Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Historian]

Islamic Persians vs Assyrians

No pretty pictures, just some witty commentary.

First, I must say that Dennis was a perfect gentlemen throughout the game. I was less than gentlemanly, which I blame on my present personal situations, and jerked his chain a bit,

The game did not portend well, I left my list at home, my dice, and measuring sticks. Of course Dennis was happy to provide all.
During deployment, my wife texted me that she found my list, and I asked her to text it to me

Not having played my Islamic Persians in a long time, I used my typical terrain of Brush, Brush, Road, Road. I should have looked more closely at Dennis’s list. About 70% Regular B LMI. His terrain picks were Brush, Brush, Woods, Woods.

My left flank had two Woods, and a Brush. The center had two Brushes on my side, while the remaining Brush was covering Dennis remaining flank.

Compounding this error was my lack of thought in securing some of that terrain with my 36 man LMI B units. Not so Dennis, as his force marches effectively put all the relevant terrain out of my reach, and pinned my army on the base line.

Deployment for me was thus, from left to right 12 man Afghans (ambush), 12 man Afghans (ambush), EHC "Quizelbashi" (Sub), EHC "Quizelbashi" (CIC), LMI, B, 12man LC, 4 man LC, EHC(Sub)"Quizelbashi" , LMI,B, EHC, 12 man LC, EHC(Sub) "Quizelbashi", 4 man LC. Last LC was flanking on the right.

Dennis’s deployment was something like this: (from my left to right) Scads of LMI, 6 man Cav, more scads of LMI, 2 chariot units, 1 chariot general, 1 EHC, 1 HC, 2 more LMI. Force march was several LI and LC units.

At this time I was already primed to surrender. Dennis clearly won on deployment. But the brain farts continued.

One of my little tricks is to give my army Wait orders, then signal to attack on bound 3. I followed this plan, which lead to mandatory advances into the brush secured by Dennis's LMI, some armed with LTS and backed by Bow. My CIC was actually squeezed and forced to charge in a column.

This was when I decided, I was already good and buggered, charge them ALL.

And I proceeded to blow the spots off of the dice.

The first Assyrian LMI, despite having support for enfilade fire, and fighting disordered HC, routed on contact against Persian die roll up 5 and a up 4. The second Assyrian Reg B LMI shook on declaration, and despite the Persian EHC rolling a down 1, was pushed back, and routed a turn later. On the right flank, Dennis had an unusual unit. 24 LMI LTS SH, with a detachment of 24 LMI, B. Another Persian up 5 roll, but still failed to do 1 CPF, but did get a 3-1 burst through, which converted into an Assyrian LC. I also had a 12 man LC unit follow up to charge the now disordered LMI unit pair, and the Assyrians shook! But the minuses involved didn’t quite overcome the number of figure advantage, and the LC had to break off.

4 charges 3 routs, shaking one rear echelon unit. Dennis’s carefully crafted battle plan was scrapped by fate. I then offered to surrender. Dennis refused to accept it declaring I was winning. But the game was over.

He screened an HC and charged my LMI B, which shook and fled. My other LMI B took 2 CPF and also shook. A Persian light Cav was forced off of the board, and my middle command went into retirement. My left flank, after enjoying a rout with no conversions, was stuck for two turns rallying. One of the EHC Units received a flank shot from a chariot, and after 3 turns the Quizelbashi's routed. The Afghans played tag with a 4 man LI unit, and were never really part of the game. My CIC, who’s flank was covered by the now shaken LMI B unit was flanked and shook when the adjacent Quizelbashi was destroyed. My right flank was tired, and each unit was either screened or surrounded. The end result was around 800 -400. A good bloody battle.

By the way, Dennis, can I buy those dice I was using?