Early Northern Song at Ice & Fire - Part 3

 

Day two of Ice & Fire drew my Early Northern Song up against Lee Sanders' Yuan Chinese - lots of Mongol cavalry with Skilled shooting, how would I do ...

This was a tough match-up. Lee is an excellent player and designs very good lists as well - in fact when list checking for this competition I was so taken by his Yuan that I immediately copied it for my own use in the future.

As with the first two games I lost the PBS dice roll to a Skull and so Lee invaded with a Strategic Intercept. I did win the initial card play and so could choose the territory type and chose Standard. We didn't end up with a secure flank, however, the terrain fell well for me with a large vineyard in each flank sector on my base edge and another in my half of the table to my left-front. This would give my army plenty to work with whilst also leaving open space for Lee.

I deployed with shooting units on either flank; one crossbowman unit in the vineyard on my left and another plus the levy in the one on my right. Expecting Lee's infantry to be deployed facing the vineyard to my left-front I deployed a unit of Vanguard Swordsmen and a unit of crossbowmen to go into that with the rest of the infantry to their right with a unit of cavalry supporting the. I then had a gap to my Guard Cavalry who were supported by another cavalry unit. The gap was to tempt Lee and I hoped I could cover it with my cavalry - bit of a risk but it was to encourage the Yuan to advance.

Lee deployed his crossbowmen facing the vineyard as expected, and his Poor quality infantry lurked on his base edge. His right wing was a Chagatai ally of three units of four bases, one protected the other Unprotected. His left wing contained the rest of his cavalry including his Khan's Best Cavalry.

It looked like this:

With the usual pictures of both armies. lee's army is very nice - painted by Philip Nash I believe.

As hoped Lee advanced on my right in determined fashion, but a bit more cautiously on his right. I think this may have been the first time Lee had faced shooters who were in a vineyard and so hadn't quite realised the benefits they get, especially if they shoot at a longer range than your troops. This meant that he probably came on a bit hard on my right - but I don't think it was fatal.

I pushed infantry into the vineyard to my front and advanced other troops a bit to form a reception committee for Lee's left wing. This did allow me to get a unit into shooting range of one of his Unprotected cavalry units which was useful - Lee had miscalculated his advance slightly. This would allow me a shot with three Green dice next turn.

So the table now looked like this:

Next turn kicked off with a disappointment as my shooting on the Unprotected cavalry was:

I hoped that this wasn't a sign of things to come.

Lee pressed his advance, getting troops into shooting range even where shooting into a vineyard - after all, he is still on White dice as he has Skilled shooters and in places can get superior numbers to bear. He is more cautious with his crossbowmen though as they are just Experienced shooters.

I advanced my Guard Cavalry directly into the face of Lee's best cavalry to disrupt his options and allow me to possible concentrate on his weaker (but still good) cavalry supporting them. The Guard being Superior and with ArmHrs should be fairly shooting resistant so this was a calculated risk.

Things now stood like this:

The next move, on reflection, I decided that in fact I'd charge the Guard Cavalry at Lee's best cavalry. Again this was to break things up a bit. He might choose to evade or to stand, but either way I was looking to tie up his most powerful unit.

What happened next was quite remarkable and really determined the game's outcome. This picture will illustrate:

The three White dice are my Shoot & Charge, nothing special but did mean that any evade Lee might have been thinking about would have been reduced by a BW. The five Black dice are the shots at my Guard by Lee's Skilled shooters (he chose to stand and shoot with his best cavalry), and I was obviously happy with just a wound.

The single White die is all Lee's troops managed in the charge phase. The three Green dice are what my Guard rolled. Outrageous!

So Lee's Khan's Best Cavalry brake immediately and all I have suffered is a single base loss.

If that wasn't bad enough things actually got worse for Lee. Although he had not fought there was a general with the broken unit and so I got a KaB on him and I rolled an "S" - this was actually better than killing the general as it meant all his discs were lost and Lee had stacked six with him. At a stroke half of Lee's army could not move. To add insult to injuries the broken unit routed the minimum possible distance so keeping my Guard close to Lee's other troops.

It was an utterly brutal turn of events.

With Lee unable to do anything about it I ganged up as best I could against his left wing cavalry. On the other wing he advanced in an attempt to see if he could damage my army at all. The situation at the end of the move was:

However, in reality the game was only heading one way now. Despite Lee's best efforts nothing worked for him. His crossbowmen did little with their shooting and I got both of my Vanguard Swordsmen into them and steadily chopped them up. Close range shooting on Lee's cavalry chipped away at those.

Pretty shortly it was all over with 15-0 to me.

Lee certainly didn't deserve to get zero from that game. Sometimes the scoring can be harsh.