Battle Reports

Sassanids vs Classical Indian

A 400 AP game between Mikes Sassanid Persians, and my attempt at a Classical Indian army. Again, neither knew what the other was playing until we got ready for set up.

Mikes Sassanid Persian army was a little different to last time out. He was fielding 3 commands but no Elephants, this time round. 

Dicing, not suprisingly, saw the Indians at home, and the Sassanids invading. Mike chose 2 gentle hills, and I went for a wood, a wooded hill, and 2 areas of scrubby flat. The dicing saw the gentle hills go into corners and flank edges, and all the rest went into my deployment zone. One area of scrubby flat had to be discarded as it could not be fitted in!.

The only bit of terrain that was important turned out to be the wood, which dicing put on my right flank, cutting off potential flank marches. The wooded hill abutted the table edge, and came in towards my left flank, and behind this I managed to place an area of scrubby flat, that would accomodate one of my commands.

Mike deployed first, and his army comprised:

Command One: Irr. Cv(S) SG, 5 x Irr. Cv(S), 6 x Irr, Kn(X), and 4 x Irr. Lh(F).

Command two: Irr. Cv(S) C in C, 15 x Irr Cv(S).

Command Three: Irr. Cv(O) AG, 14 x Irr. Lh(S) Chionites.

These were deployed in line from his right to left. the whole army was deployed 2 ranks deep, except for a single element wide column of 4 lh(F) that formed the extreme right flank. The SG, and CinC were tucked into the 2nd rank, and the ally stood behind the 2nd rank of the Lh(S).

My army comprised:

Command One: 1 x El(S) SG, 4 x Irr. El(S), 3 x Cv(I), 10 x Irr. Hd(O).

Command Two: 1 x Irr. El(S) CinC, 8 x Irr. Kn(X)

Command Three: 1 x Irr. EL(S) SG, 5 x Irr. El(S), 3 x Cv(I), 10 x Irr. Hd(O)

I deployed with Command one to my right flank. the Hd(O) were in 2 lines inside the wood, and the El(S) were formed into a single element wide column down the side of the wood, with the cv(I) formed in the rear. Command Two was in single line of Kn(X), and the CinC forming the left end of the command. Command three was depolyed in line, abutting the cinC, but deployed inside the scrub. The Hd(O) were deployed behind the El(S) in 2 lines, also within the scrub. The Cv(I) formed a column to the left of the scrub, behind the wooded hill.

Mike took first bound and got relatively poor PIP's. His ally general remained reliable, but the whole Sassanid army was only able to roll forward slowly. The Lh(F) column pushed towards the wooded hill, I assume, with the intention of pushing through and getting into the rear of the Indian army.

My responidng PIP's were OK and I was able to advance the whole line of Command 3 El(S) and the whole of command 2 forward to close down the gap between the armies. Command one had the best PIP's and was able to deploy out into line, with 1 elephant left in reserve line, and then to advance, but it could not quite keep up with the rest. All the Hd remained inside the terrain. For once there was no shooting, and it passed back to Mike.

His PIP's were not great, the CinC pushed forward but was restricted to single march moves becauase of the proximity of the Indian front line. the Kn(X) and cv(S) from command one were facing the elephants of the Indian command three, and did not have room to move out of the way. On the other flank, however the AG got a 1 and lost control of a number of his Lh(S), who raced straight forward in spontaneous advance. Some faced off against the end El from command one, but did not engage. The tail end element of the Lh(F) column charged into the elephant on the extreme left of the Indian line, however, forcing me to turn and face. The result of the combat was one dead Lh(F) and the elephant had to follow up.

My bound and the enetire line of Elepahnts from Command three, and the whole of Command two crashed into the Sassanid line of cv(S) and Kn(X). It looked like extremely favourable match ups with 4 El(S) crashing into Kn(X), and the Kn(X) crashing into Cv(S). I had overlaps against the Kn(X) at the end of the line, but Mike had an overlap on the other end of the line vs the Indian kn(X).

Command One El(S) completed expansion into line and advanced, but remained just short of the Cv(S) line. First bound of big combat, and the El(S) killed 4 Kn(X), but the Kn(X) chariots failed to damage the remaining 2 Sassanid Kn(X), and despite the QK only managed to kill one Cv(S). The anomaly of the grading adjustments saving a number, and forcing recoils on some of the Kn(X). The Sassanid command One was disheartened already, but with only 2 ME troops and a few Lh(F) this was to have little impact just yet. None of the "victorious" elements chose to follow up, except for the compulsory moves for the El(S).

Mikes bound and his Lh(S) mugged the El(S) on the right flank, forcing the element to face the flank, and the sassanid Cv(S) moved back into the Kn(X). to maintain pressure. The Lh(F) retired smartly from the El(S) now facing them, and the rest of the Hun Lh(S) moved towards the wood hiding the Hd(O) cowering there. The combat that followed again showed the anomaly of the grading changes in that the Cv(S) were recoiled in most places. The Sassanid Kn(X) were recoiled by the indian chariots. The mugged El(S) killed the Lh(S) that had atacked it.

My bound, and i was able to move all my Kn(X) back into ontact with the cv(S) line. The El(S) Killed a couple of the Cv(S) that had formed the second rank to the Kn(X) and this included the general, which broke the Sassanid command one, and some QK results form the Kn(X) killed a couple of Cv(S) from the Sassanid CinC's comamnd, but elsewhere grading adjustments killed one ofthe Kn(X) chariots too. Mike still had a second line of troops to plug gaps and I had nothing to plug the hole in my line.

Control passed back to the Sassanids, who were unable to hold thye broken command One which bolted for the table edge. The Cv(S) command continued to battle it out with the kn(X) chariots, and the Chionite allies mugged the end El(S), catching it in front and rear. Some of the Lh(S) reached the edge of the wood, where they stopped, but others used PIPs to attack the end element of Hd(O) in front and rear too. The close combat saw the grading factors favour the indians this time round, and most of the cv(S) in the Sassanid centre were recoiled. The Mugged El(S) bounced off its attackers, but the Hd(O) died because of flank lock.

Into my next bound, and it was apparent that the sassanid army was close to breaking. I managed to get most of the command three El(S) under control and the spontaneous advances caught some routing kn(X) in the rear and flanks. The Kn(X) chariots moved back into conctact with the sassanid Cv(S), and i advanced Command ones cv(I) to threaten the flanks of the Chionite Lh(S). They could not reach yet, however. Command Ones El(S) caught another Lh(S). The hand to hand combat saw another indian chariot die becasue of the grading adjustments, and that was about all. A number of the Kn(X) were also recoiled by the sassanids.

I suspected that we were entering the possible final round, and Mikes PIps allowed him to make a feigned flight attempt with the Chionites. His cv(S) returned to the fight with the Indian Kn(X) and some of the Chionites mugged the El(S) on the end of the line again. The Lh(S) in the wood also mugged another Hd(O) with a flank lock. Sassanid command One disappeared off table. In the combat that followed the chionites killed the El(S) and the Hd(O), and a Cv(S) element killed a Kn(X) chariot. This disheartened the CinC'scommand but with onky 2ME or better troops, this had no impact. Unfortunately, further deaths of the Cv(S) (due again to grading adjustments) broke the C in C's command. Mike made the feigned flight moves as this was the first one we had seen, but the game was over. Test dice showed that most of the Indians were kept under control.

We calculated this as a 22:3 victory but the Indian C inC's command was only one element from breaking.