ADLG - Game Report 324

Arab Indians (135) vs Anglo-Danes (180)

We were in the final few days before we had to submit our army lists for Kegworth. I had just about decided to use Arab Indian, so a few more trials seemed to me to be sensible. So our next week-day meeting (Friday) I brought them out for another battle, and this time against Kev S's Anglo-Danes. This would not be a perfect match-up but it would help work out what I might do if confronted by an infantry-heavy army. I won the initiative and decided to attack in the plains. At this stage I placed the foot command on the left near the coastline, with the Elephant centre and the horse on the right.

I decided that what I needed to do was to try and establish a breakthrough the enemy's shield wall with my spears and elephants and then break the cavalry through any gaps I could create. Hence the cavalry is seen moving from the right to the left as a second line.

What I didn't anticipate was that the enemy would open up on their left and in doing so create gaps and flanks I might have been able to exploit if I had stayed where I was. Of course, there is no guarantee that they would have done so if I had left the cavalry there!

There is one flaw with the masterly plan I put together, and that is what would I do if there was no breakthrough. Or as in this case the enemy were ablet o cop their way through the forest of spears I presented them.

Consequently, I was forced to throw in the cavalry to hold the line. And we all know that this isn't going to go well if they charge into the heavy foot. The elephant's loss was unfortunate!

We managed some small gaps but nothing that came any where wide enough to allow us to penetrate the line into the backfield.

Outcome

I conceded defeat having lost 20 of 25 to the 9 of 22 of the Danes, so that we could both move onto another game.

Lessons Learnt

The enemy left flank wasn't open, but at least I could have stretched them more on that flank.

Although I think there is a case that if the combats had been marginally better the plan had an outside chance of succeeding.

Think more about how I can reduce the line of infantry to 6 units.