Slitherine

As ever we start with a recap of my Seljuq army, 1071AD:

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


After being rather lucky against David in the morning I found that I was to play Lynda Fairhurst in the afternoon, no doubt set for revenge for family honour – and more importantly to see if she could stay ahead of hubby in the placings

Lynda used Bosporan and her army list was:

IC
FC
2 x TC

Lancers, 4 Cv, Superior, Undrilled, Armoured, Lancers, Swordsmen
Lancers, 4 Cv, Superior, Undrilled, Armoured, Lancers, Swordsmen
Lancers, 4 Cv, Superior, Undrilled, Armoured, Lancers, Swordsmen
Horse Archers, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Horse Archers, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Horse Archers, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Horse Archers, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Sindi Foot Archers, 6 LF, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow
Slingers, 6 LF, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Sling
Slingers, 6 LF, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Sling
City Militia, 6 MF, Average, Drilled, Armoured, Light Spear, Swordsmen
City Militia, 6 MF, Average, Drilled, Armoured, Light Spear, Swordsmen
Sindi Javelinmen, 6 LF, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Sindi Javelinmen, 6 MF, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Light Spear

I thought the Armoured MF were an interesting touch, quite tough for my boys.

I won the initiative and, in a fit of unoriginality, chose the steppe. We ended up with a couple of pieces of rough going on Lynda’s left (why does it always end up on the other side?) and a piece of broken ground on my left – there were probably a couple of other bits but they made no difference and I’ve forgotten where they were.

My deployment was as unoriginal as my choice of terrain – lots of LH on the right, some on the left including the Bedouin, LF in the centre ready to run away and the cavalry 10MU in, mostly on the right but a BG of Ghilman and another of Turcomans on the left. Lynda had her Lancers dead centre and the LH split left and right. Her infantry clustered around the rough going with the Sindi MF positioned to support both BGs of the Militia – I didn’t like the look of them even more now, and that was before the threat of the Pink Dice was revealed

Whilst Lynda’s Lancers started a long march over the table directly towards my camp, an adavance I wasn’t going to oppose frontally, I swung my LH around her flanks to put pressure on her less numerous LH with the aim of catching them all, the camp and, hopefully, some LF so as to be able to win the game without having to fight any of the dangerous stuff.

Things started off fairly well with Lynda deciding to stand with a LH BG when charged by 2 of mine and despite stiff resistance they inevitably broke and soon left the field. This then left the way to the camp open and one of the victorious Turcoman BGs walked in and sacked it. As a bonus on the other flank the Bedouins rather rudely rolled a 6 to Lynda’s 1 on the VMD to catch an evading LH BG in the rear. However, despite rapidly being reduced to Fragmented the Horse Archers then refused to drop another cohesion level for 3 further rounds of melee before finally breaking in rout – this was an omen of what was to come in this game …

That said at this point I was 6 attrition points up to nil and feeling fairly confident that I was in control of the game and should be able to get a good result from it even if it wasn’t another total victory

Lynda quite rightly had other ideas, of course.

She started the fight back by peeling off one of her Lancer groups which assisted by a LH group, and a failed CMT on my part despite Alp Arslan being with the BG, then sandwiched my left flank Turcoman Cv BG in a charge from front and rear – being Cv in a single rank doesn’t help you if there is no where to evade to! The only saving grace was that as I was facing the Lancers I didn’t drop a cohesion level for being hit in the rear and managed to only lose one level in the combats that round. This allowed me to move my nearest BGs away so they would not have to test when the inevitable happened and to also move the IC away so that he couldn’t be killed – although with the Turcomans I had not committed him to what was clearly a doomed fight. I must also note that Lynda also deployed the Pink Dice at this point and on their first roll got 4 hits out of 4 dice rolled

I sensed a turning of the tide …

However, onwards and upwards as they say and after successfully testing to stop looting the Bosporan camp my LH charged a BG of LF Javelinmen who pretty much had to stand or risk annihilation if I caught them in the rear. Once again the Pink Dice, although a different shade this time, worked their magic, mainly by intimidating my dice so I rolled next to no hits and the combats were drawn - or at least there were no lost bases and no drops of cohesion levels which amounts to the same thing. So the LH had to break off … Well, actually we both forgot until the middle of Lynda’s turn that they should have broken off, giving the LF a chance to leg it, but I remembered in time and we were able to back track somewhat so that Lynda could make the sensible moves after my LH pulled back. As Lynda was now advancing her Militia towards my Cv, whose shooting was woeful, all the soft squidgy targets were vanishing before my eyes to be replaced by tough troops.

With victory slipping away from me, or rather Lynda was taking it from me, I now had to commit the Ghilman rather piecemeal into combat with the Militia meaning basically an even fight all round with my Superiority being the only difference, which is a narrower margin that I had been planning on. By careful wheels at the appropriate time Lynda had made sure that I wasn’t going to get flank attacks in, although I did get a Turcoman Cv BG into overlap before the end. The fighting here was a grinding affair with neither side giving an inch until one of the Militia BGs failed a cohesion test and, with the overlap arriving, I almost had my breakthrough.

Meanwhile time was ticking away and the end of the round was fast approaching. With nothing to lose Lynda charged everything in range with whatever she had in range. Now it was my turn for bad VMD evade moves and nearly everything rolled down and I had both BGs of Javelinmen caught in the rear, one by Lancers and the other by better quality Javelinmen – this was going to hurt. And indeed it did with both BGs breaking ignominiously, if not unsurprisingly, and fleeing at top speed towards my camp! I had my one piece of luck for this bound when the pursuing Lancers failed to keep in contact with the routing Javelinmen, otherwise they’d have been pulled into my camp and so sacked it.

The last bound of the game saw me on 6 attrition points and Lynda on 7 – my advantage coming from a now Fragmented Militia BG (which had been so for a couple of rounds of fighting), however, my Ghilman fighting her steady Militia (bolstered in the last round) were Disrupted and so vulnerable. With a last push the Ghilman broke the Fragmented BG and the other Ghilman BG survived the combat without a further loss of cohesion and so I just scraped a narrow win by 8 attrtion points to 6.

A final score of 11-9 to me and many congratulations to Lynda for pushing my army so hard – the toughest game they’d had so far.

So at the end of day 2 I was still in the lead and could now start thinking about pushing on for the overall victory. With the draw done before we packed up I found I was to face Ray Duggins’ Santa Hermanded Nueva Castilian on the morrow …

Part 5 soon …

Thanks for the good reports. You do a good job of description without maps. Sounds like the fighting got awfully congested considering it was on a wide open steppe. Your mix of cavalry qualities seems point efficient, but did you often feel caught out by having the wrong Cav at the wrong spot?

The average LH seem quite effective in your accounts. What do you think of Superior LH instead, such as Huns or Mongols? Not worth the extra points and smaller or fewer BGs? Or just for an independent LH BG? Poor LH to save points, or are they just too much less effective?

There were favorable battlefield these 4 games - what tactics would you suggest when stuck on a non-Steppe cluttered battlefield? Dismount some troops?

Mike

Inevitably on occasion I would have preferred different cavalry in different places but on the whole I managed to get it about right. You just have to be aware of the differences between the types and deploy and manoeuvre accordingly - it is usually wise, for example, to deploy the Undrilled cavalry 1 rank deep.

Superior LH would be nice but the armies published that have them have things I don't like - such as no steppe or no ghilman.

If not on the steppe make most of the spaces you have, be prepared to push mounted troops through terrain if necessary and consider a flank march. Also remember that if you've lost the initiative you get to move first.