Double Elephants! at BHGS Teams 2022
Delhi Sultanate vs Alexander The Great
Game 1 Delhi Sultanate vs Timurid
Game 2 Delhi Sultanate vs Alexander The Great
Game 3 Delhi Sultanate vs Classical Indian
Game 4 Delhi Sultanate vs Seleucid
Game 5 Delhi Sultanate vs Timurid
The second matchup in this round-robin team tournament saw Alexander The Great taking a multi-century hiatus before attempting to invade India yet again to take on the forces of the Delhi Sultanate
Views of the Red Fort in Delhi (taken in 2006)
Alex The Great is the second Alexandrian list, covering the later post-Persian conquests era of this textbook pre-Successor army. That inevitably means a big Phalanx, some high quality cavalry and a well documented and varied suite of supporting troop types, all of whom were pretty much combat (rather than shoot and scoot) orientated
The terrain had fallen in a cluttered fashion, squeezing the Alexandrian army into a gap and giving them a secure anchor for their right flank in the form of an impassible lake as well. Plenty of rough ground in the shape of fields and plantations would also give their Elephants and (inevitable) Thracian Peltasts an obvious route across the battlefield
Peltasts!
The Sultanate troops needed to generate width, and to do so quickly to pull the solid and potent Alexandrian centre apart
As the Companions moved ominously to the top of a rather shallow hill on Alexander's right, one of the two outrider blocks of Sultanate cavalry raced down the edge of the world looking to draw the enemy off of their hilltop position
An Elephant on Elephant fight looked likely to develop on the Indian right, leaving the Big Gunne to deal with the Phalanx. Alexanders plan of screening his heavy infantry with light troops soon fell afoul of the rules wrinkle that means light troops don't screen anyone from artillery fire!
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Normally any unit blocks line of sight, and the closest enemy unit has to be the target of shooting allowing skirmishers to sacrifice themselves to protect capital troops from shooting. Given the longer range of most types of Artillery, allowing skirmishers to sock up their fire would kinda make them pointless, so the rules allow Medium and Heavy artillery to both choose any target in arc, and also to ignore skirmishers when choosing targets at distance. Once an enemy closes to within 4MU, the target priority reverts to the closest enemy - but enemy LF can still always be ignored
With a narrow deployment comes open flanks, and on the Indian far right some Sultanate Cavalry were exploiting Alexander's narrowness with alacrity
The more heavily equipped horsemen inched carefully towards the flanks of the Macedonian elephant corps, as a lone unit of javelin-armed light cavalry made an early dash for the undefended Alexandrian camp, keen to secure the looted riches of Persia for the Sultan's gilded palaces
Alexander responded by peeling off one of the Macedonian elephants to face down the Sultanate's cavalry feint. This might prove to be enough to scare off the horsemen, but the run to the baggage continued off in the far distance anyway, looking to rack up points early doors.
Views of the Red Fort in Delhi (taken in 2006)
Indian cavalry, archers and elephants were now starting to coordinate on the Sutanate's left as they tried to form a solid shooting line to harass the Companions and tempt them from the hilltop.
The Alexandrian horsemen responded by gently wheeling out to face the Indian mounted threat, but in the process became unzipped from their role supporting the end of the Phalanx
All the while the Indian gunnery teams were hurling long range hits at the densely packed Macedonian veterans, slowly but steadily damaging the Phalanx in the process
With enemy elephants and cavalry being drawn out to the wings on both flanks, suddenly the centre of the Alexandrian army was starting to break apart. Crazed Indian fanatic infantry waved their deeply unambitiously painted flags and encouraged their mahout colleagues to get ready for a wild and furious charge as the enemy unzipped itself before their very eyes
Delhi Sultanate on the attack!
The Companions could take this insult to their manliness no more.
Hitching up their skirts and fixing their ornate headdresses they charged down the hill, scattering the skirmish-capable Indian nobility before them as they rushed away from their position securing the flanks of the Phalanx
On the opposite flank the peeled-off elephant had decided to attack, after receiving a volley of well-aimed arrows from the ultanate cavalry. Having messed up and left themselves so close to the table edge that evading off table was a real possibility, the Sultanate's horse decided now was the time for excessive bravery, and stood to receive.
Just Who Are These Dudes Then?
The foundation of the Sultanate was laid by the Ghurid conqueror Muhammad Ghori who routed the Rajput Confederacy led by Ajmer ruler Prithviraj Chauhan in 1192 near Tarain, after suffering a reverse against them earlier. As a successor to the Ghurid dynasty, the Delhi Sultanate was originally one among a number of principalities ruled by the Turkic slave-generals of Muhammad Ghori, including Yildiz, Aibak and Qubacha, that had inherited and divided the Ghurid territories amongst themselves. After a long period of infighting, the Mamluks were overthrown in the Khalji revolution, which marked the transfer of power from the Turks to a heterogeneous Indo-Muslim nobility. Khalji and Tughlaq rule then saw new wave of rapid Muslim conquests deep into South India.
The baggage was gone! The purely cosmetic wall was no obstacle to the looting fervour of the Delhi Light Horsemen as they rifled through the silk undergarment drawers of the Persio-Macedonian nobles!
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Baggage can be Fortified in some army lists, and this comes at an additional points cost. This makes it invulnerable to sacking by any Light Troops - handy if your army is too small to stop enemy sneaking round the back and looting your baggage with fast-moving Light Horse.
This whole "standing to receive elephants with Cavalry" thing actually works out quite well if you manage to 6-1 them in the first round of combat!
With half their elephants already gone, and enemy cavalry now threatening their flanks the rest of the Alexandrian Death Star contingent steamed forward to take the battle to the Sultanate
A variety of high tech weaponry shot fire and hurled bomblets at the onrushing Thracians, as the Indian infantry prepared a blue-flagged beach clean exercise to sweep the sands free of their enemies as well
The Alexandrian army was now pushing forward aggressively, as the Companions continued their attack and got further and further from their initial hilltop.
The curse of lack of evading space had also by now afflicted the Sultanate cavalry on this wing too however, and they too now needed to stand against a more potent attacking force
The Companions!
The two lines of elephants and infantry swordsmen clashed, and this time the Sultanate's confidence was such that they had already detached one elephant to go fight elsewhere
The crazed fanatic swordsmen and the high tech naptha-projecting skirmishers in the Sultanate command should surely be enough to seriously discomfort the stripped-down Makedonian Death Star combination with their insanity and aggression?
With the elephant gone, the Sultanate's cavalry were now able to pile into the end of the Alexandrian line, as the Great Captain of history sent some rather ill-equipped Thracians to shore up the gaping hole in his left flank.
Sunil Gavaskar! The Indian elephants and infantry were starting to get amongst the thinned-out, stretched out Alexandrian centre in a pretty big way by now
The Pre-Successor forces had sent a lot of reinforcements out to both wings, and now simply didn't have enough men and pachyderms left to maintain a complete line in the centre
Sachin Tendulkar! The Phalanx suddenly looked vulnerable as elephants and warriors moved up ominously. The plink-plink of artillery fire had already degraded the Macedonian will to fight, and now the rapid arrival of brightly attired elephantry was giving them real cause to panic
Even the rash hill-exiting attack of the Companions was faltering, as they were forced to turn their attention onto the squishier elements of the Indian army
This however left Sultanate Mamluks and Nobility free to gang up and overwhelm the rest of the Northern Greek lancer contingent
The end was night for Alexander, as bereft of baggage and suffering a slew of hits all across the battlefield his army teetered on the brink of defeat
The Indians continued to whittle away at the Alexandrian centre, hitting it with everything they had as the darkness descended across the Persepolis-centred new empire. Shikhar Dhawan!
The Fall of Persepolis
Finally, Alex Fell. Sultanate horsemen overwhelmed and surrounded the ill-disciplined Companions to strike the final blow. The Result is a win for the Sultanate!
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 Delhi Sultanate Commander
Palak Paneer! what a great win against the greatest Captain of the age, a man who almost conquered our great lands of India back in the distant past only to go down with a horrible tummy bug which laid him up for months before doing away with him somewhere much dryer as korma finally caught up with him
My army popped its poppadoms on the enemy lawn and from then it was a case of walking of crispy battered eggsshells as they struggled to do much more than face off and fall down against the assaults of everything I had to throw at them
Even the great noble cavalry debacle was outwitted by the dint of great spirited dice rolling which took down the elephant corps and kebobed them with some lance-shaped skewers
That will teach these almost-Greeks for stealing our mighty animals of war! onward and upward !!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
I fear sire you come from the buttocks of Bihar, you are so full of spouted excreable nonsense that your mere thought processes cause me nausea and pain
One who is burnt by hot milk even cools buttermilk before sipping it and this was a game where you contrived to get caught by the slowest 4-legged creature on the table, elephants, in a battle you really didn't need to fight at all given that you had already squirted some horsemen to loot the enemy camp.
That fortunate win that came from your foolishness is merely storing up hubris for future disasters I am sure - so if you think it was deserved you deserve a Lamb Vindaloo administered as a poultice to your more tender regions with pace and a rough ladle.
This luck cannot last. You are exercising command as if your brain is full of ghee and chaat, and I fear greatly for what will leak from your ears and other orifices in the next game
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
You may also like....
Game 1 Delhi Sultanate vs Timurid
Game 2 Delhi Sultanate vs Alexander The Great
Game 3 Delhi Sultanate vs Classical Indian
Game 4 Delhi Sultanate vs Seleucid
Game 5 Delhi Sultanate vs Timurid
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