Khmer vs Medieval Portuguese

I'm struggling to field a decent Khmer army list. What I'm sure about is that I want some ElX, at least two of them. After much tinkering, I prepared a list with maxed RAxS and skirmishers, and few elephants. The idea was to start and fight mainly with the infantry masses, to deliver some decisive charge with the nellies, once enemy skirmishers have been dealt with. With 3 Elephant groups in reserve I should be able to hit some juicy target. This is the basic coincept.

The practice was a bit different. I met a Portuguese army with a lot of psiloi, supported by KnS, BdS and an english allied corps.

As defender, I had a very good terrain, that hampered a lot enemy mounted. The Portuguese deployed all his IKnO dismounted. Furthermore the set up was inverted, letting me see enemy deployment. A very good start. Well, good news stopped here, once pip dice started rolling. My plan was easy, attack mainly on the right, to overwhelm enemy lights and roll the line, trying to engage enemy reserves and use my better C3 (enemy had irregular generals). The left wing with IAxO would need a lot of pips, so received the highest die.

The Portuguese first move was a very good one. Plenty of pips and a lot of manouvering. He redeployed his light troops around my left flank, leaving an empty space in front of my right wing, with just some LhO to do a skkirmish job. The english corps moved near the edge of the big right scrub, to protect the flank of the RKnS that were aimed to my army in the central plain.

My reply was poor, low pips hampered my right corps, with the middle pip dice. I was costantly outpipped in this game, and left the initiative to the Portuguese trying to parry his thrusts. Luckily I gave the higher pip dice to my left, and there I was able to fight back. The problem I was going to face was that on the left the Portuguese skillfully massed two corps versus one. Mine was much bigger (Portuguese army was quite brittle), but as long he fought with Psiloi this was not an issue.

The red arrows show my plan on the right wing. Paying three pips to wheel elephants didn't help the speed of my advance. The position of the Elephants X in the center was a good one.

The opposing center before the clash. I was able to wheel my ElX to start shooting on english BwS. The pressure enemy bring on my left hampered my deployment. The supported RAxS had very few protection on the flank near the woods, where enemy PsS and O faced my PsI. A weak point that soon Portuguese exploited.

This is the first attack made by the Portuguese. on the far left 12 PsS engaged 8 IAxO of mine, while I had to fight a mixed KnS and PsO formation that did not let me use immediately the elephants. ElX started to engage the english Bowmen killing one of them.

The situation now was tough. I tried to resist enemy assaults to have the time to bring the right wing in action. The only good news was that the ElX were hammering the english archers.

The Portuguese were slowly killing my RAxS in the central plain. After having lost three BwS to ElX fire, the english corps withdrew and was replaced by IBdS

Finally my Elephants were ready to attack the enemy line. I wanted to deliver a coordinated charge along all the front to make collapse quickly the Portuguese

My RAxS suffered many casualties but their corps was still fighting. It was time to break the enemy

The battle was in the decisive stage, now a lot of 2ME troops were engaged

The Portuguese BdS fought well but started to die against elephants. Holes appeared in the enemy line

The far pursuing elephants were soon attacked in the flanks. A very dangerous combat was that on the left red circle, that made me risk the loss of three elements and the demise of the left corps. I was lucky and survived. At the end of this bound my left wing was disheartend, but I broke one enemy corps disheartening two more.

By now it was quite late, so we called the game end, with a winning draw for the Khmer.

The game was a very tough one, I was under pressure costantly, trying to parry enemy thrusts for most of the game. The elephants proved decisive. Brittle they are, but also able to quickly eliminate most of the enemies.

I was pleased by ElX. Apart the losses they did, I saw that many players use a lot of pips to avoid their fire. Once I had no more targets, I charged as elephant. This is a real bonus.