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Mortiem et Gloriam, Mitanni vs Neo-Assyrian

Woah, it's getting biblical round here!

My second game(1) vs the great Andy Clarke and his beautifully painted Neo-Assyrian Empire forces.

The Neo-Assyrians (911BCE - 609BCE, or there abouts) are an incredibly hard army, especially in the chariot period of MeG. They have seriously powerful battle chariots, two superior units and one exceptional; these is massively powerful, especially when twinned with a legendary commander, they all also had skilled archers. His foot were better than mine too, one superior, all close (so get shove) and even count as melee expert. The Mitanni (c1500BCE to 1300 BCE ish) are lighter, lighter chariots, with the advantage of being able to break off. I had less well formed infantry, lighter in weapons skills; but they do make up for it in numbers, even if there is a 400 year mismatch!

Scouting cards, honours even, so I put out 4 units first as I chose to defend. The terrain was dense standard with a coastline, my plan was to limit the frontage of Andy's force, and limit his ability to outpunch me.
Andy provided the wine gums, yummy!

Terrain fell for me perfectly, while Andy tried to play to the open field, I went for as much terrain as I could get away with. I had already shrunk the table by getting my waterway, I further secured each flank with a wood (my foot are loose, so don't mind it, Andy's were close, so really suffer in it). A town in the middle of my frontal sector gave me a firebase for my bows to hide in (counts as fortified), which Andy got a rotation on but it didn't move much. Best of all, a shallow hill, nice and good going, but big enough for my troops to have an advantage on fell in exactly the right place.
My deployment was one chariot unit out left, with a unit of bows, commanded by a competent general. A mediocre general had a reserve on an average chariot unit tucked in by the town. On the right a second competent general had the other three units behind the wood, with the intention of hiding in there for as long as possible without getting run over by exceptional or superior chariots!. The legendary CinC had everything else. Three superior chariots, an average chariot and a unit of bow armed spears.

Gerneral advance by the Neo-Assyrians, while I moved through the wood and secured the hill too.

As I held the wood edge and hill, I maneuvered superior chariots to counter Andy's exceptional chariots in the gap between. The gap between the hill and the town was held by the superiors and my average chariots.

Charges start. I chose to stand and shoot vs Andy's exceptionals, a risk, if he contacted me he would cream me, but I did have 5 shots on him, Not only did we cause a kill and a half, I also caused enough slows to stop their charge short, while he didn't have enough cards to pay his way through the slowing effects of fire. Why he didn't charge the flank of my foot I have no clue!

This allowed my spears to move out of the chariots charge arc, moving themselves to set up a charge on  Andy's bows (top, combat shy, disappearing off shot, but causing a hit on my spears). Meanwhile, my bows on the hill were able to secure another wound on the exceptional chariots, killing a second base.

On the hill, Andy's superior cavalry and chariots charged together towards my line. My average chariots shot and fell back (phew, coz Andy would have squashed them), and between them and my superiors, we caused a wound and many slows on the chariots, The shooting on his superior cavalry (Horses? You can ride them, who knew!) was not as successful, and in he came. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well Andy wanted.

On the next charge phase, the exceptional, well, evaporated (2-0). What is it about elite troops and dying? So much for the guards! Oh yeah, my spears bought off their wound and charged the Neo-Assyrian bows.

Back over on the hill, the cavalry were suffering. Andy worked out that actually with skilled bows on his chariots, and an average unit to his front, he should just shoot them, one kill later...

And we broke the superior cavalry (4-0), however, this slammed me into superior battle chariots, BRACE BRACE! Also, my small superiors pursued off the hill in a trail of dust, and left themselves utterly exposed to Andy's other cavalry unit.

Meanwhile, on the right Andy's bows shattered (6-0) and although Andy was perfectly set up for a flank charge with his spears, it left him exposed to mine, who in turn were exposed to his superior ones. To alleviate their pain, I sacrificed a unit of bows. Why? Well, it seamed like a good idea (6-2 as they broke)

My chariots were destroyed by Andy's chariots, (6-4) who then pursued off into the distance. This cleared the way for my main chariots wing that had poured through the gap the exceptional had left. They were joined by my CinC and set to hit the back of Andy's front line, would it be enough?

So, with my bows disappearing into the woods (sensible really, when facing two much better units),  my spears were suffering the undivided attention of all of Andy's remaining foot. His tribal warriors would soon turn to face, ready to hammer the remnants of my spears, who were hemorrhaging bases. My average chariots trundled to the rescue.

Not much left here, mine has passed out of sight, whereas Andy's has passed out!

Over on the left, I was spending my cards pulling back out of the skilled chariots range, but supporting with shots from my archers in the town who caused enough hits to kill a base.

Andy's chariots break (8-4), and I needed to find one more unit to break to win.

And it came from an unexpected place! My average chariots hit Andy's spear line, and took a wound, but in the combat round, we both skulled each other, losing a stand each, which was enough to break the spear unit (15-4) and win me the game.

The scene at the end of the battle, great game and again many giggles.

(1) "Where is the first game report?" I hear you ask, well, it's a bit embarrassing, as my army is only half built and painted now, in the last game it was an even smaller fraction painted! So, many of my units in that game and this (albeit a lot less this game) are borrowed Mycenaean from Mark Spratt. Hence the unbased units across the table, since game 1, I have added 4 units, but not had time to base them. Sorry.

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