ADLG Later Assyrian v Warring States Chinese

Another competition practice for Gordon, this time one where all the armies had to have at least two chariots. Having used my Early Carthaginians not that long ago I thought I'd use the Assyrians this time.

I'd noticed that several of the 'Biblical' armies in V.4 of ADLG had changed their lists a bit so I went for a version of Assyrian that was almost all mounted and chariots with a vague plan of moving around one flank quickly or flank marching. The army was pitifully small though at only 19 elements.

Gordon's army was an odd one, masses of elite infantry and chariots with a lot of skirmishers. Quite what the rationale was for Warring States infantry being so efficient I'm not sure! He thought his army was small with only 23 elements!

The battlefield ended up being fairly open so I decided to try something 'unusual' (aka probably stupid), deploying two commands on table and one flank marching. Gordon would hopefully assume my flank march would be coming on my right to defend the somewhat abandoned camp or perhaps hiding in ambush behind the hill while in reality it was set to arrive on my left flank. It was a substantial flank march too, over 1/3 of the army.

Conforming to the 'plan' the Assyrians rapidly redeploy to their left leaving much of Gordon's army with little to do:

The Chinese slowly turn to face the Assyrians while sending a substantial force to attack the helpless Assyrian camp:

First contact! Chinese swordsmen charge Assyrian cavalry. The flank march has not arrived yet but with a 1/3 chance of arrival every turn surely they will turn up soon:

There are huge gaps in the Chinese line and so far everything is going to plan apart from two things. Firstly the Assyrian camp has been sacked (4 losses out of the 12 needed to break the army until the flank march arrives) and secondly the flank march has STILL not arrived:

Pinned against the table edge Chinese cavalry charge into Assyrian infantry. The odds favour the Assyrians here:

The slow moving Chinese are still struggling to engage the Assyrians, there are plenty of opportunities for the flank march to take when it arrives. No dust clouds, no flank march:

Now the Assyrians are starting to struggle a bit, losing the odd element and taking a few shooting hits. It does not take long to rack up 12 losses. The Chinese have lost more but then they have their whole army present so they don't care so much:

The army subsides to defeat despite only having lost (I think) two elements and a few shooting hits! The Chinese had lost quite a few more:

The errant flank march which could have appeared and changed the battle if only they had not got lost/turned traitorous/decided to stop off at McDonalds on the way: 

Despite being a bit of a disaster this was actually a really fun game, the plan was very different to usual and caused Gordon a lot of problems partly I think due to being so risky he didn't quite understand it! We played a fair few turns so with a 1/3 chance of arrival every turn the odds should (SHOULD) have been on them arriving in a decent place and making a significant difference.

As a practice I'm not sure how useful it was for Gordon, he reckoned that firstly no sane competition player did flank marches with anything other than a few elements of LH and secondly that the army composition was actually different and quite nice with a lot of firepower and manoeuvrability.

One thing for sure is that the commander of the flank march will be suffering all the insanely cruel torments Assyrian rulers were capable of inflicting! 

ADLG Assyrian Empire v Meriotic Kushite

Another ADLG game, this time using my Assyrians against Gordon's Meriotic Kushite. I'd assumed this was the Biblical army but there is a later Kushite list which is the one Gordon used!

The Assyrians managed to get a waterway to narrow the table against the likely to be larger Kushite army. They decide to rush forward to try to engage the Kushites as quickly as possible. One Kushite command is missing. The Assyrians assume it must be medium foot ambushing in the palm grove, flank marching given the terrain does not seem likely. It later transpired that the Assyrians were partly correct in this assumption:

The Kushites advance to meet the Assyrians who throw a medium foot unit and a cavalry unit out on the right to slow the rest of the Kushites when they arrive:

Oh dear. The ambushing troops are a load of camelry and cavalry who will not be delayed much by the two Assyrian elements facing them. Not medium foot as expected!:

The Kushite cavalry withdraw from the Assyrian foot and chariots. The Assyrians desperately try to redeploy to meet the Kushite ambush on the right:

The Assyrian right is a confused mess of chariots and cavalry rapidly being out flanked by the Kushite camelry and cavalry:

The Assyrians form a line of sorts on the right. In the centre the Kushite foot, elephants and cavalry have charged home on the mixed Assyrian foot:

Despite an initial resistance the Assyrians do badly in the combats:

The situation looks bad but perhaps not unrecoverable:

The Assyrian mixed heavy swordsmen/bowmen in the centre are collapsing rapidly while the Assyrian chariots struggle to get into contact:

Much of the Assyrian centre has been destroyed while the Kushite camelry are more than holding their own against the Assyrian cavalry and chariots:

The Assyrians break in rout leaving the Kushites victorious:

Gordon only lost two elements in this game so it was a very decisive victory for him. Having said that I don't think I had the best of luck, despite being a largely shooting army the Assyrians inflicted very few shooting hits and did badly in the combats.

However, Gordon definitely out-thought me as I didn't expect the ambush to be mounted (though I should have done as looking his list he could have camels and was bound to have them). Once he sprang the trap I was left trying to shore up a desperate position and ended up aimlessly moving the chariots around to try to stabilise things so the outcome was by no means unlucky for me!