The Sicilians:.......Part IV
It was early on a bright and sunny Sunday morning. London in April had always been one of the Don's favourite times and places. Some of his greatest triumphs had been under exactly these conditions. Unfortunately however, this was Epsom, barely inside the M25, in the middle of suburban McDriveThru on the Multiplex at the Retail Park territory - and the breakfast was definitely not what you would expect at the Ritz. In fact it was toast - pure and simple, with no fried eggs left to make the sausage sandwich anything other than just that - a sausage sandwich.
The omens were not good. What would the new day bring?
Indians. Graeco-Indians to be precise. Not exactly ideal munching fodder for the Siciliote knights I'll grant you. But surely there'll be a way around them? If hardly any terrain goes down, there'll be some flanks, and we can slip round them, open up the violin cases, and bada-bing, there you go?
Surely.......?
So my son, this is what we in Sicily call "setting your stall out"
Unfortunately the Graeco-Indians had not read the script, and proceeded to deploy an impenetrable wall of mixed Pike and Bw (X) in a gap between 2 terrain features, supported on the more exposed (hah!) flank by lots of Bw (I). The only even vaguely assailable elements were a mixed bag of Ax (X) and Ax (S) nestled between 2 woods on the far left.
Close-up of the wall of death.
The Norman foot march to face their fate
In this situation, The Don had 2 choices. Sit back and do nowt for 3.5 hours, or have a go to whatever he could. Unwisely, he chose the latter. Seeing only 2 real opportunities, he grasped for them both. On the left he could throw the spears at the Auxilia command, hopefully getting good pips and making it past the Wall of Death before it could react, and butcher the Ax (X) with bowfire, having some argy-bargy with the spears, before delivering the coup-de-grace personally. On the right he could hold back both DiNiro and Pacino's commands, and advance his 16 Bw (I), supported by LH, and knock lumps out of the opposing 10 Bw (O).
As the Norman spearmen marched onwards, a nasty surprise was awaiting them. Hidden in some bushes over by the far flank was a group of Indian Psiloi - who expended huge amounts of pips and swung round in a huge arc to threaten the spearmen's flank. They were now seemingly trapped in a pocket - until the Sicilian's own psiloi, hidden in another wood (inside their own deployment area) came rushing up and to the rescue !
The Game Develops - And not to my liking
Soon the Wall of Death was being drawn slowly out of position (but into a position where it could kill loads of my troops....) and the spears and Bw (X) were closing in on the massed Ax (X) - They were In Range !! They Shoot !!!! They Inflict Bugger All Casualties !!!!! Oh Dear !!!!!
Just to make things better, after some initial success, the Psiloi waited (as they always do) until they had secured some flank advantages and additional overlaps - and then rolled some 1's and 2's and got creamed. Now it was a case of survival, and hope for good combat pips.
Not usually a good plan - and not this time either......
Before.......and after...
The inevitable happened - the CinC's command died, almost to a man, and Brando himself was left retreating furiously, being pursued by the now impetuous auxilia command - plus a good few of the pikemen. Suddenly the game plan of bringing some of the knights up to harass any exposed flanks of the fragmenting Pk/Bw line looked rather weak. Reverse gear was put into effect across the table, and as the clock ticked slowly down, time ran out - but not for the Knights!
The End Game - a failed "Sicilian Gambit
A major success - we had avoided total catastrophe !
2-8
