Britcon 2025, day 2 - The Early Shatuo Ride Onwards

 

So after a good first game (see HERE for my write-up), slightly tinged by annoyance at the unexpected finish time, and a late finish to the following beer, it was back to the venue for the second day's games.

The first game on the Saturday matched me against Paul Stovell using Later Carthaginian. To see how this, and the following game went, read on ...

A recap of the Early Shatuo list that I was using:

The Carthaginians defended and we ended up with a pretty open table but with a piece of terrain on each flank in the Carthaginian side of the table - vineyard on their left and a hill with an orchard (IIRC) on their right. I outscouted the Carthaginians (30% or so, can't recall exactly) so would get the benefit of seeing their deployment batches before I had to do mine which is always good for a horse archer army.

The Carthaginians deployed with an Iberian ally on their left with a Carthaginian cavalry and couple of spearmen units mixed in amongst them to provide a variety of threats including 2 units of shooters, one of which was Skilled. Their right was a mixture of Ligurian and Celtiberian infantry with a unit of cavalry and a Numidian ally to again provide a variety of threats. There was a small elephant unit with each wing as well. All in all a well constructed battleline as you'd expect from Paul.

I went with the Chinese on my right, the Mongols on the left and the Shatuo in the middle, so my Skilled shooters were on my left. It looked like this:

First moves saw both armies advance. Paul was careful to ensure that I couldn't get to within shooting early in the game and I had to be mindful of his shooters - as they were SUGs if I ended up in a shoot off with them I would be using TUGs which would be to his advantage as the SUGs can be considered expendable. Of course at some stage we would no doubt exchange shots, but I was trying to ensure that it was done as much on my terms as possible so I could leverage my greater shooting distance where I had it. Thanks to his greater card numbers Paul was able to get a Numidian cavalry unit up to shoot at my Mongol skirmishers; not ideal but I felt I had to let this happen and it was "only" a SUG.

The next few moves were a bit cagey by both sides as the various shooters danced a bit to try and gain advantage, although not many casualties were done by either side. Paul was also keeping his small elephant units back as they are very vulnerable to shooting but I had to keep an eye on them as if they can get into cavalry it isn't pleasant.

On my left we had the first proper action as Paul decided to charge my Mongol Skirmishers with his Numidians who were behind their flank. However, thanks to the direction I could skirmish in that was not decisive and we ended up in a bit of a knife fight between our respective light horse that would go to the wire. On my right I decided that I needed to push my Chinese infantry up to fight the Carthaginian spearmen; this would be pretty equal but I hoped that if I could take away a few bases the fact I was Melee Expert to Long Spear would tip things as the latter need 2 ranks whereas the Chinese just need 1. It was a calculated risk but I felt that if we didn't fight here we would time out to a low score draw.

In the end my Mongols broke the Numidians and, as I had held a card for just the eventuality, I was able to control the pursuit to avoid crashing into the infantry behind. Pretty much everywhere else we ended up with troops up close and personal, but not quite in combat almost everywhere. This included one of the small elephant units facing a unit of Skilled shooters which looked promising.

The elephant charge proved to be amusing so gets its own picture. The charge was at the Skilled shooters and the Shatuo armoured cavalry next to them (who were carrying a Wound). Judging the risk to be worth it I Skirmished with both units. The shooting was awful, just a single Wound that was caused by the armoured cavalry who the promptly rolled a "1" and were caught by the charging elephants would could get both bases fighting. Arse! The elephants caused 2 bases plus a Wound damage thus reducing the cavalry to 3 bases (i.e. a Wound from breaking). However, the cavalry promptly rolled 2 Wounds on 2 Black dice to break the elephants. Game of skill 😂

As this was happening my Chinese infantry were fighting the Carthaginian spearmen and cavalry on the right and coming off a bit second best shall we say. On the left shooting by both sides was pretty rubbish - many Green dice were rolled by both of us to no effect.

On my right the Carthaginian spearmen brutalised my Chinese infantry breaking both Vanguard Swordsmen units, however, the Carthaginian cavalry after an excellent start suddenly collapsed themselves. Unfortunately we timed out at this point with the score at 7-8. Ah well, onwards to game 3 ...

This turned out to be Richard Jeffrey Cook who was using a Marcomanni - a large mass of Devastating Charger infantry with a small, but useful, cavalry support. He had Quadi and Chatti allies, the latter of which had an annoying Superior front rank in their infantry which downgrades my Skilled shooting a bit.

Richard defended and went for lots of terrain - very sensible. Annoyingly for me, but as Richard wanted, he was able to place a number of Forest pieces on my base edge. As this restricts my skirmishing it would have a material effect on the game. I did, however, outscout the Germans by 100% so would be able to tailor my deployment in full knowledge of where they were.

The Germans were deployed with their infantry in the middle of the table almost filling their deployment area, with the Chatti in the centre and Quadi on their left. I went with the Mongols on the right as the Quadi are wholly Average so I hoped the massed Skilled shooting could rip them up; the Chinese were on the left and the Shatuo in the centre with their Skilled shooter on the right to team up with the Mongols. Given that I had bad terrain to my rear and was faced by mostly infantry I deployed my Flexible cavalry in Loose formation to maximise the number of shooting files to hopefully cause damage quickly. It looked like this:

First moves saw an aggressive advance by the Chatti witht he rest of the Germans being a little more circumspect so as to delay my shooting. The Chatti could push harder as they were screened by light infantry. I was, however, able to gang up 4 files of shooting at one Chatti unit - 2 of which were Skilled.

My first shots at the Chatti were a bit lucky and I removed a Superior base so allowing me to get at the Average bases to the rear. I soon reduced the unit to 6 out of 9 bases over a couple of moves after that. On my right, however, my Mongols were shooting blunt arrows at the Quadi much to Richard's relief -  he was decidedly nervous about what was going to happen on that flank, not helped by the Chatti unit getting shot up.

On my left I pushed the Chinese forward to take on the Marcomanni warbands. Although one was Superior the other 2 were Average and I was hoping that they wouldn't do too much with their Devastating Charger and that my Melee Expert would cut through them.

In the centre the other Chatti were push back 2 of my Shatuo horse archer units. Here I made a silly error. I failed not notice that 1 of the Chatti was in front of both my cavalry units and this would allow Richard to have a Chatti unit that could act unmolested. This would hurt me. Careless on my part.

The result of this error can clearly be seen in the next picture. The unmolested Chatti unit was able to turn to ist rear and then move up and charge my Vanguard Swordsmen before these could cut through the Marcomanni they were fighting. This was doubly annoying as I had managed to keep the Superior Marcomanni out of the fight with the other Vanguard Swordsmen long enough for them to break the other Average Marcomanni unit. In the end I lost both swordsmen unit and only broke both Marcomanni thanks to a large slice of luck when the Superior Marcomanni fluffed their dice rolls, whereas I should have taken both for the loss of 1 swordsmen. Ah well, all my own fault.

On my right shooting remain rubbish other than against the Quadi Sarmatian cavalry which lost 2 bases, and the Chatti and Quadi were now pushing me into terrain or to the table edge. I felt the end was in sight.

And indeed it was. My Shatuo cavalry did beat up the badly damaged Chatti unit and the Mongol nobles did the same to the Quadi Sarmatians, however, the Chatti killed 2 of my Shatuo units and looted the camp which with other losses broke my army.

The score was 9-15 in the end. If my shooting on the right had done more and, possibly more critically, I had not made the mistake in the centre it would not have taken much to flip the score the other way. However, the mistakes were made.

Saturday night was a rather good curry, a few beers and watching some of the women's rugby world cup - and earlier to bed than Friday 😉