Nanzhao Vs Early Northern Song a game from 2020

 

A blast from the past. Last year Ray Duggins and I played a few games in Ray’s garden under social distancing circumstances – with a festival tent to keep inclement weather off us. We wrote up a couple and posted them to the MeG Facebook page, but I thought it might be worth posting one of them here. Commentary is from both of us. 

This game was arranged to be with armies between 500 CE and 1000 CE from any of the list PDFs. We both happened to take eastern armies. The armies were obviously build with the 2020 Army Builder and lists so there are a few small difference for 2021 but nothing major.

Nik’s Army

As I have been mainly responsible for some substantial changes to a number of Chinese lists in the last revision process it seems only fair to use one of those that has been changed. In this case the list that covers the last of the 5 Dynasties and the first part of the long-lasting Song dynasty. My army is dated to be Song.

The list is basically an infantry army with cavalry support, although the guard cavalry provides a reasonable punch; they have had their shooting downgraded partly to free up some points and partly to encourage focus on their role. The infantry are all Flexible or Loose so terrain is not too much of an issue, and the Vanguard Swordsmen provide a couple of units of fairly good dedicated combat troops. The spearmen and crossbowmen units have been upgraded to veterans to make them Drilled and give the spearmen Melee Expert as well, so they are also reasonable in hand-to-hand combat.

Ray’s Army

I've been looking at Nanzhao and wanted to get a version on the table for the first time. This list has a Southern Tang  ally that adds some really interesting troops. Able to output shooting on white dice (experienced bow), get exactly where you need them (Drilled), fight (Short Spear, Melee Expert) and do it in terrain (Flexible). What’s not to like? It also has some punchy Superior long spear infantry and decent cavalry.

Deployment

The Song won the initial dice roll with a Skull and chose to invade with the Strategic Intercept. Terrain ended up as Dense with a Mountains/Forest secure flank. Terrain dice rolls saw almost all the other terrain pieces roll for the secure flank where they could not fit, although we did have another piece of Forest on the other flank which dictated that the battle was going to be mainly fought in the completely open central sector. The Song outscouted the Nanzhao by 10%. Neither side placed any ambushes nor chose to flank march.

The Song Plan

This was to pressure the Nanzhao left as they have more shooting there and the guard cavalry are a bit better than the Nanzhao cavalry – the ArmHrs should mean they are relatively proof against shooting themselves. Hopefully, this would allow them to pick on the Average spear unit on the end of the line. Additionally, the aim was to use the Vanguard Swordsmen on the extreme left to pressure the end of the Nanzhao line on the right, although any advantage there was small. In the centre it was hoped that shooting could weaken the dangerous Superior spearmen and the other Vanguard Swordsmen act as a sort of hard point to blunt the Nanzhao attack.

The Nanzhao Plan

When Nik declared his army I knew to a certain degree this was going to be a mirror match. Basically my plan was to ram the Superior spear down his throat, contain his numerically superior cavalry on my left and see if my ally could dice what was in front of them. Whatever happened it was going to be tough to get 15pts.

Move 1

The very first unit is moved as seen from behind the Nanzhao lines …

The Tang ally is happy to play today.

Both sides moved their infantry centres forward, the Nanzhao by double move to get their Superior spearmen into action quickly, the Song a single move as they wanted to work the flanks first. The Song left advanced a double move and shifted 2 BW to the left to open up a gap for the supporting cavalry to use and give the Nanzhao something to think about. The swordsmen on the far left advanced with 4 BW from the Tang ally to pressure that end of the line. On the Song right the skirmishers advanced to shooting range of the left hand Nanzhao spear unit whilst the Nanzhao cavalry held back to await developments.

Move 2

Start of the second move saw shooting from the Song skirmishers at the end of the Nanzhao line – 2 white and 2 green dice take off a base and inflict an additional wound. Good start for the Song.

Situation at the end of the second move. The Tang ally has fallen back and the Song swordsmen have advanced and are just within charge range of the end unit – their general has held a Red card unused at the end of the move to guarantee the possibility of prompting through fire if they charge in next move (although the general will have to move to within 2 BW to be able to do this).

The Nanzhao centre advanced and the Song pushed the other swordsman unit forward to block them to allow the crossbowmen to shoot over the next few turns (hopefully). There is also an Unprotected archer unit in the Nanzhao line between the 2 Superior spear units which looks tempting …

On the Nanzhao left the Song shooting has forced some cavalry to intervene which prompts the Song light horse to withdraw – but a heavy cavalry unit has moved forward to ensure the weakened Nanzhao Average spearmen are still shot at by 4 bases.

Move 3

Proves quite action packed with a lot happening. Move 3 in MeG often is 😀

Both units of Song swordsmen charged. In the centre they contacted the archers and one unit of the Superior spearmen – the hope is they can take out the archers and hold the spearmen in place to be shot at. The left-hand swordsmen charge is arguably a bit premature, but the aim is to keep up pressure and success here really opens the flank up. The Red disc held back last move proved necessary as the swordsmen were slowed by 2 BW, but it was prompted through and so they made contact.

However, the ensuing combats in the charge and fighting phases showed that thanks to the volatile nature of Green Vs Green combats the charge had indeed been premature …

5 bases lost to 1 inflicted is never a good return. Ooops …

The other swordsman unit does a bit better but is 2 bases down at the end of the move. Also, in a clever move, Ray has used an F4 Break Off from Equal Speed Enemy move with the archers to get them out of combat – although after the KaB they are only 1 wound off breaking; better than being broken though …

In other news the Average Nanzhao spearmen have lost another base and are starting to look a bit fragile – as are the Song swordsmen who are now fighting both the superior spearmen …

Move 4

Inevitably the swordsmen don’t survive and break in the fighting phase, however, the resulting KaBs don’t have much effect. More positively for the Song the shooting at the damaged Average spearmen takes off another base and inflicts another wound in addition – they are now just 1 base from breaking. The Song infantry in the centre fall back in the hope that they will get shooting in future turns.

The Song infantry on the left also fall back as the Tang ally, which is now superior in numbers, advances towards them. So far, advantage Nanzhao.

Ray used an F1 Control pursuit move on one of his victorious spearmen units to make sure that they didn’t pursue into a disadvantageous position.

The other unit made a full pursuit move which brought it into contact with a unit of Song cavalry – these chose to Skirmish away not wanting the combat, however, as this is a reaction to a pursuit they could not shoot. Took Nik ages to confirm this in the rule book despite being fairly sure he was right – of course it was there in plain view when the right section was read through properly …

Move 5

Alas appears we didn’t take pictures of this move.

The move was basically taken up with units in the centre and Nanzhao left teeing up for combats in the following move coupled with some shooting. There was one charge by the left hand Nanzhao Superior spearman unit into a Song infantry unit. The spearmen were obviously tired after their pursuit and did little damage but between shooting and combat lost a couple of bases themselves. The Average spearman unit, however, survived with no more losses for the first time in the game.

On the Song left the outnumbered infantry pulled back again, however, in order to ensure their safety, the supporting cavalry unit had to advance right up to the better Nanzhao cavalry – this would most likely lead to a buttock clenching Run Away move next time.

Move 6

This turned out to be the last turn we had time for, but it was full of incident.

With the Nanzhao left wing infantry now heavily weakened, and only 1 rank deep where they would be contacted in the main, the Song cavalry charged in. The guard cavalry charged the slightly damaged Nanzhao cavalry unit as well. The Nanzhao on their right charged the Song cavalry who were in their faces. The latter scored a wound on the charging cavalry with a black dice in the Run Away which slowed the chargers by 1 BW and then also rolled a normal move and so they escaped unscathed.

Lastly the Nanzhao Tribal cavalry charged the Song infantry who were fighting the Superior spearmen – maybe a bit of a punt but they were hitting a Loose formation base with no combat weapons.

Whilst the Nanzhao charges were ineffective the Song cavalry carried all before them. Both infantry units broke in the charge phase and getting a bit lucky, the guard cavalry broke the Nanzhao cavalry in the fighting phase.

The Nanzhao left wing had ceased to exist and, if we had had the time, the cavalry would have turned onto the flank of the Nanzhao army to devastating effect. But we didn’t. The game ended 8-6 to the Song.