TTS AAR: To The Smallest Game 2: Arab Conquest vs Later Achaemenid Persian
/My second game at this year’s To The Smallest was a repeat of the warm-up game I’d had on Friday evening: my Arab Conquest army versus Adrian’s Later Achaemenid Persians. I’d won that game, so that had to be a good omen for this one…didn’t it?
Looking at the Persian deployment, they seemed very strong on my left, so I determined to hold back that flank and sent the rest of my army forward as soon as possible, helped by the fact that my infantry was all mounted.
The idea was that I used most of my army - all except a covering force on the left - to beat half of his army, then turned to fight the rest of his troops from a position of being in the lead coins-wise and having a attacking-the-front-and-flank advantage.
Things started reasonably well. My green flag Jund cavalry began pushing his horsemen back, the Daylami veteran javelinmen managed to disorder the mercenary Greek Hoplites and kill their general, and Adrian still hadn’t committed his troops on the right, meaning I was tying up more points than I had committed there.
Unfortunately, disaster then struck!
If you are pushing forward hard on one side of the battlefield, you need to make sure that you watch out for enemy troops from the flank turning through 90 degrees and then hitting your advancing units in the flank.
My two non-fanatic units of Warriors had got a square forward of the main battle line, showing Darius’ veteran lancers (plus army standard) a little too much of their flank. I had my covering force on the left ready to intervene should the lancers turn, but really needed to pull the elft hand Warrior unit back one square to be safe.
Two goes (I had a general present) to get 4+ on the cards and I failed both. There’s only a 9% chance of that happening!
Adrian took full advantage, and smashed his veteran cavalry into the flank of the stuck-in-the-mud Warriors, smashing them from the field. Their General died too, meaning that I gave up five of my sixteen coins in one loss!
Worse, there was the second unit of Warriors also with their flank exposed. Adrian hit that too, doubly disordering it with other enemy troops sending it from the field shortly afterwards. For those keeping count, that’s eight or half my coins gone!
But I wasn’t giving up yet. As planned, I’d smashed Adrian’s left flank (i.e. on my right) and was within Ames Ace of taking his camp there too. I had taken seven of his coins so far, so although I was losing, it was not by a huge margin, especially as Adrian’s right flank, now committed as he could see victory in front of him, hadn’t achieved very much.
Unfortunately, again, Darius and his pooping veteran cavalry weren’t finished yet!
They carried on their rampage across the field and hit one of my Fanatical Warrior units in the flank. They rapidly lost their devotion to the cause and fled the field, taking another General with them along with my lst few coins!
Although a disappointing result, it had been a great game of To The Strongest.
I must confess that the early manoeuvres had left me thinking that, after a grind, I could probably win the game…but Adrian spotting the slightly too advanced warband, me failing to move it backwards, and then Adrian superbly taking full advantage not once, not twice but three times in a row rightfully gave the win to the Persians.
It just goes to show how one event can decide the course of a battle, and it’s perhaps fitting that the unit that won Adrian the game (and then some!) was the one I had destroyed to win the warm-up game, Darius getting his revenge!