Bassano third round - "If you are a naked man armed with a stick, don’t mess with armored warriors sickle sword armed"
Third game I met an early Lybian army. We were the only players to have won both the games routing the opponent armies.
I was a bit worried to meet a large host, with more than 140 elements. I thought that the best way to deal with such an horde was to concentrate all my army against a portion of his one. In addition to that I needed some difficult terrain to protect my inner side, and to force the enemy to maneuver in the worst possible pip condition.
I was the defender. This is the terrain set up:
The terrain was very good for my plan. I was looking for a difficult in the center, and there was one. The dark green features are difficult, orchard and enclosed fields, while the brown one RF placed by the Lybian player.
I defended and deployed all my army on the left. If enemy would have flank marched, the situation could be scary. But he didn’t, and being so large he was forced to set up on both side of the orchard.
My target was the sea people ally corps on his outer wing, and the twin BwI corps in the center. The CiC wbF corps had nothing in front and I didn’t want to fight it.
I concentrated chariot detachments from 2 corps on the wing to trample the light infantry and converge on the flank of BdF, AxI and BwI, while my infantry advanced towards enemy archers, with WbF lurking in the rear ready for the fight
The enemy light foot was quickly engaged while the Sea people ally could not deploy in line due low pips
The light foot was quickly destroyed. The sea people corps had terrible pips all game long.
The chariots moved deep along the enemy flank
Sea people column, isolated and missing light troops protection, is methodically wiped out
Infantry and chariots coordinate a two sided attacks on the enemy mass. The lybian infiltration in the wood by IAxI is slowed by the high cost inept irregular pay to manouver
The corner of the huge enemy square is attacked first
The WbF fast chop their way in the enemy BwI horde. A real carnage.
Lybian CiC WbF finally arrive and are met by the Egyptian reserve corps. The Lybian charge, apart a lucky 6-1 killing one chariot, was ineffective.
The Lybian IAxI hold CvS attack, but BdF and WbF win the day.
The two Lybian BwI commands took a lot of casualties and when finally one broke, the whole army went down. 25-0
I played this game “by textbook” and was very satisfied. The lybian player was really plagued by low pips, he kept rolling 1 and 2, so he was paralyzed. Not much he could do with such a terrain. Maybe A flank march could be the better tactic, I don’t know.
The only downside in the whole match was the pitiful performance of RCvS in open ground versus the IAxI. I did few damage, while I expected to smash them.
This game was the turning point in my tournament. Now I had a big scoring advantage over the second player and could better manage the last match.