Tuesday 2 October 2012

No Quarter Asked No Quarter Given

"But General Pereira, we have no room to maneuver. We should withdraw to the open plains."
Pereira shook his head. "No. If we withdraw the Elves will plunder our land and that does not sit well with me. We will wait them out, they must come to us."
**************************************
In this battle the terrain would be a great disadvantage to the Mirish cavalry. 75% of the table was woods or rocky, placing the cavalry at a disadvantage. Only one end of the board was clear. A thin strip that Pereira used to deploy.
As for the Elves the terrain worked in their favor. If they could bait the Mirish army into the rough terrain the Elves would have the advantage. But Pereira was right. Being the invader, the Elves had to come to them.
So the Elves advanced.


As the Elves cleared the woods Pereira unveiled the Crystal Light of Yaqub, a Holy Relic. With a shout the Mirish front line, made up of lightly armored dregs and inspired to charge to their death by the Relic. Alone they would be no match for the heavier armored and disciplined Elf Brethren.


But they weren't alone. Supported by two units of heavy cavalry and elephants they charged. As they did Shazam and Kahrpett, the magic users, successfully cast a despair spell upon the Elf flank. Without any mages of their own the Elves were highly susceptible to magic attacks.


The Elf end routed from the combined assault of lancers and magic. The two lines exchanged casualties with Mirish getting the worse of things. 

 Meanwhile the Elf center, made up of archers and unarmored Disciples moved forward. As the Mirish horse archers swept around the Elves left flank the Mirish heavy cavalry swept forward.

 But by now the Elf right had beaten back the inspired but inept Mirish infantry. The battle had reached a crisis as the Elves readied another attack.


 But help arrived in the form of another successful despair spell and the initiative of one young Mirish officer. Seeing his chance he spurred his unit of heavy cavalry forward into the despairing Elf flank, routing them away.


 The Elven general stabilized the flank with a counter-charge of the the Black Brethren but the damage had been done. The Elf center was ridden down, the left flank routed off and the isolated Elf right was close to being surrounded. Outnumbered by cavalry with lance and bow and with no missile units of their own the Elf General decided to withdraw his army into the safety of the woods.

The battle was over. Mirish had won but it was not a resounding victory as the Elves only lost one unit of Hunters and one of Disciples.






4 comments:

  1. Interesting battle. I'll have to look at the spells more closely, despair seems to work. One question I had was about the casualty markers. Are those showing routers? I usually just remove routers from play. Is that wrong? I also have just ended the battle the last few times. I don't see a way to easily disengage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The markers were used to show what was happening as it was a bloody and short battle, three turns once the armies contacted.
    Without room to maneuver with the cavalry the game was going to be bloody and quick. The woods saved the Elves. As for disengaging easily you shouldn't be able to. In real life you had to fight your way off the battlefield, same in RRtK. I'm not a fan of games with artificial break points that end the game. Trying to disengage is the best time to attack the enemy leader BTW.

    ReplyDelete
  3. And the beauty of a campaign is it provides incentives not to fight to the last man. The concept of a rearguard makes sense. The need for reserves, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  4. In regards to spells, if you have magic users and the enemy does not you have a definite advantage. Passing the same d6 means a success as they cannot interfere.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.