Bob asked me for a game of DBM last week so he could try out his new army. Yet another Far Eastern Oriental type army, Chinese Sui. I had not looked at this list before and decided that I would try out Christian Nubian.
The main reason for doing this was Tim has been using this army at the club for the last three years with an almost total lack of success that bordered on the unreal. I wrote the list after having a look at his army list and came up with the following organisation using the DBM list at 400 AP.
03/12.
CHRISTIAN NUBIAN 550 AD - 1500 AD [1175 AD – 1500 AD]
Dry. Ag 1. Rv, H(G), RGo, M, D, BUA.
1 x C-in-C – with horse armour -, Irr Cv (S) @ 19AP – 19 AP
1 x sub-general – with horse armour - Irr Cv (S) @ 19AP – 19 AP
1 x sub-general – on camels - Irr Cm (S) @ 21AP – 21 AP
5 x Court cavalry - with horse amour, Irr Cv (S) @ 9AP – 45 AP
5 x Mounted warriors – Irr Cm (S) @ 11AP – 55 AP
7 x Mounted warriors - Irr LH (O) @ 5AP – 35 AP
4 x Camel scouts - Irr LH (I) @ 3AP – 12 AP
22 x Swordsmen and spearmen - Irr Wb (F) @ 3AP – 66
8 x Archers - Irr Bw (O) @ 4AP – 32 AP
8 x Archers - Irr Ps (O) @ 2AP - 16 AP
6 x Immobile baggage – Irr Bg (O) @ 0 AP – 0 AP
7 x Thorn boma to protect baggage – TF @ 1 AP – 7 AP
Only after 1174 AD:
Bedouin Arab allies:
1 x Arab ally-general - Irr LH (O) @ 10AP – 10 AP
9 x Arab cavalry - Irr LH (O) @ 5AP – 45 AP
3 x Arab camelry – Irr Cm (O) @ 6 AP – 18 AP
75 E/71 EE/35.5 to
Break
Command 1
1 x C-in-C – with horse armour, Irr Cv (S)
22 x Swordsmen and spearmen - Irr Wb (F)
3 x Archers - Irr Ps (O)
26 E/24.5 EE/8.5 D [25%
= 6.5 EE]
Command 2
1 x sub-general – with horse armour, Irr Cv (S)
5 x Court cavalry - with horse amour, Irr Cv (S)
7 x Mounted warriors - Irr LH (O)
8 x Archers - Irr Bw (O)
5 x Archers - Irr Ps (O)
26 E/23.5 EE/8 D [25% =
6 EE]
Command 3
1 x sub-general – on camels - Irr Cm (S)
5 x Mounted warriors – Irr Cm (S)
4 x Camel scouts - Irr LH (I)
10 E/10 EE/4 D [25% = 3
EE]
Command 4
Bedouin Arab allies:
1 x Arab ally-general - Irr LH (O)
9 x Arab cavalry - Irr LH (O)
3 x Arab camelry – Irr Cm (O)
13 E/13 EE/5 D [25% = 4
EE]
The idea of this army design is to give you three
mounted commands to concentrate your attack using its mobility whilst the CinC
keeps the foot under control out of harm’s way unless you decide you want to
attack. I would also DBE all of the warband to half the number of elements that
need to be controlled if things get out of hand. The TF keeps enemy mounted
honest and the baggage safe.
Terrain options:- the invader only gets to
choose a Rv or Rd in phase 1 as you don’t have any H[S], in phase 3 they only
get to choose M, D, Rgo or H[G] as theres no H [S].
Sods law was that I turned out as the invader so my ideas for terrain had to be rethought.
Bobs army consisted of three commands with Reg generals to maximise his command control.
His commands were organised as follows:
CinC All mounted mixed Kn, Cv and LH 13/13/5 [25%=4]
Sub 1 All mounted mix Kn, Cv and LH 13/13/5 [25%=4]
Sub 3 All infantry mixed Bw X/O, Bw O and Ps 29/28/9.5 [25%=7]
Army 55/54/27
I think his OOB wasnt the best organised as it meant that he could not afford to lose that many mounted troops from each command before they risked breaking. I think he might have been better served splitting the infantry across at least two commands allowing him to have higher break points. Maybe even sharing out the Bw X/O in the sub generals commands and the Bw O with the CinC along with the Ps to give him a command at least able to try and contest RGo.
Had I placed my warband opposite his infantry command it would have exposed it to being defeated in detail before his was able to bring over the rest of his army to support it. If he lost this large infantry command his army broke irrespective of what else was happening to the other commands.
The terrain placement was not that helpful to Bob who for some reason decided to place most of his RGo along the centre line rather than opting to use it as a flank guard to narrow his frontage and force me to attack where he could best use his knights against my warbands.
His deployment was also strange with some of his mounted troops inside the RGo which meant he had to spend lots of PIPs extricating them from potential trouble before my warbands managed to reach them.
I rolled the dice and the ally was reliable and I tried to filter it round the end of his line before he had the chance to close the gap. I pushed the Camel S forward to face his knights in the gap opposite them and rush my warband into his side of the table to successfully occupy the RGo he thoughtfully placed along the centre line for me.
After some inconsequential movement my Cm hit his knights and killed one of them but them a succession of low combat rolls meant that I was only one element away from this command from breaking. I managed to kill the general from his infantry command which meant that his ability to move and react quickly was halved and relied upon his allocating a high PIP dice every turn to enable him to do anything.
My warband acted as a threat in being sitting opposite his mounted forces and tieing most of them down and preventing them from moving across to counter the camelry and light horse opposite his archers.
We played at a leisurely pace and had a fun game stretching over 5 hours. When Bob called time I had lost one command whilst he was one element away from losing his smaller sub generals command. I could not see us getting a result in this game for at least another hour as by them I would have opted to play defensively with the idea of not losing too heavily.
The end score was 6-4 to Bob which equates to 18-14 if using the BHGS scoring system.
All in all I had a fun time trying out a totally new army. I am still very doubtful if there is a good army to be found in this list at 400 AP as its basically all warband with mixed mounted consisting of some cavalry, camelry and light horse with the warband being the main strike force reliant on either fighting through rough going and trying to avoid an enemy that has elephants or knights.
Below is a series of pictures taking through the course of the game.
