‘Can The Indians Curry Favour 

With The Huns?’

Or

‘When The Hindus Became The Hindon’ts’

This is the final entry in the diary of Dyfyd Llewellyn. Following this entry his story becomes one of mystery and legend. As he states, his intention was to lead a new expedition in search of the mythical City of Goats. However, whether he actually found it is unknown for after this entry nothing substantial is ever heard of him again. There are stories of a 'white man of poetry and music' that unearthed 'a lost city of unspeakable treasure and goatly pleasure deep in the darkest Kush', but as yet no real proof has been found. It is therefore, impossible, no matter how fanciful, to link these myths with Dyfyd or to even accept that they have a sprinkling of truth. We can only hope that our protagonist continued to write his diaries and that one day they will come to light. 

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4th May 1873

It's a beautiful morning here in the Kush. I must say that I have grown very fond of this land with its wonderful valleys and roaming hills. It reminds me of home, it does. We are once again ensconced on a battle field of the hero Ganasha. This is his last one apparently. As always, there is a long and entertaining story to go with it. As we broke our fast with a meal of goat curry and naan bread, the curry-wollah was good enough to recount it to us. So here it is: 

Desperate to hold on to their crumbling dynasty, the Hindus under Antonigupta attempted to invade the kingdom of Ganasha The Undefeated.  The Indians incursion followed the river towards this village nestled in the lush valley of Bileegoatpa (1). And this is where the Huns were waiting for them.  The valley is a wide open plain with only a small hillock to the south.

The spineless Antonigupta thought to scupper the Huns by bringing some of their cousins to fight against them. But this was not the extent of his lily-livered ploys, oh no sahib! So petrified of the Huns was he, that he deployed his levies in the front rank, while his army cowered behind!

Of course, Ganasha The Handsome arrayed his army with his levies to the rear – where they belong! To the fore were the cream of the Hephthalite nation. Horse archers were all that would be needed. In the centre was Ganasha The Gorgeous himself with the bulk of the army.  To his left was Fagash The Intrepid with a sizeable force. While to the right, the ever-faithful Zhang Zhung, Zhu-li-Zhu-li-Zhu-li Zhing-Zhang-Zhung and his lighter nomad horse archers.

And so the stage was set for the climactic battle of this long and bloody war. Would Antonigupta find his courage? Would he be able to muster an attack? Or, as the bookmakers predicted, would he crumble into forgettable dust?

The battle began. The Huns, having the initiative and seeing the weakness of the Hindu strategy went out to hunt. Ganasha The Swift moved his troops to their left wing. Fagash The Rapid swung his troop out to the left wing to encircle the enemy’s weakest flank. And on the left, the nomads dashed along the road to probe the opposite flank.

Awestruck by this display of might, the Hindus fully sensed their doom. Their audacity and underhandedness was now their downfall. To think that fellow Huns would face the wrath of Ganasha The Merciless! To think that they could forego the love they have for their Hunnic Overlord! The foolish Hindus were aghast to see the Utrigars refuse to participate in the battle (3). They pushed forward along their line and advanced toward the nomads on the river, but their sense of foreboding disaster permeated the battlefield!

As Ganasha The Astute maneuvered his men into position, so more of his guile was revealed.  From behind the hillock came forward Gudhash and his concealed command. Yet more troops were focused on the unsupported flank of the Hindus.

Desperately, Antonigupta pleaded with his allies to join the fight and save his exposed flank. The Utrigurs snubbed his pathetic mumblings and looked on in admiration as their rightful King Ganasha The Almighty dominated the battlefield. 

The Huns launched their attack on the left flank, killing many Indians in the first assault. Then Ganasha The Nimble initiated a feigned flight confusing and confounding the befuddled Antonigupta once more. His troops were at a loss and knew not what to do. The levy horde were bravest of all charging forward to at least try to save the day, while the nobles watched in despair. On the right flank the Nomad Allies had captured the bridge and left the opposing Indians stranded and unutilized (5).

In came the Huns again, charging down the Indian cavalry. Fagash The Nomadic continued to work his way around the enemy flank, while Gudhash The Aggressive launched into the Indian light horse who were trapped with their rears to the enemy and a bolting commander leaving them to perish!

This was all too much for Antonigupta’s command. The onslaught brought on by 3 Hephthalite commands was more than it could possibly take and it broke. Seeing the Indian commander shamed, the Utrigars knew it was time to join the fight. With a great cheer they launched themselves to battle, charging the Indian upstarts in the rear!

An thus the battle was won, and with it the Spice Road Wars. Ganasha The Righteous had prevailed against the continuous onslaughts of Indians, Tibetans and Persians. In the end, all 3 nations had been humiliated by the efficacy of the true KEEPER OF GOATS!

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After the war, the kingdom of Hephthalites knew many years of peace and prosperity. It was a centre of culture, learning, spirituality and was regarded as the centre of civilization for many years to follow. Ganasha lived a long and fruitful life, tending his goats and marrying a beautiful Eastern princess from the kingdom of Prathum Thani. In his homeland and the lands of his enemies he passed into legend. In Tibet, Persia and much of India his name still provokes fear in the hearts of local people.

Fagash and Gudhash also passed into legend. Not content to pass up their nomadic and warlike lifestyles, they continued to lead Ganasha’s armies to many more victories. But that is another story…

Now, it has come to my knowledge that Ganasha founded a city deep in the Kush. A marvel it was supposed to be, with streets of gold and fountains of wine. People from far and wide came to this place to trade, learn and be blessed by the mighty Ganasha, who be this time was revered as a god! The halls and palaces were filled with beautiful women and fine goats. The legends say that the fabled city was protected from time and hidden from view by the magic of Ganasha's Queen. Gerupta Singh tells me that the city is still there and that Ganasha and his Queen still sit on the throne, tending their goats in eternal bliss. He also says he knows how to get there, a secret passage he says! So tomorrow we are heading out to find it...

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1.    Anthony’s terrain choice was to place a non-navigable river and it ended up cutting a corner off the table

2.    Anthony brought a Utrigar Hun ally (from the campaign special rules)

3.    In the Hindu first turn they rolled 1 for the ally command, thus making it unreliable. Hehehehe – much to the delight of the Huns!

4.    Anthony had reserved 3 pips from his CiC’s first dice roll to try to bring the ally onside. Unfortunately, they did not respond with a high roll in the next turn and sealed the fate of the Hindu pretender!

5.    The right flank was a side-show. The fast light horse were there to pressure that flank and force a reaction to eat up pips. They did exactly what I wanted them to do and stayed out of trouble.

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Well, that’s that! The Huns win the campaign after a long and tense run on the top table. In fact, I was the only player to hold onto the top table for more than 1 game. But I get ahead of myself…

The last game was hard to predict. Anthony’s army list (Hindu Indian) has a lot of options so he could configure it many ways. In the last game, he had taken a lot of cavalry and psiloi. I must admit I expected the same again – especially as that had been a very close game! I toyed with the idea of taking a 6 element elephant core and trying to smash my way through his army. In the end, I didn’t take it because of the following reasons:

1.    Every time I took elephants in previous games, they didn’t get into the fight and became a hindrance.

2.    The Indians can have a lot of psiloi that can kill elephants.

3.    6 elephants is 120 points, that is equal to 20 light horse

So, I opted for the light horse as they are maneuverable and still have a punch. I knew that I would be able to get around Anthony’s army in some way.

The battle itself couldn’t have gone more in my favour. First, the terrain was good for me. The river didn’t hinder me much. My hills didn’t really go where I wanted them. But, there was a lovely wide open table – perfect!

The deployment was also good for me. There was a huge gap on the wing, and in th ecentre  hordes in front of bows and elephants! As if I was going to engage that?! So, it was never going to reach me (hordes cost 2 pips just to move in a straight line – never going to reach me!) Then of course, the ally. Yeah, that was bad for Anthony and really sealed the game for him. There was nothing on his flank to stop me. So, the obvious move had to be refuse the centre and all-out-attack on one flank – but hey, I’m Huns, that was always my plan! Even if the ally had been there, it would have only been a matter of time before my 40+ elements of LH (s) swamped the small LH and average sized CiCs command.

So that was it, another game over in 5 bounds! Not what I really expected, but then neither were the 2 previous and uncommonly short games. I definitely learnt something on this campaign. The first two games I lost. After that, I realized that: a) the elephants were superfluous; b) focused aggression really works with Lh (s); and c) feigned flights are great as they give 2 free hits when I count S and get a +2…yeah!

Overall, the campaign was fun for me. I hope it was for the other guys lol. It really added reasons to think through OoBs, make devious plans, and create a silly narrative and characters. I am looking forward to the next one. Especially as we have all each won one campaign/tournament now!

This just leaves me with one last thing to say,

‘It’s good to be king!’

J