A Hard Fought Victory Over Siam
Bob McD at Essex Warriors wanted to try out a new army configuration and cheekily asked me to use my Arab-Indians. I had lent them to him for a game back in Oct 2014 [see that blog entry]
I had never used them before so didn't really have much memory of the list I wrote back in 2014 as a design exercise. My list was based on the DBMM version.
3/38 Arab Indian [MM List] 901 AD – 1206 AD [V3]
Dry Ag 1. W, Rv, Wd, E, RGo, D or G, Rd, BUA
[S, Rv, Wd, E, RF, D or G, Rd, BUAf, F]
Command 1
1 x Ghulam CinC Reg Cv S 30 AP
4 x Arab archers Irr Bw O 16 AP
8 x Hindu archers Irr Bw I 24 AP
4 x Hindu blades Irr Bd F 20 AP
4 x Hindu javelinmen Irr Ps S 12 AP
1 x Elephant Irr El O 16 AP
2 x Camp followers Irr Hd O 2 AP
24 E/21 EE/7 D [120 AP] [25%=5.5 EE]
Command 2
1 x Ghulam sub general Reg Cv S 30 AP
3 x Khurosanian cavalry Irr Cv S 27 AP
4 x Arab cavalry Irr Cv O 28 AP
4 x Sindi cavalry Irr Cv I 20 AP
8 x Arab infantry Irr Sp I 24 AP
4 x Arab archers Irr Ps O 8 AP [may support Arab infantry]
1 x Hindu archers Irr Bw I 3 AP
25 E/23 EE/8 D [140 AP] [25%=6 EE]
Command 3
1 x Ghulam sub general Reg Cv S 30 AP
3 x Khurosanian cavalry Irr Cv S 27 AP
4 x Arab cavalry Irr Cv O 28 AP
4 x Sindi cavalry Irr Cv I 20 AP
8 x Arab infantry Irr Sp I 24 AP
4 x Arab archers Irr Ps O 8 AP [may support Arab infantry]
1 x Hindu archers Irr Bw I 3 AP
25 E/23 EE/8 D [140 AP] [25%=6 EE]
Army Baggage
6 x Baggage Irr Bg I 0 AP
Army [400 AP]
74 E/67 EE/33.5 EE to break
After looking at the army list for the Siamese I had a sinking feeling that my game will be over very quickly due to Bob's army being made up of Irr Wb F and El O which I thought was a huge mismatch. After rolling for Aggression I ended up as the defender and placed three areas of 1 FE Boggy RGo. Bob elected to place a 1.5 FE Wood which fell in his central sector and nicely split the table into two halves for him and would have made it very difficult for me to redeploy. Because I was defender I had to deploy first and this allowed Bob to get the perfect match ups with each of his four commands.
Bob's army was organised as follows:
C1 - 22 E/22 EE/8D [25%=5.5 EE]
C2 - 22 E/22 EE/8 D [25%=5.5 EE]
C3 - 17 E/14 EE/5 D [25%=3.5 EE] Ally 1
C4 - 12 E/10.5 EE/3.5 D [25%=3 EE] Ally 2
Army - 73 E/68.5 EE/34.5 B
After much slow advancing Bob managed to get into contact with my left flank - the CinC and was slowly ruining the infantry command of mostly Irr Bw I, Irr Bw O, Irr Bd F and the sole Irr El O. Luckily before he had managed to get into contact I had killed a single Irr Wb F to my rather unlucky bowfire and the elephant took out a pair of Irr Wb F. I didn't realise it but those few casualties would become crucial at the end. On the opposite flank I charged my Irr Sp I into his warband and after recoiling the first combat managed to kill four elements whilst my mounted arm managed to hold on against his supporting elephants. His micro ally command 4 became split up and due to a poor PiP dice roll ended up charging forward against my central commands spearwall. With another round of combats Bob broke my CinC's command in the same bound as I broke his CinC's command. This meant that Bob was nine elements away from breaking whilst I was ten and a half elements away from breaking. In my bound I threw a pair of Cavalry onto the end of his elephant line which consisted of the two elephants from his micro command 4. I then threw my spearwall onto his disorganised warband getting a double overlap on one element and a single overlap on the adjacent one. All I needed to do was win the Cv v El combat roll to kill his end elephant and by doing this would also take out that commands elephant general. Fortunately for me I rolled higher despite Bob having 1 CF factor higher than me. This left me needing another one and a half elements to break this command and with these the Siamese army. This time my luck didn't fail me and I killed the two warband to break the command and with it the army. As my spears were irregular I had to follow up which meant I had another double overlap on the other warband from this command and I also killed another two of these. We completed the remaining combats to get the final casualty count to get the final score. The game then finished with me winning 7 - 3 which when taking into account the % losses [37.31% - 100% = 62.69%] worked out as 23 - 9 VP BHGS score.
I am not sure if I would rearrange the command structure in light of this game but this was probably one of the hardest matchup I could have hoped to get so was quite pleased to have survived long enough to snatch victory at the end. The lack of terrain for my archers was one of the hardest issues I had unless I had elected just to sit back on the left flank and give Bob the game initiative every move. It might have been easier for me had I swopped the Sindi Irr Cv I out of the sub generals commands with the Irr Bw I Indian archers in the CinC's command to give all three commands some archery options.
Below are the pictures I took during the course of the game.
