Game #4 Timurid Persians vs. Greco-Bactrian of Bill Sierich
Another quality opponent, and super nice guy. Bill fielded Greco-Indians, which comprised of some Greco type pike, cataphracts, and support troops. The Indian contingent had elite elephants, bowmen, and spear men. Bill went for max terrain on this, and as luck would have it, all remained. I tried to move or remove a couple of pieces that were really cluttering up the battlefield, but to no avail. So, I deployed the elephant corps on the open flank, and I thought they would be faced off against the Greco-Indian elephants.
But it was clear at the outset, that Bill's strategy was to hide in the terrain with his Indian contingent, and try to do his damage with the Greeks [pikes and cataphracts]. This did do some damage to the Timurids, but as it turned out, not nearly enough damage. Bill decided to keep his Indians in terrain [medium foot], to protect them from my elite heavy impact cav, which was probably a good idea. However, it made for a somewhat desultory game. Bill used a lot of his command pips to rally his units that suffered disorder from my shooting. Since he did not need the pips for movement, he could allocate most to keeping his units alive. I could not kill them with this tactic, so half the board essentially went into siege warfare.
The other half was my elephant command, and supporting troops hitting his pike and cataphract command, with predictable results. I had to force action in places that I normally would try to avoid or finesse, but seeing how the game was going to evolve, I was trying to make something happen.
As it ended up, the result was a winning draw for the Greco-Indians. 10-5
I was unable to make the 5th round, since my wife came down with the flu bug the day before, and we caught an earlier flight back to KC.
The entire experience was great, and I really appreciated the Gulf South guys with their useful and insightful mentoring. And overall, just being a great group of guys. Final tally for the Timurids for the four games, was 1-1-2 [which was more than I thought I could accomplish, going into this]. Both losses were pretty close, as was the lone victory. Pictures were sparse in this game too. I am sure I will take more as my comfort level goes up with the rules.
The Timurids won the initiative and elected to attack in the plain.
The Timurid left flank [which was the only flank not cluttered with terrain]
The Timurid center command had the elite heavy and light cavalry.
The Timurid right flank had the Turkomen and Georgian light and medium cavalry.
The Indian contingent occupied the center and left flank.
The Greek portion of his army was comprised of cataphracts, pike and a few light support units. I really did not want to have to deal with those, but this is where I deployed my elephant command. I was hoping Bill would put his elephants and Indians here, which would have been a better match-up.
So, in we went.
This was actually part of my elephant command, so 2 units of heavy cavalry, elite with bow [not impact], and 1 unit of Elite Turkomen LC. I knew I could not do much damage here, and so it was just a matter of time before they would have to duke it out with the Bactrian tin cans.
Over on the other side of the board, my impact heavy cav stopped at the edge of the forest, and tried to wage a war of attrition with the medium foot of the Indians. I saw that Bill was not moving his elephants out of cover, which I thought was a real waste of points. But, I am glad I didn't have to face them.
As expected, my elephants impaled themselves on the Greek pike block causing little damage. My brilliant commander was left commanding a unit of bowmen, a couple units of hand-gunners, and of course, the hostages and prisoners.
Finally, I decided to go into the forest, since the Indians were not coming out. Had there not been so much terrain, this flank could have dished out some damage.
Time was dwindling, and I tried forcing some action, and in doing so, I gave up some army demoralization points. Bill played his army to its strength, and it gave him a winning draw.
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