Last week, as mentioned previously, the Kushans again tried to expel the Juan
Juan from their territory. In a night fight we came up with the first ever
Kushan (as Kushans, not morphed into something else) victory against one of the
steppe variations.

The previous game was within 0.5ME of a win so the Kushan list has stablised in
the year AD380 with Chionite allies and has now worked satisfactorily in three
outings. I have Kushans because I liked the idea of the El & KnX combo with
cheap support, as being able to take on all comers but it hasn't turned out to
be what I expected. It's a slow manouver brick really, and the 'all comers' are
too scared to come in head-on anyway so we rarely get the El/Kn combo into
action. What is proving a useful tactic is to use the fear of the 'brick' going
forward to split the enemy and dealing with them a section at a time by using
local number superiority and also using the generals (including one on a El) as
flying squads, as they only cost a PiP, to get into overlap/flank or even into
contact. I'm a bit surprised at how effective the use of generals can be due to
the PiP saving.

So its not the army I expected but it does look good (all my own painting
too!)and I'm really starting to enjoy playing with it, more so than the previous
ones.

So the game was played with all the terrain on my side of the table (usually I
get some sort of DG in Bob's deployment area). A re-curving navigatable river
running across the width of the table just on the limit of my deployment line,
on my left edge was a Oa fully protecting my flank and a M on the right edge
doing the same thing and in my centre away from the table edge was a odd shaped
SF that fitted almost perfectly into a river bend. Bob's side was totally
clear.

I was defending. The Chionite ally went on the left, double ranked, forward and
up against the Oa so that
they could go forward and expand out to the table edge. Next was the bigger sub
command with their El/Kns up to the river ready to cross if required. Behind
these were their LhO&F in column to fill gaps as needed, the LhO being very good
gap stoppers against LhS as the F effect doesn't bite. The commands Ax/Ps was
on the edge of the SF in column to move into and occupy it if required.

The CnC started in the SF with his El/Kn block ready to cross the river also if
required also. His foot were in the SF ready to march to wherever needed and
the LhF were back behind a river bend awaiting developments (they never moved).
In the gap between the SF and my base edge was the smaller sub command, entirely
LhF except for its KnX general. It stayed in place throughout while its general
went off to kill things. My right side was unoccupied.

Bob deployed a huge 24ME all(?) LhS command on my left, an even bigger command
in the centre but it had a large column of CvS in it, held back from the line
and facing to my left, while the right had another 24ME command of LhS but with
a fair amount of foot/hordes all of which were facing open space.

We only had three bounds of sunlight to play, (2 for me, 1 for Bob), two bounds
of dusk and then six bounds of moonlight before total darkness. We had to look
up the relevant rules. Normally, if it was daytime I would have waited to see
how things developed and defended the river line, striking across it with the
Kn/El when they had targets or flanks to chase but I thought the night game
would be a) fun (never done this before) and b) at a slight advantage with me
playing the last of each visibilty restriction step-downs. I hoped this would
give chances to break up the Juan Juan into manageable pieces. So I decided to
play it over their side of the river.

The El/Kns all stepped over the river, the Chionites (reliable again) spread out
left and started to cross the river, the CnC joined his foot and they headed
towards a bend in the river that would give them flanking options if the
fighting started. The LhF command stayed put while their general went of to
join CnC. The big sub commands Lh went left to cover the joint with the
Chionites in the river and to have options to back them up if needed (and
important decision as it turned out).

The Juan Juan came forward. With plenty of PiPs they closed up on my left
quickly, split the centre command's Lh so they avoided the El/Kn in their centre
and the right command headed forward to cross the river unopposed.

The Chionites needed enough PiPs to get clear of the river and organise their
groups and they got them, so the line got to the table edge, creating a single
overlap over the Juan Juan line opposite but were in two groups plus lone
general and in danger of going sponno on a future bad PiP roll. However we were
in range to maintain visibility as dusk hit. The rest of the troops moved into
pre-dusk positions as best the PiPs allowed. And so dusk arrived.

Bob walked across the room and turned half the living room lights off!! I
checked my phone battery - I'd need its light to play the moonlight section if
he turned the rest off after the next two bounds.

Several groups of Juan Juan were out of visible range and stopped moving. On
the left though all the LhS closed within charge range. In the centre they went
forward as best they could. In my bound I had a few PiP issues and realised
that the impetuous moves by the Ax out of the river were going to put them in
front of a wall of enemy. However I let that happen as I needed the PiPs to
turn an El 90deg to face towards the right flank otherwise with dusk falling
they would lose sight and drop out of the game, so the risk was taken. The lone
small command general crossed the river also to give support to the exposed Ax.

On the left the LhS forces clashed, with my centre sub KnX general getting into
the end combat. This fight was to last into the night, was fairly normal Lh on
Lh random outcome stuff with the smaller Chionite command demoralising first,
but because of the LhO/F were available to fill gaps the Juan Juan also
demoralised soon after. The fight went on with the Chionites breaking, again to
be followed by the Juan Juan command. The battle had also inflicted casualties
on Bob's centre command.

Dusk turned to moonlight night - I managed to keep Bob away from the light
switches!! Several groups on both sides lost sight of the enemy and halted. We
had identified that the impetuous LhS also stopped moving but it was strange
that one group stopped half way across the river.

I tried unsuccessfully to not activate some of Bob's command on my right while
trying to catch the split off part of his centre command with the few troops
still in the game. (All Bob's CvS never got to move, all my non-general KnX
were also stationary all knight in the dark as were numerous other needed
groups). I did have a the CnC on his El, another El from his command, an
unkillable PsO, a few AxO and a KnX general in the centre battle. In the
darkness we got quite intermixed, due to restricted sight, combat outcomes and
such vagaries of battle. The KnX general killed everything that stumbled into
his line of sight, a couple of PsO kept a couple LhS occupied for several moves
in the open (one even survived the battle) while the CnC and El wingman (damn I
forgot wingman bonuses!!) moved across the table pushing LhS before them,
killing a few. A couple of LhS got behind them but they survived the rear
attack.

The moon set - I had worked out that I needed to keep the Lh behind the El in
play as I needed them dead to break the command/army (if they halted out of
sight the command would survive even if the El got the other three Lh they were
fighting frontally - which would also activate Bob's last command again - and
two El against 8(?) LhS was not a good thing to start). I pushed a couple of Ax
up into sight range as the moon set and everyone dropped to 80p vision. Of
course the Lh could now move but weren't ZoCd so went off after the El they
couldn't see - "we saw you go this way, we can hear you fighting our friends but
where the hell are you?" and left the Ax alone in the dark anyway.

So in the darkness I was trying to stop the Els from charging off straight ahead
to certain doom amongst another LhS command but to still fight selected targets
to get the win before we all went stationary due to lack of vision. Bob was
trying to not get caught while dragging me along to reactivate others. Good
fortune had it that I managed to turn one El around and we got the combat
results where we needed them just out of range of sight from the possible rescue
team.

On the left having broken one command and lost sight of the other I used PiPs to
disengage from the pursuit and encamp for the night. The final result came in
the centre and the Juan Juan broke.

The night game was very interesting. I think having the final move before each
vision stepdown was important as it allowed me to engage or not groups of enemy
without them being able to react. However another very tight, enjoyable
evenings gaming.