A New Queen Arises

The young Queen Shahrazad, the Flame Queen, liberator and ruler of Marakanda. Her army is composed of the steppe horsemen amongst who she was raised and men from the city and surrounding farms of Marakanda which she freed from the oppressive rule of the Greeks and brought back to riches, and hillmen from the nearby mountains to whom she fled in her times of trouble and who now follow her loyally.

(Oddly, this is around the time that the Marakanda disappears from history for a few centuries, reappearing as Samarkand but that's another story). 

Thanks to Rob from Garrison for the proto-Zenobia from whom she sprang, 

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Slik Road Battle

I know, I was going to post ancient battle reports here but this one is over there.


Somewhere over on the Silk Road, a long long time ago, a Persian Satrap clashes with the forces of Marakanda (Samarkand in later times).

 Persian Infantry and elephants

 Persian Cavalry

 Marakanda's horse archers backed by armoured lancers and camel riders.

 Marakanda's infantry, Greek militia, hillmen and native archers backed by an elephant to everyone's surprise. 

 The battle, mid-game

Still Slowly Gathering

These lads were born as Garrison Sassinid Standard Bearers. They were destined to join my not really Sassanid Clibinari to give them some of that traditional bubble headed look.    Some how though, even with lances, they just didn't fit in with my other, lance and bow armed,  Clibinari and in any case I've been inching back from the Sassanid angle. If not lance and bow Clibinari on 1/2 armoured horses, then how should I arm them?

Prior to Alexander, Bactria and the surrounding areas seem to have produced bow and spear armed cavalry both unarmoured and armoured with some of the latter being on armoured horses. Alexander and presumably the Achaemenids before him, apparently also raised some Javelin cavalry from the southern areas reaching down into Afghanistan and two heavy javelins were standard Persian armament at the time. Some Greek cavalry would have still been javelin armed while others would have adopted the long Macedonian cavalry spear. Under the Seleucids heavily armoured Cataphracts were introduced and became the standard heavy cavalry of the Parthian Empire. In the turmoil between the fall of the Seleucids and the rise of the Kushan and Parthian empires, what would "native" cavalry raised in the area have been like?


Now its not a co-incidence that the current gathering of armies is set in a time and place where  information is limited, that was the goal from the beginning. My assumption is that cavalry would have been varied, especially in a time of dynastic struggles but that the later lance and bow on 1/2 armoured horse Clibinari are unlikely even though I plan to field some. Some cataphracts are more likely, especially those with felt and leather horse armour, as well as some other lancer cavalry but since the javelin seems to have persisted through out the period, that is also a likely option for some. Lightly armoured and unarmoured cavalry probably predominated but what percentage were "cavalry" vs "light cavalry" (a distinction that I'm not convinced was as clear at the time as it is in our wargames)?.


Another question is about the hats. It seems the latest fad is to dismiss what used to be the archetypal Sassanid Felt Bubble Cap as an error  but since there is evidence of some earlier Medes wearing a similar hat as well as later shepherds and the like, I am happy to assume that some thing similar has been worn by some people over the centuries. Possibly not in the area where this rebel Iranian heritage army is being raised to fight the last of the Greco-Bactrians but the hats give it a distinct flavour so they are in.

The figures just seemed to want to be modified into javelin armed cavalry so I obliged and ended up with javelin armed cavalry with shield and armour, possibly similar to Roman, later Greek or Celtic cavalry. I have been basing my shock cavalry 4 to a base and my horse archers 3 to a base and had planned to base these as four figures. The officer I painted to go with them just didn't fit so he has been relegated to command the next stand of lancers and these ended up 3 to a base.  This seems to put these in the well equipped light cavalry category so that's how I'll use them , leaving the real fighting to the heavily armoured lancers. .Mind you, I think these would serve well as early Mede cavalry as well. They need some friends though.

A Hex on Both Your Armies.

Wow, was that last post really 3 weeks ago?

King Daryros the Rebel, leads his men onto the field.

Anyway, I decided that i wanted to stay with the hexes for my ancients so reworded the rules. They can be used fairly easily without a grid by counting an "area" as 4" wide or such distance as pleases you, and measuring 60 degree arcs. I tightened things up a bit, swapped +/- die modifers for adding and subtracting dice per unit modifiers for combat. Can't do that when the number of dice is based on how many guys are in a unit but works well when its dice per unit. Also borrowed an idea and now allow units are allowed to swap up to 1 missile fire hit for a retreat if they wish.

The largely mercenary advance guard of the army of Alexandria the Farthest is led onto the field by Kinbg Antirossus himself.

 The first test game was small, an advance guard Teaser from Battlegames  but everything worked like a charm. A bigger one to follow when the heat in my games room abates.

King Antirossus , at the head of his Companions, puts the boots to King  Daryros's Rebels.

A New Power Arises

Barely two months after seeing off the Chinese Incursion, (ok so it was actually his general Alexander the Minifig that saw them off but as King you get to claim credit for what your generals do) word has come to King Antirossus of Alexandria the Forgotten of a new power rising from the turmoil that was the fall of the Seleucid Empire and the rise of the Parthians. In Samarkand to the north,  King Dahryross, claiming descent back through the years to Darius, has seized the throne and is building a formidable army.   

Alexander the Minifig has been sent north with a small force to seek word of this new threat. At the crossroads by the ancient town of Binheerbefohr, the "armies" clash for the first time. 

 The Greeks deploy in traditional fashion, a 6 stand phalanx in the center flanked by peltasts and cavalry. The  Persians deploy a line of skirmishers and horse archers backed by infantry on the left, spearmen, archers and an elephant, armoured cavalry on the left. The light cavalry on both sides dashed and wheels about the field but the main bodies plod straight forward.

 The newcomers seem to shoot well, but the Greeks press on, eager to settle this hand to hand. (Hmm that horse armour's pretty tough stuff. )

 With the skirmishers out of the way, the phalanx crashes forward, forcing the elephants back and destroying the archers but somehow the native spearmen hold. Good thing there are cavalry and peltasts to guard the flank. (Ahhhh guys?  Helloo anyone there? Who's got the intitiative this turn anyway?)

Oh damn. Ummh.....Greeks for hire!  

Lance & Bow

I was contemplating horse archers last week, both armoured  and firing, and wondering how to fit in my handful of  Tarun horse archers without building a whole army for them. Eventually I decided that with a bit of repainting to get rid of the Arabic looking stripes and disguise the flowing robes, I could mix them in with some Persian Clibinari.

 After doing them, I realized that adding a pugree and cloak to the Persians would have been easy and helped them to blend in. On the other hand, leaving them as is should make it easier to blend the stand in with my Iranian rebels.  I'm trying desperately to keep the size of these Bactrian of Beyond armies down. The Iranian rebels look like settling on 40 - 50 heavy cavalry so far.

For some reason, I thought I had posted these pictures last week, better late than never and anyway, the 2 replacement Sassinid elephants aren't quite ready. Bloody annoying Hinchliffe kits to be honest but I'm glad to have the old team back. The one archer crewman who remains of the original pair still claims to remember nothing.

Munching the Greener Grass

Why is it that what ever figures I have stacked up ready to paint, its always the ones I don't have that are on my mind. This morning I put aside for a moment my efforts to sort an army for Queen Tomyrot of the Tokharians, ruler of Marakanda (Samarkand to you) and painted up the 2 samples on my desk. I'm not currently adding hoplites but I do intend to add a battalion or 2 of Lambdas and this chap looks fairly officerish so that was easy. The other looks, as intended, very guards-ish. He is also a little hoplitish except for his shield which isn't. It has an embossed animal or god head and polished bronze came to mind. The term Chalkaspides soon followed and then my mind drifted to my old Valdurian Guards, Minifig thureophorai with blue tunics, shields painted bronze and leather armour painted on (I seem to have had issues with painting figures straight out of the box).  Alright then a Guard unit from Alexandria the Farthest, the other intreptation of Hypaspists, fast moving shock infantry, FL's in Basic Impetus speech, VBU of 5 +2 with long spear.

   For some reason I seem to be having trouble with focus and colour, but, close enough.

Is it just me or does the over all size and the look of the head and neck on Garrison Persian camels look more Bactrian than Dromedary despite their 1 humpish apeparance? Is it not possible that the saddle design is disguising the 2 hump nature? Of course it is. Why else would a Queen in Bactria and 2 of her squadrons be riding them?

And last but not least, I started pondering a new city for my lost Hellenistic outpost, not that Alexandria Eschate (the farthest) is bad, but its a real place and I briefly thought that perhaps an Historical Fantasy setting should have made up names so I thought about something like Alexandria the Improbable or Alexandria the Imaginary and turned to Bablefish. OK, now I have a name in unreadable (to me) unreproduceable (to me) Greek letters. No problem, there must be a site that will translate English into a Latin alphabet version of the Greek, yes? Well, maybe, somewhere. After half an hour and after fending off various Old Testament sites that tried to enlist me, I gave up and decided that for a whim,  "Alexandria The Farthest" is just fine.

Now back to thinking about another dozen or more horse archers (galloping and firing) and empty coffers.

Reinforcements Arrive

Clibinarius on borrowed Cataphract horse, Cataphract (need more of these), Desert Queen, Spearmen and a Prince August levy.

Its enough to make a fellow wish he was still doing large, Grantian armies and had oodles of time and money and no distractions. I finally ordered a teeny order of Sassinids and absolutely love these little gems of figures. I was actually ordering some medievals and slipped these in just because. Anyway they arrived while I was at Huzzah and never mind the medievals, guess who's on the painting desk. They might need their own army though.........

Now don't ask me about Zenobia, Rob slipped her in and I have no idea if she's from a 20mm range, a defunct range or a special that he did. But she is just the sort of ruler my new Iranian Imagi-nation needed. I had been sighing and thinking if I bought actual Sassinids then I'd have to buy the long delayed Romans to face them, but the ones I'd want would be the wrong Romans. Well, seeing these, I'm back on track with my series of unknown Iranian and Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms back of beyond. Except that Rob also slipped in some marvelous hoplites that I suspect are Hyborian in origin which has me thinking about Spartans and of course, flipping through the S&S list gives me other ideas. Well the good side of  Basic Impetus using so few troops is that even with multi-basic impetus armies, I could easily do a dozen armies with 100 or so figures each.

Well, first things first, paint at least 1/2 of the new arrivals and finish planned armies then plan and buy more!

Thanks Rob for keeping these figures alive and sharing!.

Hexy Blocking Position

Today saw Game 4 and the end of the Sino-Bactrian Campaign. Strictly speaking the game should have been the Swamp land  scenario but it didn't look appetizing for either side so we opted for Hasty Blocking position which allowed me to field all but one of my units.

The Chinese blocking force arrives.

I swore to myself that I would take some proper pictures this time. I ended up taking one cell phone snap on about turn 2 and 1/2 way through picking up troops I suddenly remembered  about pictures and hastily faked the shot below. Oh well.

Essentially the Greco-Bactrian cavalry swept aside the Chinese cavalry (should I mentioned my routed Companion unit? nah why confuse things) and then, supported by an elephant crashed into a line of Chinese heavy infantry. These put up a fight and eventually brought the elephant down but the Cataphracts smashed through the line and then, after a long struggle pushed back and eventually routed the Chinese reserve of Heavy Chariots which had charged into them.   That brought the game to an end after about 14 action packed turns. The victory conditions are more than a little vague on this one so whether I had been slowed sufficiently could only be left as an open question while we proceeded to discuss our hex based adaptation of Basic Impetus.

   An artist's conception of what a confrontation between Chinese and Greco-Bactrian heavy infantry might have looked at.

Over all the hex based version works well but there have been a couple of niggley bits where it has been hard to translate the game to a grid. We made two decisions today, one was to worry less about being consistent and adapt things to make the hexes easier. Many of the issues revolve around melees where the rules are based on units not lining up, something the grid forces as well as restrictions on movement.

We have also found that our adoption of 1 hex = 5 units of distance has been less than satisfying with 25mm figures and Table Top teasers and gave us headaches tracking which adjacent units were in contact and which were just in javelin range. The proposed solution is to move to 1 hex=2.5 units of distance which will essentially double movement and ranges and allow us to count adjacent units as being in melee. Movement will be 2 hexes for heavy and missile infantry, 3 for light infantry, skirmishers and heavy cavalry and 3 for medium or light cavalry. Javelins will have a 2 hex range and most bows  a 4 hex range. That should open things up.

Of course this means we need to play another game. I'll probably put the Greco-Bactrians away. The next game is likely to be 13thC Scots vs English but possibly Pontics or Thracians vs Caeser.  

There's Hold (ing) In Them Thar Hills!

The next game saw the Greco-Bactrians pushing forward in pursuit of the Chinese "bandits".

POP! Oh, there they are! Are those crossbows? Thunk Thunk thunk! yup. 

 The game was Holding Action (1) from Scenarios for Wargames.  My troops diced for which of 2 roads  they would enter on. I had 3 heavy cavalry units (1 cataphract), 2 horse archers, 3 units of pike  phalanx, 2 of peltasts, an elephant and 1 each of archers and javelin men. Breakpoint of 13 with heavy cavalry and pikes each worth 3 pts and the others each worth 1. As an experiment in simplification I fielded my pikes as single VBU 6 units rather than as double units made up of 2 VBU 4 units. Same dice in combat vs infantry and about the right effect as far as I can tell and simpler to follow.

The Chinese had, well, no army at all as far as I could see. But eventually the hills turned out to be hiding 2 units of massed crossbowmen mixed with spears, 4 units of shock light infantry swordsmen, a light cavalry lancer and a skirmish crossbow unit.

The scenario calls for the attacker to advance quickly to clear the pass. It doesn't actually say that you can't break column until you spot the enemy but that seemed like the spirit. And so it was then, that my horse archers were the first into the pass and the first to spot some crossbowmen. I had of course won the initiative that turn so the crossbows were able to advance and shoot. Ron then deftly flipped the initiative on the next turn getting to shoot again, and bringing forward another crossbow unit from his left which shot up my  horse archers.

As I tried desperately to deploy, peltasts and cavalry on the flanks, pikes in the center screened by skirmishers, Ron's crossbows took out my archers and helped by his light cavalry broke my Companions.
At this point 2 units of swordsmen showed up and charged into my peltasts before they could escape.  Suddenly I was down 5 army morale points, and was 1 hit away from losing my horse archers, my column was just deploying and there was nothing to screen them but a single unit of elite Euzoni javelin skirmishers. Ron had a slight scratch on his light cavalry. It didn't look good, especially as the rest of his army emerged on my open right flank.

The ambush is sprung! Chinese crossbows shooting from behind a wall of spears.  

The lack of pictures beyond this point does not reflect reluctance on my part but worried concentration on the excitement in hand!  

No point in going home early (although given the ice pellets and slush I met when I did go, I probably should have), so I brought up the pikes, elephants and remaining cavalry for an assault uphill against crossbows and tough infantry. But as my javelinmen nimbly flanked his crossbows, I suddenly got a break, a hit by the javelins (needing a 6)  followed by a catastrophic cohesion failure on his part, (also a 6) resulting in the crossbowmen routing. OK I was on the board! and the pressure was off, I had room to deploy. As his infantry came up, we proceeded to repeat the skirmish attack 6 to hit, 6 to fail cohesion, not once but TWICE!  These infantry were tougher and didn't rout but they had lost their shock value. I tried hard to catch them with my cataphracts but while they chewed up my 2nd peltast unit, I held on and javelins eventually cleared that flank.  
 
In the center, my pikes charged up hill, driving back the crossbows but shock infantry caught them in the flank and they crumbled. I was now only 2 units away from breaking, but so was Ron! There was nothing to do but push forward and hope. Forward the pikes! Ready the Heffalump! Charge with the cavalry! As Ron's army morale crumbled he launched a last desperate gamble.

 

The Chinese cavalry make a last desperate attempt to break the pikes but these guys don't carry long pointy sticks for nothing. 

Army morale is assessed at the end of  a turn and Ron was moving 2nd, he knew he was going down but it was close enough that it was just possible that a suicide attack could work, I'd have to miss with all dice, he'd have to hit with a couple then I'd need to roll one of those 6's on a cohesion test, get caught by the pursuit and do it again. A long shot but possible and it would change the game to a draw. Well, my pikes missed on all 6 dice but his cavalry also missed on their 4. A drawn melee! I WON!!  (By a nose)

You'll just have to imagine the extra 7 Chinese units which crowned the hills in a ring around my army a turn earlier. The troops in the center right background, crowning the hill, are my proud javelinmen who practically won the battle single handedly, with a little help.

  

Rolling, rolling, rolling

Corvus Thracian Mercenary Thureophorai escort a motley supply train.
(Trivia, the horse pulling the supply cart is  a hard plastic Marx horse whose 1st job was pulling a WWI artillery piece in the Over The Top playset.)

The next game in the Sino-Bactrian Border War Mini-Campaign has been fought. Thanks to a split decision double feature game last time,   a draw was declared and Wagon Train selected as the next game.

A familiar site to Scenarios for Wargames fans.

We tossed for sides with the result tasking the troops of the King of Bactria with safely escorting a convoy through hills filled with Chinese bandits, sorry, I mean  the advance guard of an Imperial Chinese expedition.  My force was composed of 2 units of mercenary Thureophorai, a unit each of javelin men and archers, a unit of horse archers and a unit of Macedonian style Heavy Cavalry Lancers. In the fort was a bolt thrower, some pikemen and a the important part, a unit of heavy cavalry and one of light javelin cavalry.

Ral Partha Chinese.

The Chinese eventually fielded 1 medium cavalry, 1 light shock cavalry, 2 crossbow & spear units, 3 swordsmen units and a unit of crossbow skirmishers.

Now that the crisis is nearly past, the war artist comes out.

There were some sticky moments early on as Ron's cavalry arrived on either flank and rode over the skirmishers that I had deployed to guard the flanks of the train. They did their job though  and held up the Chinese cavalry long enough for the Thureophorai to earn their pay. By turn 8, after some nervous fighting, Ron and I were both down 2 units (2 skirmisher for me, a light cavalry and crosswbow unit for Ron with a hurting medium cavalry unit facing off with a damaged Thureophorai ) but the wagons were in sight of the fort with no enemy in between.

Alexander the Minifig orders the Companions  to wheel and ride down a unit of spear and crossbow armed Chinese infantry. Yee Haw!

At this point, fortune favoured me. The bulk of the Chinese infantry now came on behind the convoy. Unless someone could get in front of the convoy and stop it, they would not be able to intervene before it reached the fort. Unbeknownst to me, another light infantry sword unit arrived late through the big wood near the fort. By the time they found their way to the open, the convoy was past. A unit of skirmishers did manage to  almost get close enough for a shot but they couldn't get past the cavalry that had sortied out. 

    "Honey, I'm home!"

Minifig Ox Cart with prince August driver.

This is a scenario where the arrival times and places can make a huge difference. Would it had made a difference if Ron had moved his crossbows to an intervening position instead of moving up to support the cavalry? Who knows? What is sure is that I would have been in a world of hurt had the mercenaries not won their fights with the Chinese cavalry! A fun little game. Took about 2 hours of actual plying time to make it through to a conclusion in 11 or 12 turns.

CRACK!! "Move your Ass into that fort!.....and your Camel"

RAFM cavalry, garrison chariot driver come wagoneer, Ral Partha fantasy baggage animals.

Basic Ambush

Victorious charge of the Greek cavalry.

My newly organized, refurbished and rebased Greco-Bactrians took the field today. A routine convoy near the border being suddenly being ambushed (Sfor W #30) by an enemy originally classed as bandits but which turned out to be part of the Han expedition which has been probing the borders of Bactria.

The escort was composed of the following: 1 horse archer, 1 lancer, 1 large pike and 2 peltast units led by my sub-commander Alexander The Minifig. The ambush force consisted of 1 horse archer unit, 2 crossbow and spear units and 2 light infantry assault troops with halberds.  A clash of light cavalry units eventually saw the Chinese routed but my peltasts and horse archers were no match for the massed crossbows. I managed to get the wagons past the Chinese and there was nothing air in between them and the bridge but one last long range volley of crossbow bolts wiped out one of the wagons. A draw was still possible but my heavy cavalry was in trouble. They had been moving to protect the wagons on the only turn in the game in which I won the initiative. Ron's shock troops had been bypassed by my rapid advance and rushed to catch up. A flip of the initiative and a lucky charge bonus roll brought them into contact with my flank before I could react. After 2 turns of melee I finally pushed his unit back, pursued but was repulsed. The 2nd shock unit now caught me before I could rally and after 2 more turns of melee, my unit finally broke taking my army with it. Final tally, Chinese losses 1 light cavalry unit, Bactrian losses, General + Heavy Cavalry, Horse Archers, 2 peltast units. 

Since we had time in hand, I switched out my troops and we reset, Ron swapping his horse archers for a unit of shock light cavalry, me swapping the pikes and 1 peltast units for a unit of cataphracts and 2 skirmisher units; 1 bow, 2 javelin.  This time my skirmishers, horse archer and peltasts ganged up on his 1st massed crossbow unit and eventually routed it (rolling 18 dice in one turn without a single 5 or 6). The rest of his army was hidden near the bridge. I was a bit too hasty pushing my wagons forward, covered only by the cataphracts and a unit of skirmishers and found myself in a tight spot. The cataphracts charged up the hill in disorder but managed just 1 hit out of 9 dice. The melee continued next turn and my cavalry were repulsed, retreating until their backs were against the wagons.  The Shock Light Cavalry now took a crack at them and came within a hair of pushing the cataphracts back into the wagons routing them but led by my general in person, they held on. On the next turn my light troops showered one of the enemy light infantry with arrows and javelins, routing it and my heavy cavalry crashed uphill into the already battered unit crushing it. The enemy broke. A close call! 

2 fun games. The hex adaptation o basic Impetus continues to please. 

The Dividing of Hosts

East meets West

(and no it doesn't look like they're about to play for Lord Grey's Cup even if their are lines painted on a flat green field)

When I resurrected my 25mm ancients after their long slumber, the plan was to reduce every thing to 2 armies of around 20 units totaling around 500 figures each. When I reduced that in 1/2, I added a 3rd army and was contemplating a 4th. Now that I have reduced the forces again to double Basic Impetus armies, or around 100 figures each. I just split the 3rd army into 2 and am adding a few more units to bring it up to scratch. Naturally, since I have all these figures kicking around, I started planning  more armies. Four became six then eight, then........laying out some figures and focusing helped. I'm back on track to finish converting 200 or so miscellaneous figures into opposing Bactrian armies, one Hellenistic in nature, raised primarily from Greek colonists (from RAFM) and formed around a phalanx, the other Iranian based on cavalry backed by mercenary and levied light infantry, (largely from Garrison). 

Antirossus rouses his men.

 The native Bactrian rebels, looking suspiciously Sassinid-ish. I don't have my peasants done yet so some Achamenid Persians are standing in for now.

There's only a half dozen new figures to paint, a dozen or so to fix up and a dozen or so more bases to cut and populate. Then I can start the campaign and also start planning the next pair!

They shall not pass, or well, ok, maybe this time.

Well, my Bactrian army has been bloodied, very bloodied as it turned out.   My cell phone battery gave out so no pictures I'm afraid.

The scenario was Pass Clearance from CS Grant's Programmed Wargame Scenarios. The rules were modified Basic Impetus on a hex grid. The enemy was Ron Dynasty Chinese (That's Han to you). I had a rough idea of what sorts of troops I might face since I'd seen them on the shelf over the last 20 years but I avoided looking at the army lists since I figured that a new arrival on the scene, an army they had never fought before, might have been a surprise to the Greeks, Bactrians and various others who made up my army. It turned out to be a bit more of a shock than a surprise!

Whoever wrote up the Beta Han List was very generous with VBU and Impetus factors and the superior firepower of their crossbows was staggering. To overcome this army I was going to need the get the best out of my motley crew. Unfortunately, since it was my first time fielding it, I really didn't have a good handle on its strengths and weaknesses.

The position I was defending had steep hills on either sides with several patches of woods. I deployed my upgraded skirmishers, from whom I expected much given how well their plain Jane cousins did for me in the last game, in an advanced wood on the left hand slopes with light cavalry filling the plain. My main battle line was posted just behind the crest of the pass, archers in the woods to the right, then elephant, pikes, Thracians and lastly cataphracts.  Initially the Thracians were supposed to accompany the elephant but I switched and decided to have them provide a link between the phalanx and the cataphracts.  Despite finding my javelin armed peltasts most useful in previous games,  I decided that I needed more high VBU troops so upgraded the Thracians from VBU 4 to 5 which seems to remove their javelins, presumably indicating Rhomphai armament. They are useful troops but not strong enough for 1 unit to launch attacks and to make matters, worse, I kept maneuvering them into positions where they could launch javelin assaults, only to remember that they didn't have any! ARGGHHH! Luckily Ron was generous enough to allow me to take back such moves several times. General, Know thy troops! Next time I'll field proper peltasts and  leave the shock charges to the big boys.

The game began with some harmless insults being traded between my light cavalry  and the Chinese. The game is unfriendly to missile fire at light cavalry and a close look at his shock light cavalry indicated that they had twice the combat value of my Arachosians so basically, after a few maneuvers to try to disrupt Rons's march and deployment and to draw him into my ambush, I started to fall back at full speed to get my light cavalry safely out of the way. The first shot of the game came from my foot archers, disrupting a chariot but neither harming it nor slowing it down (we had drafted the discipline rule in from Impetus and Ron's well disciplined troops only occasionally failed their rally).  Ron deployed a mass of light infantry to flush me out at which point I was close enough to have a look and discover that these were a combination of elite shock troops that made my Thracians look puny, and massed crossbows with devastating firepower. I made a new plan. Skeddadle all my out classed light troops to safety and launch an assault with elephant, pikes and cataphracts, once he was through the gap.

Unfortunately there was a wrinkle. Basic Impetus is a game  which calls for an initiative roll each turn to see who would move first. I had successfully rolled low and moved second so far, being able to react to enemy moves and scoot out of the way. On the turn of the ambush, that flipped, allowing me to get my shot in  but on the next turn it flipped again giving Ron a double move at just the wrong moment for me and allowing his aggressive light infantry to reach my skirmish line before it could pull back. At the same time his light shock cavalry was able to also sweep forward to catch my skirmishing ones.  This was unfortunate but not necessarily a disaster, protected by the woods, odds were that my skirmishers would take some damage but stood a good chance of escaping and might even get lucky and win some of the combats. By the end of the turn my skirmish line was wiped out and my light cavalry reduced to a single stand. Five units destroyed in the blink of an eye. Nearly 1/2 way to my break point and I hadn't put a single hit on him. It looked bleak.

 There was an awful jumble in the middle of the table as the war chariots rolled up the road and deployed flanked by cavalry. The supporting infantry was somewhat held up by the woods but they would be up soon with those deadly crossbows and  hard charging halbardiers. One of Ron's horse archers topped the crest and sounded the alarm. There before him was the main Bactrian army, bronze helmets and shields and iron horse armour gleaming in the sun. From the woods my Saka bowmen (using the mountain Indian stats) strode forward from ambush and opened a frightful barrage (who knew so many dice had 1 or 2 marked on them?).  The elephant, a 40 year veteran, trumpeted wildly and rushed forward, trampling panicking horses beneath her feet.  Charge followed counter charge as the chariots, unable to stop and without room to maneuver, rolled forward. On the left, my Cataphracts maneuvered for a clear charge at the Chinese infantry as they cleared the wood. Then the crossbows twanged and my nobles back peddled desperately while I searched for a new plan. The score now stood at 7 army morale points lost per side. (Ron could lose 17, I could lose 13)

With unlimited time and an array of machine guns, crossbows, facing me, it was just a matter of time before he shot me to pieces. At this point, the question arose of how long I needed to hold the pass in order to claim a victory. Initially Ron had said 11 turns, and 11 turns were done, but the table was 24 hexes across and even if I had retreated off table on turn 1, he couldn't have made it. I suggested we roll 2d6 to see how many additional turns he could have but with two "new" armies on the table (most figures on both sides were 20 to 40 years old), we decided to just play it through.  There was only way, to avoid destruction, rally my shot up phalanx and cavalry and charge! If the charge worked, there was a good chance I could blast a hole in his army but if the attack was repulsed, then it would be all up. Do or die!

Even having to make piecemeal attacks, my shock troops proved their potential, inflicting buckets full of hits on the enemy. Ron's troops proved that their morale was good. (Now he rolls a 1!)
His line was battered and within a pip or 2 of having broken but it had held and now the counter attack was coming through. Shock infantry charging into the phalanx, crossbow bolts following up my cavalry as they rallied back for another charge. Then the battered chariots whipped their  horses up to speed and rolled forward into my Thracians and a battered phalanx and both crumbled, bringing me to my break point.

A hard fought game and one which reinforced my choice of army. As Phil Barker once wrote, pick an army that you can love, even when it loses.  

Ready for the Fray

Sooner than expected, the combined armies of all the factions have pooled their troops to face a new threat. Tomorrow, weather permitting, they march East to confront an army of Ron Dynasty Chinese. 

Like the typical, closely related Seleucid wargame army , this army has a little bit of everything and not enough of anything: Cataphracts, light cavalry, pikemen, archers, skirmishers, light infantry, and an elephant.

Given any situation, it has at least 1 appropriate  unit. Thrown into battle, there are not quite enough core troops. Oh well, perfect for Table Top Teasers.  Its going to take a bit of getting used to after all those Greek hoplites! 

Next step is to cut a score more bases, refurbish a few more old units and add a few new ones from the lead pile to make two opposing armies, 1 Hellenistic based around the pike phalanx and mostly RAFM troops, the other more Kushan-like, cavalry heavy without any pikes, and based largely around Garrison Persians of various stripes. Then the contest for control of Syr Daria can commence!