Bassano First Round - Dawn attack
First game, saturday morning, I met an early Barbarian army of the middle period, with IBdO and tons of IAxS.
I attacked and tried to protect at least a side rolling for a river. My opponent choosed to put two large SH and two BF.
This was a mistake of mine. During the game I realized how tough the ENB were, so it would be better to have both flanks open to attacks.
Even if I think the river choice was a mistake, it helped because two terrain feature were out of use. My side is the left one.
The two armies set up. The barbarians deployed a first line of IBdO supported from a second line and wings of IAxS. One corps wasn't on the table. I thought it was flank marching on the open side edge. From the deployment dice it came out a fall night attack with 3 rounds of movement for me.
Looking at the tactical situation, I decided to try to force a front and side attack on the SH. I would have needed good pips with CiC corps tough. The decision was risky but compulsory. With the SH in his hands and a flank march on table, my opponent would have slowly strangled my army.
After three rounds of night moves, this was my position. The infantry took the height advantage on SF while the chariots were in a good position on flanks. The middle corps (with very bad night PiPs) stayed back to act as a reserve.
The Egyptians RBdF advance not in contact to seize as much space as possible on the hill. The right outflanking develops. The far left chariots attack is unsuccesful and the line fragments
The ENB player start pushing forward his line while on the right he tries to protect his flank from the chariots. He decides to attack the hill to attrition my army even if in a losing position hoping in an early entry of his flank marching corps.
The NKE right wing with high PiP keeps moving around the enemy, while the center corps slowly march to a side blocking position
I lose ground on the left. I'm under pip pressure to avoid exposing my flanks to the steadily advancing enemy line. On the right the ENB casualties mount up fast.
The ENB corps on the right breaks
The RBdF on the hill turn 180° to menace the flank of the enemy flank march when it will arrive. The ENB on the left keep looking for my inner flank.
My opponent put back in position some troops mistakenly made flee in the center. NKE reorganizes the pursuing corps to attack the lone surviving enemy command.
The ENB position is hopeless at this point. The flank march rolls 6 just in 6th turn.
In 7th turn this is what turned up. With them showing up earlier, NKE position would have been much more difficult.
The flank march enters too late, the ENB army breaks for a 25-0 result.
In this game everything worked well for NKE. The night attack gave a big position advantage and the flank march entering so late doomed the ENB.
The river had the unexpected effect to restrict the table and convince the opponent to flank march. With his army wholly on the table and positioned for an attack all over the line I think I would have struggled.
My chariots on the left lost a lot of terrain to repulses and were able to cause losses just when the flank opened. In an head to head confontation I would have lost I think.