Northern Dynasty Chinese vs West Sudanese

Northern dynasty chinese is an army that can e organized in a couple of very different ways: for this game I wanted to try an all mounted version, with regular troops. The doctrine was to manouver well and hit the enemy in the best possible condition and match up. In this period NDC add some interesting steppe allies, that help a lot.

Being this a training match for the next tournament set in 476-1071AD, I met a third period army: West Sudanese. Well, Sudanese are exactly the kind of army I would like to avoid in a tournament setting, having no answer to Exp, and fielding so many Kn.

The Sudanese was the defender and put down a muddy stream, to hamper my cavalry. I choosed two woods, that landed in useful spots. One can be seen in the center blocking a likely infantry approach, while the second, that will be seen in later pictures, protected part of my right side from flank marches. The other two woods that can be partly seen in the picture were choosen by my opponent and played no significant role in the game.

The Sudanese deployed three corps on table: from the far left I saw cavalry, archers, a Turaeg ally, some blade inferior in front of the central wood, and a flank guard made by cavalry.

I deployer all my army on the right side of the river, with the plan to outflankand outmanouver the enemy and fall on his rear, avoiding the brunt of the shooting. No Exp on the table, I thought they were flank marching

The Sudanese looking at my deployment tried to save its few cavalry, and we realized mmediately how the river would hamper his army too: the stream stopped his withdraw and let me intercept the rear of the column.

Two enemy cavalry were quickly eliminated, while the turk started to attack some enemy skirmishers near the right wood that, due low pips, could not enter the difficult going to save themselves. The enemy on the second turn rolled a 6 announcing a right flank march. The Chinese cavalry started to manouver by column to face the new threat.

Rolling just 1 pip the Sudanese entered just with a mass of archers. The Chinese deployed to attack them, while trying also to ford the stream and destroy the enemy central corps.

Not how the wood in the right corner helped me to contain the enemy and create the opportunity to flank attacks

To my surprise, when all sudanese entered from the flank, there was no Exp. I completed the Kn deployment to attack the marchers.

The Chinese advanced  to attack the flank marchers, while they start the wading too. Arabs in the picture top corner are casualties.

Look how the outflanking manouver by sudanese left was stopped by the stream. The small river blocked my opponent that fought without two corps.

A bridgehead is made across the stream, while the cataphracts slowly attacked and eliminated enemy IBwI, that the Sudanese wisely separated in multiple lines.

Chinese attacked the second enemy line

With a KnX fleeing from combat with an archer, the Sudanese made a desperate counterattack with Cvo vs KnF, killing a KnF and rolling a 3 vs 2F versus the Chinese general.

Chinese luckily survived.

The Tuareg tried to force a passage, but he lost both the camel superor in the process. Chinese reserves arrive to deal with Sudanese cavalry.

The Sudanese counterattack should have scared a lot the chinese CiC, because I rolled 1,1,2 with the pips, and had to withdraw the exposed general, stopping my attack versus enemy cavalry. This proved decisive in the end.

We called the time with two Sudanese corps and the army baggage disheartened. 15-10 to the Chinese.

The river set up by the Sudanese helped me, because I used three corps out of four versus half enemy army. I was a bit slow to develop the attack on the flank marchers, and once I committed, the enemy shooting often disrupted my lines. This not helped me. When my CiC risked to die, I decided to withdraw him and avoid any risk. Should I have kept him in the fray, I would have received a 3-3F charge and surviving that, I could have destroyed the enemy army. It's a matter of choice in the end.

Imho the Sudanese are nastier using Exp, and setting up a terrain to let the army approach the enemy and start an attritional battle. The river use was wrong, expecially when fielding clumsy foot. Apart this the Sudanese player did well, considering the pips were quite low on average.