The reason I've been doing some work on terrain is that the MNG is going almost en masse* to take part in a DBA competition in Coventry. Unlike the previous one I did last year (my one and only DBA competition experience) in which the armies and terrain were provided, for this one you have to take your own army and scenery pieces. The twist with this tournament is that you swap your army with that of your opponent on alternate rounds, and that your army is fixed by what you decide in the first round, so no dismounting or whatever.
I was thinking of taking my Hussites, because they're nice and colourful, but Phil said everyone will hate me, so I looked at one of my other options. I couldn't decide between some thing from the jungle, like the Khmer, or a hill country army like the Armenians or something a bit more conventional like my Medieval Germans. The Khmer have been mercurial as an army, and haven't seen the table for nearly two years. They're heavy on solid auxilia with a couple of elephants and my early experiences with them weren't great. The Armenians, on the other hand, are a good solid army with spears and knights, but little light stuff to guard the flanks. The Germans are a bit of an all rounder. My preference is probably to use the Khmer because, well, they have an elephant mounted bolt shooter and units with umbrellas, but not if they're going to be a complete no hoper. Any how, it was round to Phil's this week for some trial games.
My first game was against Chris K with his Tibetans which now seem to be his go-to army.
I ended up attacking when I'd come prepared to defend, but no matter. This photo is a turn or two in, so my deployment is slowly unfolding as I move my elephants out to the right to get at the knights on the end of Chris' line. I'm intending to cover my flanks with cavalry and fast auxilia. I need to delay the onslaught in the centre of the table as long as I can, as those spears will make a real mess of my auxilia, solid or not. To that end my elephant bolt shooter on the left is required to make units recoil, so making Chris burn PIPs to get in a position to attack. In his rear Chris is trying to redeploy his cavalry/knight reserve to deal with the elephant threat.
My bolt shooter has started to disrupt the end of the Tibetan spear line, and my elephants have got stuck in. This is a real gamble as the white umbrella guy is my general, and I'm giving up an over lap on my left. He's fighting cavalry too, so that gives me a slight advantage in the Combat Factor but no quick kill. The other opposition is knights which I do quick kill, and I have an overlap on my right against them.
Here's a close up on the combat, because my elephants are colourful and have umbrellas. Did I mention that?
The gamble pays off, with a quick kill on the end of the line. This then gives me an overlap and enabled me to double the cavalry element.
The next couple of turns sees some fancy foot work by me after Chris pinned my elephant General with some spears and got in a cavalry overlap. I held on and then got some auxilia in for a flank attack. I was also able to swap my elephant and cavalry over on a knight element coming in top left and got a double overlap using fast auxilia. That gave me another two kills to come out a 4-0 winner.
It was a bit of a precarious game, regardless of the result. Bit like winning a down hill bike race with no brakes. The artillery did its job slowing the centre advance, and I was able to deliver concentrated force on the right whilst Phil tried to pull his reserves across. The fragmented nature of what he was trying to do meant he needed more PIPS than he got, and I was able to get the matchups I needed.
Very satisfactory start to the evening.
We then swapped round. I moved to play Phil, again with the Khmer, as I wanted to try them against someone who really does know DBA and has a lot more experience.
Phil's chosen army was Massagetae (I/43) with Indian Mountain allies (II/2). I've played them before, several years ago. The allies choice enables you to bolster what is a fairly lightweight horse army (mostly Cv & LH) with an elephant and some fast pike.
Phil hasn't had a lot of luck with the elephant in this army, as it seems to keep on dying. My battle plan (this picture is from the end of the game, the only one I took) was to refuse my left mostly, and then encircle Phil's left with my right. As it turned out I won the game on the left through some luck and my bolt shooter. I dithered terribly on my right, as I had a mind blank about aligning elements, and was concerned that my deployment that ran right up to the table edge would end up having negative effects. As it was, obviously, Phil would have slid and aligned with me, trapping his light horse where I wanted them. As it was, having suffered a scare and lost two Psiloi, I trapped his cavalry General with my elephant General and killed him outright, winning out 5:2.
I don't think Phil was happy, as everything he tried fell apart and I refused to get stuck in until I had my stuff where I needed it - something I think I've learned playing so many DBA games over the last two years. I'm still aggressive, but not as impetuous as previously. That means I'm not dropping Phil easy wins in his lap anymore. As he pointed out, I won't attack under sub optimal circumstances (not entirely true, but if I'm sacrificing something or making a Hail Mary then there needs to be a point to it) and I'm still never taking elephants into Bad Going to fight elements where I'm giving away a -2 modifier to elements that can quick kill them.
Anyhow, I'd won two battles with the Khmer, which was promising, neither of which was due to outrageous luck, so may be they're a good choice. Although I never defended with them, so that's something to think about.
For the last game we swapped round again and I played Tim, who'd been using by Cilician Armenians. I chose to take him on with my Medieval Germans so I could use my new tent.
I did end up defending in this game, so not only did the new tent come out, but also my freshly made Ploughed fields and a Gentle Hill. For this game I also made use of a road to reduce the arrival options for my opponent.
The Armenians have no troop types that can deploy in the 2-4 BW zone on either flank, which makes it a tight fit, so he set up some knights to come round the flank on an angle. This photo is after my first move, and I've swung some knights out on my right to give me more width.
As predicted he started to go out wide on both flanks.
My plan was to hold up Tim's right hand end of the line with some 7Hd and punch a hole through with my pikes, whilst on the right I tried to notch up some quick kills on the spears with my knights. Here I'm relying on the double banked 6Kn, who are only giving away -1 on the dice roll, and the right hand end of the line where I have an overlap, again meaning I'm only -1 down. It is a fairly desperate tactic, and maybe I should have committed my Knight General to the assault. If you're gambling you should probably go all in.
A couple of turns on, and the Teutonic knights have been killed by being flanked by a spear unit pushed into the gap. In turn I killed them by committing my General and outscoring what was then a flanked and isolated element. However it was worth doing from Tim's point of view, as the 6Kn are worth two dead elements, so currently things are 3:2 in his favour.
Next turn Tim gets a flank attack in again on my knights, and an overlap at the other end. I can't kill anything else, so Tim runs out a winner 5:2.
Not much of that went well, but I'm delighted to see the Armenians pick up a win. They're a tough little army, and I played right into their strengths. Trying to ram the 6Kn through the middle is a high risk strategy, and I hadn't thought the rest of it through, really. The left flank mostly did what I wanted, but I couldn't get the cutting edge to cut.
We have another "practice" day in a couple of weeks, and I think the Germans are dropped from the list for sure. I really need to run the Khmer against someone who isn't part of our regular group to see if there are any tricks I'm missing with them.
If they come unstuck, then the Armenians will do nicely.
*Tim can't come.
Interesting armies! But Phil's comment anent your Hussite Army I would have been tempted to treat as a recommendation....
ReplyDeleteChris did say that he thinks Phil said that because he doesn't want to fight it.
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