Outmanoeuvred in the Pre-Battle (Kushan Civil War Pt1)

"Not one of our tactically nuanced games" is a bit of an understatement from my side of the table. The night before I had a slightly late celebration for my 50th. 


In Bangkok these things can easily take all night (the wife couldn't locate us at 3:40am - but she is now talking to me again) so I wasn't using the sharpest of minds, having also put in a day at work in between. Bob, on the other hand, had missed the rendezvous and as I was without my main phone couldn't make contact to re-arrange the meet so he was home by about 9pm to finish the basing, rest and mentally prepare for the big clash. My group and I, not realising Bob's cunning plan, focused on the delights of Bangkok after dark and anticipated the same effect when the Kushan Upstart's baggage was looted the next night. (Not quite, Bob's baggage consists entirely of beef on the hoof, known as 'the kitset hamburgers'). 


Luckily the OoB was prepared before the night out.


So there we are, Bob looking bright and cheerful, on one side of the table and me on the other side feeling decidedly seedy. Down goes the terrain and I don't have much to put the foot troops into. (Kushans need foot in the OoB for terrain work but these don't stand up well in the open especially against Cataphracts). So they were aimed at the rocky hill to at least make a fight for something and avoid the mounted in the open. 


Chionites were placed front and centre to force them into battle if they proved unreliable. The main El group including CnC were place as far left as possible so they would be coming from an unexpected quarter and use the Ax (hopefully) in the rocky hill to cover the open side flank. 


Despite deploying second the order of commands were set before and I had no choice but to be to the left of the field. I hadn't expected much of Bob's force on or past the rocky hill but he deployed heavily in that area including the mass of Cataphracts. My foot weren't going forward towards that and would need protection as well if they were engaged.


Bob's described the battle well, I was frustrated having to mainly react to him rather than take the initiative, throwing short PiPs when I really needed them and the key combats never seeming to go my way. Bob's massed elephant group was the key and proved unstoppable. He had bought two elephant mounted generals so outnumbered me anyway (I may need to get a couple more elephant figures) but my elephants were spread too widely to either get in the way or do damage as quickly.


Despite the loss we survive the field and will return again next week.


A (slightly ruffled but) real King of the Kushans

Yes, the Revenge Was Sweet (Kushan Civil War Pt2)

As Bob & I play our (almost) weekly games with no time limit we always get a win/loss result and I'm not on the win side anything close to the 50% mark.  Luckily this doesn't detract from the enjoyment one bit.

 

However, on the other hand, pulling off a 24-1 victory when engaging the same army is one of those special "smile like a Cheshire cat" events.  When Bob didn't blog this battle promptly I threatened to write my own (after a crash course in learning how it works) bloggy thing starting with the words "Yeeeaaaahhhhh!!! Take that you illegitimate usurpers"!! 

 

But I'm too much of a gentleman to do that.

 

So here instead is my view of the 2nd Kushan Civil War Battle (I think its allowed that battle reports are one-eyed).

 

After the first battle I noticed Bob's troops flags and pendants looked better than mine and I also had in mind to have the generals fly flags that matched their PiP dice colours.  While scrolling around google images looking for Kushan flags, banners etc I got plenty of images of steppe horsemen and their HATS.  They didn't look like mine.

 

Those who have read some of our earlier battle reports on the DBMM yahoo group may remember the Cursed Sythians, the original ally command of my Kushans who were unreliable, switched sides or died on the spot so often that they were relegated to the bottom draw never to see the table again. 

 

They were figures for Saka that were painted in shades different to the Kushans and with bronze hat/helmets so that they were visibly different on the table.

 

They were released from the bottom draw recently to represent the latter Chionite allies and had gone back to their poor performance tricks!!  Anyway in a moment of inspiration (tea leave reading after beer consumption - maybe) I decided to repaint their hats to more realistic colours.  Or it could just be that I was bored that night and have run out of figures to paint!!  (Viking & Rus on order).

 

So the King of the Kushans arrived with his troops correctly attired, new flags on all general's elements and re-coloured dice.  All essential to obtaining a victory - ohhh, and we did a small army selection revamped to deal with massed elephants.  The King got off his elephants and back onto an armoured horse ceding the elephants to his 2nd wife's cousin to lead our massed elephant group.

 

We arrived with all the elephants, except one, massed with an elephant borne general to lead them plus as many anti-elephant auxiliary and psiloi as we could fit into the list.  The plan was to block/delay the opposing elephants with the foot while starting our own from an unexpected quarter and use the two light horse commands, including Chionites, as fast redeployment options to fill gaps or exploit them.

 

Deploying second allowed me to maximise the match-ups I wanted but I had also already got the initial plan and command location correct to match my intentions.  The usurper's elephants didn't feature much in the game and mine locked the opposing cataphracts on the hill while still doing damage.

 

On my right the Chionite on Chionite impending action was less pleasant to see initially.  While we were equal in numbers, Bob's supports were more numerous and closer than mine after his first move.  I made the decision to force the fight early as any delay would just make the situation worse for me and better for Bob.  So in we went, giving up the first hit but ensuring we were not going to be hard flanked for the first bound or two, and also aimed our solo elephant (with his own supports) at the Chionite flank.

 

The elephant never got to the Chionites but spent the whole game smashing his way through the various elements put in his way to protect their flank.  It caused damage anyway which contributed to the victory.

 

With the Chionite battle we held our own in Bob's first attack bound, had combat dice just to the good side of average in our return bound so after two sets of combats we were on top of the situation.  Lh on Lh is always somewhat of a lottery, the dice and overlaps being both unpredictable and influential to the outcome.

 

On the day we were wearing the right hats and won the lottery!! 

 

The rest Bob has explained well, I set about exploiting the advantages we had across the field without taking any real risks and while we had to work hard to stop one enemy elephant and lost some support players in a few places, generally we were making progress towards the goal. 

 

You always want more PiPs but on the day I didn't feel PiP starved, which is so un-common with the unmanuvourable brick that is Kushans, and even when I got the PiP roll of 2,2,1,1 I was able to stay on course.  While I hadn't upset the dice gods for a change neither had I overly endeared myself and 6-1s went both ways.

 

As always a fun, action based game.

 

A final observation - unfortunately, as the enemy C-in-C escaped the field alive I guess we'll have to do this all again in the near future.

 

Wayne

Still the biggest Kushan on the Sofa

(& now seemingly able to post bloggy things)

Kushan Civil War Part 2: Wayne's Revenge

Well Wayne didn't want to concede his kingship of the Kushans after just one battle, so one week after the first encounter, the armies clashed again. Once again Wayne was the attacker, and the terrain fell similarly to the previous game, with a BUA on my left, a rocky hill on right, and various inconsequential hills and bits of scrub scattered around.

Position after my first bound. 

We'd both tweaked our armies a little from the previous game, with Wayne cashing in some bows for more auxillia and massing his elephants, and me losing an elephant general and adding 4 elements of cataphracts. The latter may appear to have been a strange choice, but I'm slow painter, and needing to field elements for a game gets them done. I was painting more cataphracts so that's what I fielded.

Wayne's massed elephants

Once again a major concern was how to stop all my lovely cataphracts from being stomped by elephants, particularly as I had to deploy first. Once again I tried to use them on the flanks, with one set being deployed on the left where I hoped they'd support the Chionite ally, and the others on the right on the rocky hill where I hoped they'd be safe from the elephants who'd count it as difficult going (a subsequent closer reading of the rules revealed that elephants quick kill knights anytime, anyplace, anywhere so in retrospect not my most cunning plan). I put my massed elephants in the center, with a line of auxillia next to them, hoping that Wayne would follow the same line of reasoning as me, and not put his cataphracts in the middle.

In this game it turned out that deploying second was a big advantage though, as Wayne was able to line up a line of auxillia against my elephants, cataphracts against my auxillia, and his elephants close enough to the Kn(X) on the rocky hill, that advancing would be dangerous. The situation really didn't look great as I took my first move, so I decided to attack as quickly as possible on the left with my Chionites, and hope they'd do the business before the rest of the line folded. Wayne had an identical Chionite ally opposite mine, but deployed deep, and a single elephant from the adjacent command was deployed to harass my cataphracts. My idea was to advance quickly with the Chionites moving up cataphracts and light horse from the center left command to support them. Wayne's ally came up to meet them though, forcing me to buy a ticket to the light horse lottery before the supports were in place. I got the first hit in, but he had an elephant menancing my flank.

Now Wayne's had persistent problems with the figures he used for his Chionite ally, as they often under-perform, or more usually plain refuse to fight or just change sides. Anyway he consulted the tea leaves at the bottom of his beer bottle and released that what he needed to do to fix things... was to repaint their hats....

Opposing Chionite allies clash

Boy did that fix work. I lost two elements for one in the first hit, and after that things only got worse with my Chionite command being broken by their opposite numbers without inflicting any more casualties in return.

The right hand flank. Wayne's elephants advance, my cataphracts stay on their hill

Elsewhere on the battlefield my line stayed put, and Wayne's elephant horde advanced into the gap between my elephants and the cataphracts on the the rocky hill. I threw some psiloi and numerous light horse at them who disrupted their formation, but the elephants refused to die. I did eventually dishearten the command by killing support elements, but my own losses had been heavy too (LH(F) vs El isn't pretty).

Wayne's elephant attack is broken up, but note lack of dead elephants

The rapid collapse of my Chionites left the column of cataphracts sent to support them hanging in the wind, and only a rapidly dwindling supply of light horse kept the elephant from trampling them. Eventually Wayne's Chionites regrouped from their pursuit, surrounded and killed a general, and thus broke my left center command. The knock on effects took the next command along too, breaking the army.

So I guess that sometime soon we'll have to make it best out of three. The thrust of my plan for the next game will be to roll better on the aggression dice so that I get to deploy second. Failing that, how to deploy as the defender will need some thought. It's a tricky problem as setting your stall out for an attack can leave you getting all the wrong match ups, but if you deploy deep it can be difficult to redeploy the klumsy Kushans and any LH(F) screen is going to be very vulnerable to an aggresive attack by elephants, cataphracts or Chionites.

Kushan Civil War Part 1

My Kushans on the left, Wayne's on the right

I finally got enough figures painted to field a Kushan army, and since Wayne's been campaigning with Kushans for a while now, we thought it'd a good idea to have a civil war to sort out who's the real King Kushan, and who's just an item of soft furnishing.

Kushan on Kushan is an interesting match up as the list contains copious numbers of cataphracts and elephants. The clumsy cataphracts desperately try to avoid the elephants, while attempting to find some light horse to kill. The latter swarm around like mosquitoes exploiting gaps and latching onto flanks.

Our army lists were pretty similar with both of us choosing a late version with a Chionite ally of LH(S) and being light on cataphracts and heavy on elephants. Wayne was determined to crush the upstart early, and was the attacker. Notable terrain was a BUA protecting my left flank, then a gentle hill just on the other side of the center line, and a rocky hill towards my right, which somewhat hampered my deployment there.

Deployment. View from behind my left flank

Generally when campaigning with Kushans Wayne has a couple of commands of mixed cataphracts and elephants, so my plan was to mass my elephants and try to smash one of these, however here I was guilty of preparing to fight last week's battle, and Wayne was far too cunning to set up in such way against a fellow Kushan.

I deployed with my massed elephants in the center, supported on the flanks by psilioi with horse archers behind. To the right of them were the Chionites, positioned so they'd be in the thick of things even if they were unreliable, and to the right of them beyond the rocky hill was a command of cataphracts and light horse hoping to avoid elephants by being out wide. To the left some auxillia held the BUA and a force of horse archers and elephants faced the central hill and linked to the elephant thrust.

All the action took place in the central region as neither of our commands on the right flank got many pips, and on the left Wayne  sent mixed force to occupy the hill, who then didn't fancy coming off it, while my guys didn't fancy going up it. In the center my elephants advanced rapidly towards Wayne's Chionites opposite them. LH(S) vs elephants is a nerve racking match up for both sides, but with 4 nellies including the general in a line, I thought I'd have the edge. Nevertheless Wayne charged into them on his second bound, hoping to destroy the supporting psiloi on the flanks and get some overlaps. The light infantry held up magnificently though, and the elephants scythed through the light horse breaking the command in a few bounds. The Chionites did get lucky once though killing an elephant in my bound, leaving the victor in position to rear end my C in C. Luckily Wayne's next pip roll was a one, and being demoralized already he couldn't take advantage.

Towards the right I'd placed a long column of 7 cataphracts beyond the rocky hill hoping that Wayne wouldn't put his elephants opposite that terrain. However, as he deployed second he was able to place a trio of pachyderms towards that side. The Kn(X) column began moving wide but never got far due to lack of pips. On my first move I threw my Chionite command between the elephants and the cataphracts.

My Chionites go right to save the cataphracts

Wayne send some light horse to hold it up, and wheeled his behemoths to attack the flank of the Chionite column. The attack proceeded slowly though, only having three elephants, and having to wheel to get into position. Despite heavy losses my Chionites were able to hold on, killing several of his LH(F) and eventually got lucky and bagged an elephant too.

Wayne's Pachyderms attack

Finally Wayne brought up some cataphracts to support his attack, but these got rear ended by horse archers from my victorious elephant center command, breaking their command, at which point Wayne conceded the game.

Not one of our most tactically nuanced games, but close fought and enjoyable nevertheless. In the end the difference was that I'd hired the real Chionites and Wayne hired some LH(F) in (S) clothing. Next game night will be a rematch.