Monday, May 03, 2021

Kings of Bronze #2 - Hittite Hasty Defence

A rainy bank holiday here in the UK, but an opportunity to give another solo outing, testing the AI rules and Infamy tweaks for warfare in the Bronze Age.

On the far side of Al Shebbeh after a few hours of plundering the town of it's meagre pickings and a handful of slaves. Word reached Overseer Huharmati of Egyptian reinforcements looking to recapture the town. 


Huharmati deploys his forces to meet the attack spreading out across the open plain, he had little idea as to the composition of the forces approaching him, but from the dust on the horizon they appeared to double his number.


Hittite archers lined the wall of the previous owners Palace of the Egyptian vassal state.


Huharmati readied his chariots and sent his chariot runners forward to disrupt the advancing Egyptians.


Fortunately for Huharmati the Egyptians were coming on in a piece meal fashion, poor rolls meant that the bulk of the enemy forces started to enter the fray around turn 4 allowing him to block the narrow road into town.



Acting quickly to block the main street, Huharmati advanced his spearman in ordering them into close order to cover the approach of any Egyptian attackers.


The Hittite infantry slowly advanced. The Egyptians were massing but they were unable to make use of their light chariots in the narrow streets. Egyptian skirmishers fired down on the infantry block but were unable to slow their advance.


Battles can be won on the smallest of margins, the Hittite spearmen charged into the stationary chariot which had out stripped its accompanying Infantry driving it from the table. The advantage was now with Huharmati.


With the main street blocked Huharmati ordered his chariots to the right flank, he spotted a unit of archers advancing on his position. Being a veteran of numerous encounters he knew if he could break key units then the force morale of the enemy could be broken along the entire front.


The Egyptian archer formation loosed a cloud of arrows into the advancing heavy chariots, but time was running out for the attackers, the Hittites chariots circled and attacked from the front and the flank.



Huharmati charged, throwing his heavy spears into the formation and crashing into the unarmoured troops, their leader was killed with over half his men, they broke and ran.


The breaking of the formation, the loss of the officer pushed the Egyptian force morale below 0.
The Egyptian attack faltered and the attackers fell back.

Nice to get a game on the table, the blinds work well and add a real fog of war to encounters, I have a couple of extra units to paint up and hopefully next time I can put a human player on the side of Egyptians and test the rules properly.

7 comments:

  1. Lovely looking game Stu and some great shots of the action. Good to see the blinds working well which is what you want as a solo player.

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  2. Another nice looking game Stu. I hope the extra units are Egyptian - they seem to need them! Reading your Kings of Bronze posts are a bit like reading Matt and Jonathans posts about their AWI clashes, with the Egyptians being as successful as Matts Brits!

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  3. Nice looking game 👍 I need to do some tests myself with Honours of War I just find it more relaxing painting figures 🤔

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  4. Lovely images of a great game, Stu. Not only are the figures beautifully painted, but the terrain is superb too.

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  5. Great post Stu, good figures,terrain and game the trifecta!
    Your reviving my interest in ancients!
    😃

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