L'Art de la Guerre fantasy battle report.
Preamble
This is part of my Mighty Empires campaign set in Eberron — see previous posts in this blog. The Storm Lords are continuing to root out independent villages close to Stormreach to bring them under their control. I am wargaming the resulting battle from an attack on one such village. As per the ME rules, independent villages get D6x100 points — the bugbears rolled a 3, so 300 ME points against the 700 ME points in the Storm Lords' force.
I am continuing to use this campaign to try out different wargaming systems. For this game, I am using L'Art de la Guerre — no doubt I will get a lot of the rules wrong. Those ME armies scale down to 40pts vs 90pts in AdlG. This will be a very unbalanced battle — really I am just using it as an opportunity to try out the rules.
Bugbears are much like the other less-intelligent goblinoid races of Eberron — primitive, aggressive, and tribal. Scholars believe that, like goblins, they were originally bred by hobgoblins in the Age of Monsters to act as slaves — bugbears would have served as warriors, as they still do in parts of Khorvaire. The origins of the tribe of Hruggagek, led by Chief Ekegluhul, are unknown. They have occasional dealings with pirates that operate around Stormreach, and so might have had dealings with the ancestors of the current Storm Lords; but they do not pay any dues to Stormreach today, which has earned them the enmity of the current rulers. The tribe has around 300 warriors, but a bugbear is more than a match for a human warrior one-on-one.
- 1xHeavy Spearmen +armour — bugbear thegns
- 3xMedium Spearmen — bugbear warriors
- 1xLight cavalry javelin — bugbear fen-cat riders
- 1xLight infantry bow — bugbear archers
Delera Omaren IV, one of the Storm Lords that rules Stormreach, is personally commanding the army that is sweeping the coast to assert their control. Through negotiating terms and assistance for expeditions into Xen'Drik she has built up some knowledge of the geography and hazards of the area around the city; and she has experience from last year's campaign, including the successful dispersing of the troglodyte tribe in Tangleroot Gorge. At her command is a force of around 1000; humans are the largest group, but with the usual mix of races typical of human kingdoms in Eberron — gnomes, elves, dwarves, and halflings. Slightly over half of her force are of the Stormreach guards; the remainder are poorly-trained levies recruited from refugees at the Stormreach docks desperate for work — or press-ganged from its slums.
The Battle
The Battlefield, Deployment
The bugbear village is on a hill. There is a road running parallel with the coast here, and the village is overlooking the road from further inland; there is a gully between the village and the road that provides some defensive value. The bugbears set up entirely in their village, which will give them some cover against the guards' crossbows.
Delera's force from Stormreach is split into two columns of guards, one advancing along the road and the other marching for the village, where she assumes the bugbears will make their stand. The levies are deployed in betwee the two guard columns. The crossbowmen, scouts and patrol cavalry are deployed in a screen in front of the infantry.
Turn 1, 2 & 3
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| End of Turn 3 |
Chief Ekegluhul ordered his cavalry to charge, and the advancing crossbowmen were forced to flee. Meanwhile, he rallied his troops in the village. The crossbowmen regrouped in the ruins, and as the cavalry fell back (threatened by the main body of guard infantry) the crossbowmen continued to fire on them.
On the road side of the battle, the other screening force of crossbowmen and scouts advanced into the gully and, supported by the mounted patrol crossbows, began exchanging shots with the bugbear archers in the village. The archers had higher ground and better cover however, and the Storm Lords' scouts came under the worst of this fire as they tried to cross the gully — they were broken up and fled.
Turns 4 & 5
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| End of Turn 4 |
The bugbear cavalry charged again towards the crossbowmen on the Storm Lords' left. This time, Delera ordered them to stand their ground — she did not want the cavalry roaming unchecked on the flank of her infantry. However bugbears cavalry, even if less well armoured than human knights, are still a ferocious bunch — and their fen cat mounts are as fierce as the riders. The forty riders hurled their javelins into the guardsmen as they drove their charge home, crashing into the line and sending many of the guards crossbowmen running. The remaining crossbowmen were thrown into disorder as the cavalry ran amok in their ranks.
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| End of Turn 5 |
Indeed, the Storm Lord's force was being badly managed everywhere. Delera had formed her main line and got it advancing, but had neglected to keep pace herself or with her reserves, leaving the main line unsupported — and the reserves vulnerable to attack by the cavalry. On the right, an overly-optimistic lieutenant ordered the Stormreach scouts to storm up the hill to disperse the archers; instead, they arrived at the top of the hill spent and disordered, and were cut to pieces by the bugbears. Meanwhile, the bugbears were doing little better, with their commander busy sending orders to the cavalry and leaving his infantry in the village still out of formation after the early crossbow file, with many of his troops sheltering behind buildings while the Stormreach guard drew close.
Turns 6 & 7
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| End of Turn 7 |
Ekegluhul finally began to organize his troops in the village, spreading them out to meet the Storm Lords' guards' charge. Up the hill the soldiers came, and the two main forces came to blows. The levies on the right failed to make any ground, and those facing the archers even were thrown into disorder. The guardsmen fared better, with fierce fighting along the left causing losses for both sides.
The crossbowmen were routed by the cavalry though, and, seeing the rear of the guards' advance open to them, the riders turned straight around and charged uphill into the left of the guards' line, supporting their warriors where they were most pressed. The guards held against the charge but their line was in chaos. Delera now realised the danger and brought together her reserve and began advancing.
On the right though, the other formation of Stormreach guards charged uphill into the village, flanking the bugbear archers fighting the levies. The archers were overrun, and the guards and levies ran into the flank of the main body of bugbear warriors — Ekegluhul's own unit turning to meet the advance.
Turn 8
The Stormreach guardsmen attacking the village from the plain were already engaged in fierce fighting, their front ranks struggling with bugbears between the mud-and-straw huts of the village. The bugbear cavalry were too much for them — with their rear ranks invaded by the fierce riders, the guardsmen broke up, with isolated pockets fighting for their lives surrounded by bugbears while the others fled into the plain, stragglers being cut down by riders.
But the bugbear warriors on the left of their line were outnumbered by the levies four to one and outflanked; they fought bravely but were forced back or surrounded and killed. Ekegluhul own regiment, with the finest warriors of the village, was standing against the whole second column of Stormreach guards alone; they too began to be forced back and their line was falling apart.
Seeing that defeat was inevitable, but the brave actions of the cavalry had carved them an escape route, Ekegluhul ordered his people to abandon their homes and retreat inland. Xen'drik is a wild and vast land, so perhaps they will find another place to settle.
Post-Battle Analysis & Consequences
Yikes — the Storm Lords nearly lost a battle where they outnumbered the enemy more than two to one! Both sides had terrible command-point rolls throughout the game and were often only able to move a few formations each turn. My decision on turn 5 to make the main attack without the reserves in support nearly cost the Storm Lords the battle. The Storm Lords were at 11 demoralization points (limit 13) at the end having lost most of one wing of their army, and the bugbears were at 6 points (limit 6). If the bugbears had themselves done better with command points and had been able to rally their troops in the village before the main attack, they might have just saved the warrior unit on the left for one more round, and with the Storm Lords being so close to breaking, it could easily have been a draw or even a win.
But it is a win for the Storm Lords, so the village passes to their control. Independent armies are always destroyed if they lose, so the bugbear play no further part in the campaign. The Storm Lords took relatively heavy losses for a victory against a much smaller army. I calculated losses in the same way as previous battles, and got a total of 130 points lost for the Storm Lords — mostly due to ½ losses for the 5 routed units.
Of the various wargaming systems that I have tried recently, Kings of War felt like an attrition system (units slowly get worn down and break, without a lot of unexpected variation), Impetus felt like a chance-based system (units might disintegrate immediately, or might hold together and knock out far more enemies than expected, and command points introduce a lot of unpredictability for armies as a whole), and the others that I have tried could be put somewhere between these two. Ancients D6 seems close to KoW but with a larger chance element making it more interesting (though you have to bring your own fantasy flavour to it, unlike KoW).
L'Art de la Guerre feels closer to Impetus but a lot less volatile — in Impetus some units felt almost indestructible unless I got a very lucky roll, but l'AdlG allowed, for instance, the bugbear cavalry to destroy three enemy units without taking any harm with luck but they were always in significant danger. The command points gave it a similar feel to Impetus and DBA while the cohesion points gave an element of attrition so powerful units seemed more capable of being worn down. I need to use it some more but so far I like it.
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