L'Art de la Guerre - Armenians vs. Classical Indians

L'Art de la Guerre is now our default game on the table and tonight I took the Armenians into the fray in a friendly game against Mal (not a club tournament game).  Mal brought Classical Indians  to the fight - pretty much an army designed to kill the Armenians, with a wall of mixed bow/sword infantry and elephants.  Hmm...this'll be a tough fight.

Terrain dropped all on my side of the board which was actually not that bad as it meant where I'd intended to fight was free of any obstructing terrain.

The deployment saw a very small but powerful Classical Indian force occupy the centre of the battlefield.  My Armenians put what "formed" strength they had (pikes and cataphracts) in opposition and spread out the flanking cavalry and horse archers to try a double envelopment.

On my right flank I moved from the get-go to try and sweep roung the flank and I'd intended this flank to take the Indian unguarded camp.  A good start was met by expert moves from Mal to close off the flank.  I withdrew the horse archers and abandoned my plans here.  As it turns out they'd come in handy later...

Off the blocks, an aggressive flank move...

Damn, they blocked it...RUN AWAY!!!

KEEP RUNNING AWAY!!!

My left flank attamet was successful however, and would cause trouble of the Indians throughout the game.

As with most battles the decisive point would be in the centre of the battlefield and our lines closed quickly.  Indian archers did some damage on the way in, which was disconcerting.

The Indian archers tried to kill off the Armenian javelinment before they could get into the elephants.  Javelinmen are the best melee troops to take on Nellies in ADLG.

The uncontrollable Indian heavy chariots saw their chance against the unsupported Armenian Seleucid pikemen and charged in.

Shortly after the two lines were fully engaged.  Casualties were taken everywhere and losses mounted on both sides.  At this stage we were neck-and-neck in the gallop towards army break.

The mediocre pikes were inconsistent with one making a breakthrough and the other taking a beating.

And over on the left flank, as mentioned earlier, things aren't going well for the Indians.  Armenian archery kills off the elephants, and the horse archers envelopment causes a lot of problems and the Indian line is chewed up.

The Armenian cavalry archers, unwilling to engage, fall back and open a route for the elephants to rumble into.

But it does the elephants no good and they're shot to pieces.

All along the line the battle rages with losses on both sides.  The general trend is that the Armenian right flank takes a pounding, while its left flank pounds the Indians...

Finally the Armenian horse archers are given the order to sack the Indian baggage...

Not many Indians alive on the left; not looking good for the Armenians on the right.

And then, in the final turn both armies broke simultaneously!

An excellent, tense game ended in a just draw.  Another highly enjoyable bash against Mal in our current game of choice.

Additional

Durham Wargames Group's regular gaming is done on a Thursday night, and tonight I thought I'd take a few snaps of some of the other games going on.

Setting up for A Very British Civil War.  Here the battle will take place over the Durham Market Square. 

You can read all about it on this blog.

Preparations for what looks like a Russian or Eastern European battle in the making.

And a couple of boardgames on the go.

The excellent Smallworld.

You can see it played here:

And Powergrid.

Oh, and as well as our game of ADLG, Phil took his Visigoths into a friendly against Bob's Samurai.

Apparently it was a close fight that was decided by the Visigothic "furiuos charge" resulting in a win for the hairy Goths.

All told another wonderful evening of recreation and gaming at the club.