The Protagonists IV - The Petrashop Boys

"On a hiding to nothing..."

As readers of this blog may remember, we DBMM’s in Bangkok have played out three mini campaigns over the last few years and the battle reports were posted for all to critique.  (See reports from February 2012 to September 2014).

Miraculously, I have come out the victor in all three previous events (okay, the first two had only win or lose options!) and with a few more potential but inexperienced players joining the next mini-campaign it would be a bit embarrassing to make it four in a row.  In addition, having played the last two events as Parthians, it was frowned upon to use them once more.

So in a move of unexplained (and out of character) sportsmanship I suggested playing the toothless Arabo-Aramaeans [Bk 2/22] as the only non-Parthian alternative army I possessed that fitted into the 1^st century BC Syrian area campaign that was proposed.  As an army it is singularly without any attacking virtues and reliant on using it’s very low aggression and terrain options to absorb enemy attacks and counter-attack at the weakened enemy.

As it turned out the campaign rules subsequently went through some modifications, the number of players dropped to four and the selected armies became possibly the worst conceivable combination to face as each contained significant numbers of my natural enemies.  Furthermore, the re-arranged campaign rules for selecting allies*, while clever in themselves, further played against my army as it increased the number of my natural enemy elements in play while my own high minimums restricted my ability to use the stronger/more expensive allies.

However, we encourage cunningness and deviousness so that became the path I would have to follow, with unusual terrain layouts using uncommon terrain selects to try an cause the enemy to engage on my terms so that I could then strike back at their weakened areas.

I had to make a choice on the sub-list restrictions so chose the Nabataean city of Petra.  This gave me a mostly irregular army with regular generals and the option to switch the few non-LhF (light horse archers) mounted troops between fast Knights or Cavalry on a game by game basis.  I gave up the option of cataphracts (iKnX) because I saw no benefits in fighting any of the three known enemy armies with these type of knights.  I did, however, think the rare ability to bring significant ‘dry stone walls’ (TF-temporary fortifications) with this choice of city as being another unusual weapon in the arsenal.

However we also had a campaign structure that had the campaign won (or lost) on the “top table” while other preparatory games had other benefits but not directly able to win the campaign.  Because of the draw I was to engage in two preparatory games prior to a chance at the “top table”.  My tricks and ploys would be saved for the top table battles, earlier games being used to test other options.

By some devious date setting I got onto the bottom of the table of players so would be the last to challenge on the “top table” and had the two “side/preparatory” games to experiment in, the first against Bob’s Ptolemies and the second against the loser of the first top table game.

So for this campaign I am Wanazab the Ay-Rab, Emir of Military Affairs for the Nabataean city of Petra, assisted by the other Petrashop Boys,  Sal-Ah-Noyz (as audibly enabled as his later more famous descendant) and Ali Sheap Bleet (of the past flying carpets merchant fame family).  We really just want to guard our cities peace and regulated market places and our trade routes but the faceless council of greedy elders have decreed that we should be expanding vigorously.  This can only end in tears.

First Game

In a build up game Petra, for reasons unknown but most likely to do with disrupted trade, headed south to chastise the muscle flexing Ptolemies.  We meet on the banks of the upstream Nile in a battle where the centres didn’t engage and the artist-scribes were scared from the field very early (that is we didn’t take photos). 

The tactic to be tested here was an unexpectedly large light horse command, big enough to look normal with 8 elements also in ambush.  The Aramaeans are not expected to field the LhF in large numbers due to the high numbers of compulsory bow and to do both, plus a couple of decent stretches of stone walls I gave up taking an ally at all.  The idea was that the Ptolemies being a mostly pike and expensive foot army would be vulnerable to the 18 LhF sweeping around and behind them.  I was also gambling the their compulsory terrain (S or WW or Rv) wouldn’t be chosen as a river as either the sea or waterway would secure a flank and draw them to deploy in that direction giving scope to go wide on the opposite flank.  Besides the pike block the enemy would bring knights in a light wedge formation (rKnFsbw) which while deadly against foot in the open, doesn’t allow them the normal knightly destruction of cavalry (QK = quick kill effect) so my heavier mounted were classed (equipped) as cavalry not knights as a blocking agent.  To protect my foot I planned to use stone walls in their front, very effect against all that the Ptolemies could bring, with camel and psiloi infested dunes on their flanks.  My mounted would be in reserve or sent to win by outflanking the enemy.

Actually not a very strong plan in an aggressive sense but should be sound defensively.  Unfortunately, games aren’t won on the defensive, an issue I would have all campaign.

In the game the terrain fell well for the defensive approach although I would have to advance into a dune area in the centre of the table a small distance (two base widths) from the waterway to secure my left flank.  Unfortunately my cavalry was on the wrong flank to engage the enemy knights, a matter made worse when Bob unexpectedly decided to push the knights between the waterway and sand dunes which if successful would create havoc behind my lines.  I rushed a large group of light horse into the area where he would emerge from the gap but held them in station to threaten to envelop the knights rather than take them head on.  My camel riding scouts (LhI) and psiloi in the area immediately pushed into the dunes, with the triple purpose of avoiding the knights, threatening their flanks and also threatening the flanks of the pike block should they actually charge the troops defending the wall.

An additional surprise was Bob’s entry into the dunes with six superior auxilia (plus two psiloi) in two columns with a clear intention of clearing it of threats.  I expected my camels to be up to the task as they had plenty of psiloi support themselves but once combat was engaged the factors weren’t as clearly in my favour as I expected.  In the end, even against the poor odds that came as a surprise to me, after some hard fighting (and Bob’s unfortunate dice) we still finished the battle in possession of the dunes if only due to some luck.

However it became clear that this flank was the focus of Bob’s attack so I shifted, at great PiP cost, the cavalry from my right flank to the left.  The knights came out of the gap to fight and while I took a number of light horse casualties the “L” shape defence I used allowed the light horse to slip in a couple of rear attacks and in the end all knights but the general were destroyed and the enemy command broken.

But my right flank was now weak and the small number of light horse trying to delay the remainder of Bob’s mounted from outflanking us were eventually caught and then collapsed quickly (and broken due to the casualties inflicted on the command by the knights on the other side of the table) leaving the wall defensive position out-flanked.  A sterling effort was put up by the defenders but it wasn’t long enough to allow the cavalry to again transverse the table to the rescue, and with mounted in front, flanking and behind them they took enough damage to break.  Game over 6-19.

So having been caught out by Bob’s attack on my left where it wasn’t expected and needing the light horse to deal with the threat I never got to try the massed light horse outflank idea I had originally planned.  Maybe next time.

Second Game

Anthony had tried to use the Parthians in an uncharacteristic way on the top table and had (to the surprise of a couple of people) nearly pulled it off.  But in the end, after mutual CinC destruction, Nash’s woeman’s had secured a narrow victory so Anthony picked up the lowest spot on the table and got a ‘side’ game against Petra’s finest.  In the non-standard invade/defend rules the campaign utilises Anthony chose to invade (a “Dry” enemy) in the summer!!  I couldn’t work out why.

My pre-game planning involved swapping the cavalry into (regular) knights to prevent them becoming cataphracts fodder and maybe even give the cataphracts a fright themselves.  Give the invasion in the summer a thirst event was on the cards so I decided I must have a BuA (Built up area) and in fact took a two element square fortified BuA on a difficult hill I’d custom built for the previous campaign (where it failed to have positive effects) from which I could ambush six light horse.  Its placement was still a bit random but it was to go where it would cause the maximum discomfort for Anthony’s deployment and be manned by bowmen to keep it influence real.  Otherwise the list remained much the same as the previous game.

On the day the terrain fell favourably and deployment was quite straight forward.  The weather didn’t throw up the hoped for (against all odds of course) “thirst” condition.  Anthony appeared with only two commands on table, one with such an oversupply of cataphracts that it had to be an exaggerated sized command and he also actioned a delayed battle stratagem which I was less than familiar with and it didn’t register that it meant a flanking (or delayed) command.  His other surprise was the use of his Galatian ally, massed warband with a few cavalry which while needing to cover a lot of ground had a juicy bow and blade target directly ahead in my line.

Battle on, and I moved the warband targets, plus CinC, out off in-front of the warband but these were on low PiPs and while they got away didn’t do much else in the game.  I filled the gap they created with my few regular fast knights to receive the warband and pushed the camel scouts into the dunes in the centre of Anthony’s deployment area where he had no answer to them (instead he used troops and PiPs all game to keep them there rather than have the camels catch him in the rear).  Lastly, I send the large group of light horse (with high PiPs) wide around the left flank to threaten the cataphracts flank and rear and to burst their bogus numbers.  This move Anthony countered with three light horse of his own which we meet on a gentle hill and expected to use our numbers to sweep them aside but his dice held up very well and we were stalled until he had time to get the cataphracts into play piecemeal. 

About this time Anthony’s masterplan became evident, flank marches on both flanks and I fell for it.  I released the ambush from the hill fort to run wide and into the Parthian’s rear but got the march move mechanisms wrong and the Galatian cavalry, still hanging back due to lack of PiPs, was able to nullify it’s effect and I was also surprised how ineffective my knights were in dealing with the massed warband, even though we match the frontage and had secure flanks, as the knightly quick kill was uncommon due to the combat factors being so even.  So we bogged down and eventually the “F” effect cost us an element and the line was breached.  By that time we had Parthians in the rear over 40% of our line and we were well beaten,  2-23.

Anthony came with a total plan, executed it well and as a result out played me completely.  Well done!!

Now I must face Bob’s Ptolemies on the “top table” next, having also previously lost to them and confidence is not high.  Thus queue – bizarre plans!!

* =      List allies are ignored (unavailable) while a local area list of eight allies (those we had enough figures for!) were available to all but are ranked by player so that through a couple of campaign rules we have a sub-game where it is possible to manoeuvre allies away from your opponents and into your own camp.