The next action in the Summer 1606 turn of the campaign is, again, in South-East Asia. This time, a Laotian army is responding to the invasion of Vientane by the Vietnamese. You will doubtless recall that the Laotian army was a bit unlucky to lose against the invaders in spring, and was forced to retreat into garrison. The main Laotian army was in the north, invading bits of Burma. Now, they have turned south and with the aid of the garrison, are aiming at turfing the Vietnamese out.
The Vietnamese army also has support, and so it is two eighteen-base armies that are going to face each other. The Vietnamese totalled three elephants (including the general), two cavalry, six bows and crossbows, five bills and two skirmishers. The Laotians had two elephant bases (including the general), two cavalry, eleven tribal foot bases and three bows.
I rolled a fair bit of terrain, as you can see above. The Vietnamese are on the defensive, even though they are in Laos, and are to the left. I decided to leave the skirmishers protecting the train, while the main strength of the army is deployed on two hills, the central one with the general, and the far side with the sub-general. The cavalry are on the extreme left (if you look carefully you can see the edge of one of the bases), and the elephants are in reserve.
The Laotians were not looking forward to this. Previous experience shows that bill elements are very tough when uphill against, well, more or less anyone, and perhaps especially tribal foot. They deployed in two blocks, one in the centre under the general, the other on the right, to outflank and hit the hill on the far side. The cavalry were flank guards.
The Laotians advanced cautiously. I am trying to learn not just to slam tribal foot into any passing target, but to try to gather them up into a decisive strike. The Laotian ‘right hook’ is advancing, the archers having deployed. In the centre, the general is dividing the tribal foot into two, while pushing up the archers. On the Laotian left, the cavalry have advanced, but they have been disrupted by bow fire from the central hill, and are now a bit scattered, and the foremost element is looking a bit vulnerable.
The Laotian centre deployed and, with the Vietnamese on the hill masked by archers, charged the Vietnamese bows in the centre. Neither side had really planned for this. The Vietnamese elephants were too far away to support them, while the Laotians were also a bit flat-footed by it. Nevertheless, they are wreaking some havoc among the Vietnamese bows. On the far side, despite losing the archery duel, the Laotian right hook is making progress, even though charging bill bases uphill still sounds dubious.
Two-thirds of the Vietnamese bows were routed, although rather to everyone’s surprise one base stood its ground and recoiled the tribal foot. The Vietnamese on the hill advanced down it into the covering Laotian archers and routed them, while the remaining Laotian tribal foot charged on, encountering the Vietnamese elephants. The Vietnamese cavalry is being moved across to the volatile centre, while on the Vietnamese left the reserve bills are moving into position. At this point the Laotian morale drooped a bit, and they fell back.
Nothing daunted, however, the Laotians fought on. Their right hook charged up the hill and, rather to everyone’s surprise, took out a bill base, following it up with a flank attack on the reserves led by the sub-general, which they also won, killing the general. In the centre, the marauding Laotian tribal foot with the general were bounced by the elephants, and were falling back in disorder. However, the destruction of the Vietnamese left, and the death of the sub-general pushed Vietnamese morale to a critically low level, and a poor roll left them with a status of withdraw.
Overall, the Laotians had lost two bow bases, while the Vietnamese lost two bows, two bills and the sub-general. So it was fairly close, the main difference being the success of the flank attack. Strategically, the Vietnamese will now have to withdraw from Laos, and try to work out how to pay three armies from two provinces. The Laotians have just about survived the invasion, and the land grab in the north might, in time, give them the upper hand.
Along the way I discovered a problem with the Vietnamese list I was using. I referred back to the DBR list and discovered a whole pile of warbands (the DBR equivalent of tribal foot) which had dropped out of my twelve-base armies. So a revised list has been prepared, with two elephants, a cavalry base, four bows and crossbows, a tribal foot base, a skirmishers base and a rocket, cavalry, elephant or tribal foot base decided at random. It was a bit of a humbug moment, but invoking guideline 1 of that book I let the previous results stand, of course, but I must do some amendments to my lists.
I also am considering adding some singly-based elephant commanders to my collection. The problem is that in the armies with elephants, the elephant is the general, and this can lead to the general exposing himself to a lot of risk. Additionally, elephant bases are slower than cavalry or light cavalry bases, which most generals move as. This is not really a problem when both armies have elephant bases as generals, as here. But when one army has an elephant base as a general, and the other does not, the latter is a bit more flexible, which seems unfair. So I am trying to work out an order which rectifies this shortcoming as well.
Still, a good battle which shows that a patient build-up with tribal foot can pay off, even when attacking bills deployed defensively on top of hills. Mind you, the Laotians were lucky with some combat rolls.
Next up, I think we return to the Middle East, where the Persians have invaded Mesopotamia again.
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