Pulling The Persian's Rug From Under Them

Or

Another Successful Mission By The Sassanian People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad

The following is yet another passage from the diary of Dyfyd Llewllyn, the intrepid Victorian explorer, who after departing Wales in 1871 lead an expedition to survey the Silk Road routes of Central Asia, and by coincidence the battlefields of the now well-documented Silk Road Wars of the 7^th Century.

20^th April 1873

It seems like I am going round in bloody circles on this expedition! I have become a tad fascinated by this rather splendid chap, Ganasha, and his exploits. It seems that he was not too shabby at all! And ‘bloody’ is the right word for this story, or at least that is what Gerupta Singh tells me. We are camped as usual on a hill overlooking yet another battlefield, and once again we are listening to the stories as told by the locals and translated buy my trusty guide. So without further ado, here is this bloody tale:

This is being a short story because this was a very short bloody battle, so I am having the time to tell you while we wait for the tandoori goat to cook. Our great King Ganasha The Handsome was still holding power in The Kush and by this time he was starting to get old and weary of these foolish upstarts trying to take his kingdom away from him. This time it was being the Persians of Bobroes II again and goodness-gracious-me, they were looking for revenge and had gathered enough troops to outnumber the Huns (1).

King Ganasha the unstoppable was not to be deterred. In fact, he was most incredibly angered by the audacity of these foreign devils and thought to smite them a mighty blow, by the grace of Shiva!

The two armies manoeuvred to be gaining an advantageous position but Ganasha was not able to secure the high ground that he was wanting. Instead he secured his flanks with a large wood and a rocky hill on his right, and on the left the rocky hill on which we are camping this very night and the village below. (2) Through his cunning, Ganasha was able to force Bobroes II to give away his army positions first (3) and then deployed his glorious Huns in a strong position.

It has been told for all these years that upon seeing the Huns so arrayed, Bobroes II was overawed, oh yes indeed! Seeing no other option, and not brave enough to lead the charge from the front, he resigned his troops to their fate, pushing them forward as he skulked at the rear like terrified skulking wollah!

The Huns responded in turn, pushing their centre forward. The Persians had sent light troops to harry the Hun elephants and these were summarily dealt with in the first charge. Fagash the Reserved at first tempted to try to out flanking the enemy, decided it was better to be remaining close to the main force and provide support (4). The third Hun general, Gudhash The Brave, also pushed forward to exploit the end of the Persian line.  Meanwhile, the Gok Turk, most ungracious allies of the enemy probed the left flank, looking for weakness in the hordes of infantry …a weakness that, by Shiva’s left booby, was found lacking!

So, the battle lines were drawn and the clash began in earnest. The initial charge of the Huns cleared the enemy psiloi but the Persian Assavaran held firm. The Persian counter attack was incredibly fierce and bloody. The Huns were taken aback but not dismayed (5) as they hurled themselves back into the fray. On the right, Gudhash The Aggressive pushed his troop forward, forcing the Persians to be commiting their reserve. On the left, the hordes held but were in a sticky position…Fagash The Distant was needed here!

The battle in the centre was as bloody as you have ever been seeing in all your days! The Persians fought back again with verve and many Huns were slain. However, now on either end of their line, the Hun elephants had reached the Persian cavalry, while in the centre, holes were to be appearing in Bobroes’ line. One of his sub generals was forced into the melee, while on the right, Gudhash The Valiant was also in combat. The Persians had already taken casualties and as FagashThe Timely rushed to support the troops on the left, Ganasha The Indomitable pushed his troops forward once again. This time it was too much for the forces of Bobroes and their army collapsed, once more fleeing the field in disarray and dishonour, the dirty shit-wallahs!  (6).

Ganasha The Long-lived retained his throne in a swift victory!

   

1     1.    The extra victory points meant that Bod was fielding 430 points to my 404 points… Pah!  

2     2.    I wanted a couple of gentle hills, but they both landed on Bob’s side of the table

3     3.    Bob scored double my score on the deployment dice, thus having to deploy first

4     4.    Swinging round the wood would have probably taken too long.

5     5.    I rolled really poor pips and could not exploit the position. However, the Hun light horse was        impetuous so the gaps were filled.

6     6.    One of the commands broke and the knock on effect took the command next to it, thus totalling  half the army.

An unexpected result in all honesty. I had put some thought into the OoB and command structure and terrain and this battle in some ways went as planned. I didn’t expect Bob to charge forward though, and I definitely didn’t use the two small commands as effectively as I would have liked. The fight in the centre was really bloody on both sides and quite a nail biter. My centre command was huge and could take losses, but the light horse died easily – especially with my low combat dice in one round!  The command was only a couple of elements from being disheartened. However, the LH did attack well and with overlaps and some low combat dice from Bob in the last round, they did enough damage.  With me losing 1 ME per element lost and Bob’s Cav S counting as 2 ME, I could afford to take losses and he couldn’t. Still, I think I was fortunate. I think this was quite possibly the shortest campaign game to date. We were in combat in round 2 I think and the whole game only lasted 4 rounds! 

So, Ganasha is still king with 2 lives remaining. Bob, Wayne and Anthony each have 1 life. Will the next game verses Wayne see our first elimination, or will the Tibetans find a way to knock the Huns off the top table?