Art De La Guerre

[Hazelbark]

So having run Konstantinian Byzantine for the preceding 3 months I thought about something different and potentially relaxing for the theme.

I settled on Arab Conquest. Honestly after designing the list I thought twice about if this was my cup of tea. I assume there was a chance for other massed Impetuous foot, so I did not go for the spear option, I went for the massive attack list. I would end up enjoying the games and it was a fun change of pace for my normally more maneuver intensive armies. A lot of this is now hazy memory.

My list
+3 strategist
5 HI Impetuous elite
1 LI Javelin
1 LC impact
4 Mc Impetuous

+0 included
5 HI Impetuous elite
1 LI Javelin

+1
4 MI Impetuous elite
1 LI slinger
1 Bowmen
1 Light Camel bow mediocre

24 units. Initiative 3.

So the general plan is:
a) 10 wide HI with 4 MC on one flank and 5 MI on the other going through terrain. This is big and can just bear hug a lot or enemy.
b) What I didn’t like about this structure was how predictive it would be and on an open board a mounted foe might attack and over run my MC or my MI. I was banking that the HI would be hard to avoid. With the Strategist I would also pick more terrain having an increase confidence in moving it.
c) So 10 HI elite would be hard for anyone to pierce before the wide army would envelop them.
d) I did want more mounted, but none really available and an early draft had lots of LC impact I felt would just lose out to a CV impact foe.
e) I wanted more Bow to snipe at enemy mounted, but at the end I opted for width and I couldn’t figure out what to give up. At the end of the day that is a key part. What is nice but you can cut to reinforce your winning plan in army design. As it was the Bow was marginal value but did get some sniping in.
f) Two likely theme opponents I feared. Lots of mounted that would storm down one flank or Vikings with missile support and Huscarls that could withstand the first charge and then carve through my center. I dodge the Viking.



Game 1
Scott Allen with Nikephorians.
Scott’s list I did not care for. It was designed and deployed to fight in a brawl and I think did not maximize the nikephorian maneuverability.
He had 3 included generals and both wings were unreliable generals. So he had 215 points to play with (-15 saving on generals) and I think zero command points. Now the idea that Scott would run 3 generals so inebriated or likely to be indisposed when the battle starts is quite fitting. But that’s another story and those who know Scott for over two decades like I do, can testify he is in total agreement with this risk factor for him-- if he cares to defend himself.

So each of his wings as like 3 HC elite, 3 MC, 1 LC. The center was more HC elite and 2 Cataphracts. And next to his camp were two Skutatoi.
Now in general this is the board I feared. The coast helped close the board, but my MI can’t fight unsupported and my right could be in the open. So i presumed he would attack down my right flank. But he deployed in the center and he should have been more to my right. Since he had an initiative of 0, I attacked and once I saw deployment I rushed forward stopping just short of 4 UD to give his unreliable corps a chance to fail.

Well he did fail with the corps on my right.

So not only was I rushing down on him. But he was impotent where he needed to be strong. He thought about to test the MI force on my left, but he wouldn’t commit there either. So he sort of just decided to stand there and fight my whole army.
Because his unreliable LH was out there to be mugged, I mugged it. My theory is even if we trade units I am larger and it ties up his units that should be trying to flank me. Also in general people with smaller armies need to be careful about fighting early with their non-battle units.

So Scott tried some shooting and realized my longer line was going to be the death of him, so he threw everything in. I must say I felt pretty good. He was getting to even with impact and I was elite, now mostly his armor meant he shouldn’t lose so we should have a fair number of draws on turn 1 and then I should grind him down. But this is where the hero, (Indiana Jones-me) is smiling, then suddenly realizes Scott’s included generals and cataphracts are rolling pretty good in the first round. So I stop smiling as I take more pounding than I thought and went to work rolling up his flanks. The little gaps and the MC where he loses means he start getting more problem very fast and most importantly fast than me.
He breaks but does quite a lot of damage bringing me to 22/25. More than I expected. I don’t worry about getting to 50% but this got closer than I thought and his hi risk design of included generals did help him do damage even though he died horribly because of them. Had his army tried to roll down either flank and not my center it may have been different.

Game 2
Kris Snyder, playing in with someone else’s design Carolingians.
So the terrain fell well, I think I was defending. Secure flanks and brush. Almost too constricted, but considering I could attack through brush and my opponent couldn’t it meant I would have a flank.

The Carolingians were a reasonably list. Saxon ally which could square off against some of my HI a strategist with some trash foot and reserve HC. And then a mounted command. You can see from the map my deployment was basically dictated by terrain. So I wanted to get all my HI out there while I attacked through the brush and hold my MC in reserve to guard flank and deal with break throughs. It was pretty obvious what I would try to do. The Carolingians also had an obvious move, but Kris though to pull the Strategist reserve HC all the way from his center left to his right. They would end up never really getting into the fight.

So one thing the Carolingians had is the tip of their line wheeling in to the my left rushed in a bit unevenly and therefore was not ready for the fight so instead of starting with superior force, he dribbled in and had to face my HI when he wanted to get to my MC. I wanted to speed up the game because I had a long flush line and Kris was taking extra time to get up his line. So Kris had to decide to wait, but his flank in front of the camp was now going to die because mediocre HI were not going to stop elite impetuous MI. So Kris decided to start the cavalry charge but he left a lot of internal flanks. He had some luck, but instead of breaking off he stayed grinding in melee which was the HI advantage. His Saxons had to support his cavalry but that mean their flank was uncovered by my longer line and my bowmen who came out of the brush.

So the Carolingians found themselves in three distinct fights and against longer lines in each. His reserve HC never got into the fight. If even 1 had stayed back near the spear it would likely have taken 1-2 MI out as they stormed forward.

Kris had a tough choice a maneuver army on a constricted board and the most vulnerable enemy point was the furthest for him to travel. What he needed to do was in effect reverse my angle. Deploy his camp centrally. Refuse his Spear back near the camp and have a line where his HC on each end and Saxons in center meant that I would pivot out and to take risks.


Game 3
Bill Sierichs, Carolingians.

At this point I was tired and forgetting to take photos, so there is only one here. Similar board but less secure. Same deployment me for me. Bill went high risk with a flank march but he put in to the far side of where he had his other strike force. This guaranteed he would enter likely unopposed but then where was he going to get into the fight with his 5 CV? He took my camp. But I had enough spare skirmishers to leave around that his Flank march could only single move and thus never got anywhere and took minor shooting hits.

He had a much too large block of Mediocre spear which was just buffet for my army. He refused the spear way back and made my MI run diagonally across the board. But not having an ability to slow me down they loped two moves a turns and were ready to start smashing in around turn 4. One trick he should have considered is just having some LI in the brush fight and die, hoping they buy another turn or two of slower movement.

Because he had 5 CV on the flank march his CIC corps while having an advantage did not have a crushing advantage. Had he held his starting line and the flank march came on early on this flank he would have sandwiched my left in a very unpleasant way. I would have had to hold back and anchor my flank on the plantation and wait for the MI to win after cross the board. Instead his CIC CV stormed in and between my HI and MC I again had a longer line and as I got to his flanks combined with simple attrition I beat his strike force. That plus the death of his spear would topple his army.

I am normally not keen on flank marches but I think this was a wise risk for Bill although as I said the other side would be better. Had the FM arrived turn 4 it would have done very little. Where I think he got wrong is buying too many HI to bulk his army. I think a better mix of other troops might give more punch and fundamentally in this theme I think HI mediocre in qty is too risky.


Conclusions:
I normally don’t like distinctive corps that are really forced into certain functions, but this army and theme called for it. I expected the HI to be more robust against period CV, but they won more often by being wider than better. So the width was key. The games turned too often on the enemy being overlapped on each end. I think players too often come straight up the center and being more off center would have served most armies better.

I thought the theme worked well and I enjoyed the AC list.