Part 1 [LW142] Part 2 [LW143] Part 3 [LW144] Part 4 [LW145] Part 5 [LW146] Part 6 [LW147] Part 7 [LW148] Part 8 [LW149] It was at this crucial point in the battle that outside forces came into operation and the severe deserts winds wiped up the sands and obliterated the countryside and opposing armies. Breathing was an effort and combat the farthest thing from the minds of the warriors. In the city, doors and windows failed to keep out the flying, particles and for those in the various tented camps, life was even worse. The sun disappeared and the complete world existed in a twilight whirling mist accompanied by the screaming of wind devils. Animals suffocated in the growing piles of sand and men covered their faces, breathing shallowly through the cloth to keep the biting sand particles from their lungs. A suddenly as it had started the wind stopped and the silence it left behind was deafening in its comparison. Men slowly began to repair the havoc caused by the sand storm and survival was the main issue of the day. No sooner had the storm abated than the citizens and meagre garrison of Abnub left by the river gate clutching their valuables and embarked upon the recently arrived flotilla which had cause so much damage further up the Nile. Priests and soldiers from the Temple swiftly moved onto the quay dismissing with ease the storm battered light troops that were there and embarked on the Egyptian and Roman vessels. Not fully recovered from the full force of the storm, to which they had been cruelly exposed, the Red Pharaoh’s troops were unable to stop the exodus by the warriors, priests and citizens into the waiting vessels. Short work was made of the enemy holding the Lock Gates, by a party of handpicked Roman marines and the vessels previously trapped in the backwater manoeuvred into the slow flowing Nile. Eventually the Red Pharaoh was informed of the escape and urgently ordered his men into the deserted city and temple complex. In the former they discovered that the ‘Treasure of the Nile’; wheat, which was overflowing in the granaries and orders were quickly given to get the pack donkeys and camels in, to begin to form a convoy. Although the initial aim of the attack had been to destroy the True Pharaoh had not been fully successful, the Pretender would return home with the wealth of the area on the backs of his animals. Wargaming Note The situation had moved from a fast flowing and very chaotic one into a fairly static game, where the units I had, namely the chariots, would be of little or no use. The initial reason for setting up the game had been to have a massed chariot battle but had somehow moved into a siege and stand-off state of affairs. Using my ‘Solo Appreciation of Wargaming [SAW]’ I was able to use the flexibility denied to multi-players by: Ignoring the siege circumstances, on the table, until a later date. Reinforce both armies to the maximum of my collection, to play the type of game I wanted. Play out the naval encounters on the Nile [bet you had forgotten about them] and finally resolve the siege using a computer game. I was actually forced to move from tabletop to computer because Kirsteen, my eldest daughter had finished her second degree course and needed accommodation! The woes of a wargaming parent! The solution to the siege and Nile encounters came in the form of the PC game, ‘Alexander’, from the creators of ‘Cossacks’, so an excellent pedigree to my mind. I actually bought the game before I saw the film, fortunately, and cannot praise it enough but more on that elsewhere]. The Game continues… The Siege Once more SAW came into operation in that I had to mentally swap ‘Alexander’ for the ‘Red Pharaoh’ and the fact that the troops I was using were Egyptian; compared with those used on the tabletop where some of the chariots used on the actual battlefield could easily have been mistaken for Indian, Chinese, Assyrian or even Persian chariots (!) by the uninitiated. Only a soloist would understand. The situation I had been presented with on the computer was a main city, with huge walls, guarded by two stone walled forts which in turn were supported by four wooden stockade outposts from which patrols of infantry and cavalry emerged. Needless to say I started with the ‘Blue Pharaoh’ and three units of infantry plus the obligatory peasants on whose labours my destiny would be decided, at the SE corner of the map. I hurriedly built my town up in order to produce more troops of a varied and experienced nature and then began to take out the wooden stockades one at a time. It was essential that I had to stop the messenger from the outposts getting back to the forts, otherwise reinforcements would have been sent against me and the city alerted. This was easier than I originally thought, once I had gotten into a system of cutting the road with a force of cavalry and infantry to destroy the patrols, my main force of archers and infantry would storm the outpost. To be honest, on one occasion the messenger nearly got away out of a back gate I had failed to guard but my reliable archers brought him down. With the outposts obliterated I then moved on to attacking the forts, which had not been idle with constant raids in strength against my forces. Masses of archers and the maximum three ballista, which is all the games allows, were brought to bear on the sentry towers and walls and once they were rubble, in went the infantry supported by the cavalry to finish the job. All the while I was busy with one fortification; troops from the other and the city were engaging my holding force. I was attacking in one direction and being attacked from two others – great fun! I now regrouped my troops, repaired the injured with my medically trained priests and prepared to assault the city. At which stage a huge spanner was thrown into the works, when the Artificial Intelligence [AI] informed me that the ‘Red Pharaoh’ was heading north with a convoy of loot! This meant I had to breach a set of huge walls, fight my way through regiments of enemy, make another breach and then chase after the Pretender. I believer that most wargamers would have quailed at the thought, but I gamely battled on only to be informed while my men were about half way through the city and reinforcements were beginning to fill their depleted ranks, that the False Pharaoh had escaped and that I had lost! After hours of combative fun I had finally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and my dreams of doing horrible things to my enemy pharaoh lay in ashes. There was only one thing to do and that was to start again, but this time I did not go at the problem with a ‘bull in a china shop’ attitude and while taking on the various fortifications I had my ships, built by my magnificent peasants, reconnoitre the coast lines. This I had failed to do in the first game just relying on my fishing fleet to bring in food and had not even considered the western shore, which turned out to be the Achilles heel in the city’s defences. See Map #1. While destroying the outposts, in strict numerical order and then a simultaneous attack on the walled forts, I made sure not to rush the city walls and thus not alarming the Red Pharaoh. During these encounters I landed a mixed force on the western shore actually behind the city’s fortifications. Quickly built a barracks and stables then began to recruit a large ‘cut-off’ force to ensure the pretender did not escape this type. Once I considered I had sufficient troops, I moved them along the western edge of the map until it was time to move east along the northern boundary. It should be noted at this time that the ‘Fog of War’ shielded the terrain until my troops reached it and this caused the force not little problems in that they had to see off attacks by different types of cavalry and infantry. Eventually they were in position and I let loose the masses of troops held in the south, against the city walls. Under the hail of fire arrows and flaming rocks from my ballista, the city’s fortifications were soon ground to dust and in poured the hordes of vengeful Egyptians. Again the AI informed me that my enemy was on the move and I had the great satisfaction of sitting back and watching the pretender trot into the arms of my waiting troops. Victory! Now having defeated and captured the Red Pharaoh all I had left to do was chastise his naval forces to ensure my northern border would remain safe. To do so I took on, in ‘Alexander’ a naval mission and although it bore no resemblance to what I would have been able to play on the table, with SAW in operation I mentally swapped the troop types and got on with it. An enjoyable game on the computer resulted, eventually, in a win for the True Pharaoh and just as he was resting on his laurels, a messenger brought in the disturbing news that a huge number of enemy chariots and foot troops were coming to rescue their leader. I would have my massed chariot battle at last and it would be on the tabletop! Strange how things work out for soloists, isn’t it?! More Chariot Saga Part 1 [LW142] Part 2 [LW143] Part 3 [LW144] Part 4 [LW145] Part 5 [LW146] Part 6 [LW147] Part 7 [LW148] Part 8 [LW149] Part 9 [LW150] Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior # 150 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2005 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com