BATTLE OF KALU KHAN aka: THE BLACK SHEEP INCIDENT
The legendary/infamous Mule Head, High Khan of the Waziris, is known far and wide across the Frontier. For some unknown reason, he was traveling through Yusufzai territory with only a personal escort when he crossed paths with a most becoming sheep...
The story of what resulted from this ill-fated turn of events can be found in exquisite (some might say painful) detail over at my blog, on the other end of this link:
http://maiwandday.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-battle-of-kalu-khan-aka-black-sheep.html...but for those among you with less patience and/or disposable time, I will summarize the events here and now below... for the future, which soon enough will be the past, across which such larger (or smaller, depending on your POV) than life figures as the Evil Mule Head once upon a time strode, and -- should the fates choose to doom us and laugh most derisively -- may do so again!
Having taken offense at his treatment by the humble Yusufzai shepherd Black Sheep Ali in the village of Kalu Khan, Mule Head dispatched his nephew, the vile and turgid
Gilzay Ahmed Khan AKA:
MULE LIVER, with a force of raiders to pillage Kalu Khan village and abscond with the prize sheep which had taken his fancy.
Mule Liver planned a night attack but got lost in the dark...
...so had to settle for only one turn of stealthy infiltration before the sun rose and his force was spotted by the high-speed low-drag defenders of Kalu Khan
(a village named for one of the greatest Pashtun warriors in all of history, who won a great victory over the Mughals in the vicinity) ...
Archaic monument to the victory won by Kalu Khan at Malandari Pass c.1586:
The 3 bands of Raiders made for (1) the bridge across which lay the sheep pens; (2) the crop-fields which they planned to burn; & (3) a poppy field at the foot of a rocky hill, which they planned to harvest...
The Bridge and the poppy field both came under fire from Defenders who lay waiting in ambush...
While the Raiders in the field spent a turn in place and lit the crops up...
The Defenders in the village & Raiders by the Bridge got into a prolonged firefight... while the Raiders in the Poppy Field climbed the rocky hill and charged their ambushers -- but failed to close... and the Raiders who set the crops on fire moved to support their comrades at the bridge & found themselves under fire from the third Band of defenders, deployed atop the rocky hill to the North...
Starting on TURN #4 the Yusufzai player started rolling to call on his off-table reserve of 1 x 12-figure Tribal Cavalry unit, requiring a 6 on a D6. Each turn he failed he earned a +1 to the next turn's roll. Despite the accumulated pluses, he failed over and over again, mostly with rolls of "1." But he did not give in to despair!
The Raiders pushed across the Bridge, up to the Orchard wall -- behind which what was left of a unit of Defenders continued to exchange fire with them... atop the Southern Hill the Defenders launched their own charge at the Raiders who had failed to close into combat with them -- AND FAILED TO CLOSE INTO COMBAT WITH THEM... meanwhile the crop fire spread to the adjacent fields...
The Orchard Defenders were whittled down and fell back to defend the all-important Sheep Pens... the follow-on unit of Raiders skirted the Orchard to head for the same Sheep Pens... the opposing forces got into a firefight and the Defender's Leader was WIA... while the rival units atop the South Rocky Hill attempted to charge each other again -- AND FAILED AGAIN (!!!!)...
The last Defender standing between the Sheep and the Raiders came to an accommodation with the foe and was allowed to remain standing in exchange for releasing the sheep from their pens... MALIK RASA DIR FINALLY MANAGED TO SCORE A 6 ON HIS D6 ROLL -- WITH A +4 ON TURN 8, allowing his Cavalry unit to enter the fray -- he also got a BONUS MOVEMENT CARD...
...which enabled them to make a DOUBLE MOVE and he had them CHARGE the Raiders who were pushing the Sheep ahead of them down the road, making their rustler escape...
Now came the most shocking of all the many shocks in this chock-full-'o-shocks game: the Sheep being herded down the road, at the head of the escaping Waziri Raiders, got caught between said Raiders and the approaching Yusufzai Cavalry... which resulted in a GM DIE ROLL to determine which direction the Sheep -- now caught between warring factions of humans -- would bolt...
A D8 was rolled with one of its points serving as the compass arrow... and the Sheep charged straight into the Cavalry... both sides took casualties (as GM I rolled for the Sheep) with the surviving Sheep trotting off unencumbered by human escorts of any kind, while the Cavalry lost only 2 men to the animal encounter... emerging victorious from their run-in with the Sheep, the Cavalry CHARGED the lead band of Raiders -- who were now without their bovine prizes -- rolled well for their movement (the target was only a few inches away, but the extra distance never hurts)...
But then sadly -- and in keeping with the degree to which "the spirit of the bayonet" had made its presence known in the battle up to this point -- the Cavalry FAILED TO CLOSE INTO COMBAT, turned around and galloped back to the West, towards their hometown of Adina...
This left the Raiders free to follow the other fork in the road and head East, towards home... along the way they passed right by the North Poppy Field, which -- not wanting to pause long enough for the remaining Defenders to catch up with them -- they would set ablaze before heading back to Wairistan...
The Waziri Raiders emerged victorious. They had torched all the crop-fields, also torched one of the two Poppy Fields, and while they hadn't managed to take possession of the all-important "Comely Black Sheep" of Kalu Khan, they had "liberated" the entire herd, inflicting serious social and economic damage on the Yusufzai village, not to mention the many casualties they had inflicted on the defenders.
Of course, Mule Liver realized his near all-powerful Uncle, Mule Head, might see things differently, and so, he decided it would be best to send a messenger to deliver the report on his glorious victory -- a messenger whose life he didn't find particularly valuable.
But in whatever glowing terms of success for Waziri arms Mule Liver's messenger might describe the battle, in Kalu Khan it is, was, and ever will be spoken of as a Yusufzai triumph -- and perhaps not inaccurately so, as the Defenders retained control of their beloved village and forced every last one of the invaders out, and with regard to the loss of the sheep, well... their previous owner, Ali, had already departed this mortal coil, and as the saying goes:
"There are plenty more sheep on the Frontier"!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Perhaps the most iconic moment of the Battle, whence it went from a battle of two (albeit modest) armies, to a battle of THREE: Yusufzai... Waziri... & Sheep!
And so ends the tale/tail of the Battle of Kalu Khan AKA: The Black Sheep Incident.
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September 10, 2024, 06:21:19 PM
April 25, 2011, 08:17:58 PM
