Game 4 vs Later Sargonid. Bassano 10/2011
Last round I was classed third. A big win could let me win the tournament, but I had to play against a later Sargonid, not my ideal opponent.
I defended, and put down the terrains with my usual pattern. The Sargonid army was organized with 4 regular corps and tried to anchor its flanks choosing some small difficult going. The result can be seen above. Again I deployed a bit back the Nubians, with the plan to attack the wings trying to create an unfavourable tactical position for the knights once they should charge.
The game started with the Egyptian sending a flying column of RBdF towards the Enclosed fields. I wanted to use this feature as a base to infiltrate and threat the enemy flank, possibly advancing later two archers corps to shoot from two directions. The RBwI on the right were ready to counter any attack around the Bua. The Sargonid were extremely mobile with four generals and regular troops. I needed to fix them before to commit my weak troops.
The Sargonid start was careful and slow, he too wanted to check my plan. I pushed on the left because the position was promising and there there was the low pip corps.
Assyrian RAxS manouvered to attack my archers on the right. I was glad of this, because in such a way I could have hold the Bua and create a second flank to enemy chariotry.
The Sargonid attacked. RAxS with high pip manouvered ready to attack on the right, while the enemy center aimed at mine.
The shooting disordered the assyrian lines.
First enemy charge. The situation was tough, because I made the mistake to not attack from the Bua, and the assyrian was able to cover his chariot flank there.
My shooting on CvO was uneffective.
The fighting was along all the line now. I killed one RKnS, failed a second taken in the rear and made flee a subgeneral. BdF failed to kill enemy spears and overlapped chariots. Things were going badly
The Assyryan took a risk, attacking and killing with the subgeneral fled from archers more bowmen. This left him alone. He was surrounded and killed. This combat broke the Assyrian left and larger corps, but didn't stop the pressure on my center.
Assyrian RAxS advanced with minimal losses. I tried to stop the psiloi protecting their flank to send there a RBdF, but with no success
In the center the Nubians were safe, thanks to some good shooting. My right corps was attacked by RKnS in addition to the RAxS closing on the archers.
My losses were mounting
When time was called, the Assyrian finished all combats. In a terrible sequence of rolls and extremely bad matchups I lost element after element. When the dust settled, My right wing corps had lost 9ME out of 28. Disheartened but not broken. 14-11 for the Egyptian.
But the battle was not over, because a gigantic piece of cake landed on the table. The Egyptians survived to this too, and immediately their priests tried to interpretate this omen.
The battle was hard, because the Assyrian initiative in the second parte of the game resulted in too many combat where I was at disadvantage. The more of these, the more the losses. I made two mistakes, the first one to not sally from the village to push back enemy flank protection and attack Assyrian KnS in the flank. The second one was to not leave some Bd with the left wing RBwI. When the enemy mounted attacked me there, I could not fully take advantage of the gap created and attack the flanks because of the limitations that archers had on contacting mounted.
All my support, Ps and BdF was in the enclosed fields. The Assyrian made in my humble opinion just one error, that is to attack too late. A nice game.
I finished the tournament third. A very good result I think.