1526 Mohacs: The Hungarian Right (My Battle) - Part 1

Preliminaries over the main events starts: The Hungarians 'en masse' advance straight forwards.

A bunched up Hungarian linear mass of Light Horse (Fast) screens the Lance armed Knights, with a small column of Light Horse (Superior) aloof to the right. These Light Horse (Superior) were in that formation purely to fit inside the deployment zone. (Already there were DBR deployment mistakes here, more of later). The Hungarians had deployed as far forward as permitted and were going to "go for it" as otherwise their infantry were going to spend a long time under the guns. "One in, all in" was the motto.

The Ottomans had decided to refuse their left flank (i.e. mine) and hoped to win on their right and centre. Consequentially their cavalry against me were going to fight a 'delaying action'. The Ottoman General had calculated that he could lose all of his Light Cavalry and still not be a "beaten command" (see above). Hence the 'sacrifice of the lights' was enacted. The Ottoman twelve stands of Spahi Cavalry are a grim sight in the distance (see below). Silently I was pleased all that Turkish cavalry was not going to be "in my face". 

I did have a friendly bunch of infantry hanging on the inside of my all horse formation (see below) which was nice. Bow armed and a bit of artillery against enemy mounted they could be a useful asset:

The Hungarians advance was countered by a brave "Huzzah" from the Ottoman Light Cavalry formation as they too charged forwards. There was to be no 'pretty prancing' to be had here but a straight forward in and at them! I have already made several DBR mistakes here. I should have deployed my small but perfectly formed Light Horse (Superior) column into line before advancing, in fact they should have been in the fighting line right from the start. Columns that don't 'support' the front rank with a rear rank modifier are silly to take into combat as potentially they are just a way to lose more stands quickly. Knowing which does and which doesn't thins out the DBR boys from the men, and I was looking rather boyish and naive at this point! 

Pop quiz: Guess the range between the two lines of Light Horse. If it is less than or equal to 25cm then what happened next was quite legal, if it was over then it was illegal (Note: scale wise the big blocks are two foot by two foot). Arrgh, my angst against DBx rules and geometry was beginning to well up inside of me. The Ottoman was working on the assumption that all his Light Horse were fast (capable of 25cm movement + 5cm charge), however despite the troop types looking the same there was a mixture of (Superior) and (Fast). He only remember they were (Superior) when the combat came about, after movement. The benefit of the doubt goes to the Ottoman, but it's a plague of the DBx "element" rather than "unit" ME (manoeuvre element) that is encountered over and over again, leading to fraught and ambiguous situations (IMHO).    

Next: The fights starts proper