Nothing To Singh About
Or
The Indians Don't Deliver 

Another enlightening entry from the diary of Dyfyd Llewllyn, the legendary Victorian explorer, who left Wales in 1871 on an expedition to survey the Silk Road routes of Central Asia and subsequently never returned to his native Dinas Powys:

1^st April 1873

Once again, we are following in the footsteps of the Huns as we traverse The Kush. My trusty guide Gerupta Singh has had us set up camp for a few days while he goes to visit some long lost relative in this area. So, for the last two days I have had time to talk to the locals, and I’ll have you know, we are in the area of another battle. This time it was the Huns against a horde of Indians. It was not easy to get much of the story for this one as there are few songs about it, it seems. I have done my best to recount it here.

This battle, or so the story goes, was fought on a clear day. The Hun leader, Ganasha, had already fought of the Tibetans and the Sassanians, so the Indians thought they would have a go, too.

Well the two armies faced each other with large mounted forces and thousands of bowmen on the Indian side. Ganasha’s plan was to lure the Indian horse to his right flank and then spring an ambush on them from behind this hill that we are camped upon this day. By all accounts the plan was fairly successful, but the Indians fought well. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself here, aren’t I?!

So, the Indian bow line advanced very slowly and was held in check by the Zhang Zhung allies, while the Indian cavalry was drawn further to the right. A cunning bloody bugger that Ganasha. Not only did he have an ambush behind the hill, he also managed to feign flight and bring the Indians even further out of their position. Now, it is said that this was a bloody struggle and both sides took heavy losses. There are some that say Ganasha moved to soon, but anyway, the trap was sprung.

Now then, meanwhile on the left flank the ranks and ranks of Indian levy bowmen were slowly advancing, but had been reluctant to climb the small hill on their right in fear of the masses of horsemen facing them. It was now that Fagash (‘The Cautious’ they call him now) chose to reveal himself from ambush. However, he was a bit reluctant to charge into all those arrows (I don’t bloody blame him really!), so he decided to try to get round the enemy flank – well I say try, I think he succeeded.

The battle had become a very bloody business by now but there were not many opportunities for glory. Until that is, the Indian general left a very large gap in his forces. Well, as you can imagine, those shrewd Huns leapt at a chance and managed to attack an Indian general, almost killing him. But it was not a lucky day for the Huns, and nor for the Indians. 

Both armies were tired after a long fought battle and as the daylight was waning the fighting drew to a close without any real outcome. The Huns had been bloodied but had held firm. The Indians too had spent their best and noblest and were unable to carry the day. The Indians skulked off back to their city while Ganasha’s Huns were able to return to some well-earned goating - now there's lovely! 

This was another tough game that could have gone either way. I was happy that Anthony had brought his cavalry command to my right and wanted to gang up on it. With the ambush, feigned flight and with 2 commands there I thought it would be enough to deal with it. In hindsight, I probably should have drawn him out a little further but that would have also been a gamble. That said, if the dice gods had been with me it would have worked, but as it was they were not in attendance as we both had pretty similar dice which meant that many of the great chances that were created failed to produce results. 

The small ambush on my left was ineffective and that bow line was not going to be taken on frontally. I probably should have just moved the two commands over to the right and ignored the bow. It was a good game and Anthony played well. My winning streak has been broken but I am still Grand Herder of Goats.

The end result was a losing draw 10-15.  

Next, the Sassies are back for more rugged punishment!