The European Serin On Tour - Part 2
Open Period ADLG at The Worlds in Spain 2025
Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire
Game 1 Khurasanian vs Ghaznavid
Game 2 Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire
Game 3 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire
Game 4 Khurasanian vs Wars of the Roses
Game 5 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire
Game 6 Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance
Or, for our many foreign readers ..
** Game 1 Khurasanian vs Ghaznavid - In Spanish! **
** Game 2 Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire - In German! **
** Game 3 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire - In Portuguese! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs War of The Roses - In Spanish! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire - In Spanish! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance - In Australian! **
With a Friday night win under my belt the first full day of the weekend's competition involved an mid range Spanish hotel breakfast followed by a vague attempt to try and work out which of many bus routes available to us would get the CLWC posse with MKWS hangers-on reasonably close to the hilltop village square in which the venue itself lurked
After much faffing around we all arrived safely and in time for small coffee and large pastries before the dice rolling started in earnest
Saturday morning saw me drawn against the Worlds Most Spanish (or Italian) German, Pablo Suarez and his Inevitably Ambushing Hill Dweller Army (who's nationality may vary by event, but their tactics never do!)
This time the troops who would be laying in ambush behind the crest of a large hill waiting for me to attack them were Ottoman Turks of the Imperial kind.
The Ottoman list has several must-haves, and a few years ago I would have guessed it to be a handful of Janissaries, loads of Elite Bow cavalry, both Quakapulu Lance & Bow chaps, and a Serbian ally.
Unfortunately making this assumption had cost me dear in Alicante earlier this year where I met Ottomans who were totally geared up to fight in terrain with all sorts of weird options all of which seemed quite clever, so frankly other than some Serbs and the 2 Elite Quakapulu Guards it could be almost anything.
The lists for the Khurasanian and Ottoman Empire from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at The Worlds in Spain can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
Unsurprisingly the terrain had fallen with Pablo getting a large hill with a very clear visible crestline next to a plantation both dropped on his half of the table on a flank, exactly as had happened in Alicante last year, and also in Braubach in 2022 as well.
With the Ottoman baggage plonked behind the hill/plantation combo, another plantation blocking off their right flank and the almost inevitable certainty of Pablo "Don't Call Me Spanish"'s army having maxxed out the contents of both ambush markers my army was a bit stuck as to what to do.
Eventually I opted to stick the Dailami in the centre so I could be sure they would play, and to use the two spearmen in the mostly-mounted command on my right to act as bait to absorb what I expected to be a Serbian ambush behind the hill
This in turn allowed me to tee up the Elephant and the the rest of the army to swing round from the left through rough terrain to drive at the enemy baggage.
That also left me a reasonable amount of cavalry on my right to wait for the unsurprising emergence of the ambushing troops and then neutralize or even hopefully beat them once they appeared on table.
The Ottoman military in the 1300s laid the foundation for what would become one of the most powerful and enduring fighting forces in world history.
At this early stage, the Ottomans combined the tribal, horse-mounted warfare of their Turkic origins with increasingly sophisticated administrative and military reforms.
The core of their strength came from a blend of ghazi warriors - fervent frontier fighters inspired by religion - and the beginnings of a more centralized standing army.
Pablo immediately lad down a marker to underline his Germanic credentials by stylishly rocking the Double-Addidas look as his army watched in amusement and puzzlement as I almost immediately ditched my orignal plan and attempted to swap the Dailami over to the right instead of the centre where they had deployed
This may well have been sheer incompetence, or it might have been an attempt to try and get them out of the path of the handful of non-allied Serbian knights who were deployed on table opposite them (not in ambush!)
Either way, I had already engineered the sort of traffic jam that Napoleon would have blanched at, tying my army in knots before my opponent had even moved at all.
Amongst the most famous elements of the Ottoman military was the Janissary Corps, an elite infantry unit that would later become synonymous with Ottoman might but which in the 14th century was still in its formative stages.
The Suarezistic Ottoman Inevitable Ambush now turned out to be a detachment or two of Delhi horsemen, lance armed and actually rather dangerous to anyone who allowed themselves to be caught on the hill, as the Impact-capable LH would be on a factor of at least 2 when charging downslope
To respond to the threat posed by, erm, 2 Light Horse, the block of Khurasanian spearmen were rushed to the front lines, seeking to pin the enemy skirmishers in place and potentially create a traffic jam for the following Serbs who even now were rushing to their religiously allocated position of "where the ambush marker is" as they sought to fulfil their destiny as members of the Suarezian Ambush Cadre.
Ottomans vs Serbs
With the Serbs committing themselves to the hill, the Dailami commander suddenly had a change of heart and turned his men 180 degrees (or as close as they could get to it) to countermarch back out to the more open side of the table
This was confusing to everyone else involved, and even I wasn't entirely sure it was a good idea - but it seemed better than leaving the Medium Swordsmen Dailami to be run over by the best Knights in the entire game system.
In a development which shocked no-one at all (not even me!), yet another one of Pablo's ambush markers turned out to hide an ambush, this time a block of Cavalry led by the obligatory Ordinary Included in a Quakapulu Commander jumping out of the vineyards and apple trees to face off against the Khurasanian horsemen on my right flank.
The Serbs meanwhile had moved up behind the delhi lancers, leaving the Khurasani spearmen quite a lot to do if they were to keep the entire army safe from Serbian charges.
L'Art de la Guerre hint - In most situations a block of spearmen would be easily able to charge off enemy light horse. Basic factors of 2-0, 4 cohesion points to 2, the LH just have to run when charged or die.
But, drop in LH with Impact who are also up a hill into that equation and the odds shift dramatically, with the LH also on a 2 if charged - and with "Furious charge" if they win on their side too.
Add in the LH's ability to easily break off from combat in their turn if they are losing and they become a great unit to block the Spearmen in this exact situation
Suddenly the Serbs scattered, breaking up into two separate units and picking targets to try and ride down across a broad frontage of the disorganised Khurasania and Dailami traffic jam.
The Arabian spearmen were rocked back on their heels by the fury of one of the the Serbian charges, with Kurdish lancers not exactly delighted to find themselves on the receiving end of the other one too.
The speed and dynamism of the Ottoman command and control had allowed hem to unpick the rather clumsy spearmen-shaped lock the earlier Islamic army had attempted to cast into their path, and now my front line troops needed to outperform the odds against the Serbian Knights or otherwise the confused and disjointed Dailami ally would soon become confounded and dismembered by the handful of Serbs.
The Janissaries were drawn through the "Devsirme" system, whereby Christian boys from the Balkans were taken, converted to Islam, and trained as loyal soldiers of the sultan.
Many of them were made eunuchs - partly to ensure total loyalty, partly to save a small amount of money in the amount of fabric needed for their trousers, but mostly because someone in the palace had clearly overestimated just how much testosterone a soldier might actual needed to function properly as a cold blooded killer.
The hapless state of the centre of my army is on full ugly display here as the well armoured, mounted, lance armed Ottomans pile into targets of opportunity whilst I grudgingly start to accept that all I have to plug the key part of my line is some wholly unsuitable Dailami.
Recognising this imminent catastrophe, the Dailami commander realises that his best option is just to turn round an run away in a shameful attempt to deny the Ottomans the extra break point that his demise in combat would deliver.
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Medium Swordsmen like the Dailami are at factor zero against Knights, and also don't get to count their Impact bonus either.
Knights with Impact are on +2 with furious charge and better armour.
It's a disaster waiting to happen - but not waiting all that long.
At least the Kurdish Lancers were holding up OK, as their brave resistance against (checks notes) what looks to be a unit of Light Horse has bought enough time for a unit of my archers to turn the flanks of the enemy skirmishers
Elsewhere however the Dailami infantry are now practically queuing up for a heroic yet futile death as I strive to prevent the Serbs from exploding out into my army from both directions.
By now the second ambush had sort of run into the sand, or to be more accurate run into some stuff resistance from my rather larger cavalry right wing.
Quality is all well and good, but numbers and quality were pretty much on my side here with Heavy Cavalry outclassing some of the less competent forces on the Ottoman side even as the General-led Quakapulu continued to resist defeat bravely
While their discipline and training were unparalleled, there were whispered concerns that having an elite fighting force immune to romantic distraction might lead to a touch too much enthusiasm in polishing their weapons - quite literally. Yet others claimed the Janissaries were more focused and less prone to tavern brawls, thanks to the lack of any extracurricular hormonal urges.
The Dailami commander now stood alone atop a gentle rise, a solitary figure etched against the burning haze of midday sun, his silhouette framed by the dust-choked chaos unfolding below.
Before him sprawled a ludicrously fragmented battle line - a madman’s sketch of warfare, surging and recoiling across the plain like the tide of a drunken sea. Standards wavered, units drifted apart like quarrelling cousins at a family gathering, and the thrum of steel and shouted orders blurred into a single incoherent roar.
And yet, amidst this disarray, the commander struck a pose of absurd defiance. From the sanctuary of his rearward perch, well behind his weary and embattled footmen who even now bore the brunt of the clash with gritted teeth and sweat-slicked brows, he wheeled about dramatically to face the enemy lines.
With grand, theatrical gestures, he flung a stream of venomous oaths and poetic curses into the wind, shaking his fists as if his barbed words alone might halt a charge or shatter a spear
His voice, though faint against the din of battle, carried just enough to lend him the illusion of control - the tragic image of a general out of position, but never out of attitude.
Ottoman Cavalry
Things weren't entirely falling apart though quite yet. Sheer weight of numbers was starting to see the Khurasani forces swamp the Ottomans, as the Ottoman Serbian contingent cast around looking for the best of many possible really good targets to attack.
The problem looked to be on the right of this mass brawl, where half of my spearmen had now crumbled, leaving a rather large gap which would soon see Serbian Elite Knights pitted against, erm, a unit of archers.
The Janissaries military efficiency certainly benefited from this testicularly deficient driver towards greater focus on the task in hand (or perhaps not in hand" would be more accurate?).
The Corps saw almost no unexpected leave requests due to "personal entanglements," and minimal scandals from love triangles involving court maidens too. Deployment was greatly streamlined as well, as commanders never had to drag any of their Janissaries away from a candlelit rendezvous behind the mess tent.
Suddenly, as they say in Jurassic Park, “fences started failing all over the park " - and in true prehistoric-disaster fashion, the centre of my Khurasani army began to disintegrate with catastrophic flair.
Already fragile in such matchups, their resistance crumbled faster than a sun-baked sandcastle in a dust storm, with formations evaporating into chaos and cohesion vanishing like a mirage at midday.
What had been an army moments before now looked suspiciously like a collection of people coincidentally fleeing in the same direction.
Elsewhere, far, far away on the edges of the Great Central Desert of the Turko-Iranian borderlands there was still something largely irrelevant going on, as the Khorasani Ghazi foot started to make up for their lack of action in Game 1 by mixing it up with some random Ottoman light lancers for no discernible net gain.
(The main aim on this side of the table had been to threaten some sort of envelopment to draw off Ottoman forces from the centre whilst keeping away from a pointless engagement with their War Wagons)
Still, one Ottoman chronicler joked that the Janissaries marched so rigidly not because of discipline, but because they had "nothing left to swing." Regardless, their effectiveness on the battlefield was no joke: they would go on to become one of the most feared infantry forces in Europe, though their uniquely composed ranks continued to inspire both awe and awkward glances in the barracks.
But the game was being even now decided in the centre, as the combination of Quakapulu and Serbs, supported by lance-equipped light horsemen had sadly proved far too much for my disjointed and poorly deployed army - even though we had known there would be an ambush being the hill and in he plantation even before deployment started!
The Result is a chastening defeat for the Khurasanians.
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from Sheikh Yabouti of the Khorasani Army, recorded as he spoke from a slightly scorched silk cushion, atop a half-buried camel saddle, as smoke curled from the ruins of his field tent and the oud players strummed a slow, bluesy lament, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Khurasanian Commander
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, I am Sheikh Yerbouti, Philosopher-General of the Khorasani Psychedelic Order addressing you, my brothers, my sisters, my wayfaring funkadelic footsoldiers…
Let not the dust of this day cloud your souls. Let not the result-which some haters and chroniclers may technically call a ‘defeat’-dampen the groove of your warrior hearts. For though the Ottomans came with Serbian steel and an unhealthy obsession with terrain advantage… we came with style. We came with spirit. And let it be known: spirit is eternal. Serbian plate armor? Just a passing fad, man.
Now yes-some among you may ask, "Sheikh Yerbouti, weren’t you supposed to predict that obvious ambush on our right?" And I say unto you: prediction is for weathermen and boring historians. Me? I ride the spontaneous wave of cosmic intuition. This wasn’t a failure. This was an unexpected improvisation in the face of overwhelming foreign cavalry. Our deployment? Experimental. Our response? Avant-garde. Our retreat? Highly interpretive.
You see, the Ottomans had terrain-they had maps, scouts, and a suspiciously well-prepared grove of trees in precisely the place I thought they wouldn’t be. But what they didn’t have… was heart. They didn’t have that electric spark that lives between a mystic and his camel. They didn’t have the sacred unpredictability of a Khorasani formation halfway through a tactical re-alignment disguised as total collapse.
And those Serbian knights-great gleaming nightmares on horses, wielding technology from six centuries into the future... how is that fair, I ask you? We were still using honor, silk banners, and aggressive oud solos. They brought chainmail and geometry. That’s not war, that’s performance-enhanced jousting.
But mark me well, my sweet-smelling survivors: this is not the end. History is written not by the victors, but by the lunatics who outlive them and build the better band.
And when we return-and oh, we will return-it will be with better maps, tighter formations, and maybe a few Serbian defectors of our own. Until then, we lick our wounds, tune our instruments, and feast on what remains of the field rations the Ottomans forgot to loot.
So rise, my children of cymbals and scimitars! Let us not mourn a lost battle, but celebrate a postponed crescendo.
For I, Sheikh Yerbouti, prophet of percussion and reluctant military genius, remain undefeated in the realm of soul. And next time, baby-we bring the funk and the flank guards.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Oh dear, dear Sheikh, thou desert-dwelling conjurer of half-baked tactics, thy brain is more smoke than fire! Your self aggrandising fanfare about outwitting our old Ottoman rival is, let’s say, somewhat of a stretch. You claim to have bested a commander you have “faced many times before." Oh?
Funny how every single time, the Ottoman general rolls out the same old trick: staging an ambush behind a massive hill, baiting you to chase down the center of the field, then swooping down from the hilltop into your flanks. That hill isn’t a tactic, it’s a cliché by this point. And yet every time you foolishly fall right into it.
Let’s be honest: by now this opponent’s playbook is an open book. You’d think repeated losses to the same trick would inspire you to perhaps scout the terrain better, probe the flanks, or just not charge blindly toward a predictable trap. Instead, we get post-battle proclamations about brilliant victories and spiritual insight when really, it’s more like you were lucky not to lose by an even bigger margin! Thou art a prophet of pretence, a sultan of stumblings, and a vizier of vapid victories!
Thy battleplans are but incense-drenched daydreams, drafted in the key of nonsense! The bold claims of “astounding foresight" and “mystic inspiration" ring hollow next to the facts: each time, the hill hides the real army, and each time your men march straight into the ambush zone. You don’t need to be a visionary, just someone who can read a map and say, “Hmm, why is there a giant hill there?" Yet somehow we’re sold on “victory through cosmic alignment." Please.
And as for your self-applause over leveraging terrain and morale… give me a break. You just fell into the same old Ottoman ambush again. If I had led that same force with half your resources, I’d have torn their army apart before they even realized we were on the field. Instead, you celebrate like you discovered gunpowder, when all you have really discovered is that repeating a bad decision enough times still leads to predictable disaster. By the beard of Mars, never was such a mess paraded as genius by one so fond of tambourines
In short: Your account is a triumph of self-delusion over strategy. Thy mind is a tent flapping in the wind - loud, empty, and never where it ought to be. You pat yourself on the back, sprinkle a little prog-rock incense, claim divine insight and hope no one notices that everything you “won" in this defeat was down to pure Ottoman courtesy.
Had I a coin for each time thy foresight failed, I would purchase all the elephants thou never managed to use properly! But lo, I for one won’t be fooled: real generals learn, adapt, and don’t brag about beating an old trick with an old mistake. Let's see if you can also learn to do so in time for the next game
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
You may also like....
Game 1 Khurasanian vs Ghaznavid
Game 2 Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire
Game 3 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire
Game 4 Khurasanian vs Wars of the Roses
Game 5 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire
Game 6 Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance
Or, for our many foreign readers ..
** Game 1 Khurasanian vs Ghaznavid - In Spanish! **
** Game 2 Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire - In German! **
** Game 3 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire - In Portuguese! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs War of The Roses - In Spanish! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire - In Spanish! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance - In Australian! **
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