Timurid Persians vs the Feudal Germans

A Headless Body Production

Venue:   On Military Matters Bookstore.  Owner Operator Dennis Shorthouse
Event:    The first of a monthly gaming event.
Players: Phil Gardocki running Timurid Persian  
                   Allen Kaplan running Feudal Germans
                 
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 200 points per side.
Theme: Open, no restrictions


The Forces:

   Timurid Persian circa 1400: Commanders  Timur the Lame (Strategist), Ulugh Beg (Brilliant) and Babur (Competent)
      8 Persian Heavy Cavalry, Impact, Bow (6 elite)
      4 Turkomans, Light Cavalry, Bow (elite)
      2 Light Infantry Bow
      4 Persian Archers, Bowmen (Mediocre)
      2  Hostages, Levy expendable, (Mediocre)
      2 Stampeding Herds
      1 Elephant
Breakpoint...19

Feudal Germans.  3 anonymous commanders, 2 competent and one unreliable ordinary.
      5 Medium Knights (4 elite)
      2 Light Horse, Crossbow 
      2 Heavy Spearmen
      2 Light Infantry Bow
      2 Mercenaries, Heavy Swordsmen Armor 2HW
      2 Halberdiers, Heavy Swordsmen 2HW
      4 Crossbowmen
      3 Free Canton troops, Medium Spearmen
      1 Heerban, Levy

Breakpoint...24

Dennis has a wonderful bookstore in Hopewell New Jersey, that he has been running for many decades.  Imagine going through a library that is nothing but military history.  If you don't think you knew him, he is a long time supporter of Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, and held the coveted #1 spot in the dealers area for over 20 years.  So if you have been to any of HMGS's events at the Lancaster Host, you probably have met Dennis at some time.

Why Timurid Persian?  For a long time Islamic Persian was my tournament army when playing Warrior.  So I had figures for the era.  Next to Islamic Persian is Timurid Persian, which is a great gadget army.  In Warrior, the elephants had naptha bombs, the stampeding herds were Irregular 'A' which gives them a nice combat advantage, and they had good artillery.  

The problem with the army in Warrior is the Persian Cavalry was regular, which is fine, except that eventually they would be caught and overrun by impetuously charging irregular cavalry.  The Stampeding Herds are expensive at 65 points, when they act just like a Scythed Chariot which is only 24 points, a very expensive trade.   The elephant was 80 points because of the 4 crewmen with fire weapons, while a very excellent, but more conventionally armed elephant, is 48 points. The gadgets just cost too much making the army unplayable.

L' Art de la Guerre, has none of these disadvantages, and so I am delighted to put this army on the table.

The Board:

Timur the Lame wins the initiative and selects to attack in the plains. The Germans selects a field, a plantation and a hill.  The Persians selects a gully and a field.

 3 attempts were made to move the hill, with 2 1's and a 2.  You would think it was attached to the bedrock or something

Deployment:

On the German right are 5 Medium Knights and 2 Light Cavalry, Bow.

The middle is a variety of Heavy Infantry, with sword and spear, lead by Crossbowmen.  On the German left are Medium Spearmen and Levies.

On the Persian left, across from the knights, an elite force of Persian Cavalry

In the middle, a hodge-podge of forces.  Archers supported by elephants and cattle.  The stampeding herd is substituting N gauge cattle until my 25mm figures come in.

Babur is leading a similar force of 4 Persian Cavalry and Turkomans.

Turn 1:
The plan is clear.  On the left, the Persians are to not engage, just shoot.  The center is to hold with the terrain advantages, while the right is to overrun the small German command.   I have to be patient here.  Sweeping attacks take much longer than you think they should.

Ulugh Beg advances rapidly.  He is anxious to take the knights under bow fire.

Elephants and archers ascend the hill.

The herd and other archers also advance.  Off camera to the right, Babur double marches his Cavalry.

The knights advance without fear.

The massed crossbowmen score the first hit.

The weaker command of the Germans is holding back, they also see the cavalry horde coming at them from off panel right.

Turn 2:

And so it begins.  Persian archery is superb, hitting 3 of 5 knights.

Timur attempts to rally his archers but they will have none of it.  This is a recurring theme throughout the game.  

Here I made a mistake.  Actually the mistake was made on deployment.  I am trying to maneuver the elephant to take on the knights.  That seems like a good match up, right.  But what is happening here is I have now broken up a command and the primary mission of the elephant.  By assigning the elephant to the infantry command, it provides a significant bolster to what is otherwise a weak corps.  The idea of the elephant is to prevent a cavalry force from running over the mediocre Persian Archers.  Now there is not cavalry to fear here, but it still detracted 2 command points to turn the elephant.  Because of that, the stampeding herds were not advanced.

In the end, it was wasted command points, they may have caused the knights to hold back a little but at a cost of failing to keep up the pressure on the attack wing.

Babur's command is lining up his shots.

Pennants lowered, the knights charge down the line.  The Persian Cavalry dutifully evade.

The missile exchange continues.  One of the Persian Bowmen units is destroyed.  Introducing the new dead unit markers, created by Jolly Blackburn of "Knights of the Dinner Table" fame.

Turn 3:

The Persians turn and shoot again.  Some knights now have 2 hits on them.

The Elephants skirmish line has been shot away.

The Stampeding Herd and the Persian Cavalry on the right are now in place.

The Knights charge again.

The Elephant is now taking crossbow hits.

The German leftmost Corps obliques its line to avoid being flanked. 

Turn 4:
Ouch Time!

Persian Cavalry approach to cause more hits on the Knights. Now they are too close to the edge and run the risk of running off the edge of the board if charged again.

In charges the Persian Cavalry.  But this did not go as expected.  Two ties and a loss.

The elephant was sent in as well.  Not a good match-up but better than just being shot to death.

Turn 5:

The Knights charged in. Between the initial impact and the followup, two Knights have been run down.  But so to is one of the Turkoman Light Horse.

The Elephant is routed, as are both Stampeding Herds.

On the Persian right, one of the Heavy Cavalry units is routed, but so are two of the Medium Spearmen.  Persian Archers start to poor on arrows onto the flank of the Heavy Infantry.

4 Knights are down.  The Germans are at 19 of their break point of 24.  The Persians are at 10 of 19.

Chaos rules as the German Infantry breaks up into many parts.

The Persians pause and just shoot.  This is because they want to finish the last German  Medium Spear in their rear, but also because they have rolled 3 1's in row for command points, and so haven't been able to exploit their maneuverability.

Germans are looking for an advantage of their own.  The only thing between the Germans and the Persian camp is an expendable levy.

Turn 6:

A German Light Horse is surrounded and crushed.

The fifth Knight falls.  The Germans are at 23 of their break point of 24.  The Persians are now at 14 of 19.

On the right flank, another 1 is rolled for command points.  And a 6-1 die roll gives the The last Medium Spearmen another turn of life.

On the far left, the last German Light Horse flees to the Persian edge of the board.  Out of charge reach of the Persian Heavies chasing it.

The Persian Archers on the hill pick up a second hit.  Rallying the troops is just a word in this game, as our success rate, both Germans and Persians is about 2 successes and about 8 failures.

The German Medium Spearmen, surrounded and outnumbered, pull a win, destroying a Persian Heavy Cavalry.  With a successful German Rally, the score is now 22-14.

The Germans begin to pick up steam in the center.  Two Hostage units pick up hits, and a Knight runs down a Persian Heavy Cavalry.  The score is now 22-17.

Halberdiers climb the hill, and scatter the Persian Archers. The score is now 22-18.

And there is the last point.  Light Horse Crossbow manage to shoot down the last Turkoman Light Horse for a German win!

Lessons to be learned.  First and foremost, never give up.  Allen certainly didn't.  He kept pushing where he had an advantage, and minimized risks where he could.  The result was he managed to pull back one point from his break-point, while dealing 6 points to mine.  Well done.

The Persian mistakes were legion.  The first was relying on a sweep attack.  Which, while a good idea in theory, it takes more time then you have to resolve. The whole battle still resolves down to a corps on corps fight.

Second, was mixing up the mission of the infantry corps.  By having 4 archer units, it's mission is to stand off and shoot.  Nothing more.  The Elephant in the group is to provide a deterrence against a cavalry charge.  The Stampeding Herds, as part of the group, is a distraction to the corps mission.  They have to get into combat quickly, or die, as they only take one hit.  So even with a Strategist assigned to the corps, he could not generate all the command points necessary to keep all the parts moving.    The Levy troops did ok, as they were really just assigned to watch the camp, then pulled up to replace the killed bowmen.  Perhaps next time they will be in the line with the bowmen, just to suck up some missile fire.

On the Persian left, all went well.  The Cavalry shot up all the Knights before engaging, but it still was tough going.  Even damaged the Knights are +2 to the Persian +2.   If these were Heavy Knights, it would not have gone well for the Persians.