Slitherine

Despatches from Warfare (2) – Medieval Russians vs Lithuanian

For the opening report, see Warfare 2007 FOG Report (1)

The Lithuanians were commanded by Paul Cummings, who was back playing FoG after a 6 month break from gaming. The layout was as follows after the initial bound:


The devout Russians are on the left in the photo, the impious Lithuanians on the right.

Prince Dimitry had decided to use similar tactics to the last game, but with the Cossack horse and foot deployed on the right, supported by a unit of boyars (seen in the left-foreground). The main body of Boyars (seen in the centre upper-left of the photo) would skirmish against the inevitable knight centre, the patriotic spearmen (on the baseline and not really visible in the photo) would try and block and break-up the knights, and the Cossacks and other lighter troops would try and work their way around the right flank and force a collapse of the Lithuanian left.

The plan started to look like it had a chance of working. Here is a shot of the Boyars, Cossacks and foot archers ganging-up against the Lithuanian left:


Hmmm, looking good comrade. Outnumbered and out-gunned light horse with limited options.

But at this point Paul starting bringing his knights into play. Oh joy! And this lot are drilled as well so they can manoeuvre as well. Here is a closer look at these mothers:


And this is where the promising looking situation starts to go horribly wrong. Look again at the Russian flanking attack:


Look at the Lithuanian light horse (the units in the centre-right with the red standard). Now look behind them. Prince Dimitry took the unit to be skirmishing cavalry but, because he wasn’t listening to Paul when he deployed, they turned out to be MORE KNIGHTS. So they charged the Boyars (who weren’t deployed in skirmish order so couldn’t evade) and started to beat them up. As knights seem to do against cavalry.

Prince Dimitry brought forward the heroic-salt-of-the-earth-spearmen and personally positioned them in the battle line. They were duly charged by the military order knights. The knights cheerfully ignored the fact that they were on worse factors than the spearmen and rode over them in a couple of bounds.

The result was five of the Prince’s army units broke and ran. Paul only needed to get one more unit or the baggage to win the game. So he regrouped the knights and then aimed them at the camp.

Desperate times require desperate measures, and the Prince sent off generals to rally the broken units. Much to both Pauls and Prince Dimitry’s surprise several units did rally. Just in front of the baggage. It was a desperate fight:


Luck had turned its face away from Paul and the knights were routed after a hard fight.

In the centre the Cossack light horse were chasing the Lithuanian light horse deeper and deeper to the rear, all the time inflicting a steady stream of casualties from bow shot. Slowly but doggedly, in another reversal of fortune, the Lithuanian light horse rallied and suddenly the Cossacks found themselves the hunted rather than the hunters and rode hell-for-leather for their own lines.

Eventually time was called, the points were calculated by the heralds, and Prince Dimitry found he had turned a near defeat into a marginal draw: 18-14 to the Russians.

The only error Paul made was not pursuing the routed Russian cavalry determinedly enough with his knights, allowing them gain a breathing space and rally. Easy to say in hindsight, but it’s a decision a player has to make during a game – do you allow your best strike troops to continue pursuing broken enemy or do you rally them and point them against something still standing. The troops most suited for pursuit, the Lithuanian light horse, were busy fending off the attentions of the Cossacks and so unable to perform their pursuit role.

Prince Dimitry made a mistake trying to stand up against the knights, but that was because he was too busy celebrating the success of his opening moves with several shots of vodka to really pay attention to what was going on.

The next report is here: viewtopic.php?p=36068#36068

Neil:

These are fantastic reports. I like reading about the decision points in the game: very different from DBM. However, it appears that the old bugbear of not really paying attention to the opponent's deployment still rears its ugly head, whatever the rules set. The poor Boyars must have had an ugly shock when they realized that they were about to get clobbered by knights.

Keep the reports coming.

Marc

babyshark wrote:Neil:

These are fantastic reports. I like reading about the decision points in the game: very different from DBM. However, it appears that the old bugbear of not really paying attention to the opponent's deployment still rears its ugly head, whatever the rules set.

Being penalized for not paying attention to your opponent's deployment sounds quite 'historical' to me!

And I agree, the battle reports are fantastic.

Cheers,
Scott

Great report on what was a great game.

I made the absolute fetal (sic) mistake of thinking that it was better to send the knights back into the fray while 10:2 up, than follow the broken troops to the bagage for the 12:2 win.

too much DBM - more worried about getting the knights stuck with broken troops in the way than winning cos I thought I had won.

defeat from the jaws of victory etc

great stuff Neil !!!

JDM

I am concerned about the pile of dice showing in the first photo. Are they there for a need or by personal choice?
Starting to look like WAB game
Every thing else looking great.
As we can't access to anything way down here please keep the reports coming.
Cheers

Chang_Noi wrote:I am concerned about the pile of dice showing in the first photo. Are they there for a need or by personal choice?
Starting to look like WAB game

Personal choice. 12 dice is probably sufficient, but it's handy to have some dice of a different colour sometimes.

I also find it personally useful to mark the number of hits inflicted by each base frontage for complex melees, so spare dice come in useful.

In the next game/report there was a 12 element front multi-unit clash. We found it easier to run through all the combats element by element, mark the number of hits with a die (no die = no hits), then look at the results for each unit, then adjudicate the post-combat tests.

neilhammond wrote:

Chang_Noi wrote:I am concerned about the pile of dice showing in the first photo. Are they there for a need or by personal choice?
Starting to look like WAB game

Personal choice. 12 dice is probably sufficient, but it's handy to have some dice of a different colour sometimes.

I also find it personally useful to mark the number of hits inflicted by each base frontage for complex melees, so spare dice come in useful.

In the next game/report there was a 12 element front multi-unit clash. We found it easier to run through all the combats element by element, mark the number of hits with a die (no die = no hits), then look at the results for each unit, then adjudicate the post-combat tests.

Nice idea Neil.

Perhaps someone should start a FOG etiquette (fetiquette?) thread where useful techniques like that are recorded.

Wayne: have you pre-ordered and got beta-rules yet? I know some chaps in Auckland who'd be keen for a game. We're playing a bit down here in Wellywood and it's all good so far

For what it's worth, there aren't any BGs in the game that will roll more than 12 dice at once. The ones that roll 12 are pretty rare (6 wide knights/chariots or a handful of foot BGs that can have 12 stands in them). On top of that you will need maybe 6 dice tops to record hits on a BG per BG basis and these are only useful for fairly large and complicated melees when asymmetrical battle lines clash.

carlos wrote: For what it's worth, there aren't any BGs in the game that will roll more than 12 dice at once. The ones that roll 12 are pretty rare (6 wide knights/chariots or a handful of foot BGs that can have 12 stands in them).

Or 8 base BGs where half are MF archers - he adds pedantically

There are also some rare instances where you might gang up vast amounts of shooting at a target BG and need dice in double figures.

But in general 12 will see you through.

The main area where dice are really needed is multiple BG combats where you need to carry out all of the combats for all of the Bgs before resolving the results. In this case I leave the dice that hit behind the BGs that caused them (rather than say using a single dice to indicate the number of hits which I find too prone to error). I have 14 dice in total at the moment and sometime wish I had 16 or 18 - but very rarely.

Great reports Neil. Look forward to more - will you be at Usk?

Si

shall wrote:Great reports Neil. Look forward to more - will you be at Usk?
Si

Yes, but I'm DBMing at Usk as Jeremy hasn't been tempted to the "dark" side (yet).

Very nice battle report! Enjoed reading it.
But Medieval Russian army which has Cossacks (escpecially thoose like in the picture) is nonsense. It the same as having WW1 mashine guns in Wellington's army at Waterloo...

Living_One wrote: But Medieval Russian army which has Cossacks (escpecially thoose like in the picture) is nonsense.

The auxiliary cavalry in the army can be either Tartar or Cossack.

Tartar auxiliaries, according to my sources, were recording as fighting in Russian armies in 1395, and they continues to serve with Muscovite armies in the 1400s.

Cossack troops (incl horseman) are recorded as being employed in the late 1470s.

As the army is circa 1470 this would fit. Before 1470 they should be Tartar auxilaries.

I assume the cossacks of this period would wear dress similar to the Tartars, as they are of Tartar origin. The kaftans they are wearing are slightly incorrect in that they should be short sleeved (with a shirt underneath), not long sleeved. And the hats could have more variety - being typically an assortment of tall fur, felt and sheepskin. However, that's more a limitation of the figures available.