Bashing Bactrians - Ineffectively

South of the Steppe Live the Bastardised Graeco-Bactrian.

Have appointed Sur Anthony the Mystically Undefeatable Icon as Kommital Landmeister Livland (sub general) we entered into some debate on tactics.  Having established the concept of “speak your mind in preparation, in the battle follow orders” Sur Anthony pointed out that “ I owe all my victories to the tactical genius of my fellow commanders and some strategically positioned hills”.  On the back of three straight loses I ignore the implied blemish on my tactical abilities and pointed out that “[u]nfortuately our home territories don't actually have hills. We'd better invade somewhere”.

So off we went (with aggression factor 4) to engage the Graeco-Bactrians (aggression 1) but we still needed two sets of dice rolls to confirm our natural status as invader.  Not good omens (sorry, divine signs).

Unfortunately, the next dice roll determined we again would deploy first, not an issue for big armies when generally you move first as well BUT it’s becoming increasingly noted that it's near disastrous for an army as small as the Teutonics. 

 

Terrain and Deployment.  First deployment is a diadvantage for a small element count army.

Bactrian pressure left, right and centre.
No options for the Teutonics.

Thus the Bactrian were able deploy with favourable matchups, especially for their large pike block.

The Teutonics tried to get the vulnerable foot away from the pike block. 

We didn’t manage to do it fast enough.  

The pikes in mass hit the crossbowmen and a few spearmen, albeit a bit broken up from the bowshots but as expected smashed through the Teutonics infantry line.  

In trouble.  Desperately trying to clear the flank.

They were joined by some manoeuvrable cataphracts (rKnX) that evaded Sur Anthony’s superior knights and also enjoyed the advantage in combats against overlapped bows. 

Trying to catch enemy on the right flank.

Effectively battle over.

Elsewhere the knights had gone after cavalry and light horse to sweep them away so the knights could attack enemy flanks to assist our hard-pressed (okay – fatally positioned) infantry.  But the enemy being both faster and more numerous mostly stayed out of reach while picking at the knights supports.

Nash’s Saka ally command of all fast light horse had got around our left flank with part of its command but had left 3 elements and the general behind to fill table space.  A couple of bounds of a low PiPs saw them caught and challenged by a line of three knight wedges and then a single PiP saw the general run for cover and abandon the rest to their fate.  One was fled, so survived (despite the ‘wingman’ bonus in play), while the other two were crushed.  Unfortunately the photo of 89AP of knights trying to run down 17AP of light horse is too blurred to show the imposing nature of the action.

That got us two elements of Bactrian, Sur Anthony’s light horse and hordes bagging a cavalry a piece making up the sum total of the Bactrian losses – four elements. 

Battle Over - No Teutonic Glory - almost No Bactrians Bashed.

The reason for the slowness of the infantry evade actions was four elements of irregular crossbows in the middle of line.  Expecting them to only move forward they had been placed at the left end of the bowmen rather than the trailing end (where they’d have to manoeuvre from) but this put them in the middle of the evade action and two of the three march moves cost an extra PiP and I didn’t have enough.  Had the group been entirely regular then I’d have managed a far better escape probably saving half of them and removing all the targets from the cataphracts.  This difficulty has been noticed in earlier games but my remedial actions made things worse not better in this game.

At only 71ME our army actually broke by ‘morale knock-on effect’ a full bound before I realised it, having not noted that Anthony had taken an addition light horse casualty (I probably saw it but it didn’t register) until I saw it on the casualty tray.  A quick list check and bit of maths checking confirmed that we had finished the bound previous.

So Sur Anthony is no longer undefeated and his mystical powers have been dispelled.  

Bob and Nash saw that we were in trouble at deployment and quite rightly pressed home all the attacks to ensure we had no time or space to escape.  Played like experienced generals - well done gentlemen.

This was one of the shortage games we’ve had in the last couple of years.  

It left the four players plenty of time to discuss why the Teutonics had had for straight defeats in emphatic style.  Mostly the talk revolved around changing the OoB to give a different mix of troops and different tasks to be assigned to the commands.  We also focussed on the incongruity of the irregular bowmen messing up the speed and manoeuvrability of the other foot and that these would if been excluded had there been optional foot to replace them.  As only iSpI is available and they cost more AP per ME than the bows and the size at the small 71ME is already an issue, the bows should stay but in a role as filler in other commands.  I’ll probably adopt most of the suggestions made.

Other options (beside not deploying first) were

1)  Add more figures and play 500AP games as it’s a more viable army at bigger sizes. 

2)  Paint some replacement figures and play it as a straight crusader army without wedges.

3) Play against unsuspecting opponents with the fear generated by the sight of mass wedged superior knight instilled in them!! 

Replacing the CinC was politely not mentioned.

Later, at home while revising lists I realised that the foot had started on the wrong side of the knights to affect a better outcome by controlling our chosen table area.  That brought the realisation that none of the games had stuck to the original plan, each time situations and ill-discipline had caused deviations that had allowed faster and more numerous enemy to overcome the pre-determined tactics devised to deal with such situations. 

One last attempt may be made in a couple of weeks to actually stick to the plan to see if it can be made to work.