Field of Glory Wargaming at Usk 2010
By now we were almost out of sight of the trailing pack, with a 9 point lead going ito the last round (in a 0-25 scoring system) This luch was a particularly Korean Scampi & Chips, which set up up nicely for the afternoon game - a challenging matchup vs the Britcon Champion Phil and Mr Hammy Hammmmilton .
Our standard tactic of "having better troops than the enemy" would be severely tested as they had the same army as us, Koryo Korean
Pictures of Koreans from my Ancients Photo Directory
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The terrain was largely absent, and you could immediately tell this was to be a serious challenge between two top teams of players, as neither had been bothered to bring a terrain cloth to cover the board.
With skirmish units in paler colours, it was pretty clear that the enemy Koreans had a flank march, almost certainly consisting of one lancer unit and perhaps a unit of LH - and it was just as certain to be on our left flank. Faced with this rather strange possibility, we decided to attack like banshees, trusting to our on-table superiority to carry the day before the flank march arrived.
The enemy Korean army also had ambushed a unit of light foot, who achieved almost nothing and didn't even make it onto the Battle Chronicler maps at all.
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Loot a burning house |
Where the flank march would come on, the enemy looked light in numbers, with one lancer unit vs 2 and 2 mixed Bow/XB and Halberd units to face our deadly Too Kak Foot Guards.
The weighting of our left win had left the middle and right flank a little short of lancers, but having seen this before we were relatively confident that shooting could weaken the enemy and our big foot units could take the hits in combat and survive. Crucially, the enemy Koreans had only 2 generals on table, and one was an IC - so as soon as cohesion losses started to mount, they would struggle to be able to bolster enough units.
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In order to capture, one must let loose |
The Singi Guard lancers advanced behind a line of skirmishers, overly mindful of the possible effects of the 4 handgunners on their morale.
By now we were pushing up all along the line, and there was no sign of the flank marching force to date...
The To Bang Crossbows supported our 4 LH, and inflicted a crippling base and cohesion loss on the rebel LH at the first opportunity - taking them out of the game and opening the entire flank for our forces.
Our Koreans were wrestling with the logistics of how to get through our own skirmish screen as much as anything the enemy was doing on our left. At some stage we would have to take the shooting on our front line troops
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Point at the mulberry tree while cursing the locust tree |
As the Rebel Koreans advanced, one Singi Guard unit took the battle into their own hands, and rashly charged forward against a wall of rebel lancers - but elsewhere our greater numbers were starting to force the rebels to split up their line and aim for separate targets - where we hoped they would be overlapped and cut down piecemeal by mere infantrymen !
Things were getting sweaty on the left, as both cavalry units dared each other to charge through their own skirmishers.
Back in th emiddle, the Loyalist Korean Singi Guard achieved a vital advantage, disrupting their opponents before their weight of numbers could be brought to bear
The Rebel Koreans were being slowly engulfed by our greater amount of on table forces.
The rebels themselves then charged home uncontrollably, dropping back bases to contact our infantry - and therefore doing us a great favour by reducing their at-impact advantages to as few dice as possible. It was numbers vs quality across the line
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Inflict injury on one's self to win the enemy's trust |
But the face-off on the left had been resolved - and with dramatic consequences! With one unit of Loyalist Singi Guard disrupted, the Rebels had charged home, committing a general in the process, hoping that the slender advantage the general provided would allow them to disrupt and fragment our two superior cavalry units at impact (eh???) ! The end result was the death of the Rebel general and no damage to the Loyalists! The Rebels now only had their IC on table... and no sign of the flank march either
The two Loyalist infantry units both survived their initial charges, thanks to the intervention of two of our four generals - an the rebels spread out into combat.
The rest of the Rebels were faring even more badly, as forced into charging both Loyal Singi Gun lancers AND a huge To Bang crossbow unit, they were taking a pasting, dropping cohesion by the moment.
The Rebels were now getting surrounded and outnumbered across the line - and the fearsome Too Kack Infantry were committed as well.
With our army forming a shallow arc, it was now almost impossible for many of the Rebel Singi Guard to break off from combat without clattering into one another. The tide was turning only one way today ....
The To Kak Guards, personally led by a general to turn them into Elite troops, smashed into the enemy mixed, ordinary formations, disrupting both as my lancers ground down their leaderless opponents as well..
The outnumbered rebel cavalry now faced a massive pileup in the middle of the park, and their ever reducing numbers were ground down by our halberdiers and Singi Cavalry.
The To Kak Guards did what only elite troops can, and recorded 7 hits from 8 - smashing the hapless enemy infantry who struggled to record any hits back at all.
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If everything else fails, retreat |
The resulting tests were a catastrophe for the rebels, with both units suffering double-drops and base losses - one routing from combat, th eother routing in response to the first one breaking - both in first round of melee!
.. and as they fled, the To Kak infantry pursued relentlessly with the prize of the baggage - and the levy infantry - in their sights.
Showered by crossbow bolts and chastened in combat, the Guard cavalry in the rebels center started to break and flee.
The entire Rebel left flank was in complete tatters, as Loyalist infantry and cavalry swept forward seeking new targets !
The Loyalist bowmen were fighting a desperate struggle, as they fragmented against the last coherent enemy lancer unit, however the rest of the rebels were in total disarray - the only question was whether the flank march would arrive in time to see their army destroyed utterly, or whether they woudl be too late to witness the carnage
The Too Kak Guardsmen piled forwards, annihilating the poor hapless levy in their race to the enemy camp
Almost nothing was left of the rebel Koreans as the Emperor re-asserted his authority on the Korean peninsular. And a country house hotel in rural Wales.
By now there was almost nothing left to fight as the Loyalist Koreans swarmed forward!
The levy broke - and with it the game was won, 24-1 - with the flank march arriving the following turn
A massive Victory was ours!!
Post Match Summary
As
James Mason, The Emperor of Korea, I am immensely proud of my brave collection
of men, even if on closer inspection many of them appear to be old Essex Han
Chinese rather than proper Koreans.
Admittedly, our plan in this battle was largely one created by our opponents and their decision to flank march with one of just 3 generals. This committed us to a policy of attacking swiftly, and getting as many combats as possible going at once so they would struggle to bolster any troops falling down the attrition ladder.
Yet again the combination of small frontages at impact, rear rank shooting and the support of generals allowed our big blocks of infantry to stand up to lancers - but the decisive punch was very much the spectacular success of the Too Kack Guards who used their pseudo-Elite status to hammer some decidedly average enemies, proving that 4 dice at 4's re-rolling 1's and 2's is better than 6 dice at 4's with no re-rolls. OK, it was quick, but it was only going one way once it started.
As we say in Korea, Even monkeys may fall from trees.
Hammybal's Post Match Analysis
Well,
Hannibal has taken an afternoon off, as he needs to go lie down in a darkened
room to work out what's gone wrong with the world to allow you to win so
comprehensively, and I've been drafted in to comment on the pathetic performance
of your opponents.
And what a shower they were eh? The flank march gambit was a ridiculous admission that they felt incapable of beating you fair and square on the field. But on this table, and with almost no terrain it was bound to be a disaster as you would easily be able to see where it was coming and had a bound to react after it rolled a 9 to arrive (which is possible by rolling a 6 and a 3, or a 5 and a 4, or indeed, a 4 and a 5, and any higher score such as a 5 and a 6, or perhaps two 6's - which happened to me once.....but I digress...) and react accordingly. Even if it had arrived they would only have had 1 or 2 cavalry units there - hardly a game winning advantage as they would only essentially have evened up the fight on that wing, although if the dice had been slightly different, and say, they had rolled 6,5,5,5,6,4,5, in combat against the Too Kack Spearmen, like I did once in a competition in Leeds, oh that was funny... however, I digress...) .
But the biggest mistake must be the insane choice of just three generals, multiplied by sending one of them off table. Really, if Superior cavalry lancers cant deal with a bit of rear rank shooting on their own, what's an IC going to add that 2 TCs wouldn't do much better? I myself have used and IC on occassion, and once I rolled 17 consecutive morale tests, all of which I passed due to the extra +1 that the IC provides - oh, apart from the one really vital test... but I digress...)
I know - because they whined about it to me - that they feel somewhat aggrieved by the loss of the 2 infantry units to the Too Kak Guards. But Elites vs average is a no brainer, especially when the average troops have no way of dealing with cohesion losses as all their generals are either dead, absent or elsewhere.
In fact, committing a general to a lancer on lancer combat in turn 4 of a game where you only have 3 generals - again, madness!
Frankly its astonishing they even managed to get within 9 points of you before this game - they must have had some real luck earlier on in the competition. Fortunaely normal service was resumed here though.
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