Battle Reports

Milton Keynes One-Dayer

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Category: Ancients Battle Reports

Published on Sunday, 16 January 2011 10:45

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Just back from the Milton Keynes One-Dayer where I had an extremely entertaining day with two very competent and pleasant opponents.

I took New Kingdom Egyptian because it was an army that I had many of the figures for and had been meaning to paint for a long time - I needed the stimulus of a competition to force me to finish it.

The list was:

Command 1

C-in-C Reg Cv(S), 16 Irr Wb(F), 8 Irr Bd(F)

Command 2

SG Reg Cv(S), 2 Reg Cv(S), 8 Reg Bd(O), 2 Reg Bw(O), 2 Reg Ps(O), 2 Irr Bts(S)

Command 3

SG Reg Cv(S), 6 Reg Cv(S), 8 Reg Bw(O), 4 Reg Ps(O), 2 Irr Ax(I), 1 Irr LH(I)

Army Baggage

6 Reg Bge(I)

Ambush Stratagem

The ambush stratagem turned out to be less useful that I had though after Steve Bainbridge pointed out before the first game that you couldn't ambush in an unfortified BUA.

First Game

First game was against aforementioned Steve, who was using Early Carthaginian. They invaded. A waterway went down on my left flank and a BUA on the right side of the battlefield, but neither piece of terrain played much part in the battle. I deployed with Pharaoh and the warband in the centre, and the mixed egyptian commands on the wings. Steve had various spear in the centre and Ax(S) backed by Kn(O) on the flanks.

I advanced as rapidly as possible with the mass of warband supported by the Egyptians on the flanks. Steve countered by withdrawing his spear and moving the Ax(S) into the centre.

The warband and the Ax(S) clashed and honours were fairly even in ME terms for the first few bounds but in the end the Wb started to get the worst of it, especially as the Kn(O) started adding their weight. This weakened the flanks though so I started trying to exert some pressure there. This effort was hampered by poor PIPs for the flank commands though (a series of 1s and 2s) so I was never really able to push hard enough. Steve was unable to exploit this though because his two flank generals had committed to the fray in the centre and kept drawing fights against Wb(F) (and indeed against broken Wb(F) in the end) which made it difficult for him to use his PIPs.

The centre command finally broke under the pressure but Steve's left hand command also demoralised by the time last bound was called so it was a hard fought 14-11 draw to Steve.

Second Game

Second game was against John Hickman using Early Achaemenid Persian. Similar deployment for me - waterway on the left flank, BUA towards the right. Some small areas of Rocky Flat around - one of these in front of the BUA would play a part in the battle. As you can see from the next photo (a little fuzzy), I deployed the blade as far to the flank as I could in column, then the Libyans backed by the Sherden, then the chariots, the the bow next to the BUA. The BUA had some Ps(O) and Ax(I) in it.

John had a Saka ally on his far right, then a PIP-dump command of Immortals on the base edge facing the BUA, then a command of Cv(O) and Kn(O), then the rest of the Sparabara, plus six Bts(I) in the waterway.

I advanced the Wb(F) into a column to try and get past the Kn(O) and into the Bw(X), brought the Bw(O) across from next to the BUA to try and deal with the knights and tried to squeeze the Cv(S) into the gap between the Bw(O) in column and a patch of Rocky Flat that John was advancing some Ps into. He redirected two Kn(O) into the front of the Wb(F) column who promptly obliged by killing the Kn(O) on a 6-1. The Wb(F) spent ages wading their way through Ps(O) and LH(I), taking plenty of casualties from the Kn(O) in the mean time. The Bd(F) went zooming across the rear to take on the PS in the rocky flat and protect the flank of the Cv(S), who were making heavy weather of attacking the Cv(O) (and had got very congested).

On the other flank the Bd expanded out and started to hack through the Ps. The Kn(O) broke through in the centre, but Wb(F) now started to peel off and attack them in the rear, killing another one. The Cv(S) sub-general was attacked by a Kn(O) but survived. The Bd got through the Ps line and finally made contact with the Bw(X) and the Sp(I). The Saka got right around the back and sacked the Egyptian baggage.

At this point, focusing on the breakthrough on the left flank and the sub general fighting the Kn(O), I didn't realise that Pharaoh had his rear and flank exposed to a bunch of Saka who had left the sacking of the baggage and sneaked up on him. He duly died and the centre command broke needlessly.

With the baggage gone as well I was only a few ME from the whole army collapsing, but John was looking a bit ropey was well - his Kn and Cv command had just broken as well (cue streams of Persian Ps and Egyptian Bd both streaming out of the Rocky Flat in different directions).

At this moment a critical 6 on the left command's PIPs (helped by the centre command dicing independently) allowed me to exploit the gap with the blade and to finally slam the Bts(S) into the Bts(I). Two Bts(I) and some more Bw(X) went down that turn and in John's next turn shooting from the Bts(S) killed another Bts(I) which was enough to break his army. First game I have ever played with a naval battle.

My casualties were horrendous though, so John salvaged 8 VP to make it 17-8. A hard fought engagement from turn 2 until about 5 minutes before time was called.

Thanks as always to Neil for a well organised and tightly packed event. If numbers go up again next year we will need to put tables in the kitchen as well I think.

 

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