Recoil! Game 5, Thracians vs Khmer (Peter Williamson)
In which I deployed badly, Peter exploited my mistake well and I managed to hang on and burgle an 11-14 draw having lost about 49% of my armies morale equivalents! Peter lost 20% and had one command disheartened. A lucky game against a gracious opponent, thank you Peter.
The table had a large gentle hill on Peter’s right and boggy ground in the centre. There was also a small gentle hill on my right and a patch of boggy ground on Peter’s left but these two features played little part in the game. The pic shows the terrain - on the table the boggy ground in the middle was on the centre of the table and the big gentle hill was squarer and extended loser to the edge. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pics during the game.
I deployed my Thracian sub-general on my left, aiming to screen the hill, hopefully get light horse around it and use peltasts and archers (Ax(S), Ps(S) and Ps(O)) to poke and prod at any elephants that might be there. Xenophon was in the centre with his peltasts (Ps(S)) to quickly move into the boggy ground and the hoplites would move where required. The king was on the right to sweep around.
As it turned out Peter had only two commands. The one on the big gentle hill had a cavalry general and the rest was all foot, much of it superior auxiliaries, with some ordinary auxiliaries, psiloi and fast blade.
Peter’s second command had all the elephants, including the two with bolt-shooters on their backs, more ordinary auxiliaries and psiloi. The elephants with bolt-shooters protected the side of the hill, the auxiliaries screened the boggy ground and the elephant mounted CnC, more elephants and the psiloi were held back in the centre facing left. There was nothing on Peter’s left.
Peter’s infantry command attacked immediately, also pushing a couple of elements towards the side of the table to block my light horse. Shooting from the elephants was a nuisance, causing a few casualties and lots of recoils.
In the centre, Xenophon’s peltasts pushed on into the Khmer CnC’s infantry and the hoplites manoeuvred to support my beleaguered sub-general’s command. The King marched his light horse around the flank to attack the elephants, auxiliaries and psiloi. He and his peltasts (Ps(S)) coming up as fast as they could.
My sub-general’s command could not take the pressure from the Khmer foot and broke. Luckily, it had inflicted enough casualties so that the damage the hoplites caused disheartened the Khmer foot. The Greek peltasts and Khmer auxiliaries fought a tangled fight and the star of the show, the heavyweight champion, the Khmer CnC on his elephant, smashed everything he fought.
With the gift of hindsight, and the ability to muse, my Greeks should have been on my left. They would happily have stood off the Khmer foot while the two Thracian commands could have attacked the elephants and ordinary auxiliaries. My “learning”? I was too quick, did not think enough before the game started, and just did the same old thing. Peter, on the other hand, took the opportunity my poor deployment gave him and ran with it. Well played that man! Lucky for me we timed at two hours or my 49% loss would easily have gone over 50%.
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