Smelly Yak Cheese

Buoyed by his army's improved performance against the Indian catering crew, Bobroes once more turned his thoughts towards securing control of the Kush, the wealth of the silk road, and of course the cute goatsies. However, on the march, word arrived that another Indian army had emerged from the sub-continent to challenge Ganasha and his Huns, so it seemed prudent to let them fight it out, then crush the victor. In the mean time, there was some unfinished business with the Tibetans, so waiting for the spring thaw, Bobroes pushed into Tibet to avenge their invasion of Persia.

His army caught up with the Tibetans who were encamped on a plain beyond a narrow pass. Two craggy hills narrowed the battlefield in the center, and between them a gentle rise offered a perfect spot for Bobroes to conceal his elephants.

Deployment

As they crested the rise, the Persian scouts expected to see the Tibetan army arrayed in all its (modest) glory on the plain below, but while its camp was there, it was guarded by a scant half a dozen companies of troops. This meant one of two things*, the most likely of which was that the Tibetans were trying something clever, and that the rest of their army was held off the battlefield, and would be arriving from an unexpected direction.

Tibetan armies are usually small, but not this small.

However, King Bobroes was possessed of deductive skills to rival Sherlock Holmes himself,  and quickly deduced that there must be at least two Tibetan forces to arrive, and that since the left flank offered only a narrow pass onto the battlefield, one force would be arriving on the right, and that another was delayed in the center. Accordingly, he send his largest force forward and to the left to outflank the Tibetan delayed command when it arrived, while keeping another force in reserve near the central hill to lure the Tibetans towards the elephants concealed behind it**.

Flank march and reception commitee

He also prepared a warm reception committee for the Tibetans arriving on the right, blocking their way with a line of levy infantry, lining the craggy hills with light infantry to fall on their flanks, and sending his small reserve command, together with some heavy horse from the center to counter attack. A Tibetan command did eventually arrive as predicted, but not liking the look of the welcome, declined to advance, and the battle was over before the Persians could catch them.

A huge force of Tibetan cataphracts arrive.

Meanwhile the a huge Tibetan force arrived in the center, consisting of cataphracts and some light infantry. The Persian force on the left attacked their flank attempting to kill off the light infantry who might pose a danger to the elephants. Losses were exchanged before the Persians were forced to fall back to avoid a potentially disastrous head on fight with the Tibetan cataphracts.

The Tibetans had advanced some way towards the central hill,  but with the imminent arrival of the Tibetan flank march, Bobroes felt it was time unleash the elephants, who stormed out of ambush and down the center of the battlefield with astonishing speed (spent 6 pips to move them four times). However, while surprised, the Tibetans were confident in their ability to evade the clumsy beasts, and continued pursuing the Persians on the left.

Main Moves

The elephants continued their advance, supported by Persian cavalry from the center, while the small original Tibetan force moved to threaten their flank. The Persians on the left had worked back towards the center, and formed up for a final confrontation. The elephants in the center finally moved within range of the Tibetans, and Persian light horse rode fearlessly into the gap between the two Tibetan commands to threaten their rear. Finally the left wing charged ferociously into the cataphracts, killing one and pushing back the other.

Tibetans stand helpless after the feigned flight.

And at this point King Bobroes deployed his smelly yak cheese, declaring a feigned flight with the left hand command. This left the bewildered Tibetans rooted to the spot, unable to move away from the elephants, or to react to the light horse in their rear. On their next bound, the elephants stomped all over the Tibetan cataphracts, a Tibetan general fell to a rear attack, and the heavy cavalry fell on the disoreded pursing cataphracts. Unsurpsisingly, the Tibetans broke and fled under such a fierce assault.

This battle yielded another 23BP to be used for another attempt against the Huns. Unfortunately, a crushing Hun victory over the Indians had left king Ganasha in an unassailable position, and all the warring parties were forced to recognize him as King of the Kush and Keeper of the Goats***.


* The other possibility was a really bad spreadsheet error in Wayne's list.
** This was the same trick I'd used in the previous battle, but I thought that Wayne would think that I would think that he wouldn't fall for it again, and that therefore I wouldn't try it again.
*** Under the campaign rules, if the reigning king of the table defeats all the other players in succession, he wins the campaign.

Goat Jalfrezi

After the rather poor showing in the last battle, no-one in the Sassanid army was keen to return to Persia, and answer awkward questions such as "what happened to the old king", so the newly anointed (and imaginatively named), King Bobroes II decided to lead the army for some RnR in India. Consulting his Horsebacker's Guide to the Subcontinent, he found a little place that was rated 5 stars for its goat jalfrezi, and decided that a good meal would be just the thing to revive the mens' spirits.

Not expecting any trouble, Bobroes rode up and politely requested a table for 50,000, only to be met with the surly passive-aggressive response "Do you have a reservation ?", Suppressing the urge to answer "Do I look like a *#@**## Red Indian", Bobroes drew himself up to his full height and inquired "Do you know who I am ?", only to be met with the rejoinder, "I don't care if you're the Shah of Persia, you're not getting in without a reservation." Of course the only suitable response to such insolence was to draw his sword, and remove the greeterwallah's head with a single stroke.

Now perhaps it's a cultural thing, but this totally justified act seemed to annoy the Indians greatly, and there was a great deal of shouting, finger pointing and probably some bad language. More and more angry Indians started to arrive, and after a while an ugly chick on an elephant turned up (apparently her name was Anne-Toni Gupta), and the Indians squared up for a full on battle.

Resolving to instruct his scribes to send in a one star review (rude staff, unable to handle large parties), Bobroes took stock of the situation, and drew up his army to meet the insolent Indians. Their army was formidably large, and drawn up in a strong position with their left protected by a wood and a village, and their right by a large area of scrub. The open ground between was filled with two commands, combining their SpI to make a central infantry block, that was flanked on each side by BwI and HdO. Each side also had some elephants behind, and one had a large block of 8 CvO held back in reserve*. Some psiloi and horde held the the wood on the left, and the third command lead by Anne-Toni herself occupied the scrub on the left with elephants, fast blades and archers.

The armies square up

Bobroes plan was to ignore the Indians in the scrub, unhinge their position by seizing the wood on their left, and then ride down their infantry and cavalry frontally with the Asavaran, while trying to avoid engaging the elephants. A force of psiloi occupied a wood in the center of the Persian position, with the task of engaging any elephants who ventured forwards, before they could engage the Persian horse.

Once again, many of the Indians were overawed by the magnificent sight of the Persian army, and the central Indian command was unreliable, and only agreed to fight after several turns of cajoling by Anne-Toni. Meanwhile Bobroes moved up his crack Dailami infantry to seize the wood, forcing the Indian cavalry reserve to cover them off. This cleared the way for a frontal attack by the Persian heavy cavalry, who make short work of the Indian archers and horde, and on their right broke through and started attacking the Indian reserve cavalry.

Persians storm through the wood

Having already taken losses attempting to defend the wood, the Indian left, collapsed, but the center held firm, and with support from Anne-Toni's elephants that had moved across from the scrub, counter-attacked the Persian left. The light infantry in the center, who had been supposed to counter any elephants, never got enough pips to get into position, and were masked by Indian infantry. Since the Persian left was the low pip command, it was unable to disengage quickly enough, and its horsemen were trampled underfoot by the Indian pachyderms.

The Persian center now engaged with spearmen of the Indian central command, while each side endeavored to intervene with their victorious flank. While the Persian center took considerable losses, eventually their regular C and C prevailed, and they were able to break the Indian center before losing their own, and win the game 19-6.

The battle unfolds

Once again, the Indian cavalry and foot were vulnerable in the open to Persian CvS and they had no answer to the Persians AxS seizing key terrain. Having to deploy first, and with an unreliable central command, the initial Indian play seemed a bit passive, but it turns out this was a cunning plan, and a flank march was expected on their left, whose mission was to intercept the Persian thrust through the wood. Had it arrived in time, it would have caused considerable difficulty, but in the event it didn't arrive at all.**

Still craving goat jalfrazie, rumours reached Bobroes that the annoying Tibetan shopkeeper (the Deli Llama) was now heading for Persia. Reluctantly he prepared to march the army back home, hoping to get their in time before the whole place started to reek of yak's milk.



* This was an exaggerated size stratagem, and there were actually only four.
** Of the three flank marches attempted that night, only one showed up. The following day, the local news carried a story about a contractor hired to repair a canal bridge, who'd removed said bridge, but neglected to leave any warning signs, resulting in three cars and a motorbike ending up in the water. Perhaps the missing flank marches suffered a similar fate.

Kapissa is Mine

Now you may recall that in the previous installment, King Bobroes the Magnificent of Persia, had defeated the rampaging hordes of Hepthalite Huns, slain their leader Gnash, and began marching towards the pleasant valley of Kapissa, which he reasoned would be an excellent place from which to control the crossings over the Hindu Kush, and prevent any powers from India interfering with his plan to control the Silk Road.

However, as he drew near, he learned that King Chantony Gupta from India had already crossed the Kush, and taken control of it. This would mean war.

Now in his heart of hearts, Chantony knew that Indians had never successfully invaded anywhere. and unwilling to risk too much of his own army in the endeavor, had concocted a sort of military pyramid scheme, and coerced invited all his Maharaja chums to take part. Thus besides Chantony's own contingent, the army that faced Bobroes contained no less than three allied contingents, two from India, and one from Arakan in Burma.

Starting Positions

Chantony drew his army up in a strong position, with his centre protected by an area of enclosed fields, his right protected by a wood, and his left by a large area of scrub that would hinder the Persian horsemen, but present no obstacle to his own elephants. He placed one Indian ally on each flank, and the Burmese (who were all light footmen with no elephants) in the center. His own contingent of elephants, armoured cavalry and well drilled (if someone effete) spearmen, deployed in reserve behind the centre.

King Bobroes the Magnificent deployed his own contingent of armoured cavalry (known as Asavaran) on his left, another contingent of armoured cavalry in the centre, and yet another contingent of armoured cavalry on the right. Each contingent also contained some light foot, that on the right some light horse archers, and his own contingent contained many Dailami, the best rough terrain troops in central Asia.

As the armies faced off, it became apparent that Chantony's marketing materials had mainly focused on the balmy climate, pleasure gardens, and the cuteness of the native goats, and had made little mention of conflict with angry Persians Kings, or the possibilities of expedited entry to the next life. Faced with the serried ranks of armoured horsemen, the commitment of his allies started to waver, particularly that of the Burmese and the Indian's on his left. However, with many blandishments (got six for his first PIP dice, and spent them all on persuading his allies), Chantony convinced the Burmese to join battle, but the Indians to the left remained obdurate that they would not fight.

Main Movements

Seeing the disharmony in the enemy ranks, King Bobroes determined to strike on his left (the Indian's right). He lead his own contingent on a long march around the outside of the wood to outflank the enemy, while the central Persian contingent moved towards the gap between the wood and the enclosed fields, and the rightmost force, moved into the centre, ignoring the unreliable allies on the Indian left.

It was apparent to both commanders that the area of enclosed fields in the centre of the battlefield was a crucial piece of terrain. Chantony ordered four companies of fierce swordsmen (IBdF) from his rightmost ally to move up and line its edge. As karma would have it though, while Chantony had put much study into that famous sutra, he had neglected the deebeehememasutra, and was surprised when his force did not stay on the field's edge as expected, but instead rushed impetuously into it, seeking battle and glory. King Bobroes though, well understood the command difficulties involved in clearing such difficult terrain, and had arranged converging forces from three different commands to occupy it. With the Indians falling into disorder as they rushed forward, the Persians fell on their flanks and utterly routed them, securing the enclosed fields and allowing their own cavalry to advance safely.

Tiring of arguing with his allies, Chantony resolved to take action against the Persian threat. He ordered the rightmost ally to throw out some cavalry to screen Bobroe's flanking maneuver,  while moving its elephants and archers up next to the wood. The Burmese command moved rightwards to cover the enclosed fields, and Chantony's own command moved to the right behind his ally with the intention of  making a solid front against Bobroes.

Only slightly worried as it was the Indians bound next

King Bobroes rounded the wood, and started to engage the Indian cavalry screen. Initially the encounter did not go well, with the king at one stage in danger of being surrounded, but eventually the heavier and more numerous Persians prevailed.  However, by this time Chantony had brought his own force of spearmen and archers up to prevent further Persian progress. Meanwhile the Persian cavalry had moved up to attack the long column of marching Burmese. The later launched a surprise attack and scored some initial success, but lightly armed footmen (AxO and I) fighting heavy cavalry in the open are always going to have a difficult time, and eventually they were defeated and their contingent routed. At the same time, Persian cavalry, being almost immune to arrows, had killed many archers of the right-hand Indians, and with their cavalry and swordsmen already destroyed, that contingent too, broke and routed.

If you're going to make a final desperate charge, don't roll a one

This left Chantony himself in very exposed position, facing off Bobroes in a line from the wood to the battlefield edge, while Persian cavalry from the centre poured towards his rear. Realizing that all was almost lost, he spurred (or goaded or whatever you do) his elephant on and attempted to engage King Bobroes in personal combat. The latter, being somewhat disadvantaged by being mounted only on a horse, did not think it unkingly to give a little ground, and as Chantony pursued, Persian cavalry fell on his flanks, pouring arrow fire at his elephant, until maddened by its injuries, it through off poor Chantony, and trampled him into the ground. With this the remainder of the Indian army broke and fled.

So with another glorious victory, King Bobroes secured control of Kapissa, but even as he began to relax beneath a pleasant date palm, rumours came that once again the Hepthalites were mobilizing. It seemed that like cockroaches, however many you killed, more will always come.

Silk Sash Bash

In a recent discovery at a famous monastery in Bangkok (Wat Yoosamokin), a remarkable document has been found, that describes a little known campaign in the area north of the Hindu Kush around 560 CE*. With the collapse of the Kushan empire, and the Hepthalite Huns being under pressure on the steppes from the emerging Gok Turks, a power vacuum had emerged, and several surrounding powers saw an opportunity to seize control of the Silk Road, and the wealth that flowed along it.

From the west came the Sassanid Persians under the rule of King Bobroes (probably the last of his name), who had long understood that without the army, there was no empire, that without money there was no army, and that without cash from the Silk Road, it was necessary to be nice to the peasants (which left everyone feeling a bit queasy). From the South East, came the Gupta Empire led by elephant and camel fetishist king Vantonigivussakissa (also known as Chantony Gupta in the Indian texts), and from the south came the resurgent Hepthalite kingdom in India, who had augmented their numerous horse archers, with a powerful force of elephants, and hordes of levied infantry. The final contender was a potentate from Tibet (apparently known as the Deli Llama) who possessed a remarkably well trained and equipped force, albeit one too small to actually be considered an army.

In the opening moves of the campaign, King of Kings Bobroes planned to march east and seize Kapisa, but before he could move, news came that a Hepthalite force under a chieftain called Gnash had invaded Persian lands, and Bobroes moved to intercept them. The armies met on a broken plain, with a small village to the Persian left, two marshes in front on the Hunnic position, and a couple of areas of rocky ground in front of the Persians. The Hun left rested on a gentle hill, and their right was secured by a fortified camp.

Position after first Persian (blue) bound.

While King Bobroes was confident his fine Asavaran would easily defeat the barbarians, he was aware of their annoying tactic of running around trying to surround their enemies, and how tiresome (and tiring) it was to chase after them, and therefore enlisted the help of a contingent of Gok Turks to help round them up. He placed the Turks on the right opposite the hill, some infantry in the rocky areas, with cavalry in the gaps, and his main force of armoured horse on the left next to the village. The Huns were divided into three groups of horse archers, with those on their right supported by some Indian cavalry of rather inferior quality, those on the left were supported by some Hunnic noble cavalry, and those in the middle were accompanied by a quartet of ferocious elephants. Hordes of infantry were deployed to the rear of both armies, but these took no part in the battle.

Turkish Allies (left) and Huns square up

The battle opened with Bobroes ordering the Turks to advance quickly on his right, were he expected that with many of them being in closer order than their opponents, they would quickly drive them off. The Huns appeared to be up for a fight, and furiously counter charged, before suddenly turning and fleeing, causing some of the Turks to stop in confusion, while others charged after them, only to be slain as the Huns turned around and renewed the fight. With the heavier Turkish cavalry left behind, a fierce fight ensued between the light horsemen of each sides, and while honours were mostly even, the smaller Turkish force eventually fled, but left the remaining Huns on that wing too weakened to play much further part in the battle.

On the left, the main force of Persian Asavaran armoured cavalry advanced, attempting to surround the Huns in the middle, while the  Persian centre advanced more cautiously, holding the terrain and the gaps between the rough going and marshes. The light horse on the Hunnic right retreated before the advancing Persians, while riding around in the center probing for an opening. Gradually the noose tightened on the Huns, and they were forced to turn and fight. Two of the elephant turned towards their right to confront the oncoming Persians, while another attempted to break through the Persian centre (the fourth had wandered off into obscurity on their left).

The battle unfolds

First to clash were the Persian Asavaran and the Indian cavalry, who proved to be of not such inferior quality, throwing back the former's charge, before eventually succumbing. A deadly swirling melee took place in the centre, with numerous flank and rear attacks, and many falling on both sides. Two of the elephants were slain, but one forged on throwing the Persian lines into disorder, and opening opportunities for the horsemen to attack. Gnash himself was directing the battle from the centre, when two companies of Persians saw him isolated, however Gnash fought like a man possessed (three consecutive sixes on the combat dice), smashing the Persians, and launching a final attack supported by his last remaining elephant, to try to break the Persian army.

King Bobroes

The Persians, shocked by the ferocity of the Hunnic onslaught, wavered**, but held on just long enough to commit their final reserve. At this point Gnash's luck ran out, and as he fell to the ground, a cry of despair ran through the exhausted barbarian army, and it turned and fled.

Meanwhile, King Vantonigivussakissa had brushed aside (in a 25-0 spanking) a raid form the Deli Llama, and occupied Kapisa. King Bobroes prepared to march to meet him, although his Turkish allies were less than impressed with the support they'd received from the Persians, and he was forced to give them all the loot from the battle, and then some, to keep them onside***.

* CE =  Certainly in Error
** One more casualty on the Persian left would have broken the army. It was a hard fought game that might have gone either way.
*** In the campaign rules, an ally that is broken can't be used again, unless VP are paid to restore it. The Persians gained 18 VP (which can be used for various things) by winning the battle 18-7, but had to spend 20 to retain the Turks, diminishing their starting pool of VP.

Persian Pansies Prance & Pirouette

"Wasted wedges and wasted knights"

Having played their first game in a blizzard and then making fundamental errors in the second game against some Romans as manoeuvrable as anything in the Teutonics arsenal, our group of players threw out another difficult challenge to see if we could cope with the Sassanids, another army of superior capabilities and, if regular in nature, equally manoeuvrable.  As Hochmeister I was willingly accepting all comers in an effort to learn quickly the best way of handling the Teutonic juggernaut.

After some outside (re board games) banter and trash talk, Nash (owner of the Sassanids) was forced to take Anthony onto his team where, suddenly realising his own weaknesses, he made Anthony CinC.  This may have been partly due to the game night banter where it was pointed out Anthony, our newest regular member, had played games in tandem with all the rest of us at one point or another, and had yet to ever lose a game!!

Sur Bob the UnFlappable, Landmeister Deutschland and I had exchanged battle plan ideas during the day but in light of the two very different Sassanid options (either irregular iCvS with elephants OR a regular army with most likely none or maybe one) needing different responses we could only plan to deploy against a secured flank, quality foot to the fore and the knights behind or rearward to the opposite side of the foot.  Hordes would go where they could be most annoying without moving.

Game time saw us invade (Ag=4 but the Sassanid’s = 3 so we hoped for a rare defensive game but .... oh well), choose a waterway (WW) to secure a flank and then on dice of 2 vs 1 double the all mounted (what - no Sassanid hordes??) defenders so we had to deploy first.  The table was almost bare with only a few gentle hills in addition to the edge bound waterway and an irrelevant BuA.

Having laid out the quality foot to determine how wide out our left flank would be I got the encouraging remark from Sur Bob “Is that all there is, are you sure??  <mild expletive!!>”  He was perfectly correct of course, on a basically bare table the mini sized Teutonic army just looks even smaller.  The Sassanids deployed, four commands including an Armenian ally, no elephants but the CinC’s all rCvS command was huge, relatively, at 36MEs!!  Deuchmeister Sur Bob had been in mild fear of facing a Chionite Hun ally but according to the kinglet of Persia (and now lowly deputy commander) Nashur, there simply wasn’t enough APs in all the kingdom to pay for them so the discount Armenians were hired instead.

But the Sassanids had deployed at the opposite end of the table to the Teutonics!!

Don't you just hate corner sitters??

Unless there were a few hiding behind the gentle hill in front of our bowmen.  Our recently converted ex-pagan Livonian hordes were rear edge hugging, well nearly, in the table centre which meant that any enemy approaching from the Sassanid positions would need to pass in front of them or engage them.  This was a good thing.

Our opening move saw our bowmen and spears move across the table and prepare to swing left 90 degrees to face the left end of the table.  The Sassanids almost all headed across the table towards our denied flank which left us the option of forming a line perpendicular to the starting line and thereby shortening the potential front line.  As this was to our advantage we quickly took this option and the battle was fought on a line/front from long side to long side, 90deg from the norm.

From opposite corners both side come out to engage (for now anyway) and the front line swings 90deg.

Sassanids attack the bowline - Now you see them ..........

A small Sassanid command came to harass, slow down and engage the Teutonic bowmen and in the space of their bound, our bound lost enough light horse to dishearten and be one element off breaking and were now also well outnumbered.

In the centre (on the new facing) we formed up a line of knights opposite the huge cavalry command who had moved to table centre, turned to face us and formed into two lines with a space of about 100p

..... now you don't.
But the super resilient rCvS are in the foreground.  
They'll move left to hold the infantry in place.

between their lines.  On the new left (our original base table edge) another small Sassanid command came to engage the hordes and the Armenians tried to follow behind and out flank the hordes to get around behind us.

The hordes, with a few light horse, Ax & Ps supports hovering nearby, proved very resistant to the cavalry and light horse, even when flanked and the Sassanid general spend most the game in combat with an unkillable horde until he eventually died!  Although, until after many bounds when the Armenians finally worked their way around the table edge into the rear of the hordes, they held up the enemy and prevented the Sassanid main cavalry lines from advancing for fear of a totally exposed flank where some of our Turkopoles were lurking.

This Sassanid fear of advancing generated some of the weirdest cavalry manoeuvres I’ve ever seen – now called Persian Pirouettes!!  But more of that in a couple of minutes.

Position before the dancing - note the relative position of the two hills
bottom left and top centre to the central masses of troops.
The Livonian hordes (r) doing sterling work holding the enemy.

On our right, the bowmen and spearmen moved in to break the disheartened enemy command which had got the support of a sole element of rCvS from the CinC.  Here, maybe just to even up the unexpectedly strong showing of Bob’s Livonian hordes, things when sour and the three rCvS, including the general, that were preventing us closing down the flank of the main enemy cavalry proved impossible to kill.  We only needed one element to break through but here the superior cavalry showed just how tough they can be, the bonus factor saving them a few times.

I must complain bitterly about the dicing, they were three distinct combats each bound for at least four bounds (say 12+ in total) many with hard flanks (and a rear attack) and all having combat factors of evens (or +1 in my favour).  And remember, I only need to win one single combat to finish off the enemy there BUT we drew or I lost every single combat!!  I never broke that command despite trying for three quarter of the game to get the one final element needed.  [CvS are horribly overpowered I tell you!!  Or Anthony transferred some spots from my dice to his – so time to insist on digit marked dice only.]

Even when Bob pointed out that with Armenians in the rear his hordes where starting to breakup and expose our flanks on his side, and that it would be a good idea for me to get a move on and ignore that three enemy I so heavily outnumbered, I still couldn’t break off and bypass them.  My command disheartened itself and then broke in the final bound.  For all his justifiably annoyance, mild Sur Bob never said a word in anger when he should really have used the sharp end of a lance on my rear end.

Choose your partners - let the dance begin.

Back to the Persians practicing pirouettes.

When our line of knights moved up towards strike range, the Persian line did a formation U-turn and retreated out of range.  The second line prevented us marching into their rear.  We held in place.

Their rearward line about faces and retires to give space between their lines.  The forward line again U-turns back to face us. 

Forward & back,  backward and forward.

"It's just a jump to the left, a step to the right,
and turn your ..........."

We threaten again.  They turn about once more and run away, while their rear line move further away and U-turns back to face us.

And so the Persian pansies pranced, danced and pirouetted!!  Not a man among them willing to cross swords with real righteous Teutonic testosterone enhanced manly men!

This flaky course of action continues and continues - I think I counted it out at eight or nine U-turns, back and forth!  (The photos don’t give enough info to be sure).  Just to avoid the fight so they could pick off our two wing commands (the biggest two anyway) and break us without fighting the knights.  At one point the second line split into two and ran left and right to completely escape the Teutonic knight line in all its awe inspiring rumble forward.

It worked – it shouldn’t have but it did - and

And so it goes on, and on and onnnnnnnn.

wouldn’t have if my right hand command, exceeding 15 elements in the area, hadn’t of got hung up, and defeated, by three superior cavalry.  Few knights actually fought, one killing an iLhF, another a broken fleeing rCvS that passed across his front and the only lost knight was the final combat of the game that broke our army and even then it relied on a cheesy (dangerous last move type) hard flank to enforce destruction. 

As was pointed out as we entered the end game phase there were a lot of knightly APs in a line that just couldn’t reach the enemy to do any damage – a value I’ve now counted at 212AP of the 400AP on table as it included three generals.

FINAL POSITIONS - Note the size of the dancing, prancing and
piroutteing covered as they retreated and retired.

We played a good sound game, the plan did what we intended but the vagaries of luck in combats meant it wasn’t to be a winning plan.  Yes, I should have broken off from the disheartened enemy and concentrated on taking the flank of the big command but it was just too tempting to get that one last element to take the benefits of breaking a command – in hindsight, my error and a serious one.

Anthony played a unique and clever plan that did minimise their weaknesses and boosted their strengths and it worked, somewhat surprisingly to the rest of us (including his King and subordinate), but it worked nevertheless.  Nash, of course was ably assisting by slowly, so very slowly cutting his way through the hordes for the cost of an exponential number of his own APs and having to use rear attacks from the Armenians to get through the other foot, and a couple of light horse, to eventually collapse our left wing and force another defeat on the Teutonics. 

Well done Nash and Anthony, a job done as it needed to be done.

So that’s three defeats out of three for the Teutonics.  Reflagging didn’t work this time and if it gets to five out of five I may need to convert them all back to pagans and start again.

Next game, in an attempt to reverse the string of loses, Anthony has been appointed Kommital Landmeister Livland and will be commanding Teutonic brothers and their recently converted ex-pagans to ensure his invulnerability will final give us our much deserved initial victory.

Zionist Collapse at the Post Office

Long time readers of this blog will recall that a few weeks ago, king Bobu Deva of the Kushans defeated the schoolboy king Nashur III, and assumed the title of King of Kings. He was then challenged by Whatagasses, a former holder of that title. For most of the battle it appeared that Bobu would easily see off the challenger, having crushed his largest command and surrounded his allies, but then a sudden and unexpected collapse of the Kushan left flank, saw the army defeated and Bobu Deva forced to make an undignified tactical redeployment to the rear.

Having thoroughly reviewed the video tapes of that battle, the Kushans came to the conclusion that the only possible explanation of the collapse was witchcraft*. However, with the witch king Whatagasses having finally been killed in another battle, the scene was clear for Bobu Deva to reclaim his rightful title, secure in the knowledge that his tactical brilliance would no longer be thwarted by the foul arts. This would mean another battle with Nashur III (all hail him in his shorts) of the Sassanid empire.

Some adjustments to the previous army list were required for the upcoming battle, since while witchcraft was undoubted the main cause of the previous defeat, the small commands and piecemeal deployment of vulnerable fast light horse, had been contributing factors. The Kushan army was thus reorganized with a smaller ally, and more robust commands. Since Nashur would be aware of the threat posed by Kushan elephants and deploy counter-measures, these would be neutralized by not having any elephants. The Kushan plan then was to hold a section of the line with cheap pikes, while riding down the Sassanids with a line of armoured cataphracts. A Hyrkanian Rebel Parthian ally was enlisted to provide yet more cataphracts making a total of 15 including generals. The vulnerable light horse would be kept behind the lines.

However Nash had been muttering darkly about surprises and new construction, so some perusal of his army list was required to try to guess what this might be. The most likely candidates seemed like a fortified artillery tower, or a frontier wall (which makes some sense in a campaign battle where you're garaunteed to defend). To allow for this contingency a treachery stratagem was selected, and the no elephant rule relaxed for the C in C, just in case he needed to assault a gate.

The Post Office

The battlefield was largely open, with gentle hills on each baseline, and a marsh towards each flank. The center was crossed by a long road, where Nash placed his surprise, which turned out to be an isolated tower occupied by an artillery piece. We dubbed this the "Post Office".

The Sassanid army had also undergone some reorganization, with a large Jewish contingent of superior hordes having been enlisted, and Nashur himself mounted on rather spiffing platform as a Bge(S) army standard.

Anyone who has seen the movie "300" will immediately recognize the authenticity of this model

The Kushans deployed with a command of pikes to the left of the post office, with two commands forming a wall of steel to its right. The Hyrkanian allies were deployed behind the right with the task of preventing any Persian flanking move to the right of the marsh.

The Sassanids deployed with a long line of horde as their front line (28 IIRC) with Jewish Hd(S) on their left, and Hd(O) on their right. The CinC with two elephants was behind the center, and  a small group of Cv(S) was behind the right. However, the bulk of the asavan in two commands were drawn up in a left facing column on the hill on their left.

Our drone wasn't functioning, so this is the best view we have of deployment.

The Sassanids opened the battle by sending most of their two cavalry columns to make a wide move around the marsh on their left, while holding in the centre. The Kushans rapidly advanced their cataphract line, and moved up the ally and some light horse to head off the Sassanid outflanking move. On the left the pikes advanced slowly, as many pips were used to marshal an assault on the post office.

Opening moves

Although an arrangement had been made to bribe the occupants of the post office, they reneged on the deal (rolled a 2 on the treachery die roll), and repelled all assaults until almost the end of the game.

The main action kicked off on the Kushan right with their cataphracts crashing into and mostly destroying the line of Jewish horde in front of them, while the cataphract command immediately right of the post office held back a little, wary of the elephants in the Sassanid center. Despite the success of the charge, the right hand Kushan command found itself in some difficulties. The left end of its line had strayed too close to an elephant and a cataphract and a light horse were lost before the pachyderm could be brought down, lack of pips meant that the only protection for the right end of the line was Bobu Deva himself, and the four light horse that had gone forward to slow the Sassanid flanking force had trouble withdrawing and took losses.

Kushans prepare to charge

Meanwhile the Sassanids let the horde go impetuously in the center,  and they crashed into the auxillia who were protecting the cataphracts from the elephants. Eventually the auxillia triumphed, and the pikes on the Kushan left reached and slaughtered the horde opposite them. The few Sassanid Cv(S) who'd been left behind on the right tried to counter attack, and did indeed kill another cataphract before being dispatched. The whole Sassanid front line had now collapsed, leaving Nashur III on his mobile platform, and his remaining pet elephant looking a little embarrassed, and lacking pips to withdraw. Nashur's platform was surrounded, and destroyed, leaving only the baggage and the leftmost group of cavalry in the center. Being out of command range, and facing two untouched commands, the latter seemed doomed.

Kushan cataphracts and auxillia close in on Nashur

However, there were still some anxious moments for the Kushans. On the extreme right the Sassanid cavalry continued to advance, and the ally general (Wayne) commanding the Hyrkanians tasked to slow this, was given strict instructions to "not lose his command by getting all the light horse killed". Something must have been lost in translation though, as two turns later, five out of six were dead, and his command was demoralized. Still with just a few more kills needed to finish the Sassanids the Hyrkanian cataphracts were committed against the Persian cav. A loss on a 3-3 though saw the Hyrkanian command break, and the knock on effect also broke the right hand Kushan command. There was some frantic counting, but with two almost untouched commands, the Kushan army just survived the knock ons.

This left the situation with the Kushans having two essentially untouched commands on the center and left, with one cataphract from the broken right hand command in contact with the Sassanid baggage, and king Bobu Deva himself patrolling the hill on his elephant preventing the Sassanid general moving close enough to the isolated group of cavalry to command them effectively. The Sassanids still had two commands, on their left, but both had taken heavy cassualties and the army was near breaking. In the end the coup de grace was given by the lone cataphract defeating a baggage F, causing a whole column to flee off table.  (took a bit of rules checking that one, but it appears that the table edge doesn't count as impassable terrain for fleeing elements). With other damage inflicted, this broke the Sassanids, and the rightful King of Kings returned to claim his throne.

So another hard fought battle, but in the end the Sassanids had no answer to the cunning Kushan tactic of lining up all their heavy troops and charging up the middle. One pattern that is becoming clear, is that one shouldn't rely on ones ally general not to get himself into trouble by overcommiting when he's supposed to be in a holding role. More executions needed methinks.

Along the lines at the start.

This battle eliminated Nash from the campaign. The final battle will see Wayne and his Parthians try to retake the throne. Winner take all. Watch this space for a report.







* Wayne was recently bitten by a strange millipede, which may have given him special powers.

That Fatal "Senior Moment"

Two previous battles with the Sassanid Persians have been reported <here> and <here> and they are a dangerous bunch of highly mobile massed rCvS and a few supports.  The supports they bring are limited due to either the cost of elephants in addition to the high cost of numerous compulsory expensive cavalry or the supports are (again massed) space filling lower grade troops used to bulk out the army and prevent automatic outflanking. 

In either guise they are a force to be reckoned with especially “in period and location” that is a basis of our mini pseudo-campaign.

Synchronized Wargaming - Deployment Event

As Parthians my cataphracts (iKnX) are the answer to the superior cavalry but being slower and clumsier than the cavalry we struggle to corner the enemy more often than not.  The alternative is to use our large advantage in light horse (iLhF in this army) to outflank and get into a devastating position in the enemies rear.  The enemy cavalry, and elephants, will cut apart our light horse so these can’t be used to channel the enemy, that is a job for our foot troops who die much slower and give the cataphracts time to catch the enemy.  Unfortunately in the past neither the bowmen (iBwO) or militia hordes (iHdO) we’ve used before stood up for long so failed at the job.

This week I employed a Commagene ally of swordsmen (rBdI) and bowmen (rBwI) who while of inferior quality were regular and hence more mobile and the blades especially should stand their ground longer.  So the plan was 1) be bigger than the enemy and to use iLhF to outflank and encircle,  2) use blade mobility to get in front of the enemy cavalry and act as the anvil for the cataphracts once they finally arrived to destroy the enemy rCvS,  3) to aid these through area control by using a small fortified fort (BuAf) and terrain options to constrict the enemy into a space to trap and attack him.

This must have been a poor plan.  As we all know plans don’t survive contact with the enemy, but in this case it didn’t even survive sighting the enemy.

Nash’s first surprise was a newly constructed waterway (WW) that interfered with my terrain options and because of the terrain dice made the fort plan so much less successful.  The fort was in combination with a gentle hill (GH) and had been constructed with a platform to hold the fort and then one corner extended to take advantage of the free effect of 1FE GH’s counting as ½ FEs.  Bob then pointed out that it’s shape was probably illegal (due to the 1/3 length = breadth rule) and was too elongated.  This prompted Nash to compare it to my manhood.  Thereafter the conversation deteriorated, much like the previous weeks one about Bob’s celibacy (or not), so unlike the lesser civilized scribes in our group we won’t dwell on the ribald innuendos that remained constant all night and through the propaganda dripping battle report that followed (written by the juvenile Nashur III or his frustrated wetnurse).

The second surprise was the army composition on the Sassanid’s side of the table.  Gone were the regular superior cavalry – replaced by irregular versions (iCvS), cataphracts (iKnX), some elephants and massed of conscripted hordes (HdO).  And on our left wing we opposed a Armenian ally, using knights (iKnF) as an attempted cataphract assassination corp and their own light horse (iLhF) flank guards.

Not only did the plan to be bigger evaporate – we weren’t – but as defender and deploying first, we now faced a wall of enemy that had favourable troop match-ups (apart from the KnX on KnX potential clash) for a general straight up charge and fight battle.  I had been seriously caught out and though I was done for even before the first PiPs were rolled.

When the first PiPs were rolled it got even worse – the Commagene ally was unreliable and was forced to stand in front of a wall of cataphracts and elephants that would simple crush them on contact.  My ambush beside the fort was likely to only face off against enemy hordes so it may need to be sprung earlier than planned so it could then redeploy.

Scary View - The enemy had favourable match-ups all
along their line.  They just needed to charge in.

My new plan was to hold the line, redeploy the Commagene command backwards as far as possible until I could get it back into a fighting (reliable) state and to switch my only attack to our left wing where our LhF outnumber the enemy LhF almost 2:1 and go around the outside.  At the same time I decided to take the risk of attacking the Armenian knights with cataphracts as I possibly had two generals in my line and overlaps (maybe even hard flanks) to use at both ends.  If, a big if, I could turn the left wing I just might have a chance to do some damage in the rear of the enemy before he inevitably charged and overran the rest of my line.

We had horrid PiPs in this game, for both sides of the table, and for both armies some opportunities came and went without being exploited.  In some ways it was a frustrating game.  I made a big mistake in an early bound where I moved troops through a part of my ambush (legal interpenetration) but for some reason left the second rank occupying the ambush space.  I realised this just as Nash and Bob started their bound and retracted the rear rank as quick as I could and offered an excuse.  The excuse had holes in it which meant I then had to admit it had been an illegal move and the reason, so my ambush was identified.  They didn’t know it’s content yet, but that soon followed.

However on the left wing my iLhF got out wide and with the help

Ignoring the endangered flanks the Armenians charge
in - to their almost immediate destruction.

of a mis-judgement by Nash beat up the enemy iLhF and Nash had to send some rCvS over to plug gaps.  The Armenians were engaged and while they punched a hole in the cataphracts the return charge by the Parthians saw their general destroyed, some knights and with the light horse casualties from wider out they went straight to a ‘shattered’ command.  The only challenge left out on that wing was three isolated rCvS which were encircled individually by my iLhF but only two of them were actually destroyed (more on that later).

It was a pleasant surprise that Nash and Bob were more worried about activating the unreliable ally than just charging in and destroying my line, ally and all.  I think with the matchup (and maybe a few more PiPs) if they had simply charged straight ahead it would have been a very short game.  The shattering of the Armenians brought the Commagene ally back into the game but apart from their rKnX general and his companion they didn’t do anything of note beyond just being a mildly threatening presence.

On the right wing, Bob was playing two Sassanid commands. 

The slow fight over the misshaped hill.

He avoided the fort along with my cataphracts that appeared from ambush which he shielded all of them off with hordes and concentrated on picking a hole through my line with his iCvS.  He killed my iLhF, my KnX generals killed his iCvS in a game of manoeuvre in a tight space and progress was slow for both sides as we sort the advantage and the hard flank options to strike the decisive blow.  Eventually my command broke but the enemy had become fragile in the process.  It would have been faster if either of us had enjoyed even average PiPs.

The main Parthian cataphract line hit the Sassanid line of KnX and CvS with overlaps to the left facing an open space into the enemy rear and killed a couple more CvS but as expected the KnX on KnX bogged down to a slogging match.  A(nother) PiP shortage saw Whatagases alone push forward past the Sassanid line looking to catch the enemy CinC (as iCvS) in his next bound. 

After the second PiP score of 1 in sequence the Sassanid CinC didn’t do much although Bob sent an elephant marching behind the line from one of his commands to protect the CinC.  Then in my bound saw insufficient PiPs again to finish the job BUT I also had a massive ‘idiot’ moment and using the CinC’s free PiP pushed Whatagases further forward to again be a threat to the enemy rear AND completely missed that I had left his rear exposed to a lone Sassanid cataphract facing in the opposite direction.  I don’t know how I missed such an obvious and basic error.  In this bound we needed to kill a hard flanked iCvS with iLhF to win the game (factors +2 vs +2) – we drew (with a pair of 1s).

So the Sassanids have enough PiPs this time to take the offered rear.  Combat was +2 vs +3 against me so given Whatagases the InDestructable’s long history of escaping such moments this wasn’t so disastrously bad odds.  They also attacked and hard flanked a couple of other cataphracts.  And we still had the even odd on the iCvS which would break the Sassanids anyway.

The dice, death and removal of
the long lived
Whatagases the Indestructable.

Whatagases diced at 3 vs 5 so exited history!! We had other loses that may break the Parthians (I was unsure and needed to confirm the maths) and so the last dice was the iCvS fight at +2 vs +2 from the last bound.  Mutual destruction was on the cards.  


The dice rolled ....... and came up with the same 1 – 1 as the last round!!  Draw!! 

A Deja Vu Moment.
Identical to the last bound.  Two game 
winning rolls missed.

Quick maths check and it was a broken Parthian army – game over, and the fourth change of King of Kings in as many battles.

A frustrating game in so many ways, and from the starting positions I should have been destroyed but for the surprising Sassanid reluctance to actually charge on in.  By daringly attacking on one wing and exploiting the odd error of judgement I very unexpectedly (and cheekily) came within a dice role (twice) of winning the game.  But in the end it wasn’t to be.  Losing Whatagases himself after such a long run of victories, and defeats, was just another low point.

Next game (in 10-14 days time we hope) is Bob’s Kushans invading Nash’s Sassanids with Wayne subgeneraling.  We are all down to one life left so one of either Bob or Nash will exit the mini pseudo-campaign by the end of the next game.