The only upside for my Sarmatians was that they won the pre-battle phase. Oh, and some incredibly lucky dice rolls -"We're fighting elephants, are fragmented, have lost 2 of our 4 bases, seen our neighbours break and our rear support has just engaged in its own combat? Pahhh, we don't care!"
*******Newsflash: 1 BG of light horse were last seen fleeing across North Africa, closely pursued by the Carthaginian cavalry they had been taunting.
The other BG of light horse had turned around part-way on the trip and had rejoined the army as it marched into India.*******
OK, so what were the BSBoBSMoBSHwLSPT facing?
Lots of medium foot archers - check
A fair number of nelliephants - check
Chariots - no, none of those
Some crap cavalry - check
Battle wagons - "errr, hang on a minute - where did those come from? 3 BGs of them on Gordon's left flank as the final tranche! You have got to be kidding?!?!?!"
I must admit that the battle wagons totally threw me and I right-royally messed up from that point onwards.
What I probably should have done:
- Moved my skirmishers around to concentrate their fire on the battle wagons
- Moved the BSBoBSMoBSHwLSPT up behind the skirmishers and turned it ready to break through any gaps created in the wall of battle wagons into the rear area of the Indians
- Withdraw my left wing back towards my camp to guard my flank-was-rear
What I did:
- Decided to move the BSBoBSMoBSHwLSPT across towards my left where it would be facing the MF archers and nelliephants.
- Errmmmm.....
- ......that's it
Oh well, we live and learn. I knew this would be a difficult tie for my cavalry-heavy army and succeeded in wrecking any chance I might have had through my own idiocy.
My other two tournament matches are now lined up:
Monday 20 Feb - vs Seb's Qin Chinese
Monday 27 Feb - vs Madaxeman Tim's Western Han Chinese
Hopefully my Sarmatians will give a better account of themselves in these two battles.
If you are unlucky, and I am blase enough, I might post some pics tomorrow night.
Did the Indians have battle wagons? I don't remember them in the army lists!
ReplyDeleteUnlucky Tamsin.
I'd completely missed it, but it's there in the optional troops "Replace elephants and/or chariots by bullock or camel carts - BWs, poor, undrilled, bow, 11/base in 2s, 0-6 permitted"
DeleteBattle wagons!? For ancients? That´s a new one on me. The 15th cent is full of em and the romans used them a couple of times but Indians!?.Any pics?
ReplyDeleteCheers
paul
Sneaky Indian's, just shows you need to know the enermies list as much as your own. He won't be able to surprise anyone else with them though
ReplyDeleteIan
You've taken the disaster well.....
ReplyDeleteSorry about your defeat, better luck next time... Oh, wait, no, that could be disastrous for me.
ReplyDelete@Paul - "bullock or camel carts" loaded with archers. The only downside to them is that they have to pass a CMT just to move (which could have helped me quite nicely as a couple of them failed CMTs which opened a small gap - shame I didn't have cavalry in place to storm through)
ReplyDelete@Ian - that was their last match in the first round of the tournament, and it's quite possible that they won't go through to round 2. Even if they did, I think mine is the only cavalry-heavy army in the tournament, so they probably won't appear again.
@Fran - I believe that there were more "fecks" from me last night than in your blog post this morning!
@Seb - thanks; thanks; *evil grin* ;)