IC – Alp Arslan himself
3 x TC
Foot Archers, 8 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow
Foot Javelinmen, 6 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Foot Javelinmen, 6 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Bedouin Cavalry, 6 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Lancers, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 Cv, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 Cv, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Much to my surprise only 2 games reached a full conclusion in round 1 so I was matched up against the other winner, Dave Ruddock, who was using Skythians. Dave’s army was pretty straight forward:
IC
FC
TC
TC – Greek ally
Armoured Cavalry, 4 Cv, Superior, Undrilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Armoured Cavalry, 4 Cv, Superior, Undrilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Unarmoured Cavalry, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Unarmoured Cavalry, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Unarmoured Cavalry, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Unarmoured Cavalry, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Unarmoured Cavalry, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Unarmoured Cavalry, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Unarmoured Cavalry, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Unarmoured Cavalry, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Hoplites, 8 HF, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Offensive Spearmen
Hoplites, 8 HF, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Offensive Spearmen
Hoplites, 8 HF, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Offensive Spearmen
Javelinmen, 6 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
The Hoplites and Javelinmen were the allied troops.
As we both had Initiative of 4 it was going to be a random roll to see who won that and Dave did. However, as he also wanted steppe as the terrain type this wasn’t really an issue. In fact as both armies will pretty much deploy in a fairly obvious manner I though that having the first move may well actually be an advantage in this case so didn’t worry about losing this dice roll
Terrain was pretty minimal as you’d expect with the pieces that impacted the game all being on Dave’s side of the table – a patch of broken ground on his right and some rough going including a gulley on his left. Dave placed 2 ambush markers in the gulley but I thought it highly unlikely that he would have any troops in there but I did think a flank march may be on the cards.
Dave deployed his hoplites in the middle with one of the BGs single ranked to extend the frontage but the other 2 more a more normal 2 ranks deep – I’m not sure why Dave tried this and I think he was undecided whether it was a good idea; from my point of view it made the BG a bigger target for shooting and blocked his LH from falling back. Otherwise he had a BG of the Armoured Cavalry on each wing and 6 of his LH up front mainly in the middle of the field – one BG and 1 general were absent and as I felt the ambush unlikely I assumed it was on a flank march but chose to basically ignore it until it appeared.
I deployed with the LF initially in the middle, expecting them to pull back ASAP, LH spread fairly evenly along the line on the wings and the Cv behind them with a single BG of Ghilman on the left and all the rest mostly towards my right with the Ghilman on the end of the line and the Turcoman Cv inside them. The basic plan was to get up close and personal with the Skythians ASAP as my army is heavier and very well equipped to beat Skythians thanks to having more Cv – in fact the Turcoman Cv was taken partly with other steppe type armies in mind.
The battle opened with a general advance by my cavalry all along the line taking advantage of the double moves to get as close as possible to the Skythians to cut down their manoeuvre possibilities. The Turcoman Cv were tasked with heading for the single ranked hoplites so as to get 8, or as near as 8, shooting dice on them which should force plenty of CTs and, on average, with 8 shooting they’ll actually be at -1 for getting 1Hp2B as well. As expected we quickly found that the ambush markers were dummies confirming the flank march.
Dave’s reaction to the general advance was to try and withdraw his LH and move them to the wings or, on my right, away from the overwhelming force bearing down on them. This is where the hoplite deployment worked against him as he essentially had to run the LH across the front of the hoplites to get round the ends and so prevented the hoplites from advancing, prevented his LH from doing much shooting and funnelled them towards my troops in places. However, his flank march plus general did roll to arrive on the second throw so he did get some troops behind my line – but I send a BG back to track his BG and they then spent a lot of the game playing tag to no great effect. I have to confess to being slightly lucky here in that if my (casual) placement of my camp was a few mm closer to the left table edge Dave would have sacked it, as it was it was just far enough in for my LH to get back and prevent this. As they say, don’t give me a good general give me a lucky one …
Pushing forward on my left, the flank I felt I was weakest on and so would be looking to lose slowly, a BG of Ghilman faced off a BG of the Skythian Armoured Cavalry around the edge of the broken ground, Dave having carefully placed his BG so that if I charged him I would be disordered but he would not be. Unfortunatley for Dave his plan was scuppered when with the shooting I disrupted him and he lost a base and so felt happy to charge in hoping the extra base would swing the fight. It certainly did, and the Armoured Cavalry broke disgracefully with, IIRC, a double cohesion drop on impact. Only 1 BG gone but it changed the whole balance of play on the flank in my favour.
Elsewhere Dave was just about managing to extract his LH but they were getting the worse of the shooting and his left flank was under great pressure as I had stacked my Cv that side and he had a bit of a traffic jam with the number of BGs getting out of the way. Inevitably his camp was exposed and my Bedouin moved in and sacked it. With his left in full retreat mode the end of the hoplite line now came in for a bit of attention from rather a lot of horse archers and the BG that started single ranked soon took on the role of pincushion. The Greek general did his best to keep them happy but fairly soon they’d failed a couple of CTs and were charged by a Turcomen Cv BG and broke on the CT for being charged when Fragmented. Obviously this now added to Dave’s problems in extracting his left win as he had a Cv unit chasing a broken unit behind his lines. This led to the second unit of Skythian Armoured Cavalry being caught and beaten up.
The situation now was that my army was more or less rampaging all around Dave’s and whilst he was doing his best to wriggle away a noose was closing around his troops with grim inevitability. A second BG of hoplites, unable to get away as they were slower, was surrounded shot up and charged so that it broke in much the same was as the other BG had been. I think at this stage the Greek Javelinmen were also despatched as they had nowhere to hide.
Whilst all this was going on we had an amusing side show with Dave’s flank marched unit. In an attempt to chase it down one of my Turcoman Cv units basically pushed it into a corner from which it wasn’t going to escape. Somehow we both ended up as a 1 wide column shooting each other with 1 dice with a hit forcing a CT. We both kept hitting, however, my Turcomans failed each CT and after 3 shots were broken and ran away
Despite this minor, and amusing, set back the writing was on the wall and I collected the extra attrition point to break the Shythians and win the game.
Another 24-1 to Alp Arslan’s boys leaving me on 48 out of 50 possible points and well ahead in the competition. However, with 4 more games to go anything could happen …
Part 3 later.
