Well, tonight I took on Dave T's Islamic Persians with Dave T's Jalayirids.
What?
We had a battle, with Dave T supplying both armies, and in fact also providing the army lists (and dice, rulers, terrain and tablecloth). I then randomly selected one of the armies, and ended up with the Jalayirids.
Not the greatest of armies, you might say the J-boys have an army with most of the limitations of a Mongol Conquest army, and few of its advantages: only ally generals available, little infantry and irregular baggage. (But I would have been able to come up with a grumble about the Islamic Persians too, so don't take any of this too seriously.)
Anyway, my army consisted of three commands. The C-in-C had about 8 Reg Cv (S), a firstful of Irr LH (O), and a couple of Reg LH (S), for a total of about 30ME. The large ally command contained about 4 Reg Cv (S), a couple of Reg Cv (O), and a few Reg LH (S) for about 24ME. The small ally command contained a couple of Cv (O) and about 10 Reg LH (S) for about 18ME. Dave also kindly allocated 15AP for me to select stratagems. I chose Scouts and Ambush.
Dave's army was fairly similar, except he had quite a few more Irr Cv (O), only a few Irr LH (S), and even some infantry. And he had irregular sub-generals. So I got a general's PIP for each of my allies, while Dave's subs couldn't be unreliable.
I was the invader in autumn, and selected a couple of 1FE gentle hills and a 0.5FE gully, with the idea of providing my army with some ambush opportunities. Dave selected an oasis and a couple of pieces of rough flat. The two hills ended up just on my side of the centreline, roughly either end of the central deployment zone. The gully was outboard of the left hill, and the oasis just beyond that, more on Dave's side of the table. The two rough patches ended up on each of our respective table edges and played no part in the battle.
I soon determined that the terrain was too far forward for me to try any meaningful ambushes, so I didn't worry. I deployed the C-in-C's command on the right, the large ally command in the centre, and the small ally command on the left. I planned to concentrate the Cv (S) on the right hand end of the line for decisive action, and anchor the left end of the line on the gentle hill.
I then won the deployment diceroll and got to deploy first, further forward than I expected. Dave deployed opposite. There were no meaningful weather effects and time of day wasn't an issue either. My scouts confirmed that Dave had no ambushes, and (after my last debacle with the stratagem) thankfully I didn't lose any scouting elements in the process.
Fortunately I got excellent PIPs on the first bound, meaning my allies were reliable, and allowing me to move the LH of the small ally command onto the front edge of the hill in front of them. The Cv (S) and LH (O) of the C-in-C's command expanded out and advanced steadily. No fancy dancing with this army!
Dave's commands also advanced steadily, with a block of LH (S) expanding out on his left flank, facing the end of my LH (O) line.
In my next bound I was able to advance the C-in-C's LH (O) into front and flank contact with the LH facing them. Elsewhere, however, my troops were too far away to contact the enemy, leaving Dave that opportunity. My first contact was a success, with 2 LH elements destroyed.
Dave then charged in, and combat was general along the line. He was able to gain a couple of successes in all commands, even knocking over some of my glass-jawed Cv (S) from the C-in-C's command. Fortunately I had a few reserve elements in all commands, and was generally able to plug gaps, although now my PIPs were a little less spectacular, meaning the C-in-C's command had to miss out on a couple of move which would have been useful.
Over the next few bounds the losses slowly mounted on each side. The advantage of the gentle hill was decisive in my bound, allowing the LH (S) to engage enemy Cv on equal factors, with the mounted (S) bonus providing extra help. However, the worst losses were in my C-in-C's command, with 4 Cv (S) dying, along with a LH (O). As a result this command was disheartened, and only 1.5ME from breaking. Elsewhere I had to use generals' PIPs to get reserve elements into combat, and in each case the loss of those elements saw the generals in combat themselves. The Bw (I) in Dave's right wing command even managed to destroy a LH element in shooting, while a lack of PIPs prevented me from charging the LH into them.
Then came one of those sorts of bounds which turn games on their ears. Despite having one general stuck in combat, I got enough PIPs in one bound to make virtually every move I needed. Excellent combat results then saw all three of Dave's commands become disheartened, while I didn't lose an element. Dave then rolled 1s and 2s for PIPs, leaving him with very few possible moves available to his disheartened 1ME troops, despite a number of flank attack options being open to him. He then compounded this with some more dismal combat rolls which cost him enough elements to break his left wing, as well as a couple more in each of his centre and right.
A little surprisingly, the break didn't cause any further problems to the centre command, and Dave's right wing command was too far away to be bothered. But it did leave the field open to me. With another set of brilliant PIP dice, I was able to launch a major offensive on my left, wrap the Persian C-in-C in the centre, and hit the sub-general in Dave's broken command in the flank with the C-in-C and an overlap. The generals all did their thing, with all three destroying their combat opponents and providing bonuses to their neighbours. The troops of the centre command killed the enemy C-in-C, and this was enough to break that command and the army.
I'm not sure what the score was, but I think my losses were about 25%, so with one disheartened command, I make that 20-5. That was, however, no indication of how close the game was. All the way up until the point at which Dave's three commands became disheartened, I felt I was more likely to lose than win. But that's how these games often go. There wasn't much in the way of tactics, as neither of our armies works that way. Instead it was an unsubtle fight up the guts, in which the hill on my left provided a major advantage, and I just got a lot luckier in the combat results (especially in the performance of my generals).
My thanks to Dave for an entertaining game, and for reminding me how much fun (S) mounted can be. Amusingly, we'd both missed that the +2 combat modifier for winning (S) mounted in their own bound doesn't apply against equivalent enemy elements, until half way through the game; early on we were both losing Cv (S) at an alarming rate, and although their combat bonuses were useful in their own bounds, they looked like flat-track bullies - able to dish it out but not take it.
I'm still not sure about the benefits of massed (S) mounted armies. I think they could be a lot of fun, but they're going to make you wince every time you throw them into combat. It was also interesting to try a Mongol-style army with the restriction of ally generals. It made me very reluctant to try fancy maneuvers. I pointed out to Dave that if I'd had my old Nikephorian Byzantine army with brilliant C-in-C and four commands (or Mongol Conquest with a brilliant C-in-C), I'd have had the C-in-C with his Cv (S) deployed in line facing the flank of his army by the end of the first bound, which would have completely changed the complexion of the game...
