ADLG - Game Report 330

Arab Indians (135) vs Abbasid Arab (134)

186 miles from Bournemouth to Kegworth for the Old Codgers event. As intended by the location it does bring together a much wider field of opponents from around the country and from north of the border. My first opponent was Marco with his Abbassids, I was invited to defend in the plains with the coastline on our left. I decided on a plan which was effectively to hold on the left and refuse the right, but in the event was neither one thing nor another!

The enemy refused combat on the left and withdrew in the face of the bowmen controlling the field. Therefore, I decided to advance the infantry line to support the centre and right.

The Abbasid mixed shooters are starting to have an impact causing a number of hits on the cavalry right wing. However, on the left the bowmen are in a position, once they both get within range, to provide some fire support.

The elephants scatter the enemy cavalry like confetti. On the right things are staring to look bleak with the cavalry suffering in combat despite their impact ability. Meanwhile the infantry are too slow to provide support.

The Abbasid are picking their targets carefully, as the battle becomes more disjointed they are only engaging where they have an advantage; and why wouldn't they! Meanwhile in the centre the foot is being bested by a single cavalry unit!

The Arab Indian cavalry has been destroyed, picked off and part by superior cavalry and aggressive Abid mixed spearmen and bowmen. On the plus side of the equation, we managed to destroy the enemy cavalry attacking the foot which will now release them to advance in support.

Outcome

An Abbasid victory in which they lost 13 of their 21. Spoiler alert Marco would go on to win the competition, so on balance I can be content with the 13 points I took off him.

Lessons Learnt

A poor deployment, which allowed me to be out-generalled by Marco.

In retrospect the Abbasid deployment was rather telegraphed by the deployment of their camp, which I should have taken as a factor in my plan.

Also, a very important lesson is to turn the page over when you are reading the Army Lists to see if there are other troops available; I completely missed the additionally troops over the page for the Abbasids when I was doing my pre-tournament army research.