Cavalry Charge: The Wag and the Battle of Val-es-Dunes

Good morning gamers,

Last month, we looked at some of the basic principles for using cavalry in MESBG and today we're going to look at one of the most common tricks a cavalry army has up its sleeves: the "wag". The term is used regularly here by Centaur and showcases how a cavalry force (usually down-handed in the model count comparison to other armies) can utilize the mounts they've paid so much for when faced with overwhelming odds. To see this, though, we're going to look at a battle fought by William the Conqueror in the Eleventh Century which showcased Duke William's great command of cavalry and strategic battlefield control. Let's take a look.

The Battle of Val-es-Dunes

You can learn more about this battle here and you can view two different visuals of this here and here. Almost 20 years before the battle of Hastings in 1066, Duke William of Normandy (later to be known as William the Conqueror) found some of his vassal nobles preparing to revolt and petitioned the King of France (Henry I) to support him in suppressing the rebellion. Henry would support William in this conflict, though would later fight against William before he departed for England. William and the King managed to rally about 10,000 men to fight the rebel nobles, who had amassed for themselves about 25,000 men - this didn't look good. William and Henry advanced to Caen and began to engage the rebels (though at least one noble changed sides from the rebels to the crown's forces before the battle began and launched a treacherous surprise attack).

William had his cavalry engage in small fights with the enemy, maneuvering and coordinating his forces to fight in one area, then retreat to break another division of the enemy army. With this hit-and-run method, the royal forces were able to rout the rebels and they pursued their retreat to kill many more. The victory was attributed to both the tactical acumen of William and the skill of the King's knights and secured William's holdings in Normandy in the immediate future (though he'd be putting down rebellions and invasions of Normandy for many years).

In MESBG, we pay a lot of points for our cavalry models and if we're not careful with them, we'll miss out on the most important benefit of these models: their increased speed. Let's take a look at how we can use our increased speed to our greatest advantage - and we'll do this by showing off "the wag."

The Wag

Centaur is a dog person (I think we all are here at TMAT) and if you imagine a dog's wagging tail, you'll understand the idea of our cavalry strategy: hit on one side, race away and hit the other. Wash, rinse, repeat. If we have the following forces in a 600-point game, we can mimic the 2:5 ratio of forces that William faced at the Battle of Val-es-Dunes:

• Forces of Good - the Riders of Eomer LL (13 models):
  
• Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark on horse with shield and throwing spears [ARMY LEADER]
  
• 3 Riders of Rohan with throwing spears
  
• Gandalf the White on Shadowfax
• 2 Riders of Rohan with throwing spears
  
• Erkenbrand, Captain of Rohan on horse
• 5 Westfold Redshields

• Forces of Evil - Angmar (32 models):
• The Witch-King of Angmar on Fell Beast with the Crown of Morgul, Morgul Blade, and 3M/15W/3F [ARMY LEADER]
• 3 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields
• 3 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• Angmar Orc Captain on Warg with shield
• 2 Angmar Warg Riders with shields and throwing spears
  
• Barrow-Wight
• 4 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields
• 4 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• 1 Angmar Orc Warrior with two-handed axe 
• 1 Angmar Orc Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
  
• Barrow-Wight
• 4 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields
• 4 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• 1 Angmar Orc Warrior with two-handed axe 
• 1 Angmar Orc Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
  

With a 19-model disparity between the forces (and one side having both wide-spread Terror, a mixed arms force of cavalry and infantry, and three casters to neuter the heroes on the other side), the Riders of Eomer's plight is certain. Or is it? While there are some cavalry models (including a Fell Beast) on the other side, can we use our own magical arsenal, our shooting, and most of all the speed of our horses to get an advantage? Let's see . . .

On a random roll, we will be playing Command the Battlefield. On the first turn, Gandalf can't call a Heroic Channel - but we know we want to as there are LOTS of opportunities for Channelling against this army (Fortify Spirit on all of our heroes would be great, as would Terrifying Aura to keep Gandalf from getting ganged up on), but I settled on wanting to channel Terrifying Aura, since it will reduce the Orc's probability of passing the Terror check from 42% to 19% (for a table that shows the difference between the probabilities of passing a Terror test against an unchannelled and a channelled Terrifying Aura, check out this article). The Captain will have a reduced chance of passing as well (58% -> 32%) and the Witch-King has a minor but non-trivial reduction (92% -> 80%). I could have channelled Fortify Spirit on myself (getting a 55% chance of automatically resisting anything), but honestly, I don't plan to be in casting range for that long - and it would probably just drive my opponent to cast against my other heroes instead. As such, Gandalf will be casting Fortify Spirit on himself on the first turn.

As you can see from the image above, the Angmar forces needed to arrive first and they basically hedged up on the board edges they arrived on. The Red Barrow-Wight, Blue Barrow-Wight, Captain, and Witch-King got a 3, 1, 5, and 4 respectively on their maelstrom rolls and deployed as you see. I rolled for Gandalf's warband first (don't want to have to modify his roll with Might) and got a 4 (casting Fortify Spirit on himself on a 6, 5/6W left), then rolled for Eomer and got a 3 which he boosted to a 4 (2/3M left), then rolled for Erkenbrand and got a 4. We moved our cavalry only 5" and deployed outside of the infantry charge range on the next turn.

We shot at the enemy and got 5 hits and 1 wound!

On Turn 2, Priority was a tie and so went to Good. Gandalf called a Heroic Channel and the Orc Captain called a March. Gandalf cast Terrifying Aura on a 5 (2/3M, 4/6W left) and we maneuvered our models away from the enemy. We continued to shoot, keeping a good distance away from the Witch-King (though we're keeping Gandalf near). The Orcs move up and the blue Barrow-Wight gets another 1 for his arrival roll.

In the Shoot Phase, the Riders take out the mount of the Captain!

Turn 3 saw another tied priority, making evil move first. The Captain called another March to get the Orc ranks formed up (0/2M left). The blue Barrow-Wight got . . . wait for it . . . another 1 . . .

Gandalf cast a two-die Sorcerous Blast on the Witch-King (3/6W left), got a 5-high, and the Witch-King resisted with 2 Will (reroll was a 6, 14/15W left). No damage from the bows this turn.

On Turn 4, Evil gets priority and the Witch-King is ready for a brawl - though no one else in his army can charge! So he moves 3", casts a one-die Compel on one of the Riders trying to sneak off, and gets it on a 5. He charges him, while the Orcs press forward. The Red Barrow-Wight casts a two-die Paralyze on Eomer (3/5W left), gets a 6, and Eomer burns all 3 Will points and both of his remaining Might points to make the resist . . . ouch.

To make matters worse, the other Barrow-Wight just arrived, ready to reinforce the Orc lines:

But soft, what light from yonder window breaks? It is the East and Gandalf unleashes his Look to the Sun rule! As the Riders charge in, we begin the Wag: we slam one side of the battle line HARD, with one throwing spear kill and a Sorcerous Blast to take out the banner (though we did fail a courage test):

We managed to get Westfold Redshields into the fights with Erkenbrand and Eomer (which gives us banners). They will also provide a nice control zone/body shield against counter-charging once we're done here. In the Fight phase, we call Heroic Combats with Gandalf and Erkenbrand (the Witch-King calls one too) and start throwing dice - any 6s mean we win and we roll over the two guys we're fighting.

As we then charge the heroes into more models and pile in the Redshield into Eomer's fight, we basically wipe out the entire flank. The Witch-King got a 4-high on his second fight (reduced to a 3) and the Riders got a 5-high. Not wanting to burn all his Might with Gandalf right there, he loses the fight (but is unwounded). 

But we haven't actually done the "wag" yet - this was just the first swish of the tail. We get priority and our opponent doesn't have Might to keep his army going, so we "wag" to the exposed flank of the enemy, casting a Sorcerous Blast to soften the targets.

The resulting damage in the Fight phase is incredible - we decimate yet another flank (no Heroic Combats this time) and our opponent is two models away from being broken (with the Orc Captain sitting on 1 Wound left after fielding a charge from Eomer). In trade, we've lost 3 models and have 2 Might on Erkenbrand and 1 Might on Gandalf.

Could we pull off a win? Yes, actually - the Witch-King will need to be cautious against our heroes and with the guarantee of us moving first next round (either by winning priority or calling a Heroic Move with Erkenbrand), we know we can work down the Witch-King while Erkenbrand and Eomer finish off the Captain and Barrow-Wight. Since the game ends when one side is quartered, we just need those Orcs to run and Gandalf to snipe the blue Barrow-Wight and we're good to go.

Conclusion

The wag has a few critical elements to it: slam hard one way, then slam hard around the back so your opponent is constantly guessing where you plan to be - and by spreading an infantry-heavy force out, you not only remove their ability to focus their dice in a small number of fights (the usual way you kill off cavalry), but you also force them to protect more area (which means it's harder to reinforce their friends when they fall).

Next time, we'll be deep-diving into Heroic Combats by cavalry/flying heroes and an interesting historical battle from the Thirteenth century that showcases what happens when your heroes execute Heroic Combats well . . . and when they get carried away with their fury. Until next time, happy hobbying!