Khazars at CANCON 2014

[LawrenceG1]

Khazars at CANCON 2014

After many years playing DBM/MM I still didn't have a book 3 army, or, indeed, any primarily mounted army, so a few years ago I decided to get one. The selection was as much based on the appeal of a people described in the list notes as “Unusually devious even for nomads” as on perceived effectiveness. However, I did expect them to be reasonably effective.   

That said, they do have a number of disadvantages for a steppe army:
Low agression, cold climate makes them vulnerable to Hungry Horses weather effect.
Compulsory Bg(S) means you can never get the “all mounted+Ps” deployment dice adjustment.
Quite a few of the useful troops trigger minima in other troops that you might not want.

My default list, based on a few paper iterations and limited testing was:

Beg as CinC Reg KnF,
5 Nobles Irr KnF,
4 Volga Bulgars Irr CvO,
2 Magyars Irr LH(F)
2 Slavs Irr PsO,
2 Bolt shooters Reg ArtO,
1 Stone thrower Reg ArtI
(2 army baggage) 
26 ME, High PIPs

Sub1 Reg KnF,
5 Royal army Reg CvS,
5 Royal army Reg CvO
(2 army baggage + Khagan's wagon BgeS in arrmy baggage)
24 ME, Middle PIPs  (“Khagan's command”)

Sub2 Reg KnF,
3 Royal army Reg CvS,
3 Royal army Reg CvO,
12 Slavs Irr AxO,
2 Slavs Irr PsO
(1 army baggage)
21 ME, Low PIPs  (“Slav command”)

Army baggage 5 Flocks Irr BgeI, 1 Khagan's wagon Irr BgeS 8 ME

Stratagem: Feigned Flight

I took the nobles as KnF rather than CvS to give me some quick-killing punch and to take on KnX cataphracts (which have a tendency to crop up in book3 period tournaments). The Volga Bulgars were intended to screen the knights from first-strikes if necessary, or go behind them as gap pluggers, and were a good way to use up some spare Legio Heroica Arab cavalry that I had. In practice they tend to do quite a lot of work independently of the knights. The Slavic auxilia are mainly there to die slowly while the rest of the army wins, but they also give me a way of dealing with opponents who sit in terrain, and enable me to get some psiloi who are principally there to deal with elephants. The artillery are for the same purpose and to deal with BwX DBE's which are also popular in the book 3 period. I take hardly any light horse, so am minimally affected by hungry horses. The general principle of operation is to concentrate as many of the mounted troops as possible (and that is over 300 points worth) against just enough of the opposing army to break it.

CANCON is for any army, not just book 3, but I didn't think I could improve on the design above with the figures I had. I was very short of practice, but on the previous weekend had used a Ghaznavid army of similar (but not identical) composition and using mostly the same figures, at the Swabian Open. However, the results from those games on the whole weren't very promising. In addition, the similarity between the two armies caused me some confusion over the weekend.


Lawrence Greaves

[LawrenceG1]

Game 1 vs Doug Melville, Sui Chinese

Doug was the best player in the tournament, and I knew his army had BwX, artillery and cataphracts because I had played it before, so this was going to be a tough game.

I defended and Doug started off by placing a narrow river (difficult going for mounted) across my deployment area. If I deployed behind it, I would be largely stuck there, with a draw the most likley result. If in front, my formations would be too shallow and risked being pushed back into it. I ended up putting most of the army in front of it with the Khazar nobles and Magyars behind as a reserve. I estimated that the CinC's high PIP dice would be enough to get them across when and where needed, but it was a bit of a risk. Most of the Slavs were defending the riverbank, but they could cross it if necessary as it was only rough going for them. My deployment was Khagan's command on the left, CinC central and Slavic command on the right, opposite a gentle hill. Describing my army, still partially in Ghaznavid mode, I announced that my generals were all CvS.

Doug's commands were (from my point of view)

Left: 6 KnX including a general, 6 LHF
Centre: 5 BwX/O double elements, 2 ArtO, 7 PsO, 2 BwO, 5 Irr LHS, CvS CinC
Right: 5 CvO, 5 CvS including a general

I started by pushing forward slightly with some march-blockers and moving the Nobles to be opposite the cataphracts. Doug moved his cavalry to occupy the hill, his light horse to the left to  outflank  the Khagan's command, and wheeled and advanced the bowmen and artillery towards my artillery and  Bulgar cavalry. The cataphracts moved to support the advancing bowmen. The Chinese artillery destroyed an element of mine with their first shot.



I moved some CvS out to the flank to counter the LH threat and managed to get the nobles across the river. On the right, my cavalry retreated to the river where the Slavs could protect their flanks. Things were happening very slowly here as both commands had the low dice. The Chinese counter-battery fire knocked out another artillery element. The BwX, however, failed to kill any of my cavalry.



Doug had split his cataphracts into two groups and I now charged one with the Nobles and the other with some CvO. The net result of this was the loss of an element of Nobles. The Khagan's cavalry feigned flight, but had been facing in different directions and ended in a mess and one element was too far away from the combat to be included in the flight, so was left isolated at the edge of the table. I moved some Bulgars up to threaten the flanks of the BwX and managed to destroy one, I think by an artillery shot. Doug had enough PIPs to halt everything affected by the feigned flight. On the right, the Chinese cavalry closed in on mine.



On the right, the Chinese cavalry charged mine and killed a CvO. I moved up some Slavs to pin and threaten the enemy's unengaged elements. On the left my last artillery element was destroyed, but one of the cavalry killed a BwX with a 6-1. A swirling melee developed involving cavalry, light horse and various knights. Doug tried to recoil one of my CvS off the table, only to discover that the table edge is impassible for recoil. A BwX double element fought off an attack with the rear element while shooting at cavalry with its front element. In general the combat dice favoured me and the nobles, with the aid of a general, destroyed one of the cataphract groups.



With time running out, I attacked everything in sight and Doug counter-attacked every flank and rear that I left hanging in my haste. We had 4 generals engaged or assisting in a relatively small area. My subgeneral got himself hard-flanked and the combat was a draw. Doug said no, his cataphract was superior against my CvS general. As I had earlier told him that the general was CvS, I had to agree with Doug and take the general off. Otherwise the dice continued to favour me and I was able to break the Chinese army while losing less than 20% of mine. 23-2.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 2 vs Tim Montgomery, Medieval Danish

Tim invaded in the spring along the Black Sea coast. I placed a large gentle hill which played no part in the battle. It had been a hard winter so I was suffering from the hungry horse effect and the sea was non-navigable due to mini icebergs. The battle started an hour after sunrise – any earlier and my army would have been dazzled.

I deployed the Khagan's command left, CinC centre and Slavs right (next to the sea). The Danes set up a defensive perimeter between their rear table edge and the sea:

(edge)
German ally general Kn, 1 Kn, 1 Sp, 1 Bw and 5 TF defended by 4 Ps.
Subgeneral Kn, 1 Kn, 6 BdF, 6 BwO, 2 Ps, 1 Cv.
CinC Kn, 4 Kn, 4 Cv, 2Bd and 1 Art (the Bd and Art were behind the mounted)
Subgeneral Kn, 7 BwO, 8 BdF, 4 Ps, 1 Art, 1 Ship (beached)
(sea)

IIRC the blades were regular and the bows irregular, and the knights were a mix.



I started off by moving the artillery up and moved the Khagan's command forward into empty space, then turned it to face the enemy. This put Tim into a dilemma. He could either stay put and have his knights blasted by the artillery, or come out and expose his flanks. Initially he sent one cavalry forward to attack the artillery from outside its arc of fire. He also advanced part of the coastal command against the Slavs, while others moved to support the CinC's mounted force that looked as though it was preparing to charge the artillery from the front. The German spear and bow elements emerged from the fortifications, presumably with a view to interfering with my cavalry command.



I tried charging down the German bowmen with some CvS, but failed. The initial threat to the artillery was eliminated by some Bulgars (who went on to attack the flank of the knights), but then the Danish CinC's cavalry attacked frontally. One was shot down by the bolt shooters, but another reached and destroyed the stone thrower.  The Danish knights advanced into an ever-tightening noose. The coastal command's blades attacked the flank of the Slavs before I could get their CvS into position to protect it.



The Danish cavalry continued its attack and destroyed a bolt shooter and a Bulgar element for the loss of one of their own. The blades knocked out two elements of Slavs, but the Bowmen could only inflict recoils, so the general of the coastal command rode out to deal with the matter personally. The knights were getting broken up, but not killed. The Danish bowmen between the Germans and the knights were in a single rank in front of the blades and found themselves a bit lacking in firepower, killing only one CvO. Some of the Khazar cavalry command got into contact with them, but others, wary of the knights, merely got in the way of the Khazar Nobles. 



On the far right, a brave element of Slavs manfully resisted the charge of the Danish sub-general, while more blades swarmed over the flanks of their fellows. In the centre, continued combat saw the demise of the remaining Khazar artillery, some Bulgars and some Danish cavalry and knights. The Khagan's cavalry despatched some more bows and engaged the blades behind, but lost a couple of elements themselves (I'm not sure where, but they are gone from the photos). The Germans tried to get onto my left flank but were too slow.



Battle continued to rage in the central area and in a series of messy combats the Khazars lost several Slavs and cavalry and the Danes lost blades, bows and knights. It turned out this was enough to break the Danish army. The Khazars had lost just under 20% with no commands disheartened, so it was 23-2 again. I had benefited from concentrating on killing only two of the enemy commands, while my casualties were more evenly distributed across the army. I probably had been a bit luckier with the combat dice too.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 3 vs Anton Verster, Mongol Conquest

The Mongols invaded, placing gentle hills and open fields and I put down a difficult hill to constrain his movement, a BUA to protect my baggage and some rough going for the Slavs to hide in. The Mongols had to deploy first and there was a strong wind.

Anton placed 4 artillery on a gentle hill in the centre front of his deployment area with 6 CvS behind. On either side of this CinC's command were two LH subgenerals each with 16 LH. 3 Army baggage lurked at the rear.  I deployed my CinC in the centre, Khagan's cavalry on the right and Slavs on the left, where a boggy flat gave them some protection. The Khagan's command was thinly stretched, but they were only up against light horse, so what could possibly go wrong?

The Mongols began in customary fashion by moving columns outside my flanks and generally advancing with the rest of the light horse. The guard cavalry formed column and shifted to support the attack against my right.



I marched the Khagan's command up to threat zone the Mongols to their front and prevent them from escaping. One element was detached to delay the flanking troops. The Bulgars advanced to support the Khagan's cavalry, but the march move-stopping effect of the Mongol guards left them slightly set back from them. The Khazar Nobles moved to the right with a view to joining in against the guards. I also wheeled some artillery to shoot at the guards, but came within reach of an element of Mongol light horse that promptly attacked and destroyed some bolt shooters.

Meanwhile the Mongols on the right decided to charge rather than try to run away. It was +2 vs +3 against them all the way down the line, except in front of the Bulgars, where they had an overlap. They then proceeded to win every combat, destroying three of my elements, except in the last combat, in which the Mongols died.



With only 2 reserves and 3 holes, I couldn't fill all of them and decided I would be better off sending one element behind the Mongol line instead of plugging a gap. The rest of the cavalry attacked, my sub-general engaging the Mongol sub-general.  The Bulgars joined in the attack and the Nobles turned into line ready to advance on the Mongol guards. This counter-attack eliminated three more elements for the loss of one CvS, but left a large number of flanks and rears exposed, including that of the subgeneral. 

On the left, I sent an ordinary cavalry element forward to pin the enemy while a superior one attacked the element that had just destroyed the bolt shooter. I only inflicted a recoil.



Unfortunately, I had underestimated the distance and an unpinned light horse reached the rear of the CvS. Luckily the cavalry destroyed the Mongol element in front of it. However, the “forlorn hope” CvO was destroyed by a frontal attack.

On the right, the Mongol light horse, with the high dice, swarmed all over the Khagan's command and wiped out all except three of its remaining elements and the guards destroyed one of the Bulgars.



Oh well, surely just a temporary setback as the Nobles were nearly in position to attack the Mongol guards and the cavalry of the Slav command were also in attack range.  As I was throwing my two remaining PIP dice, Anton commented “A double 1 would be handy here”. “Yes”, I said and lifted the dice cup to reveal … double 1. “Sorry” said Anton, not that he was in any way responsible for the dice result.

This limited my counter-attacks, It's not entirely clear from the photos what happened in the next few bounds, but I did manage to kill one element of guards by a hard-flank and another  one seems to have disappeared from the pictures for no apparent reason, so I suspect the wind dropped and he died to artillery shots. Meanwhile, the Nobles went off on spontaneous advances, one group surviving artillery(S) shots to press forward, but not quite into contact (240p + 40p for sponno not making contact + 60p press forward!), but another element died to a front and flank attack. On the left I had somehow accumulated 4 kills on the other light horse command, only 1 short of disheartening them.  We also had the unexpected sight of a broken cavalry element routing towards the _enemy_ rear table edge.



In the next bound Anton was able to use rear and/or flank contacts to destroy more nobles, another element of Bulgars and the CinC to break that command and the army. 23-2 again, but this time it was me with the 2. Quite an interesting game with the large central area interdicted by both sides' artillery. While I had bad luck in this game, the impact of it was increased by a number of mistakes that I made.



While packing up after this game I realised that I had been deploying the Slav command with the cavalry component of the analogous command in the Ghaznavid army, i.e. 3 CvS + 4 CvO instead of its proper complement of 3 CvS + 3 CvO. I had been using the correct break points, however. I reported this to our illustrious umpire, Doug, who said “Don't tell anyone”. This wouldn't have had any material impact on the second or third game, but might have made a difference in the game against Doug as the CvS would have been slightly more exposed to his attacks.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 4 vs Dave Quilty, New Kingdom Egyptian

I invaded away from the delta and placed a large enclosed field. Dave put the waterway along the left table edge (from my point of view). The fields landed near the opposite table edge, in Dave's half. Dave also put down two rocky flat areas, one in my rear right corner and the other central, but mostly in his half of the table. The deployment dice resulted in my deploying first, but I scored first blood before even deploying when two elements of Egyptian scouts were destroyed.

I deployed the Khagan's command left, CinC centre and Slavs right, but the army was biased to the left so the artillery and most of the Slav command were facing the rocky area. A pair of auxilia were deployed further to the right as march-blockers.

The Egyptian army consisted of

CvS subgeneral, 5 CvS, 8 BwO, angled back between the rocks and the Nile,  8 PsO  in the rocks;
CvS sub, 5 CvS behind the rocks, 10 BdF in them;
CvS CinC, 4 CvS, 2 CvO, 8 BwI, 8 PsO to the right of the rocks.
6 regular army baggage.

I was surprised at the high ME values of the commands (30, 30, 24), but they were boosted by points-discounted 2 ME chariots and the regular baggage. Still, killing more than 10 ME to break a command would be a tall order.

I assigned high averaged dice to the Khagan's and CinC commands and in my first bound  moved the superior half of the Khagan's command right to oppose the bowmen, with the Volga Bulgars and Magyars behind them. The ordinary part of the Khagan's command advanced to take the shock of the CvS chariots, with the Nobles moving left to back them up. Expendable Slavs moved forward to delay the Pharaoh's attack.



Dave gave the high dice to his CinC and the low one to the blade command in the centre. The central chariots moved to the left to support the BwO and the rest of the army advanced. I continued to advance on the left and moved the cavalry from the Slav command to the left as well. The Egyptians continued to advance and spent the first Slavic psiloi element. The initial clash between the chariots and the Khagan's CvO resulted in two chariots being destroyed and the rest recoiling, which was a helpful bit of luck for me. The Egyptian BwO outran their low-pipped flank cover and I was able to attack their flank, killing one element.



 A counter-attack from the chariots, led by their general, destroyed two elements of the Khagan's CvO, but his CvS shrugged off interference from the central command's chariots and rode down three more bow elements. Egyptian arrows, whether from Bowmen or psiloi, proved deadly, accounting for an element of Khazar Nobles and two of Slavs. However, the artillery destroyed one of the blades and broke them up into three groups, though this turned out not be a problem even for the low-PIP command.



The Pharaoh pressed home his attack, killing many of the Slavic auxiliaries, and the blades advanced out of the rocks to attack the artillery. Near the river, the chariots fell back and regrouped and the archers destroyed an element of CvS before they were all wiped out and the command broken. The column of chariots from the centre expanded into combat formation, but lost two elements, while the Magyars worked their way through the rocks around their flank. Many cavalry, made impetuous by the broken Egyptian command, charged into the rocks to attack the psiloi. This left a clear run for the sub-general into the flank of the Egyptian blades and he quickly eliminated two elements. 



The Nobles finally got to charge the broken chariots and wiped them out and the cavalry in the rocks winkled out all of the psiloi, except one element. More importantly, another chariot and a blade from the central command were killed, which broke the army. However, this was not before another two elements of Slavs had fallen to the attacks coming from the Pharaoh's command and doubtless this is what the palace wall-paintings will record. 23-2 to the Khazars yet again.



Overall 71 points and 3rd place by a margin of 11 points over 4th, which was larger than whatever penalty Doug was going to inflict on me for my, er, “unauthorised exaggerated numbers stratagem”. Full results are at   http://dbmm.org.uk/rankings/index.php/competition/results/236

Many thanks to Doug for his organising and umpiring efforts.

[Orcoteuthis]

Nice report.

[Duncan Head]

Good report - but did you miss some Magyar LH off the army list at the start?

[LawrenceG1]

Good report - but did you miss some Magyar LH off the army list at the start?

Oops.

Yes, there should be two elements of LH(F)  in the CinC's command. I'll see if I can edit it.