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Background

The evil Coki Khan sees an opportunity to expand his part of the Mongol Empire further west into Russia by attacking a rich and poorly defended village. Unknown to him Prince Vlad has heard of the evil khan’s scheme and has moved with his men to organise the villagers in routing the Mongols. However the villagers have a better plan and evacuate the village long before either Prince Vlad or Coki Khan arrive.

Setup

The table size was 6’x 4’ populated with plenty of hills, trees and a river that cut the northern third of the board off from the rest of the board. The river was traversable anywhere on horseback with a total movement penalty or traversable by both foot and horseback at the ford with a half movement penalty. The village located in the centre of the board and consisted of four buildings and various hedging / fencing; which were just low enough to be jumped by horsemen, but with the risk of falling off. The Mongols were setup between the two hills on the far north-west corner of the board. The Russians were setup within the manor house grounds.

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Forces

Mongols had the Khan and five horsemen all armed with bow, sword and armour. The Russians had the Prince on a barded horse, armed with sword, mace, shield and armour, four men-at-arms armed with sword, dagger, shield and armour, three archers armed with bow and dagger, four levies armed with spear, sword and shield.

The Battle

The Mongols split into two groups one consisting of two horsemen the other the Khan and the remaining three horsemen. The smaller Mongol group moved south-east to cross the river further down stream east of the ford and to enter the village from the south or east. The larger Mongol group made towards the ford. The Russians remained within the grounds of the manor house and started firing arrows as soon as the Mongols came within range, to which the Mongols replied with arrows of their own. This initial exchange of arrows resulted in a Russian archer and Mongol horseman being severely wounded. 

The small group of horsemen reached the river, crossed un-opposed and began to swing around the village; presumably to enter in-between the village building and the farm building. The Khan’s group crossing the ford triggered panic in the Russians and a mass movement from manor house grounds to the relative safety of the inside of the manor house, leaving two levies who were thrown out for lack of room within the manor house and the Prince who wasn’t prepared to lose his horse.

The two Russian levies that with nowhere else to go, and urge on by the Prince, attacked the Mongols that had crossed the ford. Both did rather well, one mortally wounded a charging Mongol horseman but was at the same time mortally wounded himself, and the second managed to occupy the other two horsemen by engaging them from behind the village building fence. Meanwhile the Khan and the Prince charged one another, with the result that the Prince ran off and lost his sword and the Khan who had been brought to a stand still by the charge, couldn’t chase.

This stand of the Russian levies inspired the troops within the manor house to enter the battle and they charged out at the now static Mongol horsemen. The Russians greater numbers work against the Mongols who had lost momentum crossing the ford and their failure to kill the two levies who had carried out the initial attack. As a result a general melee now ensued in the ground between the north side of the manor house and the ford, in which the wounded levy and horseman finally succumb to their wounds. The Prince challenged the Khan again, succeeding in running off and losing his mace, but this time the Khan also ran off and lost his sword. But the Russians foot had started to surround and press the Khan’s group of Mongols.

The smaller group of Mongols who could now hear their lord and comrades being hard-pressed were desperate to join battle and made a dangerous jump over the village buildings eastern fence and charged, these extra Mongol warriors evened up the melee and broke the ring surrounding the Mongols for the cost of a horseman, and killing another Russian levy spearman and wounding two Russian archers. The Khan was now able to regroup his horsemen just in front of the village buildings northern fence.

The Khans choices were now to retreat to fight another day and give the moral victory to the Prince or to gamble all on one last charge over the fence on the now exhausted Russians. The Khan chose glory and charged, unfortunately not all of the horsemen made it over the fence and the charge failed with the Khan and most of the horsemen getting hacked to pieces, but two wounded horsemen made their escape across the ford.

Debriefing

The game was excellent fun and the final result was unexpected to both players. I can’t see how I could have played the Russians any differently, I’d won never the best place to see where and what you did wrong; to have come out and defended or attacked would have left them open to some very effective Mongols missile fire followed by a charge. By playing the way I did casualties to missile fire were minimised and the Mongols only got one effective charge in, to break the Khan’s group out; granted the two levies standing the way they did and the final charge failing was extremely fortunate. For the Mongols I think splitting the horsemen was the only mistake they made, when they arrived in the melee they did make a big difference, turning it around for the Mongols from losing to a better than even chance of winning. I think that had they been there from the start things would have been very different.

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