Suppiluliuma II and Warfare 2021 - Part 2
Having gotten the better of a Minoan army in the fist game I found myself drawn against that most high profile of the enemies of the Hittites, New Kingdom Egyptian. Will this be a second Battle of Kadesh, read on ...
My opponent for this game was Paul Cummins. We have met a few times at competitions and are probably running about equal in terms of winning the match-ups.
For those who want to review my army the list is in the first part of this series on my games at Warfare - https://gamer-at-the-end-of-time.blogspot.com/2021/11/suppiluliuma-ii-and-warfare-2021-part-1.html
The Pre-Battle Sequence went my way and we ended up on a mainly open plain with a couple of pieces of rough going, one on my right which was usefully placed for me. Despite Paul and I having the same number of scouting cards I outscouted him by an outrageous 80% - the Hittite Storm God was clearly smiling on me.
Deployment ended up like this:
I have essentially split my army with most of my Hittite chariotry on my left (with the Exceptional on the extreme left) and the ally and the skirmishing infantry on the right with a single unit of the Hittite chariots to provide a few Skilled shooters. The piece of rough will allow me to advance my massed skirmishers in safety. I left a gap in front of my camp defended by the Hittite infantry - bit of a risk, but one I was happy to take.
Paul's army had a chunk of infantry which he held back in the rough on his baseline and spread his chariots with his Exceptional unit in the centre - the latter could potentially exploit my risk taking with the weakly defended camp. Paul's army had more Skilled shooting chariots than mine, however, with all my skirmisher infantry I had more firepower in total. I think Paul found this a bit daunting.
Gratuitous shots of the armies at deployment:
The first move saw me move all my army except the Hittite and Anatolian infantry more or less to the half way line on the table. My right wing of skirmishers pushed a bit further forward taking advantage of the rough terrain.
Paul pretty much did likewise and we ended up with a few units within shooting distance of each other, however, I had engineered it that I generally had a few more shooters in range - some being skirmisher infantry. Paul pulled back the chariot unit on his left in the face of my oncoming skirmisher horse. Paul also put some of his chariot units into a single rank 4 wide as opposed to being 2 wide and 2 deep - as Paul knows his stats I can only assume he had done the maths and reckoned this had some advantages.
The situation looked like this:
The following turn's shooting went my way with Paul losing a couple of bases whilst inflicting nothing more than a wound.
In the face of this setback Paul pushed on towards me trying to put me under pressure. This included his Exceptional chariots heading straight towards my camp and the somewhat nervous Hittite infantry detailed to protect it. My own Exceptional chariots pushed on to pressure a unit of Paul's Superior ones on my left flank.
On my right, my massed skirmishers ganged up on the chariot unit holding the left hand end of Paul's battle line and he was forced to bring up his foot archers to try and get rid of them. It looked like this at the end of this turn:
Move 3 again saw me chip away a few more bases of chariots with shooting. I did lose a base myself but Paul had lost far more and one of his units was down to 2 bases and so very vulnerable.
Paul pushed his Exceptional chariots straight at my camp again and in response I advanced the Hittite infantry - they could move close enough to Paul's unit that he would only be able to contact 1 file if he charged; my calculation was that the infantry would lose, but slowly and I could bring other units to bear. As part of this latter I pulled back a chariot unit so as to be able to (hopefully) move to the flank of the Exceptionals later and turned a skirmisher unit to be able to shoot at them next move (and close enough to do so if they charged).
The advancing Egyptian archers attracted the attention of one of my skirmisher units who could not get to a position to shoot at chariots again next move - but as the Egyptians were Unprotected I was quite happy to exchange shots.
The table now looked like this:
Move 4 saw the Egyptian army start to fall apart.
My Exceptional chariots charged the Egyptian ones opposite them who attempted to Run Away but rolled down and got caught and broken in short order. The 2 base Egyptian chariot unit died to shooting as did another unit on Paul's left flank.
The Egyptian Exceptional chariots charged the Hittite infantry but only managed to knock a base off plus a wound by the end of the turn by which time I had an Anatolian chariot unit on the flank ready to charge. Paul's only success really was destroying one of my skirmisher units which failed to evade far enough.
The writing was on the wall ...
Move 5 was the dénouement, although I think the actual final act may have been in move 6 - these were not long turns. The Egyptian Exceptional chariots collapsed under the flank charge and the other remaining Egyptian chariot unit on Paul's left was shot down. Although it made no difference my skirmishers had reduced the Egyptian archers to, I think 4 bases from their original 8 and so if the game hadn't ended they would have gone pretty soon as well.
The score was 15-1 to the Hittites and Rameses was sent packing back home no doubt to erect a huge monument saying he won the battle - but we know better ...
Paul's summary of the game was "I felt like I was playing noughts and crosses and going second. I could see exactly what you were going to do in reaction to my moves, but could find no other options.".
Paul's summary of the game was "I felt like I was playing noughts and crosses and going second. I could see exactly what you were going to do in reaction to my moves, but could find no other options.".
I'll certainly take that and I was pretty pleased that what I had planned worked.
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