A Taunting by the Tuareg.

A Headless Body Production
Venue: On Military Matters Book Store, Hopewell, NJ
Event: January Doldrums...
Players: Phil Gardocki running Nikephorian
               Dennis Shorthouse running Tuareg
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 15mm, 200 points per side.

The Forces:
The Calamitous Camel Campaign in West Africa
Their commanders names are lost to history.
10 Medium Camel, Impetuous, 6 Elite.
4 Light Camel, Impact
8 Medium Sword, Impetuous
6 Light Infantry, Javelin
Breakpoint of 28

Nikephorian Byzantine(list 127)
Commanded by the Sneaker brothers! The brilliant Nikephoros, the unequally brilliant Adidiasphoros, and their ordinary sibling, Pumaphoros
6 Tagmata, Kataphractoi, Heavy Cavalry Bow, Impact, Elite
5 Petchnegs and Prokoursatores, Light Cavalry, Bow
1 Varangians, Heavy Swordsmen, 2HW
5 Skutatoi, ½ Heavy Spearmen ½ Bowmen
5 Psiloi, Light Infantry, Bows, Javelins, Incendiaries.
Breakpoint of 22

Display Conventions: When you see a word bubble like "Ωχ!", or "Ouch!", this implies a disorder from missiles. In this AAR, quotes from Shakespeare about death.

Letters in parenthesis represent some value change for the specific unit. For commanders it is s for strategist, b for Brilliant, c for Competent and o for Ordinary, u for unreliable. For troops it is e for Elite, and m for Mediocre. Other abbreviations, Hvy Heavy, XB Crossbow, LB, Longbow, Jav Javelin, 2HW 2 Handed Weapons, B Bow, Kn Knight, HKn Heavy Knight, HC Heavy Cavalry, Md Medium, Sgt Sergeants, LC Light Cavalry, Chr Chariot, Cat Cataphract, Pa Pavise, LI, Light Infantry, HG Hand Gun, FKn Foot Knight, Hvy Spear, Heavy Spearmen.

"XX" implies a unit killed in that location on that turn.

The Board: The Byzantines win the initiative and elect to attack in the desert.

The weather is good.

Dennis Shorthouse is the proprietor of On Military Matters book service. A delightful book store in Hopewell New Jersey that specializes in military books.

I have misplaced my dead markers to place where units had been destroyed. You are just going to have to rely on your imagination of the carnage being described. 

 Deployment:

The Tuareg right has 4 Medium Camels, and a large force of swordsmen.

Their left has 8 troops ofCamels, 6 of which are Elite.

Nikephoros deploys his Tagmata on the left.

Adidasphoros deploys his foot in a refuse left position.

The Byzantines have one command unseen.  And no ambushes.  

Turn 1:

A patient advance by the Byzantines.  Contrary to the picture, there are 2 LI in ambush in the brush not yet deployed.

My thought is to let the camels cross the brush, and start shooting.  They are only mediums with a protection of zero.

We'll see how long the Psiloi can keep the attention of the main camel force.

The Careless advance by the Petchnegs left them open to being surrounded.

There is that ambush.  Arrows fly.

The Tuaregs vector their main camel force at the Byzantine Tagmata.  They assign their swordsmen to the left flank.

While their Javelin armed lights approach the Psiloi Bow.

Turn 2:

Turn about is fair play.  A Tuareg light camel is run over by iron shod hooves.

And since the impetuous foot is in disarray, and deploying to the wrong flank, can the Skutatoi do no less?

Even disordered, Light Camel Impact is 1 better in combat than Light Cavalry Bow, so the Petchnegs evade.

Tuareg camels approach the Tagmatic line, but are also in bow range of the Skutatoi

The Tuareg left are forcing their way through the terrain with lights, and backed up by a terrifying number of swordsmen.

Turn 3:

One Tagmata runs off the Light Camels.  But his partner is defeated by their opposing camelry.

A wall of spear backed bow continue to harass the camel horde.

Psiloi archers score.

Most Tuareg camels charge in masse, failing to catch the evading Tagmata.

While the Tuareg lights turn the flank of the Psiloi in the sand.

Turn 4:

The Tagmata return and loose arrows, but with minimal effect.

Pumaphoros arrives on the left flank.

Despite the now massed missile fire, the Byzantines fail to score any hits.

The Greek fire siphon is in the second row, and will play no part in this battle.

Another camel charge, another evade.  It was very close.

My overconfidence is showing here.  I advanced the flank march more than necessary to charge the camp.  Pumaphoros's light horse was actually in range of a Medium Camel and evaded off the board.

You wouldn't know these were all unmaneuverable units from all the maneuvering they are doing.

More charge and evade.

One group of Psiloi took a stand, and payed for their arrogance.

Turn 5:

Reloaded with fresh arrows, the Tagmata further disorder their foes.

Lead by Adidasphoros, the Varangians charge the confused camelry.  They are supported by a Skutatoi on their right, which in turn had a flank charge on another troop of Camelry.

Psiloi Javelinmen position to make a stand.

Loses are heavy.  The Byzantines have 18 points towards their demoralization level of 22.

Off screen, Pumaphoros raids the Tuareg camp.

I seem to have missed a set of pictures of the bottom of the 5th.  We'll pick up the action at the top of the 6th.

Turn 6:

The Tagmata take out two more troops of Camelry.

But there seems to be a never ending supply of them.  Tauregs pin some of the Byzantine foot.

And set up a massive charge on the other half.

Adidiasphoros never didn't really run his foot well.  The Varangians were not quite lined up, and so the Tauregs were able to get 3-1 on them.

Similarly, one Skutatoi was flanked and taken for the win.

The Byzantines gave as well as they got.  But not good enough as the Tauregs needed 28 to break.

Both Dennis and I made numerous mistakes in this game.  And they pretty much broke even.  Unfortunately, that was to the Tuareg advantage.

One of my mistakes was miscalculating the distance the camels can move.  Particularly in a turn.  While the Impetuous troops lose 2 UD's at a cost of 2 command points to make a turn, it only costs 1 command point and 1.5 UD's to make a wheel. This came up twice where I thought I was safe.  And in the end had no less than 3 units run off the board.