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.