War of the Strategists at Alicante 2023
Berber vs Timurid
The Journey to Alicante (via Valencia)
Game 3 Berber vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 6 Berber vs Feudal English
The Journey back from to Alicante (again via Valencia)
Unbelievable Jeff! 3 wins out of 3 going into the last game of a supposedly gruelling (but actually not that bad, due no doubt in part to the heady mix of coffee and constant victory!) 4-game first day and another Cavalry & Elephant combination was presented to me in the shape of a Timurid army commanded by 2022 Brixham visitor Hugo Carmona.
Timurid is ostensibly pretty similar to the Ghaznavid army I had played in the first game, but with harder-hitting cavalry and fewer infantry - which means it can be played very aggressively indeed, but is often even smaller as a result.
The Hapless Captives (Mediocre Levy) are a handy expendable terrain piece that the Timurids can move around the table to block and delay any enemy for a couple of turns or more - often enough to take them out of the game entirely is the army is fast enough to attack elsewhere too
The scene was set for a classic matchup of the Islamic, and Islamic-overrunning dynasties on the plain of Southern Spanish battle
The lists for the Berber and Timurid from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Alicante can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
For this battle the devilish Berbers had again opted for the opponent-confusing strategy of attacking alongside a river, as they were by now confident that almost no-one really knew the rules for rivers, or had played on tables featuring them often enough to really appreciate what their existence on the battlefield meant for deployment and general play.
The Timurids were defending, allowing them to place an ambush behind the large hill on their right - and once all of their army had been deployed it became pretty obvious that the double-marker ambush contained both of their elephants and a number of supporting troops too
As the Berber host advanced swiftly on the rest of the Timurid force their line of sight drew the pachyderms into visibility
And indeed, as foretold by the great Berber Seers and fortune tellers of old, there much to no-ones surprise were two Timurid elephants, complete with the near obligatory accompanying skirmishing foot and a couple of Medium Spearmen
This represented a rather whopping 6 units out of the smallish Timurid force - and they were now plonked on table a long way from the rest of their army, and therefore a long way from the axis of the Berber/Taifa advance too
With not much of note on the rest of the table other than a gentle hill next to the riverside, the Berbers were free to advance in a broad, anti-cavalry line mixing spearmen, crossbowmen, the three Christian Knights and the Andalusian Arabic lancers
Immediately the Timurids started looking nervously at the proximity of the back edge of the table. Hemmed in by the river their Mongol-style cavalry needed time and space to spin rings around any enemy - and this line of Berber aggression was set on denying them either of those things
The eponymous Timurid Strategist is of course Timur. He founded the Timurid Empire ("ego" huh?!) in Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia. He was undefeated as a commander, although after his death other commanders seem to have ended up losing around one in three battles.
Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370, in a rather murky proces in which his opponents in a secret ballot all inexplicably died suddenly, sometimes violently. After that he led loads of military campaigns defeating in the process most of the armies in the 260's and 270's in the ADLG book as well as a few outside that range for good measure.
Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population at the time - but far worse than that, he wrote a load of rude and insulting letters to the Ottoman Sultan "Bazza", a literary exchange which eventually turned violent and culminated in the Battle of Ankara on 20 July 1402. Timur captured Bayezid in the battle, and in a totally unexpected development he subsequently died in captivity, one of only around 12 million other similarly unlucky people to suffer the same fate in Timurs lifetime.
Timur finally passed away en route to attacking China, giving rise to the popular Mongolian music hall ditty of the time "He Popped Off On His Way To Go Have Ping At The Ming".
Timur had twice previously appointed an heir apparent to succeed him, both of whom he had outlived (another two unfortunate examples of people who might have threatened his power passing away unexpectedly). After his death his empire quickly fell apart, partly due to the unresolved succession crisis, but mostly because he'd killed almost everyone in every kingdom, city and statelet that he had conquered, and also then stolen everything portable of value he could find, transporting it all back to his 2 bedroom maisonette in Samarkand for (ahem) "safe keeping".
As hoped and prayed for by the Berber holy men the Timurids had dropped a lone light horse archer on the far side of the river - easy pickings for the 2 Berber javelin-armed light cavalry who immediately raced up and eyeballed the Mongolian warrior from nostril-hair-counting distances, throwing javelins at speed to try to add injury to their equally well-hurled insults
Collapse of the Timurids
With the Timurid horse driven away from the other side of the river, and Driven forward by fevered desert dreams of the camel-toed tummy-rot inducing Turkey and Lemongrass Tajine, the Berber desert horsemen were free to cross the stream themselves and cause havoc by the mere fact of their arrival in the flank of an enemy somewhat fixated on the threat of the Christian Andalusian troops to their front.
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Rivers can be raging torrents, or dry barely-there ditches in ADLG, this being determined by a die roll during the terrain selection phase (so you know what they are before you start to place any troops on table. Unless it is completely dried up (on a roll of 1), units can only cross a river at right angles to the direction of the river. Because we're all adults now, everyone puts down entirely straight rivers, in order to avoid even a sniff of any kind of 1990's-style ridiculous wankery gaining even the smallest foothold on the international ADLG community.
With the Timurid elephants suddenly lumbering to life, the huge gap between the end of the line of Timurid impressed peasant infantry and the supporting cast accompanying the mighty war beasties seemed too much of gift for the Berbers to ignore.
With 6 Light Horse on table the North African warrior tribes had more than enough spare speedy troublemakers to go around - inserting a couple at high speed to a position seriously close to the undefended Timurid baggage camp would force the enemy to waste time and resources to check their advance, or if left unopposed, would see Tamerlane's legendary baggage train spirited away to Tunis and Casablanca before the day was done
The Timurid cavalry were excellent and well skilled horsemen, but they had little answer to the sheer number and variety of threats the Berber army could hurl at them.
Light horsemen from North Africa, fierce descendants no doubt of the legendary Numidians of Carthage, skittered hither and thither, pinning the Timurid Guardsmen in place and forcing them to go toe to toe with the Andalusian Knights of Christendom (currently freelancing on the side for Allah and hard cash).
But wherever there were Impetuous Knights, chaos surely followed. As the Christian warriors charged forward in an uncontrolled fashion, the Timurids saw their chance and roared back into life
Sweeping forward the Khanates best men and horses charged into battle, lances lowered, swords unsheathed - their bows long forgotten for the moment
Would the counter attack be able to pick off the isolated unit of Knights before the Timurid warriors' embattled brothers crumbled and fell under the rest of the Berber army's hammer blows?
Well, not really, no. The combination of Knights, spearmen and Andalusian Lancer Cavalry had proved just too much for the river-confused Steppe Warriors, and their resolve crumbled faster than yak-milk cheese at the chefs table in a Timurid pizza-yurt restaurant. The Berber forces were now ripping them a new one at some speed
The Timurid elephantry were still becalmed atop the hill from whence they had started - too far from their commander to stumble into action, even if he had not been too busy ordering his men to deal with the Berber horsemen threatening his camp
That camp attack had by now been dealt with, but only by diverting serious numbers of Timurid units away from more constructive offensive operations
Even as the Berber Light Horse were trapped and removed from play, opportunities were created for the undismounted (for the 3rd game in a row I ask you!!) Berber Javelin-armed Medium Cavalry to slam into the now-exposed flank of some Timurid Afghan spearmen!
Heads covered by tea-towels bearing the imprint of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan's Pharoh-cursed Sardine and Chocolate Tajine, down the riverside the Berbers and Christian Knights were still having a lot more fun than the embattled Timurids.
Nothing the Khan could put in the path of the rampaging North African/Andalusian forces seemed to be having any real effect, as the Berber army moved inexorably towards the victory line
Fittingly perhaps, the Timurid elephants had finally gotten into gear and decided to advance on the taunting crowd of African warriors and bowmen who had been taunting them from the bottom of the hill for pretty much all of the game.
The elephants moved forward, only for the Africans to swing into action and attack the Elephants other accompanying Afghan spear unit - despatching it swiftly to send the Timurids to a decisive defeat!
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Berber Commander
Today, we gather to celebrate a historic victory, a victory that's been won by the sheer brilliance and tactical genius of yours truly. I stand here before you as a proud Yorkshireman, the leader of the greatest Yorkshire Moorish Berber army the world has ever seen.
Let's be honest, this was never going to be a walk in the park. The enemy had war elephants, for crying out loud! But, did that phase me? No, no, no. I simply used my superior intellect and my unparalleled strategic skills to guess where they would be on the table, and then not really put any of my troops anywhere near them at all - outwitting the enemy at a stroke!
I mean, who else could have taken on an army with war elephants and come out on top by not actually even fighting any of them, ever? It takes a special kind of person to do what I've done, and I'm proud to say that I'm that special kind of person. A Yorkshire Person no less.
But, I don't want to take all the credit. My men deserve a round of applause for their unwavering loyalty and their bravery in the face of battle. They followed my every command, and they never once faltered - especially those on the side of the river who greatly outnumbered their enemy because of that whole thing with the elephants and the ambush (did I mention that before?). They're a true testament to the strength and resilience that the Yorkshire air, the Yorkshire soil and the Yorkshire spirit breeds into every one of our people.
So let's raise a cup of proper Yorkshire team, not just to me, but to all of us. We've achieved something truly great here, and we should be proud of what we've accomplished. Eh Up, and Allahu Akbar!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Forsooth, some of you seem to think that war is just a matter of waving your sword and shouting loudly. But, dear friends, it's so much more than that, as you have proved even in victory here today. It's a game of wits, of strategy, of cunning. And, I must say, you are a little lacking in that department - it took a mistake by your opponent, in the shape of too much love for the potential Mega Gotcha of the Double Elephant Ambush, to gift you a victory here.
Even so it was tough, even bearing in mind your superiority of numbers elsewhere on table. Thy forces have suffered, and thy victories have been gained at great expense and measured in huge loss of life. Thou hast failed to inspire thy troops and came very close even so to allowing thy enemies to gain the upper hand.
I, on the other hand, have shown time and time again that I am a master of my craft. My tactics have led me to triumphs against great odds, and my legacy as a general will endure for centuries to come.
But don't worry, I'll be here to save the day, as always. With me around, you won't have to lift a finger. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show and let me command in the next game It's all part of the Hannibal experience.
My own 10-minute video run-through of the game
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
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The Journey to Alicante (via Valencia)
Game 3 Berber vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 6 Berber vs Feudal English
The Journey back from to Alicante (again via Valencia)
View My Stats for My Match Reports Pages
