Chronicle: The Battle for the Tower

CHRONICLES of the FIVE KINGDOMS

Late in the day, the battle hangs in the balance.

It came like a whisper on the wind and suddenly everyone in the market knew that there was a treasure in the old Tower on the Mound in the middle of the steppe. Not just any treasure mind but though none could say exactly what it was,  it was something no one who wished to be Master of the Five Kingdoms could do without. So it came to be that the men of Alexandria the Forgotten and the soldiers of Turan each found themselves trudging across the dusty Steppes, warily watching a growing dust cloud on the horizon. .

King Antiros of Alexandria the Forgotten has come in person at the head of a select force.

General Saromander inspects the Turanian Royal Guard.

It was late in the day when the armies arrived at the tower. There was no question of a truce. 

King Antiros deployed first, the lumbering phalanx deployed deep on the right with peltasts to guard their flanks. Those on the right spread  out as a skirmish line while opposite the tower they loosened their swords and prepared to storm the tower. To the left of the tower rode Cataphracts and Lancers with horse archers on the far flank. The King kept one squadron of lancers as a reserve.

General Saromander deployed his infantry in the center supported by a troop of elephants. The nimble slingers were sent ahead to take possession of the ruins on the hill. Horse Archers, heavy and Light guarded the left, the Royal Guard and more cavalry guarded the right.  

The infantry lines clash.

The first clash came in the center as the peltasts stormed the Tower and strove to drive the lightly armed slingers from their positions in the ruins. It was a David and Goliath struggle  (ed: that is a slight exaggeration to say the least) but it raged through half the day. Outside the walls the phalanz swept forward sweeping away the Hillmen skirmishing in front of the Turanian line. Then suddenly there was a loud trumpeting and forward came the Turanian elephant corps. Bracing themselves, the pikemen awaited the shock. 

Across the field, the King sent his cavalry forward. The Royal Guard, in a deep column, unleashed a volley of arrows then taking up their lances rode forward while the lighter Turanian cavalry sought to keep the enemy horse archers at bay. The shock of the charge was tremendous but neither side gave way. As the horsemen circled and hacked at each other, the King's lancers proved no match for the heavily armoured Turanian Guards and soon the remnants were fleeing back across the plain. . 

All along the line, the fighting spread, inthe ruins and across the field with first one side then the other gaining an advantage. The peltasts were unable to roust the slingers from the ruins and were slowly cut down but in the center, a lucky pike thrust struck a young elephant in the eye. Rearing back in pain, blinded with blood, it panicked and the confusion spread, suddenly the whole herd thundered off across the plain.

Undismayed, the Turanian infantry pushed forward into gaps in the phalanx and the Turanian moved forward to ride around the flank. Despite the loss of the elephants the battle was swinging towards the Turanians.

This was not the King's first battle though and he was not ready to give up the prize so close at hand. He pulled back his infantry and cataphracts, reformed the phalanx,  brought up his reserve of lancers and prepared for one last throw of the dice.

The King leads the final attack.

With Antiros at their head, the Alexandrian cavalry slammed into the Turanians sweeping away the first squadron of the Kings Guard and pursuing into the second while an arrow storm drove the lighter Turanian cavalry back in disorder. A company of spearmen on the hill, however, held despite terrible losses. 

With Sarumander at their head, the heavily armoured Turanian Royal Guard seemed more than a  match for their lightly armoured foe in melee while the Turanian infantry began to slip into the ranks of the Cataphracts, hamstringing horses and toppling the heavy riders, knocking them all to sixes. The Cataphracts, seemingly helpless, turned and fled or were cut down. The battle seemed lost but out of nowhere, the King's horse archers, tribal auxiliaries but veteran fighters, smashed into the flank of the Royal Guard which collapsed leaving Sarumander a prisoner. The Turanian army seemed paralyzed, unable to respond as the King led his cavalry forward into the Turanian infantry and suddenly the whole Turanian army was fleeing. 

As the sun set, Antiros and a few picked companions dismounted and entered the tower. An hour later the grim faced party re-emerged. What they found there was a secret they did not share.

___________________________________________________________________________________

This battle was fought using the ancients module of the Square Brigadier which is essentially a small gridded version of Gathering of Hosts.See my Battle Game of the Month blog for more details and a free copy of the rules.

Last Hosting of the Year

The honour of Last Game this year goes to my 25mm Ancients. The close of one era and the opening, or reopening of another, but more on that another day. As the Winter campaign begins, Queen Sharazhad of Marakanda herself has led the vanguard of her army out to meet the hosts of King Rossius the Unknown of Turan.  

The Turanian forces were comprised of a unit of cataphracts, two of lance and bow heavy cavalry and two of light cavalry, one of them being horse archers. There was also an elephant unit with its attached light infantry and 2 wing commanders. The Maracandians had the Royal Horse Guards, a unit of lancers and a unit of horse archers backed by two units of light archers, one of massed archers, one of spearmen and one of Hillmen. There was also a pair of war engines dragged along for reasons unknown and two commanders. The rules were the universal edition of Hearts of Tin which is essentially an amalgamation of Gathering of Hosts with Hearts of Tin. The debate over a new name such as Hosts of Tin is still sputtering.

The Turanians arrived early and had the mobility to deploy and seize the crossroad before the Queen's forces were all on the field of battle.   Rossius seemed in no great hurry to press the attack but was rather determined to draw the enemy in before striking.

The Queen's heart beat faster in this her 2nd battle but her veteran soldiers and commanders were not dismayed. She steeled her will and as the Turanian lancers spurred forward, she signalled for her own cavalry to attack.

As the Turanian cavalry charged, the sky was darkened by Maracandan arrows and despite their armour the Turanian Clibinari broke to the rear. The Cataphracts charged home but the Turanian archers wielded their axes to good effect and soon the Cataphracts were also galloping backwards just as the Marakanda cavalry swept through the enemy light infantry, pushing their panicked horses into the flank of the elephant line. On the other flank the Maracandan horse archers swarmed the flank of the advancing Turanians and in a flash Rossius whole army was galloping towards the safety of the hills.

 Sharazad could not help but feel that she and her troops had been blessed with great good luck when it was needed most and that one victory  was not the end of a campaign but only a beginning.

The Elephants are on the move

For those who don't follow my Game of the Month Blog, since the Gathering of Hosts and the Hearts of Tin rules are so closely aligned, I'm working on amalgamating them into a universal set with modules for different periods, for play with or without a grid, with either single figures or multi-figure elements with a variable scale. Sounds worse than it is or in other words, its not my first kick at this can. Actually, I only intend to do the modules I want to use but I'm ready for an Ancients test so the Three Kingdoms are at war again. The scenario is Crossroad from Grant's Programmed Scenarios.

To be continued.

Not another bridge!

The Scots charge over the bridge before too many English archers deploy.

As part of my exploration of the possible direction for my Ancient and Medieval games and of the options for evening games on an old card table in a corner of the Wreck room, I divided up the Medieval Scots that I had rebased for Impetus as well as what English I could scare up and set up a game this afternoon. Alas for the Scots when flipping through Asquith & Grant's Scenarios for All Ages (aka the Red Book), my eye fell on a game with 4 columns converging on a bridge. It wasn't until the Scots charged over the bridge that I got a sense of Deja Vue, my Scots having had to charge over a bridge in their last outing against Ron's English earlier this year. Oddly when I played through the Red Book in 2009 I also ended up playing. this with English vs Scots albeit in the 16thC. (Well damme! I forgot that the river was fordable away from the bridge!)

Briefly, the 2nd English column arrived early and the flanking Scots column ended up forming schiltron under a hail of arrows. A Scottish charge over the bridge eventually pushed the English back but suffered heavy casualties and when the flanking schiltron broke, it was all over.    

The Scots break.

The most important result of the test is that it has confirmed that this size of force in this period with this scale of shooting and movement will do quite nicely for Teasers on this size of table.

The existing bases don't precisely fit the square grid but they are close enough that they could be used as possible and the grid could always be ignored anyway and a ruler used at 1/2 or 2/3 scale. I'm not saying that 10mm figures wouldn't allow me more figure per base and thus "fit" the terrain better but I'd rather use what I have and would rather paint a few more 25's than start all over again. I didn't really want to paint up 200 or more English for bigger battles with the same tactical options but I haven't known quite what else to do. Anyway, this works for me so painting up and basing my English and Scots reinforcements will be moved up the priority list to provide some winter campaigning. Those figures on 3" and 80mm bases will serve but I want to go for 1.5" so that I can show units in march column and adapt to terrain.

I'll need to get going on more hills too. I'm not quite sure what to do about built up areas. Luckily a table suitable for street fighting isn't a huge issue for Medieval Anglo-Scottish  wars but a tower might be handy for some scenarios and I could do a town base or 2 with low perimeter wall and removable building to represent a small town.Might have to make it a bit over size to hold the occupants. Damn. Or maybe a town base with 2d row houses on either side of a road wide enough to hold a unit. It'll take some thought.

The next question is, do I want to look at adapting some of my Persian/Samarkand forces to play on the small table as well as the larger one. For now I think not and the Persian Host will stay upstairs. I may try it out though, just to see and just to keep it active. In particular, since many of the pikemen and other Greeks may be sent off to Botany Bay this winter, I have been thinking more about vague plans to use PA molds to produce some form of hill tribe army down the road. This would allow me to do some skirmishes in hilly terrain (once I make it). There's a limit to what I can get painted these days and to how many games I can play in the score of periods I dabble in so that might be best left for next winter.

Pass the Maple Syrup Please.

Nothing better for waffles.

I haven't been spending much time or mental energy on Ancients but did momentarily decide late in the summer  that I had been right originally  and maybe OS with big units on a big table with no grid was better than the way I had been heading towards 1 base units. No games followed this thought.

I did try to get something  going last weekend but ended up working on a small board with square grid for playing games down in the family room during the winter instead. Now of course I want an ancient or medieval game for the new, small, gridded board. Looking at my incomplete revised medieval armies and the still incomplete Iranian armies, I am reminded just how little painting I seem to do these days. This in turn reminds me how much fun I've had this year playing small games at Ron's. All of a sudden the big Ancient game starts to feel more nostalgic than realistic goal for the short term.

A Scots army at about 75% of full strength. The other 300% are still on their old bases.

There is too much non-gaming stuff going on for this to be a good time for sudden drastic action and or for a rewrite but luckily I kept the rules as grid-friendly as I could so no more than an appendix giving rules for moving on a square grid and translating multiples of 4" into areas.   Then, maybe as early as tomorrow I will put some medieval's on the new board and see how it goes.

The Scots in action earlier this year.