"The Gods Dislike Cunning Buggers" *

* = Phil Barker (Rules Author & Insightful Icon of the Hobby) #160789 DBMMList 21/07/2014.

“I have no plan, least of all a cunning one, so I expect to be favoured by both the gods and the dice. Also to [be] absolutely sure of victory I'm going to abstain from all forms of buggery over the next two days”.

Bobu Deva (aka Bob) by email to the BKK DBMMers 30/07/2014.

Thereafter the conversation deteriorated and thus can’t be printed on these pages.  The poor taste continued verbally all through game night as well.  J

Whatagases the Indestructible was returning to reclaim the King of Kings status taken by the deceased Nashur II of Persia and then lost to Bobu Deva by his infant son Nashur III but I only had a vaguely cunning idea.  Previously Bob had used a foot heavy version of the army for which I didn’t have a ready answer (having won previously through Bob’s lack of PiPs, thus ignoring his foot troops and his commander falling off his elephant) so I looked for a blade option.  Nash was playing as my sub-commander and as he has Romans, I hired the Marian Roman allies to be a small but highly mobile command to move to wherever they could do the most harm.  Dangerously I added a second ally of mostly bowmen, with a cataphract command group, to add overall army bulk.

Game night arrived a day earlier than originally booked (due to a late class cancellation#) so importantly, Bob lost a whole day of abstinence.  The table wasn’t much, we had an oasis on our side and Bob had a couple of long gentle hills to hide ambushes behind while there was a scrubby patch centrally just on Bob’s side that we could run the Romans into to avoid fighting cataphracts in the open.

Bob’s purity came into play as we overrdiced as invaders and we had to deploy first which upset the plan a bit.  Then Bob deploys and we find he’s left the majority of the foot troops behind.  A superior light horse Chionite ally faced off against our,albeit larger, fast light horse command.  The Chionites appeared in our favourite 16ME (general+10Lh+Baggage) formation but had the advantage of superior against fast horsemen and it wasn’t a fight I wanted Nash to engage in.

Our Romans rushed forward into the scrub to annoy and harass the enemy from a safe(ish) position.  On the right I had an unreliable bow based ally but still went off to scout out the potential ambush positions while the massed cataphracts started an across table manoeuvre to eventually engage the Chionites. 

Nash couldn’t resist harassing the Chionites with his better numbers despite my warnings of bodily mutilations for disobedient sub-commanders and tried to semi-encircle them by running onto a hill from where he might be able to threaten their rear. 

That's an ambush!!  Ouch, here comes superior on
fast graded troops.

At this point we discovered Bob was lying about the lack of cunning ideas!! **  Hidden behind the hill were a further eight Chionites who with plenty of PiPs charged over the crest and hit the fast Parthian horse front and flank.  We had been cleverly deceived and caught totally unawares!!  Well done Bob!!.  (Nash’s threatened bodily damage was upgraded to execution!!)

Bob also threw in two other commands of fast light horse on each side of the roman occupied scrub to put pressure on our position and PiPs allocations.  We were in serious trouble.

The PiPs we had to use were low although the combat dice weren’t and the damage we received was less than the odds dictated.  With this we saw the beginnings of Phil’s wisdom coming through – Bob’s combat dice were lower, as predicted, for using a cunningly devised and deviously hidden oversized Chionite command.

On the right I had five light horse scouting out the other possible ambush positions and they had ended up in the corner of the table on Bob’s side

Bob looks to threaten in all sectors of the table.
We felt this was already game over.

once he’d cut off their option to get around into the enemy rear but a lack of PiPs had seen them remain stationary (I’d wanted to withdraw them from a fight they couldn’t win) while Bob faced them off with six light horse.  Bob was musing about charging in using the one overlap, my F(ast) rating in the first bound of combat and the impending recoil back onto the table edge disadvantage to destroy me.  Nash was actually encouraging him while I was trying to signal Nash to be quiet and threaten him with even more drastic measures.

Bob charged and Nash was upgraded to double execution of his corpse.  So the first combat in the light horse lottery was 1-2 against me due to the overlap – I won.  Bob tried the other end and died!!  On the third combat I recoiled then won the last two.  No losses and I was so relieved.

Elsewhere the cataphracts had caught a few of the Kushan light horse and while Nash’s light horse command (with three cataphracts) disheartened, we managed between us to kill enough enemy in one bound to bring the unreliable Eylamians into the fight, not that they did anything useful before the battles end.

Romans attacked front, left and rear.

Nash’s Parthian light horse command did some damage to the Kushan light horse before breaking at which point Bob lost most of the effective control of the impetuous Chionites who were really too big a command to regroup.  However the Kushans sent elephants, cataphacts and supports into the scrub after the Romans and caught some in the open – the Romans disheartened after two bounds.

Back to the light horse lottery on our right.  In my return bound I engaged all the remaining Kushan light horse except the one that had formed the original overlap.  They all died!!  They died to overlaps and horrid combat dice from Bob – on the last roll, a 6-1, I had to apologise to Bob for the atypical run of numbers. 

From outnumbered & outflanked to undamaged.
Embarrassingly Hot Dice.

The Gods had spoken again!!  They said “oversize Chioite commands in ambush are just too cunning”. ***

Suddenly the Kushan flank was open and their cataphracts exposed.  In our next bound we charged on in and with our cataphracts closing from the front cornered the Kushans with potential fights to our advantage.  In the next bound the Kushans broke the Romans but lost a cataphract to hard flanking light horse, which broke a command which had a double knock-on effect and two other commands broke in sequence.  Battle over with Bobu Deva hiding in the scrub among the dead Romans (from where he escaped to fight another day) while Whatagases was also lurking near a table edge (albeit Bob’s rear edge) ready to slip away as we didn’t realise how close the Kushan were to breaking.

Final Positions - An unexpected outcome from an equally unexpectedly sudden finish.

Nash and I were caught unawares, just like with the ambush, by the breaking of Bob’s army and our victory.  I was looking at our own numbers (42% casualties – all from Nash’s commands) as well because I was in fear of our own position, while Bob checked and confirmed that game was finished.

My final comment would be that this was a scrappy game, lacking some of the tenseness we usually enjoy in almost all our games.  Bob had a cunning, well executed plan and I felt a bit [okay, only a little bit  :-) ] sorry for him when the dice definitely skewed in our direction.  

{Next Game:-  Nashur III of Persia, on school holidays, will make a final invasion attempt to topple the recently returned Whatagases the Indestructible of Pathia & all the civilised world.

** =  We didn’t dare ask about the possibly dishonesty involved in his claimed abstinence.

*** =  They didn’t mention abstinence and/or purity.

# = We prefer Wednesday or Thursday, finding the heavy work day after a late Friday night to damaging, but ever changing schedules sometime prevent all of us being available at the same time on the best nights.