"Derby" AAR 3: A Dust Up in the Delta

Those of you have been paying attention will have worked out that this was my least enjoyable game of the tournament.

I was facing an Old Kingdom Egyptian army - lots and lots of shooty medium foot. Rich's army was composed as follows:

1 x Inspired Commander, 3 x Troop Commander
2 x 8 Nubian Archers (MF, Superior, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow)
6 x 6 Archers (MF, Average, Drilled, Unprotected, Bow)
3 x 8 Archers (MF, Average, Drilled, Unprotected, Bow)
1 x 8 Conscript Spear (MF, Poor, Undrilled, Protected, Light Spear)
1 x 6 Bedouin Slingers (LF, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Sling)
1 x 6 "Elite" Close Fighters (HF, Superior, Drilled, Protected, Heavy Weapon)
2 x 6 Close Fighters (MF, Average, Drilled, Protected, Swordsmen)

I've just run this list through the army generator spreadsheet, and found it comes out as 833 points. I've double-checked against my photos and the list above is correct. My suspicion is that Rich may have submitted the list with just 2 Troop Commanders and accidentally (*cough*) deployed 3 during the games.

Rich won initiative and selected Developed terrain. I made a bit of a screw-up here - I wasn't really awake and forgot that I could have selected 2 "open" pieces which might have prevented some of his terrain falling where it did. Unfortunately for me, most of it fell into his half of the table.

Given that he was able to deploy his archers almost wall-to-wall across the table, I would have to commit some troops to a delaying action on one wing to prevent him from enveloping my army, whilst committing the rest of my army to advancing on one wing and hope that they didn't get shot up too badly on the way in. Again, this was where not being fully awake didn't help as I would need to waste some time repositioning my main line on the way in. Stupidly, I'd deployed my skirmishers over towards my right.so they wouldn't be able to provide much of a screen for my main thrust.

My deployment - superior troops in the centre of the main line.

Egyptian right wing

Egyptian centre-right

Egyptian centre - the 2 units to the side of the village are the Nubians

Egyptian left wing

I definitely committed too many units for the right wing delaying action....

....and stupidly kept advancing with them

The main thrust crawling gradually toward the Egyptian right wing and centre-right. If I could survive the shooting going in, the Egyptians would be mincemeat at impact and in the melee phases.

Over on my right wing, the Egyptians are concentrating their shooting on just a few units.

My superior troops massing to take on the Egyptian centre-right. Rich seemed to have 3 different-coloured sets of home made measuring sticks - red, green and yellow. I suspect that one was with short inches, one with normal inches and one with long inches, to be used according to which would benefit him most at the time.

If only I had hung back on my right wing, and not closed in....

Almost there! Notice the two bases on the end of Rich's right-most archers, slightly ahead of the rest. In my previous move I'd moved exactly 4" forward which put me in base contact with them when they should have been just short. Rich threw a tantrum, so I moved them back to just outside contact. From the pics it is now clear that those 2 bases must have got knocked forward slightly, perhaps when he was checking ranges for shooting. He threw a couple more tantrums during that turn and the one after.

It seems I stopped taking pics at this point. Over on my right wing, one of my blocking units had been broken from shooting; one had charged in against the Nubians in the field and were broken by his close fighters flank charging them (I can't find pics that show it clearly, but I suspect it wasn't a valid flank charge - I don't think he had a base which was fully behind my front but can't be entirely certain. However, at that point I'd lost the will to live from all the tantrums and let it go); another unit had been shot to fragmented and my chariots had lost 2 bases to shooting.

Unfortunately we ran out of time just before my turn. If we had been able to play on, my left wing was about to charge in and destroy his right and centre, which would probably have won me the game. I suspect that all the tantrums were to deliberately waste time to prevent me getting onto that last turn.


Lessons Learned

1. Avoid playing against him again if I can.
2. Double check the terrain options - if I'd remembered the open terrain pieces, I might have blocked some of his pieces from going down.
3. I should have deployed more to the left of the table, and should have had my skirmishers over to that side
4. A blocking force is just that. It doesn't need to be as big as I made it and it doesn't advance into combat until it has to.
5. Against shooty armies, having an IC would be really helpful.

Edit to add:

As you will know from my previous AARs, I really don't mind losing (even when it's a 25-0 wipeout). What I do dislike is losing to someone who appears to have cheated and thrown tantrums near the end to waste time in order to prevent me getting into contact and possibly winning.