Phil on Ancients: A Frappé with the French

A Headless Body Production

¿Have I used this title before?

Venue: Lancaster Convention Center
Event: Historicon 2025
Theme: Saturday's Open Tourney, Round 1
Players: Phil running Hindu Indian, list 170
Duncan Richards running French Ordonnance, list 245
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 15mm, 200 points per side.

The Forces:
The Hindus are commanded by Gujara, the Competent, Rashtrakuta, also Competent, and Bharath, also Competent. And as an experiment, all are included.
4 Elephants, Elite
2 Horsemen, Medium Cavalry
2 Scouts, Light Cavalry, Bow
2 Guardsmen, Medium Sword, Impact, Elite
6 Warriors, Medium Sword, Impetuous
4 Bowmen, 2 are Mediocre
8 Light Infantry, Bows and Javelins
Breakpoint of 28

Why all included commanders? I am not an advocate of included commanders. What you lose in flexibility is rarely worth the 3 points saved. But for this list, the elephants are escorted by impetuous foot. So ideally, everyone should be fighting all at once. So why not go with it?

The French are commanded by Louis II de la Trémoille, the Ordinary, and somewhat Unreliable. Trivulzio, also Ordinary, and somewhat Unreliable, and Louis XII, the Ordinary. All are Included.

4 Gendarmes, Heavy Knight, Impact Elite
4 Archers, Medium Sword, Longbow
3 Swiss Pike, Elite
4 Pike, Mediocre
2 Bidets, (What a crappy name), Light Infantry, Javelin, Elite
2 Skirmishers, Light Infantry, Crossbow
Breakpoint of 19

Display Conventions: When you see a jagged word bubble like "Ouch!" or "Merde!" or "ओह बकवास!", this implies a disorder caused by missiles. Letters in parenthesis represent some up or downgrade 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.

Any ambiguity as to what was moved or who is being referred to is to be considered Fog of War and part of the fun.

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

Deployment:

Morgan Freeman narratives, "It was a niche battle near Nice, with both the French, and the Hindi commanders all were leading their commands from the front."


The French commands on the right are a mix of knights and foot.

Their center with the Allied Swiss.

Their left with an Unreliable commander.

On the Hindi left, an unsurprising force of elephants and warriors.

The center with yet exact replicate of elephants and warriors.

Facing the Plantation on the Hill, is a force of bowmen, who will invest the terrain, and use it as a base to attack from.

Getting out my recently painted dead elephants. Not that I will be needing them :)

Morgan Freeman continues, "His hopes were misplaced however, he was going to need everyone of them."

Turn 1:

Gujara sends off two of his lights towards the Marsh. If the Ambush is empty, they can use it as a base to to harass the French line.

Bharath's mixed horse and bowmen moved first to assault the Plantation on the Hill, and their light horse got in the way of Rashtrakuta's mixed elephant and warrior command.

This denied them their second turn moves as Rashtrakuta did not have enough command points to move short. See Elephants and Unmaneuverable rules.

The Gendarmes advance out of the field.

With the exception of their skirmishing light foot, the French, and their Swiss allies stay put.

The French left command goes unresponsive.

Turn 2:

Morgan Freemen continues, "It was then that fate intervened."

The first command failure was with Bharath's command on the right. His medium horse has no business tangling with the French formation in the distance, so they remain still. He sends his bowmen into the Plantation on the Hill, and they expose an ambush of a single light foot.


Rashtrakuta also has command difficulties. Bharath's light horse is still in the way. One of his warriors over-eagerly charges off the French lights.

At this point, I do not regard this as a bad thing. My bowmen should take the hill, then be in a good position for when the elephants start moving again.

Gujara also rolls a one for command points. He decides to hold up, keeping in line with the center, and sends his lights into the safety of the nearby rough.

There they are immediately charged from ambush. With an evade roll that sends them off the bottom of the panel. The French take advantage of the hesitancy of the Hindi to position for an attack on the far flank of Gujara's line.

The French battles all begin with a slow advance.

Their long-bowmen invest the Plantation on the hill.

Turn 3:

Things are not looking good now. The French can angle into the flanks on the left, and have the high ground on the right. The answer would have been to charge forward, but the delays on turns 1 and 2 mean my units are not in charge reach yet.

Gujara holds his command. While losing his screen.

Rashtrakuta writes off his over eager warriors who made an uncontrolled charge.

And advances on the French leftmost battle.

Gujara's command is now flanked, and facing a wider foe.

Rashtrakuta's command has good options though. They are wider, and facing Mediocre pike.

Turn 4:

Gujara orders a general charge. But some of his army cannot yet reach the Swiss lines.

It was much later, like at Nashcon, that I found out that a line charge like this gets an extra UD of movement to make contact. So the elephant commander and his support would have reached the Swiss pike this turn.

Rashtrakuta is still out of charge reach though. Well placed long-bowmen manage to snipe a shot on Rashtrakuta's personal elephant.

The French archers on the hill have both high ground, a sword plus, and are ordinary verses the Mediocre Hindi archers. Bharath orders just an attack on just the light foot. With a flanking archer for good measure.

Morgan Freeman continues: "Under the circumstances, it was not a good plan. But it was the best plan available."

Gujara's battle has been penetrated and flanked.

The French lights continue to hold the high ground. The French archers charge down the hill.

Turn 5:

One elephant safely rampages to the rear.

The dead elephant figures were being offered as part of the Mortem-et-Gloriam rules. But I haven't found them on their web site.

Gujara charges in ineffectively. His nearby warriors are routed on contact.

Rashtrakuta charges in as well. With almost the same effect.

On the hill, the first victory of any sort. The French lights fade away into the Plantation, clearing the path for the Hindi archers to charge the flanks of the French archers.

Morgan Freeman continues: "Fade away, because the consideration of any sort of real victory by the Hindu Indians at this point is ridiculous."

Surrounded, unsupported, facing the flower of Swiss pikemen, Gujara abandons all hope for this lifetime, knowing that he will have a better life next time around.

Morgan Freeman notes: "And in truth, Gujara was reborn in a nearby village, and because of the laziness of the writer, he was also named Gujara. He was bright boy of a good family, and rose to command an army of his own."

Another elephant is flanked and destroyed. Rampaging uselessly forward.

The French archers adroitly maneuver to face the opponents on their flank

At this point, the Hindus have reached their demoralization level. The French lost a total of 4 points.

Well that was a singular embarrassment. A more correct title would have been, "Being Frappéd by the French." Half my points, 4, were from a single light infantry unit, that I flank charged, and where it held out for 3 rounds!

What went wrong? First the army composition. The included commanders was a mixed conclusion. Yes I lost an elephant commander, but that had mainly to do with the tactical failures, and not a rare, lost the dice off and then a rolled a one event.

The command structure of the bowman/cavalry command was seriously flawed. The commander being Included in a cavalry command, could not combine in a group with the bowmen. And so required at least two command points to move the blocks. But with the light horse, usually 3 command points were required. Which is not available 1/3 of the time with an Ordinary commander.

Then he moved first, and got in the way of an elephant command. Causing them to be delayed on charging by a turn. Poor tactical execution. Then of course, there was a problem of his command being faced by a Plantation on the Hill. I did that with the idea that the bowmen would invest the rough, and emerge on the flanks of the French. But the bowmen were too weak for that job. And the horse sat around uselessly. Bad deployment there.

Then Richard did an excellent of finessing a single Impetuous warrior out of the line, causing chaos on the the approach, which he exploited masterfully. Well played.