Arbeth Bay looked on at the approaching dust cloud, Chinese, they were a LONG way from home? Had the present Pharoah reneged on a trade deal, again?
The messenger scampered back from the shade of a nearby village, "Chariots, lots of them, sir!"
"We can deal with that!"
"Lots of four-horse heavy chariots sir! At least six units sir!"
"Okay, we might need help dealing with that!"
Yes, the army I had just spent the last two weeks painting and basing! I was carrying this, mine and the Mitanni when being about 30' from the stands of Ascot Racecourse, and I managed to drop the lot!
AARGH!
Three armies, plummeting into the tarmac! Insert several swearwords here.
Roger, Adrian and I spent a rather tense hour with many bottles of superglue rebuilding the armies. Roger was aghast and I was mortified (and we were all rather overcome by the fumes). So we started deploying just as everyone else was making their first moves and combats (we only just managed to deploy after Hammy's 26 UG blob of Early Lybians!) I had offered to give Roger a 15-0 in shame, but he was here to fight.
I was defending, and the terrain was two villages and a lump of rocky ground with a secure flank of a waterway. Roger's infantry was deployed in and around the rockiness, whereas his chariots (6 TuGs of 4 superior, devastating charge. mounted polearms. experienced bows, melee experts - nasty!) were deployed either side of the upper village. It looked like Roger's plan was simple, hit me hard on the right and destroy me (much like his reaction to me dropping his army)! My army was spread across the plains, with my Greek longspears intermixed with my Egyptian forces, as this seemed to be the way to get the army to work at it's best. On the right were my ten chariots and on the far right. Just in shot, are my skirmishing Medjai cavalry.
Pretty consistent cards for me too!
There's not much of my army facing the majority of Roger's attack arm here, plus both his generals (one legend, one talented, as he had had point issues and had dropped his infantry commander to salvage points, leaving his foot leaderless, practically)!
Simple answer was to get my Greek and Egyptian spears forwards as quickly as possible while my chariots evaded and shot at the approaching jugganauts!
It was at this point Roger realised there was a fairly massive rules issue with his chariots, no free dev charge at 3 base widths due to bows and yet no evade due to dev charge! The worst of all worlds for a LOT of points, and now stranded with a fast approaching dead and spectral spear block behind his flank ! (There was much discussion of this with Nik, and all of us shaking our heads at this weird combination)
Meanwhile, I just trying to pin and disrupt some other chariots with more Greeks. Roger was happy to continue (in the given value of happy for a man who has just had his dream army shattered on tarmac and then shattered by the rules) as he could see an easy kill.
His first units of chariots perishes in a turn to the long spears (2-0) (catching them in the flank was not pleasent, I was +6 to his +1), and their pursuit put them in the face of the Emperor's command himself.
They had been joined by my 6 of chariots, who had lost a base as I realised the Roger's chariots were better than mine all round. Thankfully, the spears saved them!
So much better that they caught and obliterated my medjai, who even after causing a wound in shooting, failed to run any distance, and with those dice, were ridden down! Roger was superior (+1) , dev charge (+1), mounted polearm (+1), hitting a mounted unit that shot (+1) while I was combat shy (+1) skirmishers (+2), caught in the rear (+4) giving him an almighty +11! Thankfully the dice max out at double red! All that was left was a one molecule thick red smear where three and a half bases had died, the rest of the Egyptian Secret Police turned tail and legged it; they did cause a wound though, good lads, meaning they killed a base! (2-2)
Chariots, caught by long spear armed Greeks embark on a Green on Green viscious melee. (+2 for long spear vs +1 mounted polearm, +1 superiors), but the light blue unit is also charged in the flak by my Egyptian Guard Spears (+1 short spear, +1 superior, +4 flank charge). The result was somewhat bloody! (4-2)
Meanwhile, red chariot squadron pursued along with the Greek spears, passing by the Chinese chariots, leaving Blue squadron fighting two units of chariots on their own. Had the mummies on board had any vocal chords, I am sure their would have been some choice Egyptian swearwords here!
Over on the far left, Pteppic had brought up the skilled archers, who firing on a mixed Chinese spear unit, had wiped out their front rank of spears, while their rear two ranks of archers had killed a base of undead shooters (or reinhumed them). Behind them, average Egyptian spears under the control of Ptepid, move round to engage.
In the centre/right/main brawl, my superior spears, guided by Pteppic and Ptraci, continued their flanking move by hitting the next unit of Roger's formed chariots in the flank, who would go the way of their kinfolk (6-2). Meanwhile, Red Squadron, feeling guilt for riding past Blue Squadron, turned to assist, aided by their attached hoplites.
Close up of Ptepic at work!
Nearer our baseline, Blue Squadron of chariots is in real trouble, losing another base and leaving it teetering a hit of breaking!
But Red Squadron, guided by Psamtik I himself, crashes into the flank of Roger's Chinese Chariots, shattering them into matchwood (again) (8-2). If Blue Squadron's lungs weren't in jars back at base, their sigh of relief would have been palpable!
The continuation charge then swept away the next chariot unit away (10-2) and Blue Squadron quietly reforms.
Roger turned the Medjai killers around, and attempted to catch and kill Red Squadron. However, Blue Squadron had seen this move and countercharged to react. Their charge was not quite enough to break the Chinese tankschariots but their perfectly timed counterstroke shattered the (skeletal) remains of Blue Squadron! (10-4)
With that, on the left, Egyptian spears, supported by skilled archers, took apart a unit of Chinese foot, breaking Roger's army (for the second time today). (15-4 to Saitic Egyptians)
Hell of a game, and one that Roger could easily have won if the dice had gone his way. I scarpered downstairs quick, to buy my Xmas presents and to mooch around when the draw for round 2 was announced.
That night, in the light of the stars, after gathering up and recovering the scattered remains of the Medjai, Abarth Bay and the messenger sat next to a large campfire, mostly made up of shattered chariot parts, eating several roasted quail and a slaughtered goat that had mysteriously appeared next to their tents. Ararth guessed it was a gift from the grateful dead. They had been joined by Pteppic and Ptraci, who had shuffled across, embarressed after their attempts at fire making had failed (Royalty, phah!). The two had explained the weirdly flat lands they came from, while their mathematical camel enjoyed an nearby palm tree, all this physics made prfect sense to Arbarth, why would the world always need to be a globe?
Pteppic uttered "I always find sleeping under strange stars odd!"
The messanger lay back and took a long look at them, and uttered "That becuase they've changed! The constellation of the Snake should be there at this time of year!"
Arbarth grinned to himself, "Oh now we are following the dead, time does not matter, we could wake up anytime, anywhere."
Ptraci threw a quail bone a the fire, "Oh, pyramids do that to you!"
The messanger gulped "But we are in the delta, the nearest pyramid is hundreds of miles away!"
The sky was rent by a bright blue flaring into the sky from the point of a triangular tomb in the far distance, surrounded by campfires, "Well, that wasn't there this morning!"
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