The next action, working from east to west, in the Spring 1606 move in the campaign, is a Mongol incursion into China. The Mongols had the ability to cross the wall and be a nuisance, I think, and that is what has happened here. Unfortunately for the White Sheep Mongols (for it is they who are having a go), they ran into one of the Chinese regular armies, which had just moved from the environs of Peking to the Shanxi province. It is not clear why, presumably, the emperor had some intuition.
The initial positions are above, with the White Sheep to the left. The Chinese position centred on a hill on their right, which is occupied by some infantry, with more on the lower slopes and near environs. The cavalry is in the centre, ready to respond to Mongol attacks, while on the left are more archers, looking to stave off the inevitable light cavalry probes.
The Mongols are, in fact, my newly painted horde, or most of them. I have been threatening these for a while, and the Easter break enabled me to finish them off and base them, along with a number of other odds and ends. The army was card drawn, as they are raiders, and so they have 5 bases of light cavalry, 6 of heavier cavalry, and one base of militia. I did wonder if the stream would cause problems, but they had enough room to deploy in front of it. The bulk of the army is in three waves: the first of light cavalry, the next two of the heavies. On their right, nearest the camera, is a couple of bases of light horse. On the far side is the militia.
I pondered the Chinese deployment quite hard. Evidently, they cannot go head-to-head in a cavalry battle, and the hill gave them a chance to deploy the foot in a little more safety than usual. I also needed to secure the baggage, especially after the problems the Japanese had last game. Except for the infantry on the hill, the rest of them are combinations of a firepower base (archers or shot) and a blade base. The exceptions are two sets of two bases of archers on the flanks.
The Mongol plan was, of course, to disrupt and wear down the enemy with the light cavalry, and then go in for the killer punch with the heavies. The terrain rolling had not been particularly kind, of course, and nor had the card drawing for the army composition. I felt a few extra light cavalry would not have gone amiss.
Still, the Mongols got on with it. The light cavalry started doing what they know best, skirmishing. On the right, they had an immediate impact, as seen, but not much else is happening. The Chinese have actually pushed their right flank archers up a bit, in the hope of flanking the Mongol centre as it goes in, while the Mongols have sent the militia forward to try to stop that.
A few moves later, and Chinese firepower has shredded the first wave of Mongols. Nothing has been routed, but two bases of light horse have had to be pulled back to try to recover, covered by the advancing second wave of heavier cavalry.
The second Mongol wave did not prosper. Again, Chinese firepower whittled it down a couple of bases, and the final base, which did charge home, while it shook the Chinese blades it charged, recoiled and took some terrain shaken. Meanwhile, the Chinese archers on the flanks have stopped the Mongol flanking moves, and the shaken Mongol light horse just do not seem to wish to rally.
Chinese shooting rolls got fluky on their right, with two good rolls seeing the Mongol militia reduced to a rout. On the left, the Mongol light cavalry is starting to suffer. In the centre, the repelled Mongol heavy cavalry was shot up by some Chinese arquebus fire, and the general had to intervene to pull them back out of trouble. The third wave of Mongol cavalry is now front and centre, and, if things had gone to plan, would have charged in to sweep away the enemy, rather than covering the attempt to reorganize. Still, only one Mongol base had been lost, so I was still hopeful that some reorganization and rallying could save the day.
Alas, it was not to be. With impeccable timing and a darn good dice roll, the Chinese general led his cavalry forward. The roll was out of this world good, and two bases of Mongol heavy cavalry took to their heels, sweeping another, from the second wave, along with them. Ouch.
While the Mongol general tried to rally some sort of line, a poor morale roll for the army finished the job, and the Mongol raiders were routed. The curse of the newly painted army has clearly struck again.
That was a good wargame, I thought. The Mongols were a bit restricted by having more heavy cavalry and fewer light cavalry. I could not work the flanks as effectively as I wanted to. The Chinese position was strong, however, with the infantry posted on the hill. Chinese dice rolling was also good when it counted. The routing of the militia base through firepower alone was unusual, especially as it occurred within a single bound. The coup de grace of the Chinese cavalry charging in was actually, I thought, well timed as well as having a phenomenal combat dice roll. The Chinese cavalry had, in fact, previously refused to charge the Mongol second wave, which beat itself against the infantry.
Did the Mongols have a chance? I think a little more luck and the day could have been much closer. The first and second waves were disrupted by Chinese firepower. The Mongols do not really have an answer to that, except on an open field with lots of light cavalry to get around the flanks. But the waves could have been less disrupted and caused more damage to the Chinese position.
Still, it was nice to get the new army onto the table, even though they lost. And next we come to some action in and around Vietnam, while my new Southeast Asians are still sitting on the shelf in undercoat.
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