came forward off their hill.

Having recovered our formation we then took the daring action of running to the table edge and running past the end of the bow line hoping to get onto its rear, all the while pushing massed PsI out into the open with the KnX general to keep the bows occupied frontally. 

They weren't expecting that, were they!!

This took the bows by surprise and they had low PiPs in response before we got good PiPs that saw us attack their rear and flank.  Apart from one bound where we embarrassingly bounced off the rear of some bows we started to chew our way down the line destroying them as we went.

Payback for the ambush.  It helped break the Kushans.

CinC & KnX charge bows with LhF in their rear.

The light horse lottery on the left flank, with a few cataphracts in the mix, continued on until Bob was a bit shocked that his LhF that rolled an ‘5’ was still doubled and killed (KnX general in my bound with a ‘6’) and thus broke[?] a command.  As Whatagases the Indestructable had led the remaining cataphracts in a charge on the Kushan’s Indian bow line and run it down and then some had pushed on into the LhF beyond it was battle over.

The Kushans position on the right unravelling as numbers count.

And in a bound that took several Kushans including a KnX general it was finished.

So now it’s two battles defending the King of Kings’ crown and two dead enemy commanders although only the first by my own hand.  Who’s next?? ***

Final Positions - A plan that actually worked out in general.

* = Nash had work commitments out of the city.

** = This irregular command rolled 5 1’s out of the 9 PiP rolls Bob made.

*** = Given work and harem commitments we may struggle to get the correct players in the same location at the same time this week.  A rebel on rebel game has been mooted or else I may need to seek out Bobazodeo’s son and heir.

Nashur, Nashon, Nashgone.

"King Nushur the Untested meets old King of Kings Watagases the Indestructable"

Whatagases the Indestructable (from past exploits where he regularly got into personal dire situations in battle but proved immune from death/losing the crucial combats) has had a long, pleasant and fruitful reign.  But now there’s a new boy on the block, a scion of the Persian house of Sassan, a King Nashur who appears to be a rebel on the borders of a peaceful Parthian Empire.

Philip Nash (or just plain Nash – or Nashur in royal persona) is a newer member to our small band of players in BKK.  He’s a past DBM player that has converted to DBMM here, plus an exquisite painter of the 6mm figures and despite minimal experience with these rules is proving to be a more than competent general, certainly more than a match for me.  His beautifully presented Marians Romans enjoying an outstanding run of victories against Bob and I regardless of the armies we field.

With the arrival of Nash’s stunning Sassanids we decided to reprise our middle eastern empire civil war (vaguely historically matched) concepts to give a background to a series of battles, this time with a three way scheme of things. 

As the current champion I get to be the Parthians again, Bob will be a Kushan rebel and Nash the rising Sassanid kingdom.  The non-active rebel would be an ally (or sub) general for the rebel commander.  The victor of each battle would retain the table as King of Kings against the next rebel.  After two or three (number not yet determined) losses you would be out and the ‘last man standing’ would be declared victor and permanent “King of Kings” (or at least until next time – being Emperor is so uncertain!!).  Have your CinC killed in battle would carry a (also still undetermined!!) penalty as well.  

So after seeing only a few online photos of the freshly painted and based Sassanids they arrived on game night for their first outing, with a secret Order of Battle (OoB) as well.  And what a sight to see they were too – outstandingly paint, based and with high visual impact – plus ten elephants on five bases, the last thing a cataphract based army wants to see!!

The stunning looking Sassanids!!

The Parthian army bought the vassal Hatrenes as an anti mounted wall of bows, with a couple of cataphract supports (including general) and a couple of LhF as well, as this would control a section of battlefield even if they weren’t overly strong in attack.  The attack would be driven by the CinC’s command’s massed cataphracts which would be very strong against all in the Sassanid force except the elephants, which had to be avoided.  One command had ample AxO and PsO to act as the anti elephant shield if they could get into position, with the task of tying the elephants up rather than killing them outright as this would eliminate the elephant risk anyway.

As we expected to significantly outnumber the Sassanids our LhF troops would be used to outflank and surround the enemy.  Thus we had two functional formations of light horse, one sharing the Ax & Ps command where they’d act independently if the foot didn’t require PiPs to screen the enemy elephants and the other command being a smaller purpose built light horse command.  All four generals are KnX and able to detach from their commands and join the cataphract line if required.

DEPLOYMENT

The battlefield proved to be very open with us deploying between two marshes, one each on each flank but with space to march around the outside of them.  Just inside our left hand marsh was a low unnavigatable river cutting off part of the table.  There was a couple of irrelevant gentle hills around but the Sassanid side was essential open and flat.

New Overhead Photo Test - Do you like it??

We set the deployment plan to hold the right with the Hatrene ally, have the foot in the centre to go either way after the elephants and the cataphracts back(ish) left to give options once the elephants position was known.

The Sassanids deployed first and proved to be very small.  All regular CvS including generals plus five elephants meant only three AxS foot and a few LhF (and no baggage) and none of the massed hordes we had been expecting (after much online chat about how to best paint such quickly and effectively).  Our deployment plan was less than ideal against that mix and layout and we found the space between the marches a bit cramped for our numbers but we were not too dissatisfied about the starting positions.

Then came the “dancing elephants”!!  And our run of below average PiP rolls.

Opening Moves and "Dancing Elephants"

We aimed to push the cataphracts straight forward into the enemy mounted on our left (Sassanid right flank) bypassing the elephants which would be threatened by the Ax/Ps mix in the centre.  The Hatra command was to push up to keep the flanks of our centre as secure as possible without themselves getting too exposed.  Lastly the LhF section of the Ax command was to sweep from the rear centre of the table all the way around our right flank, as PiPs permitted, as a general threat to envelope and rear attack the Sassanid’s left hand forces.  

BUT there was no baggage to pilfer!! – what sort of ‘king’ can’t afford the prestige of gilded tents and women??

The rapid dance of the elephants sideways (moving in and out of column) across the field put pay to the cataphract plan and they had to form column to the left and try and get past the elephant threat before it could advance further.  This was done successfully and they swept aside all the LhF and CvS that tried to get in

End of the "Elephant Dance".  It doesn't look good for the Kataphracts.

their way to the point that at the battle’s end they had opened the Sassanid flank and had a possible unopposed run at the rear of the centre of the Sassinid forces.

To facilitate the escape of the cataphracts a column of LhF interposed itself in front of the oncoming elephants where they died within a couple of bounds but gave enough time for the cataphracts to escape and the Ax to arrive and wrap up all but one of the elephants.

Avoiding the Elephants

That one elephant on the flank outside of the line turned outward to engage a cataphract general who had been wrecking havoc on the Lh and CvS, taking them to disheartened status quickly.  The havoc stopped abruptly as he was squashed in extremis under the heffalumps feet (down to a 1-6 + QK) and his command of all LhF thus broke.  

However another KnX from the CinC’s command took the easy charge into the ElO’s rear where much to their surprise the elephants

Containing Elephants and Making Gaps.

just shrugged of the attack, turned to face the startled cataphracts and threatened to charge them in turn next bound.  Luckily the elephant borne warriors heard of the personal demise of (now ex)King Nashur and like the rest of the Sassanids chose to flee the field instead.

Devastating Elephant Stomping

Meanwhile ....

Over on our right side, two commands of Sassanid CvS had formed a single line to charge the long line of Hatra’s finest BwO, while trying to avoid the ruler of Hatra and his friends (both

Hatra awaits the CvS charge.

KnX).  Once aligned they started the charge and the bows killed one, and recoiled 80% of the rest, a couple surviving only on the basis of their superior status.  The charge continued and this time the bows were less successful although again the superior status of the cavalry aided them.  Third charge and they were into close combat (apart from the end CvS that was mugged much to his surprise by a KnX coming in on his flank from our centre).  Again occasionally using the superior status to save themselves from defeat the CvS steadily cut its way through the bow line and the Hatrenes broke.

We discussed and commented that the CvS’s superior saving factor was important in allowing this charge to stay coherent, get into contact and break through.  Without the “s” we felt that CvO would have been broken up, gone in piecemeal and probably failed with this task.

Now with two of my commands broken a quick army breakpoint calculation was required but with no casualties on the other two commands and one of the commands being the small one, even with the breakage knock-on effect we were still within safe limits.

But we needed to finish this quickly and while their left rear was open to us, cataphracts aren’t known for their speed and it would be many bounds before they closed on the rear of the enemy.  There was a semi-gap in the centre of the Sassanid line created as the elephants went one way and the CvS went the other way after the Haternes.  A few single elements vaguely defended it and I had been pushing some LhF and two KnX generals into the area as a generalised threat.  Nash chose to close this gap with more elements including the CinC CvS who became an overlapped single element after winning a combat.  In a move with more than just a taint of desperation I opened a route for my CinC KnX to contact him and provided the second overlap with a PsO that was initially intended to flank the elephants when all other elements proved to be too far away.  

With factors two higher, “S” status to break draws and a QK you’d expect to win. 

Death of Nashur I

We did.  

Nushur died on the end of my kontos, the Sassanids broke and the survivors all fled the table. 

As always a great tense and fun game, for me poor PiPs early on which caused proplems were offset by more PiPs later when I really needed them.  Combat dice didn’t feel uneven although I was frustrated by the CvS being rescued from recoil/death so often from their status.  However Nash was expecting more from them in decisive and quick results from their status, although had they met my mounted he may have got that as against foot their QK it’s a less effective quality.

Unfortunately for such wonderfully presented figures they failed to win their first outing but I hope

Final Positions as the Sassanids Broke.

they'll return again often, they will always be a sight to see and a difficult challenge to defeat.

Next week we are marching more eastward to deal with renegade Kushans under some obscure leader, Boborsomesuchages or something similar.

Scheming Rebels