Abarth Ray looked over his shoulder at Ptepic, as the two of them crested a hill.
"You know, I am not sure this map is accurate," Ptepic looked at the scroll, "I think the cartographer has put several features in the wrong place. He's moved two whole rivers and missed a mountain and the road to the city is wrong."
"So, you are saying that to Ur is to be human?"
Ptraci looked at the other two, and muttered something under her breath, ahead the Sumerian army had already scoped out the Egyptians deployment. "How did they know what we were doing?" She asked.
"They have had two and a half thousand years experience to be ready for us." Abarth Ray grinned again.
Phillip had some pretty impressive scouting cards here. I thought I was doing well, but he was defending, and outscouted me by 80%! Out of my 12 units, that was 10. This was matched by 80% of the Sumerians, which was 15 units!!! That was bigger than my entire army!
That is wall-to-wall Sumerians out there! We had a coastline on the left, and a batch of suspiciously familiar ruins making rocky ground in the centre, and all the other terrain fell off table. On the left, Phillip had all five units his (unprotected) spears and two units of skilled archers, backed up by five skirmishers, in the centre, his guard unit, two units of javelinmen and more skirmishers have their feet in the ruins, while on the right four units of chariots and two more units of skirmishers await! Apart from the guard and the chariots, the whole army was basically unprotected and all skirmishers were downgraded to poor. 21 units!!
I matched his spears on the left with my Greek mercanaries, superior Egyptian spears, an average Egyptian spear, and my skilled archers. In the centre Ptepid had his skirmishers, the combat shy archers and the second Egyptian spear unit. To the right, Red and Blue chariot squadrons were deployed last, with the Medjai on the far right in case of skirmish envelopments. My plan: March forwards as quickly as possible and hit stuff before it could swarm me!
I
I was surprised by the lack of movement from the opposing side! Apart from his right-hand chariots and a few thousand skirmishers, nothing much advanced.
My right-hand advances were somewhat stalled by some naff cards. Thankfully, being professional and drilled, the army is geared to manage basic movement on bad cards, just maybe not around corners or anything fancy like that.
On the left, spears and archers advance. In teh centre, two Egyptian spears flank the third unit spears. Sumerian javelinmen advanced en masse through the ruins. My central command moved up to the right of the ruins, with little or no intention of going in, but happy to pin back enemy troops. To their right, stopping outside of thrown javelin range, but in out bow range, the chariots and Medjai wait.
The Medjai are briefed to keep a watch the chariots and skirmishers to their right, and not to get involved with the ass drawn chariots!
Another turn, another dodgy set of cards! My shoot and charge plans with the chariots (each needs a green) and my plans for my combat shy archers on the right will have to wait. Everything else can at least make at least one single straight ahead move.
Phillip decides to go for it, charging with two units of his chariots (deployed four wide). This would result in him clipping the Medjai, so they are not dealing with the skirmishers any more, instead, they turn their bows on the right-hand charging chariots and cause two wounds, killing a chariot, before scampering backwards.
Blue squadron also rolls a slow on the injured chariot unit, while Red Squadron, also cause a kill on the left-hand Sumerian chariot squadron. It's all a bit 'Gaukroger' out there!
Being superior chariots has its advantages, especially the +1 for evading charges. I also had the cards to return at least some of the chariots to within bow range of Phillip's, but out of his javelin throw range.
Which is precisely what I did! In the Rocky ruins, two units of poor skirmishers lob javelins at each other to little effect.
On the left, a world class staring match ensues. My troops now move up to shooting range of Phillip's skirmishers and more of a worry, his skilled archers.
Blue squadron get another shot at the Sumerian chariots, and redeem their earlier slow with two wounds, leaving the onager pulled carts in need of a pitstop.
Tribal chariots wheel, with a professional general it helps, and threaten the flank of Blue Squadron and my Medjai who have failed to hit the beaten up chariots, but had evaded back, while Red Squadron make a shoot and charge but miss!
The left, oh so lefty. My central Greek spears are hit by shooting and despite shield cover, take two wounds and are stopped dead. My left hand Greeks also suffer a wound and are halted.
Blue Squadron decide the best way of avoiding a flank charge was to go off and tangle with the reserve chariot unit, while Red Squadron and Psamtik got involved with the one facing it. Meanwhile, Phillip's beaten up chariots are hunting Medjai.
The hand of a great Sumerian god lifts chariots away to safety as their first unit breaks against the might of superior Egyptian melee experts (+2 on melee rolls). (2-0)
Then Red Squadron pursue into the Sumerian reserve chariots too, but fail to capitalize on their success.
The reserve Sumerian chariots loose a base and a wound. Red Squadron take a wound
The beaten up chariots are shot down by the Medjai. This again cements their usefulness in this force. (4-0)
Charge(s)! The central line units get involved, rather than waiting for the flank to collapse. Time to get our ghostly Greek spears dirty!
Unfortunately, the centre Greek unit catches the attention of Sumerian skilled archers and evaporated under a hail if arrows followed by a crash of spears. (4-2)
Making up for the embarrassment of missing skirmishers at point blank range in their last outing, my skilled archers show what they can actually do against unprotected archers, killing two and a half bases in one volley, while only taking a hit themselves from the KaB for the spears breaking.
Over at the chariots, two squadrons is too much for the Sumerian dustcarts to take, and the reserve unit disintegrates (6-2). Nothing says this is going badly than the general riding off mid-fight. At some point here, my skirmishers and Phillip's both decided that they were annoying each other so much they both broke (7-3).
Phillip had turned two of his units of javelin men in an attempt to catch my right-hand Greek spears in the flank, as I had blundered them forwards, leaving then exposed to my superior Egyptian spears and my combat shy Egyptian archers, who both successfully flank charged the bigger units . Probably not my best idea walking into rough going, as my superiors with short spear (+2), in the flank (+4) were at a minus two for fighting in bad goin (net +4). My combat shy bows were on +3 as although they were in the flank (+4) and they did not care about the terrain (+/-0), combat shy knocks them down one. Still, two red dice are nasty.
Which gave my right hand spears chance to charge the Sumerian guards
Both units chewed lumps out of the javelinmen, who were going to turn and face.
Ptepic's skilled archers unleash hell on the Sumerian counterparts for a second turn , causing two more kills and a wound to spiflicate the enemy archers (9-3). Meanwhile, my left hand spears are being ineffective. You know how elite are always useless.
Back over on the right, blue squadron goes hunting the Sumerian camp, while Red squadron, joined with an Egyptian spear unit, to try and hunt down another unit.
The Sumerians in the ruins, dangerously close to breaking, turn to face while their god aids his spears in pursuing my Egyptian spears. (10-5)
As night draws down, and time is called, my chariots threaten the Sumerian camp, and the day was done
Somewhere I took an extra unit of skirmishers too. A hilarious game, played with Phillip in great spirit. Final result was a hard 12-7 between us. (+2 for each of us surviving).
This put me into glorious third place. A good result that I was not expecting Vs such a horde.
Round 1 results
RJC 15-2
Nik 15-3
Me 12-7
Phillip 7-12
Peter 3-15
Keith 2-15
The draw for after lunch was RJC Vs me, Nik Vs Phillip, Peter Vs Keith
"Okay, that was close!" Ptepic mused
"Against a horde of that size, not surprised really." Ptraci laughed, looking at them both, "Are you preying to."
Abarth Ray smiled, and picked a date from the lunch picnic the undead Greeks had looted from the Sumerian side. "Wander when and where we are off to after lunch?"
"Hopefully home, I hear the Sea Peoples are revolting." Ptepic reached for a couscous platter, no point letting it go to waste.
Ptraci looked at them both and uttered "Are you two trying to get an inevitable joke in here?"
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