A skirmish in the desert 2

 

Shown from the Cataplanan right flank as the Vanha light riders start their flanking movement. This troop type is one of the ways my version differs from HoTT - I like light cavalry! These have a -1 on combat factors as opposed to Riders but move quicker. Being horse archers, they can also fire as archers but with a shorter range.

Taken from the other side as Vanha right flank makes contact.

I roll all the dice needed for combats before I start working everything out. I also use dice that are basically colour coded - again, less chance of a mistake. This game was noted for a lot of 1s... in this case resulting in two light horse elements die. The Vanha on this flank weren't doing that well at this point! The pikes and spears in the centre got a bit mixed up but I judged that they never had separated elements so they always rolled 1 die for the units.

But then, the Cataplanan army wasn't doing all that well on the other flank!

Here, the Cataplanan unit had a separated element so it rolled it's own die. Didn't matter; they both rolled 1. So one dead element, though the main body - which included the general - survived because their main opponents only rolled 2!

Meanwhile the Griffins were acting as true light cavalry in my book. Young's Law concerning light cavalry: Light cavalry should always deploy at the back of the army. The enemy's army. Elephants rolled a 1 and died!

The Griffons then went for the back of the enemy Knights but both overshot to stop the Vanha light riders obeying Young's Law.

 

Meanwhile the Vanha general sorted the Military Order protecting the Cataplanan left flank. Before the battle I wasn't sure whether to call the Vanha cavalry knights or riders - finally went for knights.

The Griffons bounced the light horse, looked around and decided...

... time to fly over the fighting cavalry and hit the Vanha knights in the back. The crossbows at this point were firing on the light horse stopping them from charging the rear of the Cataplanan general. In retrospect, one of them could have.

Meanwhile the centre was getting very messed up, though thanks to taking out those two elephants early on things were a lot better for the Cataplanans.

By this time the armies were compressed enough to allow me to take a decent photo of the whole action. At this point casualties were even but then the Vanha army lost the rest of their left flank knights. The two light horses elements were separated so would have rolled separately - didn't happen because one was just acting as a support in the rear of the Cataplanan knights.

Another 1 against a 6... strangely, this only led to a pushback, even though the pikes threw a 6. The Vanha spears weren't so lucky, so it proved a really disasterous round for the Vanha forces.

Anyway, the oasis was finally cleared by the Cataplanan pikes and the Vanha left flank was down to a couple of elements.

So time for the Vanha to pull back and leave the field to the victorious Cataplanans.

This was a bit of a bloodbath. Both armies finished up below half strength.

 Thoughts on the battle. Things went well. For the Cataplanans, the chickens died but the stars were the Griffons. Using their speed and ability to fly over other troops they provided invaluable support in a couple of combats and, although only 'directly' fighting the light horse, their presence helped take out quite a few Vanha elements - including two elephants. That fear factor also helped early on though that was the only 1 thrown over several tests for fear. Both sides threw a lot of 1s and a few 6s - dice throws certainly made a difference in this game.