The next few turns of the campaign were fairly quiet. A full-strength army moved about the map, cities submitting cheerfully and gladly to my rule. Truly, I thought, I cannot be far off actually winning this campaign. My personal rating was in the teens, the city count approaching half the cities on the map, and I had avoided capturing Manipur, which would have provoked the Mughal army to invade. I was nearly a distinctly regional hegemon.
I did, unfortunately, lose a third of the army to a famine, which was a shame, but by 1534 these were more or less replaced, I was only an infantry base down. The southern cities were falling into my grasp, and all was well with the world. My personal rating was hitting 20, heights unheard of in the past.
The latter part of 1534 raised a problem, however, in the shape of a random event. This was that the city of Mrauk-U rebelled, with external aid. Not only that, but when I appeared before their walls demanding their obedience, they refused. Not even a personal rating of 20 could persuade them (I needed to roll over 11 on a D20 and failed).
A few dice rolls established that the allies were 2 contingents of Moguls, six bases in total, consisting of a base of shot, 3 cavalry, 2 bows and a light horse. If you are about to object that that is seven bases, you are correct, because I drew a Jack on the cards for the forces, which indicated that I had to draw two extras.
The Mrauk-U forces were 4 elephants, 1 artillery, 1 bow, 1 cavalry and 5 infantry, plus their general on an elephant, of course. The enemy on the table, thus consisted of 20 bases.
A bit of pondering led me to call in some allies from my vassal cities – Pagan and Ava. These were 4 foot, 1 cavalry and a bow unit, giving me with the general and my own 11 bases a force of 18 to tackle the problem. This is not, I thought, going to be easy.
Deployment can be seen above. Somehow I managed to roll a wood in the centre of the field, which was occupied by all of the enemy’s firepower, except for the artillery which is on the hill on the far side (and did not hit a thing all game, snigger). The enemy cavalry, over whom I have a slight advantage, is deployed to block mine, with a trap set of me with bowmen lining the near edge of the woods. The enemy's plan was to hold with their cavalry and in the centre while using their enormous elephant advantage to get into my infantry block before it captures the wood. My plan was the inverse – to get into the wood with my infantry before their elephants arrive, holding them up with my bowman who you can see looking rather lonely on my left.
The above indicates that both sets of plans proceeded more or less as outlined. The elephants are menacing my left flank, although my archers are in the safety of the wood. My infantry are within striking distance of the wood, although the left-hand column has been recoiled by the shooting, which will, as it happens, in due course, cost me dear. On my right, nearest the camera, the cavalry are engaging in a standoff, just outside charge distance.
In an effort to keep the pressure up, I moved both my cavalry and infantry up. The infantry blew away the shot and archers in the wood, as you can see, while the cavalry did not do too badly (or at least, not as badly as I expected) against the charging foe. My elephant intervened against one enemy base, and my extreme left held firm. On the other hand, the enemy elephants have got into my delayed infantry column, which looks (and is) messy.
Both sides were starting to reel from their losses, and the forces were getting scattered. As you can see, my infantry contacted by the elephants have vaporised, and the elephants have just charged, en masse, my skirmisher base. Talk about overkill. The skirmishers have understandably routed. On the near side, the cavalry combat has tiled slightly in my favour, as I managed to charge an isolated base and see it off – it is fleeing in the bottom right of the shot. My infantry have moved through the woods and assaulted the waiting enemy there. The column with the general was successful, but the other were pushed back. Fortunately, the sensible enemy infantry declined to charge them, so it became a bit of a stand off.
At this point, however, the morale of my army hit ‘withdraw’. The enemy was not in much better nick, admittedly, but I had lost the battle. Casualties were high: 1 skirmisher, 2 cavalry, 3 infantry and a sub-general for me, while 1 shot, 1 bow, 2 cavalry, 1 infantry and a sub-general for them.
This was a bit of a mess as a battle. The best I could do, I thought, was to get my infantry into and through the woods, out of the way of the elephants. This indeed, turned out to be the best plan, but the disruption by bow fire of one of my columns left it vulnerable to being stomped on, which it duly was. I thought I had made a mistake in allowing my cavalry to be charged, admittedly, and it probably was an error, but in the longer run the combat was fairly even, especially when my elephant got involved. As often happens with cavalry combat, the results left neither side in a particularly good place to continue the fight.
More broadly, of course, I could be in some trouble as far as the campaign goes. Not particularly because of my personal reputation, although that has dropped by 4. 16 is still pretty good. The problem is the 7 bases of the army which have been lost. I will need to divide these up between the allies and myself, of course, but even so, the loss of 4 or 5 bases could be a major issue, as I only get one back per year. It could all be downhill from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment