My Opponents at Roll Call 2002

(no guarantees the maths add up, but they should be close !!)

My Lithuanian List

Game 1 Serbs

These damn Serbs proved damn hard to kill. With two huge hills dominating one third of the table I used a piece of rough going to provide an aircraft carrier for my auxilia to operate CAP's from on the other wing, throwing my Teutons, blades and wagons down the middle and occupying the semi-open flank beyond the hill with my small LH command. Numerous attempts to break up the Serb lines with sacrificial LH caused disruption but ultimately little death before the Teutons rode into action. There was a huge clash of metal but ultimately The Serbs could do little to damage my war wagons on both flanks of the gap into which they were hurling themselves, and eventually I won the battle of attrition, losing the Teutons along the way.

Top comedy moment was a Kn (O) only Bosnian ally general on a flank march, whom I killed before his baggage arrived. We think that this meant that they continued to roll until their next 6, at which point the baggage fled on table, and then immediately fled off again !! 

Medieval French

This game started badly with a waterway going down from the French as attackers. I decided to use my main foot (blade) command to contest the edge of the waterway, stuff a load of auxilia from my largest command into a patch of rough going about 8 inches in from the beach , then sweep round with the Teutons and small LH command combined with the LH from the large command in the big open gap - hopefully fighting either mounted or dismounted knights. Initially the French deployed a load of bowmen next to the river, but then deployed a command of dismounted in front of them, causing my 5 blades (and especially the 3 WWg ) considerable cause for concern - even more so as we realised that decent pip dice would let the blades get through the RGo before I could even start to move!. The rest of the table was amazingly filled by mounted Kn (S) and a thin film of bowmen - who would be more than adequate to hold off my small command, whilst my wagons were wasted in the center!

And that was the crux of the game in many ways - the initial French pip dice were poor for the 2 commands who were in the front line, and so the dismounted blades lurched forwards, and, bravely, their mounted compatriots also started to stroll across the plains with a 1. This combination allowed my auxilia to spring forwards and get a toehold into the RGo, which they capitalized on next turn, bringing the dismounted bd into combat a god 3 inches into the rough - we might be pushed back, but it would be a slow old process! But the real French catastrophe was when the mounted Kn rolled a second "1" - and to the amazement and delight of my small LH command, sailed forwards leaving a gaping flank just within reach as  their bowmen looked on in admiration, but not support.

Then it became a game of 2 halves - could I hold on next to the Oceanside whilst my Teutons, and 2 commands of LH surgically dismembered a line of overextended knights? Eventually only the French general was left, but he bravely held on for a truly remarkable amount of time - even prompting the umpire to take the following series of live-action shots. He managed single handedly to chew up my small command, but by then the Teutonic LH were running amok, and turned the flank of the French spear line, making great inroads into the French foot command, and as the general fell the game was finally over - hard, but still a win.

Hussite

Rogers Hussites - having once played them using Khmer, I was probably due a rematch, with the odds more in his favour. The battlefield resembled Kursk more than anything medieval, with 22 wagons vying for position. All in all it was going to be a game of attrition - could I make any inroads before the Hussites had time to deploy into a scattered formation?

It was a very tough, bitty and messy game, with shooting, recoiling, and nurdling going on left right and center. The upshot was, in the end, that I managed to drag down the small Hussite command by clambering on the wagons with auxilia from my small command, but the Teutons went for the big win early on, and then got bogged down into a thicket of wagons, from which they were unable to extract themselves - although they fought bravely it was never going to be a long-term survivable situation, and they went down. Probably the most significant part of the game was the absolute paucity of pips my largest command got - with the Cv (O) starting dismounted we have a good set of odds against isolated wagons, and with e good start we could even have gotten some LH into the baggage train, but they were never able to get even half-decent dice and it ended as a 5-5.

Andys Army 

wasn't downloaded from my ipaq when it went is in for repairs, so you'll miss out 

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