A Tutorial of Teutonic's

A Headless Body Production

Players: Phil Gardocki running Indians
               Paul Ohtonen running Teutonic Knights

Event:  HMGS's Cold Wars.  See Here...
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 15mm, 200 points per side.

Theme: Round 1 of the L' Art de la Guerre, Crusaders and Their Foes Tournament. A limited number of lists and time periods. No Heavy Knights and NO ELEPHANTS. Even if your ally somehow is entitled to one. 

Venue: Valley Forge Casino Resort, a minimal amenity gaming resort offering 100,000 foot of meeting facilities, high priced food, Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, and no room service. But the parking is plentiful.

The Forces
Classical Indian Are commanded by King Porus, the Competent, Prince Porus, the Ordinary, and Shitake, the Competent
4 Elephants, Elite
10 Bowmen, 1/2 Medium Swordsmen, 1/2 Bowmen
2 War Wagons with blades
1 Medium Cavalry, Mediocre
6 Light Infantry, Bow
1 Levy
Breakpoint of 25

Teutonic Knights. This list is derived from the images and can be construed as "best guess".
Commanders of unremembered quality.
8 or so Medium Knights, some impetuous, some impact, some dismounted
2 ? Turcopoles, Medium Cavalry, Javelin
1 Crossbowmen, Pavise
7 Light Horse, Turcopoles and Hungarians
2 ? Heavy Spearmen, but could be more dismounted knights
Breakpoint of 20

A note on annotations. When you see a word bubble "Ouch!", ("Schissa!", "आउच!", "Heus!") this implies a missile hit.

Letters in parenthesis represent some value change for the specific unit. For commanders it is 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" marks a unit killed in that location on that turn.
"????" is an ambush marker, and so it is unknown at this time.

Scores are presented in a confusing manner. This is because it is measured in number of points towards the demoralization. If I say the score is 15-8 in favor of Milan, that means the Burgundians are have 15 points towards their demoralization level of 19, while Milan has 8 points towards their demoralization level of 20. But saying 15-8 is just more intuitive. 

Misleading descriptions or lack of specificity as to who/what is being referred to is to be considered part of the fun, rather than memory problems with the author. 

So there I was, minding my own business running the 25mm doubles event at Cold Wars. I had given up my seat at the table to Jay Stone, due to his partner having medical issues. When Dan Hazelwood, who was running the 15mm theme event, "Crusaders and their foes", told me he had an odd number and asked if I had 15mm army I could play. 

"I do, but it is Indian, and as far out of the specifications as you can get."

He asked Paul if it was an ok match up for the first round.

Deployment:

The Teuts win the initiative and elect to attack in the forest. Because elephants hate woods...

The Teuts decided to dismount their right hand command. So the Indians are mostly facing armored infantry with two handed swordsmen.

The Teutonic Knights on the left missed the dehorse memo, and state astride their stately stallions.

The Teutonic Knights third command cannot be seen.

King Poros's keen eye for distance seems to have failed him. There is only 9UD's distance between the forest and the 4UD flank zone.  And Shitake's command has taken 6 of them.

The gap between the 2 woods is just enough space for two war wagons to fill.

Ignore the "Tide's out" comment. The mat and the table top are close enough in color when I annotated the picture I thought the coastal area was off board.

Of course I could just reedit the picture...

Naa...

Turn 1:

Bound 1, and the foot soldiers are off to the races.

But we really owe Paul for being a good sport. The lists for this theme were extremely limited, and specifically stating "NO Elephants!".

The Knights on horse trot forward.

There is a flank march running, and worse, there is dust on the horizon. It is arriving next turn!

Again, ignore the flavor text. I wrote thinking the coastal was off board.

"You could just reannontate the picture".

"Shut up".

3 of the elephant task groups surge forward. Arrows begin to fly.

Prince Poros orders a well practiced maneuver of his war wagons.

Turn 2:

3 Turcopole light horse arrive from off board, and release javelins.

Another Turcopole retires to lick it's wounds. His partner picks up the slack of receiving Indian arrows.

It looks like the knights are going to force their way through the war wagons.

An ambush is revealed. Indian Medium Cavalry, Mediocre. It was not so much as in ambush but hiding in a safe place.

King Poros has just enough command points to push some of his bowman forward onto the flanks of the Turcopoles.

Another Turcopole is dispersed by arrows.

Prince Poros has a surplus of command points. One war wagon turns 180 degrees, the other closes the gap against the wood.

Turn 3:

Turcopoles are rallied, but the arrow fire continues.

This was running theme for the Turcopole flank march. The Indians inflicted about 10 hits on them through out the game, but their commander was a strong orator, and kept them in the fight.

The Teutonic infantry line continues to advance under darkening skies.

Knights split their forces but continue to advance.

Note: War Wagons do NOT exert a ZOC, but are subjected to them.

King Poros is ok with just shooting arrows down field. He spends his 2 good command points ordering is second rank bowman forward.

If you are wonder where the usual dead markers are, they are with the Byzantines on another table. I was not prepared to play 15's this day.

The skies continue to darken, but the mostly armored foot just shrug of the arrows.

Literally, Prince Poros has nothing to do. So he stops for tea.

Taking a trip around the tables. We have the Byzantines (right) facing Teutonic Knights. It seems like the Tagmatic Cavalry's archery is doing quite well.

More on that battle. The Byzantines are on the upper half of the panel.

This is Swiss vs Indian.

The Swiss put out some seriously steep hills.

Turn 4:

Back to the game.

The Teutonic foot decide they have taken enough arrows for the cause and charge. They win 3 of 7 fights, but the two they lost were disastrous.

The knights engage the War Wagons. They are just +1 to +2 for the wagons, but they also are elite and have armor.

Indian bowmen get behind the Turcopoles. One is destroyed, then next is pursued into.

Shitake rolls a 2 for command points, and so can only advance one elephant into the gap.

Elephants are unmaneuverable, and so require 2 command points to move a short distance.

War wagons charge! The Hungarian light horse flees.

War Wagons with blades can charge in version 4.

The score is fairly tight. The Indians are 10 points towards their break point of 25. The Teutonic Knights are 11 towards their break point of 20

Turn 5:

On another table, a much more interesting battle is lining up.

The Turcopoles have had enough, and disengage.

A unit of mounted knights join the fray, but not soon enough to save their friends.

The Indians begin to turn the flanks.

The Elephants are beginning to converge on the Teutonic center.

A brother knight enters the wood to provide support for the battle on the war wagons. Paul did not understand that this type of support does not work against war wagons.

But if that knight were to actually engage the war wagon rear, it would count as another level of support.

Cavalry does not exert a ZOC in the woods. So the Indian medium horse charges another knight, which was fighting a war wagon, in the flank. Leading to it's destruction,

An unfortunate die roll by the knights engaged with the damaged War Wagon led to the final point needed to demoralize the Teutonic Knights.

Mistakenly, I pursued the routing knight with the War Wagon. Which I found out later is not permitted.

It was really an unfair fight for Paul, and I am sorry.

In the next two rounds, Dan scraped up an Assyrian army for me to use. Still way out of theme, but in reality Light Chariots are just Medium and Heavy Cavalry, bow. So the army has the same character as many Arab offerings.