Monitoring the Mongols

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

The Forces:

Samurai, Commanders Larry-san (Brilliant), Darrel-san (Competent) and Darrel-san (Ordinary and Unreliable)
6    Mounted Samurai, Heavy Cavalry Bow, 2 Elite
8    Foot Samurai, Medium Swordsmen, Bow, Elite
4    Followers with Naganinta, Medium swordsmen, Mediocre
4    Bowmen, Mediocre
Breakpoint...22

Mongols.  Commanders are a Strategist, a Brilliant and a Competent.
4 Heavy Cavalry, Impact, Bow, Elite
4 Medium Cavalry, Bow
15 Light Cavalry, Bow
Breakpoint...23
   

Display Conventions: When you see a word bubble like "Ouch!" "痛い" or "Auć!", this implies a disorder from missiles. 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.

Inappropriately capitalized words are used to highlight terms that are specific to the game. For example Brilliant, Competent and Ordinary have specific game values for the commanders.

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

Deployment: 

The Mongols win the initiative and elect to attack in the plains.

The Mongols deploy a minimal force on their right.

On their left is their main strike force of Heavy and Medium Cavalry

Their third command cannot be seen.

Larry-san deploys his weaker force of mostly Mediocre troops on the left.  The thought is to extend the row of archers and focus their shooting on whatever occupies the hill.

His main force of sword/bowmen will anchor on the most excellently placed field.

With his horse taking the right.  His main goal here is to trade shots with the Mongol horse, and to delay them, giving his foot archers time to do their work.

Turn 1:

And their off!

On the Mongol right, their light horse stop just short of effective bow range.

And more importantly, those 5 light horse are distracting most of the Samurai army.

While the Mongol heavier cavalry can focus on the Samurai horse, 8 to 6. 

The flank march is running, most likely on the left.  3 units of Bowmen(m) turn to face.  The rest of Darrel-san's command advances and looses arrows.

While his brother Darrel-san advances into the field to offer enfilade shooting support for the Samurai cavalry.

Larry-san orders his horse to just withing arrow range.

Not bad shooting for the first round. Mongols tend to have smaller armies due to the large number of elites and better commanders.  So 3 hits is already 15% of his break point.

Turn 2:

Dust is spotted on the left flank! The Mongol flank march will arrive next turn!

The Mongols withdraw their disordered elements.

But there is no shortage of targets for the Samurai to shoot at.

I ran across this etymology tidbit last week.  The word Samurai comes from the Japanese word saburau, meaning "to serve".  

The word Knight is from Old English cniht ("boy" or "servant"), is a cognate of the German word Knecht ("servant, bondsman, vassal").

Despite being separated by  6,000 miles, and both somewhat isolated island cultures, their root word for their premier warriors is same, "servant".

The Mongol left charges.  They have impact, and are all elite.  But despite those advantages, the battles go 1 and 1.

But the weaker Mongol Medium Cavalry did not charge.  And paid a heavy price from Samurai arrows

At the bottom of the turn, the pain just continues.  The skies just continue to darken.

Emboldened, the foot Samurai leave the relative safety of the terrain.

One Samurai horse is destroyed.

The score is currently 10 (9 of them from arrows) of 23 for the Mongols, and 5 of 22 for the Samurai.  

Turn 3:

The Mongol flank march has arrived.  3 more light horse. 

One of them slips past the blocking force and heads for the camp.

A koku buys a lot of arrows, and Darrel-san is not paying the archers to bring them back.

The center command of Mongol horse is at risk of destruction by missiles, and withdraws.

While the Great Khan continues to try and gobble up the Samurai right flank cavalry.

On the left flank, Darryl-san orders his bowman to run off the Mongol lights.  They opted to hold their ground and die instead.

When Dennis brought this command on the board, he set them up so one unit was just so slightly ahead of the other.  So when the bowmen charged, made contact, and conformed, it was not engaged.

So why didn't I just make two charges?  Command points.  This Darryl is Ordinary.  and to do so would take more command points then he had. 

The camp was lost anyway, so he needed to push forward where he was strong.

His brother Darryl-san also was busy running down enemy cavalry.

With the Mongol Medium Cavalry contained, the Samurai Heavy Cavalry actually have a numbers advantage in armored horse.  They begin to turn on the Mongol flank.

Turn 4:

The Mongols have 16 points towards their break point of 23

The Samurai are at 6

Off to the right, the Samurai camp is taken.

Their distraction force, much diminished, is still doing it's job.  8 Samurai units, 4 of them elite are attempting to run down the remaining light horse.

The Mongol mediums continue to retreat.

A second Samurai heavy horse is crushed.  But it was a trade for a Mongol Minghan

On the bottom of the turn, Samurai archery fire sealed the game with two more points.

Not much you can say here.  This crushing victory was due to excellent terrain combined with a total mismatch of troop types.  18 shooters, 10 of them elite, most with +1 against horse, against an all horse army.