Milan Game 4
This saw me up against Paolo, as the hand-assisted draw mechanism contrived to keep all the Brits apart (and maybe, just at a guess, give Paolo a chance of revenge for my victory at Cannes !)
The Enemy this time were Ch'in Chinese - a classic 2 list DBM wargames army list choice. I guessed on the spear-heavy list (again, not sure why..?) and partly for this reason, partly because I had yet to use it, and partly because I wasn't bringing the damn boats all the way to Milan on a plane and not using them at least once I went for my List 2
A large sea hoped to squeeze the Chinese inland - or allow room for my boats to come into play again - and an orchard, along with some attacker-positioned rough going created a narrow battlefield which would hopefully create flanks which my chariotry and blades could exploit. When the Ch'in dished out their two large warband commands the game got a little bit harder however !
The warband being on table forced me into deploying my main forces as far back as possible, and throwing out a screen of chariots, as the boats pushed on along the waterway. The only real opportunity seemed to be the large block of bowmen, who formed the third command together with the irregular Ch'in chariots. They were sat handily in a patch of rough going! Play it again Sam!
This army list however was put together somewhat better for such an assault, with a command of fast blades and a horde of Ps (O), and I quickly decided that this was an opportunity to claim back some of the luck which had deserted me in the previous game, and win some 3vs3 combats quite quickly. With bowmen targeting the chariots, and blades and psiloi rushing the bow, the rest of the Ch'in army shrugged, and charged forwards!
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Flanks - What Flanks! We are head-hunting warband nutters! We don't Care ! |
This time the bowmen obliged, and exploded on contact with my bloodthirsty blades - the mounted command was now in tatters, and the chariot knights were forced into a last-ditch (but partially successful) suicide assault on the Egyptian bowmen.
With his command gone, the chariot general was fighting a lone battle to protect the flanks of the warband - and doing so quite successfully, even when the central warband block fragmented in a largely impetuous assault against a wall of bowmen.
The Ch'in advance was getting bogged down as the Egyptians nibbled away at the flanks with chariots and naval gunnery, but there was very little table left for the Egyptian infantry to hide on.
With their backs to the orchards, and cramped beyond belief the Egyptian foot and mounted combined to mount a last savage defence. One Egyptian command fell beneath the spears of the Chinese madmen whipped into a frenzy by their bloothirsty leader, but it was not to be enough as the Egyptian returned victorious from the flank and finally overwhelmed the last remnants of the knight command to fall like erm, desert eagles (?) onto the Ch'in forces, hitting them from the flank and rear. At the last gasp, the Ch'in crumbled only a short, cruel distance from the finish line of Egyptian casualties! 9-1 to the boys from the Desert!
Tactical Post Match Analysis: Against the Ch'in the bow/knight command was the only real weak link - and I made sure to hit it hard, early - and most importantly - with lucky first round combat dice! The rest of the game then was a retreat in front of an unstoppable wall of warband whilst I nibbled away at the edges and attempted to disrupt their formation - almost to delay the inevitable. The advantage I theoretically gained by nailing the bowmen so early was largely negated by both the dogged resistance of the knight general and a couple of other "held" elements and my relative lack of any troops that could reasonably attack the warband - even in the flank! Finally it all came down to the wire, and could have gone either way. But it went mine, which was nice.
