Arab's on the warpath!!!

Night Attacks - the New "Rock n' Roll!"           

Using Arab Conquest, we (chose deliberately to ) attack at night in all four games (3 ended up moonlit, one cloudy & raining) and faced Khazar, Tang, Samurai and Feudal Spanish. 

The couple of other Conquest armies did the same "night attack" tactics, and you could see it becoming the talking point of the weekend - ie, our Samurai opponents didn't even know the night attack rules when we played them, but used them to attack a Christian Nubian army in their subsequent game! I really got the impression that it was a case of the genie been unleashed from the bottle, and that night attacks in winter could become as ubiquitous (for when you opponent is more maneuverable than you) as the "WW-on-your-flank" used to be (for whenever you had less LH & Cv than the enemy).....if this does happen, sorry - it's my fault!

Against the Khazars night wasn't really an issue, as there was very little we could do anyway against the LH - it  helped maintain our line as were all moving 2", and we took down one command of Cv with a Cm/Cv(S/O)/LH command, and won 6-4.

vs the Tang it was a great benefit, as the Tang LH were unable to pin us at all, and the 40 WB (S) steamed across the table with only minor delays, and even got in amongst the Tang baggage! Unfortunately we just ran out of time 2 EE away from a 10-0, having killed the CinC's Cv (S/O) command. This happened as it pressed an advantage on our right, threatening our LH Nomads whilst outflanking the big Wb block. As they pushed forwards, the Tang General got separated from the bulk of his Cv, as he was busy fighting off single Wb(S) on autopilot...The rest of his horse pushed forwards regardless, confident in their own ability to charge down 6 LH (O) and 3 LH (I), even if they were dropping off a few elements on the way to pin down the Arab foot. This theory was rapidly re-evaluated to "overconfident in their own ability", as suddenly they, and more importantly, the Nomad LH realized that the Tang were hopelessly overstretched and outnumbered! The Nomads then quickly turned the tables with some nifty encircling maneuvers, and charged into every available flank (and there were quite a few to choose from!) whilst the CinC was out of sight in the dawn mists! A 7-3 win...

vs the Samurai night again almost gave us a decisive advantage, as the Cv they sent out to delay our inexorable advance often got out of sight of their generals, and so were hampered from withdrawing. Unfortunately it was a cloudless night, and so the Cv were able to move their full distance -
added to our CinC's roll of 1 with his first 3 pip dice and we just didn't get these fast enough to take advantage.....

The warrior monks had been placed in ambush on a rocky hill on our flank - but given that they were clearly going to be road kill anywhere else on the table, we guessed this might happen, and the Dailami & Ps (S) managed to claim the crest and that was that - Allah 1, Buddha 0. We however then lost the Nomad command (6 LH (O), 3 LH (I) + General) after their flank march arrived immediately, and then their baggage raiding exercise was cut short by some mounted Samurai Cv. They did however manage to make the Warrior monk's litter-borne WWg (I) General flee  -  not a sight you see every day you must admit! 1 or 2 more turns and we would have eaten enough of the Ax (X) to turn a 5-5 into a 9-1, but the CinC's initial pip shortcomings let us down...

vs the Feudal Spanish it was again moonlit, which allowed or Nomad command to immediately gain a dominating outflanking position as the rather small battle frontline of the Spanish ran out of LH & Cv on their left (out of sight of their general also...who was leading the Kn in the center), whilst a steam train full of 4 deep Wb (S) motored towards the end of Kn (S) line. Unfortunately the devastating initial LH attack, which should have killed 4 elements of Spanish LH, and left the Cv (O) exposed, instead left 1 of the nomads with fatal dice-inflicted wounds, and a rather precarious position for al his mates. The Spanish general then decided to gamble on a risky LH move, to kill 3 more nomads and get the command, and to leave the Kn to trust in fate, as they would break ranks and dribble towards the oncoming turban-clad steam train. The nomads died (of course), but so did the Spanish sub general, as he charged in behind a Kn who found himself double overlapped, racked and stacked. As some auxilia had also died that turn, The Spanish command broke as it somewhat surprisingly failed to roll an 8 in it's next turn.

Comment From a Spanish General

"Considered risk I say in my book, took the command, Mine was going down anyway, what with having to fight three bloody commands."

After that it was a race to see how well our Cm/Cv command could stand against the rest of the Kn (S) vs how quickly the demoralized Nomad general & 40 Wb (S) could cover the 2' to get to the baggage, through a routing bunch of Ax & Cv. Well, it almost worked, until...the cavalry general was forced into combat to plug a gap, of course he died, and it was a 4-6 defeat as his dice failed to be more than 4 in the last turn (even though we killed a higher percentage of elements)

Comment from another Spanish General

"Your battle report was fairly accurate, although I think you had more time than you thought to complete your attack on our weaker flank. A little more care and Steve would not have been able to take your command. (he's bl**dy right you know..."red mist" and all that...)

I must admit I had the game put down as a possible 6-4 to us before you informed us it was night time!! Once the ramifiacations of that became clear we revised it to 5-5 or 6-4 against.

(Hmmm... all our games started as a definate 10-0 to us....not sure what that says...about whom...) However, had we considered time of day we would have certainly deployed differently and reconsidered visibility ranges which was what effectively screwed Steve! Anyway we enjoyed the game and hope you did too."

The bizzarrest situation to arise was where a command of the Spanish Kn could only see one of our LH (visibility being 6"), but as it was not directly in front of them, they had no legal impetuous target, so didn't have to spend pips to be halted. This did seem a bit odd...

In each game we had at least 4 turns of night before dawn - whilst it was good for us, I still really think that it would be better to make night bounds 30 minutes each.....

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