ADLG - Game Report 268

Song Chinese (225) vs Goryeo Korean (223)

And the call came out from Yeovil for anyone for a game at Entoyment, being at a rather loose end I decided to accept the offer and duly arrived to do battle with Harry. I wrapped up as warm as I could because the venue can be a little chilly in the winter. I won the initiative and decided to attack in the plains. The coastline was Harry's and the steep hill next to it was mine after I rotated it. This left a nice 1UD gap which I overly fixated on by placing my cavalry opposite it. Other than that, I had a nice piece of terrain to move into and defend and wait for Harry to come into contact.

In my advance I duly moved the cavalry up but I lacked the aggressiveness to charge into contact. Further along my line I started to leave a gap in the line as I was foolishly trying to cover the entire width of the gap and occupy the difficult going. This gap was, oh great calamity, opposite the Korean Cataphracts.

The Chinese left wing against the coastline became a Mexican standoff, with neither of us willing to engage. More significantly for the Chinese they are starting to lose the firefight. In the centre we have corrected and closed the gap; the big question is would the Polearms be capable of passing through the crossbows to take the front line and receive the Cataphract charge.

And the answer to that was yes they could, but cold they at least damage the Cataphracts and that was a definite "no". Of the four contacts against the heavy polearms only one broke even, and one looks decidedly sick.

With that result the line was effectively broken, although one cataphract was destroyed the remainder broke through supported by their infantry. The Chinese showed up late for the battle after being rather dilatory on the left flank.

Outcome

A Korean victory where they suffered on 10 of their 23. And here the story gets darker for the Chinese. When reviewing the Army after the battle I discovered that I was fighting without two medium two-handed weapon units in both the battle against the Indians (where they weren't needed) and here where they may well have been!

Lessons Learnt

Measure and measure again your army list before battle; especially when you are packing the troops and before you finalise the Army list.

The main strength of the Chinese is their wealth of firepower which was not exercised sufficiently in both battles so far; I need to review this in the Army List.

It is very easy to over fixate on the terrain and make the incorrect decision, something I have done in a several games recently. Here screening the gap on the coastline would have been sufficient. The Cavalry were more valuable in the centre.