Saturday, December 21, 2013

Attack of the Peter Laing Elephants!

       I had time yesterday for a quick wargame. I had been wanting to use my new elephants and so I figured I would use Hyboria as an excuse.

     With the victorious and very popular  General Mingol returning to Vendhya with his large army, King Umgak was growing concerned about his future. To try to raise an army of levies was out of the question. General Mingol's army is made up of levies, who were now battle hardened and would outmatch any levies the king could raise. What's more, the peasants had heard of General Mingols generosity with the loot gathered during the campaign. Their loyalty would be suspect. And so King Umgak gathered what few regulars he had at hand. He had one light infantry unit, two medium infantry units; but his secret weapon was three new units of battle elephants.  Certainly these would simply trample the levy hordes.  What Umgak forgot is that Mingol's army had seen elephants in action and the elephants were the only unit lost in that battle. Certainly that would lessen the levies fear  to the appearance of the elephants!
General Mingol's army on left, Loyal Vendhya on right.  General Mingol would be defeated if he lost 6 units, the loyalist army if they lost 4 units.


The elephants prepare for battle.

The elephants close rapidly with the enemy, pushing back the center. However, they leave their infantry support behind.

The center elephant unit looses one to the archers; the light cavalry closes on it's flank and wipes out the unit.

The leftmost elephant unit at lease has it's flank covered by infantry.

The light cavalry on Mingol's left flank closes with the elephants on front of them, eliminating 1/2 the unit but loosing 2/3 of their own strength.

The rightmost elephant unit eliminates one cavalry unit, and turns on the next one. The loyal light infantry unit comes to its' support.

General Mingols forces manage to flank the leftmost elephant unit….

...and brings down the mighty beast.

The loyal light infantry arrives too late to stop the light cavalry from finishing off the last elephant unit.

A gap appears in the Loyalist line.

The loyalist forces try to consolidate it's line. They continue to battle the enemy. Although they have lost their elephants, General Mingol's forces have also suffered heavy losses.

The loyalist forces are now "supporting" each other, and are now considered bold.

However, the cavalry eliminates one unit; another unit is forced to retreat two hexes, and the loyal light infantry  is at risk of being cut off. The loyalist forces now save themselves and flee the field.

2 comments:

  1. Lovely to see those elephants in action! Must get my Indian elephants re-based and ready. I hope to get some more pictures of my Laings done over .the holiday. I finally finished re-basing the Napoleon in Egypt figures I acquired several years ago

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  2. I was great to finally have more than one elephant unit in the battle. I do have to work on the rules governing the elephants. The light cavalry seems more powerful than the elephants.
    I look forward to seeing you new photos, especially the Napoleon in Egypt figures. I really enjoy the lesser known campaigns.

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