Field of Glory Renaissance in The Deepest Deep South - 2010

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Riding high, and thats not a reference to the surreal High School Rodeo either. Bring on The Southern States Greatest Ever Wargamer ("TSSGEW")!

Game 3 was a top of the table clash against The Ghengis of Georgia, The Atilla of Alabama, The Chingiz of the Carolinas, the Temujin of somewhere beginning with T in Alabama (probably), the Monke Khan of the Mississippi. What a mouthwatering clash was in prospect as a seasoned expert of the masteries of the Light Horse and shooty cavalry would end up battling for supremacy with a Johnny Come Lately Muppet from The Old Country. A classic clash of cultures.... and a game of 2 identical armies. only luck would surely separate us...?

Pictures of Turks from my Ancients Photo Directory

My opponents list was almost a mirror image of my own but you need to click here to see what that looks like . With no-one really wanting terrain, there ended up being only marginally present terrain on table, with just 2 smallish patchs of rough on the edges.

Realising both armies were near mirror images, and that my opponent clearly knew what he was doing my plan was to strike quickly, not giving the Khazars time respond before we moved into a luck-fest. By massing my army on one wing I was prepared to accept the odd lost unit on one flank if it allowed me to put overwhelming weight of numbers into the mixer I hoped to create on my right.

A judicious deployment order allowed me to throw fully four units of light horse - including a hopefully decisive lancer unit - against just two. My own cavalry would try to move up to occupy the Khazar cavalry supporting their outnumbered LH.

In my center a solid block of cavalry faced off the more fragmented enemy - they were clearly deployed to wait for the game to develop before committing themselves, which would allow the greater competence of their general to take effect - but my plan anticipated this by planning a mad rush forward, hoping that the game would be as good as over before the enemy had a chance to react fully or do anything clever whatsoever.

The Seljuk light horse wing descended on the hapless Khazars like lightnng from the heavens striking the only tree on the wide and empty steppe...

The bemused Khazars were slowly moving forward as the onrushing juggernaught of seljuk cavalry swept towards them, in a maneuver designed to puzzle anyone who believed that tricksy maneuvering was a part of the Seljuk military canon.

On my far left, 2 units of LH were heading off to play a game of tag with three units of Khazar cavalry, as the rest of the Seljuk Ghilmen moved up to join the main line of battle

The Khazars and Seljuks exchanged shots - and despite throwing out a hailstorm of arrows sufficient to blot out the artificial light of the Hattiesville Community Hall shining down from above, the Seljuks inflicted no losses on their opponents. The more accurate Khazars however managed to disrupt the Seljuk Bedouin lancers - depsite the presence of a supporting general. The cutting edge of the Seljuk Scimitar has been slightly dulled, but the blade was still surely sufficiently heavy to slice clean through the Khazars flimsy 2-unit shield?

The Seljuks swarmed forward, splitting the Khazars shooting whilst unleashing another incredible hail of arrow shafts ! Which yet again failed to cause any damage to the increasingly bullet proof Khazar Light Horsemen

In the middle the Seljuk tactics were confounding their opponents. The Khazars oh-so-clever tactic of deploying a LH unit in the middle of their line was starting to look like rank foolishness as a tidal wave of much heavier cavalry swept towards them, threatening to turn the LH into little more than a 2 attrition point weak spot in the Khazar battleline. Yee-hah!

Back to the uneven shooting match on the right. Yet another barrage of arrows was unleashed by the Seljuk multitude - to no discernable effect. The Khazars replied with two well placed shots, which fragmented the unwilling and unreliable Bedouin

Over on the left, the Khazar cavalry were thinking about peeling off to join the fray in the middle, so seeing another chance to remove the skill from the game I carefully initiated a Light Horse Lottery! And as if to prove the brilliance of my tactic of abdicating responsibility to the dice, the Khazars lost cohesion and bases at impact! Surely the depleted LH wuld soon be swept away???

With the Bedouin LH now essentially entirely useless, and with the main batle lines about to clash in the distance my own Lh were now reduced to the role of filler, additional units I could not afford to lose as the battle was decided elsewhere. Accordingly, as the Khazar cavalry finally came int0 play, they dispersed like so many grains of pollen as the sping winds sweep across the long, long grass of the high steppes of Seljukia. The Bedouin were as good as dead anyway, and so it proved as they quickly broke..

The left was proving much better - half the Khazar LH were destroyed by the overly aggressive Seljuk LH bowmen, and at least this lot of Bedouin were doing better too. One unit to the good on my left, and even if the Khazars committed their cavalry unit to evening the score, it would take one of their capital units out of the main fray - a good exchange ... but there was also a good chance my now oponnentless LH unit could return and help the Bedouis crush the Khazars first anyway.

Even as my LH fled on the right (and the Bedouin routed), they still had some advantage in numbers - it would be difficult for the Khazars to leave them alone and unattended - another capital Ghilman unit taken out of the decisive part of the game board!

Whilst meddling around had been going on in the flanks, the two main lines were getting closer. Over on the left however a bit of a Seljuk disaster was swiftly unfolding, as a Ghilman unit had opted to take on a lone unit of Khazar lancers in another attempt to instigate a lottery scenario - and found themsleves obliterated and fragmented, two bases down after only the first round of impact and melee. That wasn't supposed to happen - well at least not that quickly. The Khazar LH were no longer a weak point, they were marauding through a huge hole in my lines!

But this was a brilliant development! The cautious Khazars decided not to charge in with their understrength line of Ghilmen and Lancers - but one unit of Lancers failed to receieve the order from the Khagan, and initiated their own unilateral charge! With 2 full units of Ghilmen waiting to receive them, one led by a Seljuk Prince, the lancers faced 3 full rounds of combat - 2 at a massive disadvantage in numbers - before any of their colleagues would be able to move a muscle to help them. Ouch...

erm, well, maybe not.. The Khazar lancers maanged to win both combats at impact, caused a base loss to both of the Seljuk Ghilmen units and also disrupted both of them in one rather spectacular impact. The next round of combat would be at evens, not at a 2:1 advantage to the Seljuks. Ouch indeed....but evens is still evens ..

Not according to the Lancers. Despite receieving 3 hits, they still beat the left hand unit of Seljuk Ghilmen in the resulting melee removing yet another base in the process and fragmenting them. Note the rather contemptuous Khazar cavalry on the right, realising the Seljuk Ghilmen are already a spent force and turning away to take on another foe elsewhere.

In a sequence of events which appears to be hard to follow, the left hand unit of Seljuk Ghilmen then broke, fragmenting the one on the right too. The Seljuk line, plan and hope of winning the batle were all now being dispersed to the 4 winds by one unit of unsupported lancers.

It was a total dice-inflicted catastrophe. My plan to trust to luck was backfiring spectacularly

Khazars swept round the end of my rapidly disintegrating line, and the Light Foot bowmen fled in abject terror as a tidal wave of horsemen attempted to hunt them down as if it were a sporting outing in the Great Khans hunting grounds

Even the Khazar Filler Infantry were getting into the act as acres of open space opened up before them and they made a lumbering rush for the Seljuk Endzone.

The dice were feeling somewhat guilty, and with no room left to do anything else aside from trying to salvage the odd point, the Seljuk cavalry mounted a couple of last gasp charges to try and bring at least one Khazar unit to the ground before the gaping flanks and holes in the line caught up with them. Initially things went well, with base losses and disruption among the Khazar ranks.

The main battle line was now only a dim memory - one round of decent combat was all the dice looked willing to allow me and as the game descended into an early Benny Hill Phase, the Khazar cavalry fought back despite their disruption and loss of bases.

Short of sensible options, the Seljuk LH who's rubbish shooting had instigated the beginning of the unfolding debacle returned to try again - again without success.

The huge gap in my line was about to hurt one of the Seljuk Ghilmen units rather badly as the still fully intact Khazar lancers prepared to add a third unit to their kill tally with a flank charge. Good job the 6-strong armoured Superior Dailami unit led by a general had picked this exact moment to go disrupted from shooting eh? At least it would save time later on in speeding up their break...

Almost forgotten, back on my left the Khazars fought on doggedly despite losing a base to the Bedouin, but with nothing left in the center to fight a Khazar Ghilman unit was hoving ito view. That may well change the odds....

The Khazar lancers charged home

The Seljuks were obliterated at contact.

At least the Dailami survived a bit longer !

All across the table the Khazars enjoyed the run of the field - crushing another Seljuk unit with a rear charge on the left, or teeing up to hit the Dailami in the rear on the right, there was no way out anywhere for the shattered Seljuks.

The Khazars creashed over the victory line with another tremendous round of charges and combats - the Seljuk army was almost totally obliterated having done almost no damage to its foe. Game Over

Post Match Summary

Look, can we just gloss swiftly over this one please? I felt I had something of a decent plan, and I also felt I got the jump on the Khagan in the initial deployment and first set of movement - but this was one plan that essentially failed to survive contact with the enemy. Quite how I could have engineered better matchups is beyond me, yet our bows fired blank arrows, my troops consistently failed both death tests and cohesion tests at every opportunity, and quite how I was supposed to improve on the setup where I triggered the Khazar lancer charge I struggle to see to be honest.

Lets just put this one down to bad dice and move along. Nothing to see here...

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Hannibal's Post Match Analysis

Well, at last, a proper defeat. That means I can ignore all this tedious Elvis lyrics incomprehensible tosh, and just concentrate on sticking the boot into your shocking incompetence.

Lets start at the beginning. 4 units of LH against 2, but you somehow allow the enemy to shoot with 2 dice at your only unit of lancers. Now, they are your cutting edge, they need to be carefully shepherded, and you let them get shot at not once, but twice - and the second time they appear to be out of command range of a general - despite already being disrupted. You useless tool

And really it all goes downhill from there. Lancers are better than Ghilmen, so why did you let a one-on-one develop? Why didn't you go into one rank and evade? OK, you may have gotten caught, but even so then the enemy would have been taken a long way out of the battle pursuing you. And the odds were that you wouldn't be caugth anyway. Thats what evading is for. You'd even have gotten more shots in a single rank. Tool.

Admittedly it did all go spectacularly wrong in the middle, and even I can't really pin the blame on you for that - I actually have a grudging admiration for the way you engineered the stuation, buut what would have happened if they hadn't charged? You woudl have thrown your whole line into an evens set of combats - when the game is all about maneuvering to gain an advantage, or running away where you don't have one

Ultimately, you had a plan which relied on luck. And luck deserted you - which give how rubbish a plan that abdicates responsibility to the dice actually is, is hardly unsurprising.

Tomorrow may have nice weather, but if you carry on like this it will definately be a cold and grey October morn...

....On the Table .

Next and final game