Ghaznavids at the Swabian Open 2014

[LawrenceG1]

Ghaznavids at the Swabian Open part 1

The Swabian Open takes place at the start of each year in Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart. The venue is a YHA hostel and the package includes accommodation and food, 4 games (plus practice or a scenario game on the Friday night) and a cultural tour to somewhere of either historical or gaming interest (this year to a game museum). Size-wise it is about the same as the Munster Open (that's the Munster in Ireland, not the one in Germany), which is normally either on or close to the same weekend. 

This year the theme was Book 4 dates. I took a late date Ghaznavid army (all regular except where noted):

CinC CvS, 2 Palace Ghulams CvS, 8 Turks Irr LHS, 4 Arabs Irr CvO, 1 ArtS, (2 Irr BgeI) 23 ME
Sub1 CvS, 5 Other Ghulams CvS, 5 Other Ghulams CvO, (2 Irr BgeI) 21 ME
Sub2 CvS, 3 Other Ghulams CvS, 4 Other Ghulams CvO, 6 Dailami AxS, 3 Dailami PsO, (2 Irr BgeI) 23.5 ME
6 Irr BgeI army baggage 6 ME

Taking a cavalry army to a knight-and-longbow-fest may seem a strange choice.  However, I was travelling to Australia immediately after the competition for CANCON the following weekend and to keep the baggage down I had designed the army using mainly figures from the Khazar DBMM and FOG armies that I would be using there, plus Saracen infantry from my Sicilian army posing as Dailami.

Game 1 vs Arnim Lueck, Early Russian

Over the course of the weekend Arnim was the perfect host, making life as comfortable and easy for me as he could, but he certainly didn't make things easy for me during this game. I invaded and he  cut off a third of the table with two woods and a BUA. This meant the battle would largely be a frontal clash, which he would probably win, having similar troop types to me, but more of them. There was no significant weather.

Arnim deployed from (my) left to right:
Mordvin ally, 4 AxO, 4 PsO, 2CvO  (unreliable all game)
Subgeneral, 12 Irr SpO, 6 PsO (supporting the spears)
Subgeneral, 8 CvO, 6 HdO (set back as a reserve)
CinC, 12 CvO, 3 LHO, 8 Kn in 4 double-based wedges. The knights were slightly behind the cavalry.
6 army baggage were protected by the hordes.

I deployed Cin C central, Dailami to the left and the large cavalry command to the right.




On his first couple of bounds Arnim moved his CinCs cavalry to my right to make space for the knights advance and brought up the cavalry reserve. I calculated that these two commands would be half of the army and decided to concentrate on killing them while ignoring the spears as much as possible.

I used the CinC's high PIP dice to move the artillery forward and shift most of his cavalry right to overlap the Russian line. Although the knight wedges were in front of the artillery, Arnim stopped me shooting at them by employing the reserve cavalry as human (and equine) shields, losing three of these elements as a result. He also moved some of the spearmen across, but by this time I had let my light horse block my shots rather than allow the knights too much space. Otherwise they could have turned the flank of my main cavalry command.



After a shaky start on the right, my 8 CvO plus 8 CvS including 2 generals gained the upper hand against the Russian 12 CvO plus 2 LHO. In the centre the Turkish light horse were finding the knight wedges tougher than they could handle and my artillery had recoiled due to sponno troops passing through so couldn't shoot for 3 turns (I subsequently discovered that train do not recoil in this situation). On the left my cavalry failed to kill any more of the Russian cavalry and the spearmen finally made contact with the Dailami.



Ghaznavid casualties were now accumulating alarmingly in the centre and on the left and the Russian reserve cavalry that I was intending to kill had either retreated behind the spears or eliminated any significant threats. On the right I pulled out some of my cavalry and put both of my generals into combat as I urgently needed to break this command. One of my Palace Ghulams had attacked the single LH protecting the Russian flank, but another LH appeared from nowhere (actually it had been hiding amongst the cavalry) as an overlap.



This overlapped Palace Ghulam element was destroyed, breaking the CinC's command and the 2 ME loss transmission broke the Dailami command. Meanwhile my subgeneral killed the Russian CinC, breaking his command, which disheartened their reserve cavalry. A net result of 9-16 and I needed a better plan to deal with double-based slow knight wedges than throwing LH(S) at them.




Lawrence Greaves

[Barritus]

I'm intrigued: you moved the artillery forward at the start of the game, and despite the 3 bound shooting delay this caused, it still had time to destroy three cavalry elements?

Nice shootin' Tex.

[LawrenceG1]

 

I'm intrigued: you moved the artillery forward at the start of the game, and despite the 3 bound shooting delay this caused, it still had time to destroy three cavalry elements?

Nice shootin' Tex.

That's about how long it took the knights and cavalry to move into range. The cavalry had to come from a long way back and the knights were delayed by the PIPs being spent on trying to activate the ally and redeploying the cavalry towards the table edge. Then I think I got 3 kills in 3 or 4 shots. At +4(S) vs +3 it's a 25% chance per shot. A slim chance, but stranger things have happened (e.g. my flank marching ally with Flank Attack + delayed start never arriving).

[LawrenceG1]

Part 2

Game 2 vs Carlos Druecker-Benfer, Tupi

Not a great match-up for me and I expected a wall of superior bowmen to rush forward and shoot me to bits in short order. However, it did not turn out that way. I defended and the significant terrain ended up as two rough hills on my side of the table, towards the front of my deployment area and a marsh about half way along my right short table edge.  Weather was a strong wind blowing from my left to right. This was good news because it cut down the bowmen's range, but it did give my artillery a combat disadvantage.

I deployed generally well back, but occupied the rough hills rather than give the Tupi the chance to take them  without a fight.

Carlos deployed in a lot of depth and minimal width:
CinC BdF, 8 BdF, 16 BwS, 1 PsO
Subgeneral BdF, 5 BdF, 12 BwS
Ally general BwS, 4 BdF, 8 BwS
Ally general BwS, 4 BdF, 8 BwS
8 Army baggage (or it might have been 4 army baggage and 4 command baggage)



The army baggage contained a large steaming cooking pot suspended over an LED fire. (Picure courtesy of Gerd Plescher)



Ideally I would have liked to knock out the CinC and an ally as the easiest route to half the army, but the Tupi deployment meant I would have to fight the two largest commands and try to minimise the damage from the allies.

The first few moves consisted of me moving troops up ready to attack the two commands I was targetting, and Carlos building his corner-sit position without coming forward very much.





Carlos ended up with his CinC's bows facing forwards and to the flank, with the angle between them filled by a column of blades including the general at 45 degrees. The space between the bows and the rear table edge was filled by blades from the sub's command, also including their general. Attacks on this column from the Dailami backed up by the Arab cavalry eventually drew it forward to where its flanks were exposed, while Ghulam Cv(S) from the cavalry command attacked the forward facing bowmen. In due course the general was killed but the Dailami had taken a lot of casualties. The Turkish LH(S) attacked the front of the sub's bowmen while the cavalry in the Dailami command concentrated on his blades near the table edge, thus avoiding much of the shooting. In the past I have had enemy LH(S) ride down my own Bw(S) with ease, but now things were the other way round, it was the LH that were being logorated while doing minimal damage. The Tupi allies now advanced more threateningly as well.



Eventually I killed enough elements from the CinC's command to break it, but the remaining elements were able to halt in two or three groups for a little while. At this point we were told that enough time had elapsed for the game and we were given the choice of stopping or continuing. We decided to continue. Casualties continued to mount on both sides and I was throwing in Cv(S) quite riskily to try to break the second Tupi command.



By now all my commands were disheartened and so was the Tupi sub's command. I threw everything in, including a subgeneral. My CinC was unable to reach an overlap position to help his sub, but a press forward would get him there. To increase the chances of a press forward, I positioned a Cv(S) to draw the aiding shots away from him. Of course, this element immediately died to a 6-1, breaking  the cavalry command and the 2 ME effect pushed the other two commands over as well. The CinC failed to press forward, but the subgeneral killed his man anyway, and the cavalry from the Dailami command destroyed the Tupi subgeneral, breaking his command and the army. A mutual destruction, so 13-12 to me as defender.  Things seemed to be looking up as, although my army was broken again, I had got more points this time.



Lawrence Greaves

[LawrenceG1]

Part 3

Game 3 versus Tilman Walk, Western Sudanese.

I invaded and Tilman placed some dunes along the left table edge and a gentle hill near them.  My large gentle hill went on his rear table edge where it prevented the placement of a scrubby flat. Another scrubby flat landed in front of my deployment area and towards the left. I then doubled his deployment dice and so had to deploy first. Again there was a strong wind. I deployed in the open pat of the table in front of the large hill with the Dailami command closest to the scrub. Tilman placed a large fortified camp on “my” hill, manned by archers and psiloi. Cavalry with supporting psiloi, light horse and more archers were in front of this. To the left of the camp and positioned to swing around my left flank was the CinC's command, behind which was the subgeneral commanding the camp guards, with a cavalry element and a few psiloi.

Rear: Subgeneral CvO, 1 CvO, 12 BwI, 6Ps (2 army baggage)
Front: Subgeneral CvO, 3 CvO, 9 BwI, 7Ps, 4 LHO (2 army baggage)
CinC: CinC Reg KnX, 2 KnX, 3 Camel LHI, 7 LHO, 7 Ps, 8 BwI, 1 ShotI (2 army baggage)
(with the benefit of hindsight) Tuareg ally general CmS, 6(?) CmS  (on a flank march)



I thought this a pretty good setup. The regular CinC can swap PIPs with the rear sub-general, who simply follows him around and does not need many PIPs as most of his troops are safe in the camp and don't need to move. The cavalry and psiloi with him can be thrown into combat when needed and are expendable. The CinC thus has a high PIP dice and can use this to move the LH almost anywhere, while he uses his free PIP on the knights. The front sub-general has too much cavalry and LH to be ignored. The camp allows the delayed start stratagem to be used, increasing the chances of the Tuareg ally flank march arriving.

This deployment highlights a rules anomaly. According to the deployment paragraph, the baggage command rectangle is not prohibited from intersecting another command's rectangle. However, generals' commands are prohibited from intersecting another command's rectangle, which includes an army baggage command. I think it is intended that any command can overlap a baggage command, but this is not what the rules say, and I have had it challenged when I have done it.

I had some difficulty coming up with a coherent plan against this lot. The cavalry on the hill would be very tough frontally with +1 for supporting psiloi in my bound and +1 for charging downhill in his. However, I would expose my flank to them if I turned to face the rest of the army coming at me from the left. Even BwI can be effective shooting at cavalry and at half an ME each, killing them would not bring me a great deal of benefit. Also I didn't know which side the flank march would be on. I decided to march-block the Sudanese CinC with a couple of Dailami and try a front and flank attack on the hill. The Sudanese LH quickly reached my rear table edge so I had to move some of the cavalry from the Dailami command back to block this threat, something I only just managed with the low PIP dice.



The cavalry on the hill repositioned so its flank was protected by the threat zone of the camp. Meanwhile the flank march arrived on the left and the Sudanese CinC's command advanced against the Dailami. It looked as though this might give me some flank attack opportunities later, so I turned my CinC's command to the left.



There followed a rather confused melee in the centre and near the hill in which I put in a lot of piecemeal attacks against weak troops with little success, allowed myself to get caught by the enemy cavalry on the edge of the hill, had several cavalry get ridden down by the cataphracts and generally had problems in the corner of my line with psiloi coming through the bowmen and providing flank contact support for the enemy's attacks.  Somehow Tilman managed to cover almost all of his own flanks and rears.

Meanwhile on my left the Tuaregs closed quickly, but I managed to survive their attacks and those of the light horse.



The cavalry from the Dailami command fought like devils, broke the Tuaregs (apparently they broke in every game) and severely mauled the light horse.

However, the Turkish LH and the Cv(S) from the cavalry command were almost entirely wiped out by a flood of Sudanese troops coming through the centre, breaking my army. A 4-21 loss.

[Orcoteuthis]

Nice reports. 

How did the list checker treat the wedges in E. Russian? As written, they can never be used, as the start date for the option is after the end date of the list.

[LawrenceG1]

Nice reports. 

How did the list checker treat the wedges in E. Russian? As written, they can never be used, as the start date for the option is after the end date of the list.

Neil Fox was the list checker. Better ask him.

[LawrenceG1]

Part 4

Game 4, vs Gerd Plescher, Medieval German

I was defender and with no idea of Gerd's army composition I used up my terrain choices on open fields and an out of the way BUA. He placed  difficult hills on the two short table edges and and a scrubby flat on his baseline, leaving a mostly open table.



I deployed slightly back, Dailami on the left, CinC in the centre and Cavalry command on the right, with march-blockers out. Gerd deployed his army opposite my right and centre. In front were two identical commands of 16 PkO, 4 Ps and a knight ally general dismounted as a blade. Behind these was the CinC's command of 12 Swiss PkS, 8 psiloi, 2 BdO grouped with the psiloi, 2 ArtI positoned to shoot through the gap between the ally commands, 2 double bases of KnS/KnI and a KnS general. The pikes were mainly 2 ranks deep. It looked as though the Dailami command  would need a lot of PIPs to get into the battle so I gave them and the CinC high dice averaged and the cavalry command the low dice.

A friend had told me some time ago that cavalry always beat pike in frontal combat in this game, so I decided to try out his theory. The cavalry command and most of the CinC's command were sent to gang up on the right hand pike command, while the remaining cavalry faced off against the left hand command, but I was a bit light on numbers here so didn't attack immediately, just bombarded with the artillery. Some of the Turks were able to ride down the enemy artillery, but were counter-attacked by knights and surplus pikemen.

The Swiss moved out to the (my) left with a view to exploiting the space where the Dailami command's cavalry had been. The CinC's psiloi and blades also moved out to cover the flank of the Swiss. These manouvres left the German CinC out of command range from many of his infantry. On the right, the pikes expanded to fill the space between them and the steep hill, while the psiloi moved onto the hill to secure the flank.



The logoration of the right hand ally command continued. The  psiloi on the steep hill could have pulled away the cavalry protecting my flank, but, for whatever reason, they didn't.  The knight wedges ploughed forward inexorably, dealing death as they came. I moved some cavalry across and back to give me some in-depth defence against them and also reinforced the cavalry facing the second ally command.



Eventually the knights advanced far enough for me to attack their flanks and I managed to destroy all of them, including the general, though not before they had inflicted heavy casualties on my CinC's command. The right hand ally command was was in trouble and again failed to use the psiloi from the hill to distract my flank protection. However, some pikes did manage a rear attack on a Cv(S) element that had previously been flanking something else.  The other ally command continued attacking and was able to exploit the space created earlier by the knights to hard-flank some of my light horse The Swiss now joined battle, but some were held off by cavalry, while others became exposed to front-and-flank attack from the Dailami. I was quite pleased about this because, having lost all its knights, this command now seemed a better target than the second ally command.



The rear attacked Cv(S) survived, but the flanked light horse didn't, disheartening my CinC. A couple of Swiss elements finally succumbed to a front-and-flank, breaking that command and the German army. 22-3 to me.




Overall conclusions:

I think if I used this army again, I would structure it to have higher break points, i.e. 24 ME commands. Possibly I would dispense with the artillery, as it is a lot of PIPs for not much fighting power, but on the other hand, the army doesn't have much else that can take on elephants, BwX or S or war wagons and they did kill several elements in two of the games. PIP shortage on the low dice command was a problem, so I would experiment with PIP assignments and perhaps design a more obvious PIP-dump command.  I'm also beginning to think that LH(S) are better value in large numbers (e.g. 20+)  than they are in the numbers I had, which generally was enough to get themselves into trouble without achieving much.

Lawrence Greaves   

[Doug M.]

Thanks for the report Lawrence, and I tend to agree about Lh(S) - as Turkmans in my Abbasids with 14 of them, they are good, as Mo-Ho in my Sui, there are a maxiumum of 5, which isn't enough except to give your opponent 5 ME kills against many things.

[LawrenceG1]

I think Regular LH(S) might be useful in small numbers.

[lorenzomele]

Not having to pursue is very important.

[arnimlueck]

uuups, I was a bit inactive on this forum.

Thank's for the detailed reports!!!

just wanted to comment on the allowance of having the German tourists (the knight wedges).
The tournament rules said "book 4 period", hence I took a late book 3 army with options clearly dating it to the time period 4, so past 1071AD. The list Early Russian list is valid in "1054 AD - 1246 AD" and the option for the Germans is "Only after 1105 AD". After that in 1246 the post-Mongol Russian list continues to describe the armies of Russia. I might not have the latest clarifications, but I am not aware of any corrections that would prevent the usage of the knights.

[Barritus]

just wanted to comment on the allowance of having the German tourists (the knight wedges).
The tournament rules said "book 4 period", hence I took a late book 3 army with options clearly dating it to the time period 4, so past 1071AD. The list Early Russian list is valid in "1054 AD - 1246 AD" and the option for the Germans is "Only after 1105 AD". After that in 1246 the post-Mongol Russian list continues to describe the armies of Russia. I might not have the latest clarifications, but I am not aware of any corrections that would prevent the usage of the knights.

The issue is not the use of the Kn. The issue, as Orcoteuthis pointed out, is that the the start date for the option to make them double-based is after the end date of the list.

[arnimlueck]

got your point now. weird. I will talk with Neil. Actually I just took them for two reasons

• I finished the models and they look good
• the early russian list was quite good in the 2013 ITC

I did not truely think about the finer points of time travel. I never win our own tournament anyway. There is just too much to do aside the games to do. But I will check. If needed I will do a spaceship Enterprise baggage for them.

[Barritus]

got your point now. weird. I will talk with Neil. Actually I just took them for two reasons

• I finished the models and they look good

Excellent reason!

• the early russian list was quite good in the 2013 ITC

Not a bad reason, but not as good as the first reason!

I did not truely think about the finer points of time travel. I never win our own tournament anyway. There is just too much to do aside the games to do. But I will check. If needed I will do a spaceship Enterprise baggage for them.

LOL! Excellent idea. I look forward to seeing pictures of it.

In the latter days of DBM, some Aussie players came up with excellent baggage - stone masons carving a tri-lingual message on a cliff (complete with booth for selling admission tickets), a bunch of generals gathered around a table covered with toy soldiers (2mm miniatures), and a bunch of naked Greeks holding regular shapes (it was a Geometric Greek army) all come to mind. This would be a worthy addition.