Britcon 2007 Game 2

Saturday morning saw me bright and early (well, at some ungodly hour frankly) facing off against a Dailami Army. I had decided to buy some new dice as FoG was seeming to need sets of 6-8 dice in various colours, so I picked up a set of black, red and green ones.

Picking one out for the initiative/terrain roll, I tested them for the first time. 

An omen of things to come .....?

I found myself playing a Dailami army on a largely open table, save for a few ploughed fields. 

The Dailami were a compact and bijou army, with plenty of Impact Foot - high quality warriors who were good at first impact. They would be a stern test for my Defensive Spearmen!

The Dailami kept my men guessing - in fact, until they advanced into range, many of my men wee convinced they were 17th Century Scotsmen from the Army of Montrose, and we hung back fearing a deadly volley of musketry. But the "bonnets" turned out to be turbans, and normal service was resumed.. 

My Turcopoles, desperate for redemption, saw a chance to outflank the advancing Dailami, and aided by a General (giving them improved movement) broke through my lines to sweep out to the left flank.

This time my Irregular (sorry, undrilled) Knights were taking no chances about missing out on the action, and had teed themselves up in the middle of the line so they were looking for some Ac-sheee-on ! (when all they needed was cigarettes and alcohol), (dur dur dur durrrr) 

The Crusaders were gradually swinging inwards on both wings, but the spearmen were forced to hold back as they did not want to dace the dangerous Dailami swordsmen whilst their formation would be disrupted through traversing a ploughed field. Best to wait for them to come to us, and spring the jaws of the trap as they arrived! 

On my right a very solid looking formation was advancing on the cavalry wing of the Dailami army - as the Crusaders inched forwards, they debated whether to maintain the shieldwall or to let their own crossbowmen see the enemy.

Undaunted, the Dailami trained tribesmen charged forward towards my spear line. Well, actually, they were Impact foot, so they charged under orders anyway ! 

It would be a close run thing - the Dailami had the advantage at contact, but as long as we could survive the initial rush the battle would tip in our favour! It was too close in fact, and to tip the odds back in their favour, the Crusaders tried to shuffle a unit sideways and open up a gap for the Brother Knights to charge through.

CRUNCH!!!! 

Dailami slammed in across the line, hitting the crusader foot before they could finish reorganizing, and with the Brothers dangerously still in mid maneuver. If the isolated battlegroup of foot was swept away, the Dailami might burst onto the flank of my knights!!   

But whilst the Dailami has got 3 of their 4 warrior units into combat, one was dithering, caught between holding the flank and committing itself to combat. With my turcopoles sweeping round to cut off their retreat - should they wish to - things were looking dicey for the last tribal unit - and even more so as the Crusader Crossbowmen started to find their range!

The Dailami were pushing hard, but by and large my spearmen were holding up well. The isolated battlegroup cracked, but they had hung on long enough for the Brother Knights to finish their redeployment, and the pursuing Dailami were about to get a major surprise. Meanwhile two other tribesmen units were broken, as the overlap at the left of my lines had proved decisive. Both sides now committed generals to the one remaining pivotal combat in a desperate effort to win.

However, what was happening in the middle of the table???? 

The 2 Dailami elephants had been tip-toeing up the middle of the table, and under the leadership of a general had managed to swing into my irregular (undrilled, doh!!) knights! 

With both sides expecting a crushing pachyderm victory, we rolled the dice - and a full set of 6's for the knights was matched by a full set of 1's & 2's for the smellies - who then also catastrophically failed their subsequent cohesion test, and were routed in the melee round - an extraordinary result, that even though it featured some extreme dice, still left the rules development team scurrying back to the drawing board to revisit the factors in this particular interaction !!! 

The Crusader infantry and Brother Knights were now in full-on mopping up mode, as they started to sweep the last remnants of the tribal charge from the field. On the other wing the spearmen were also pushing forward relentlessly

The last tribal unit, surrounded and coming under a hail of crossbow bolts, broke and fled as more Crusader spearmen attempted to charge it in the flank. The Turcopoles joined in the rolling up, pressurizing Arab skirmishers and closing off the avenues of escape!!

Attention now fully turned to the other win, as knights, crossbowmen and spearmen pushed forward. 

The Dailami Ghulams had been winning the shooting match against the Crusader crossbowmen and had reduced their numbers - they then undertook a last charge causing the crossbowmen to break and flee!!

But by now the Brother knights had recovered and were fast joining the fray 

and the Turcopoles continued to sweep through the routing remnants of the Dailami right wing.

Time and table space was running out for the Arabs

Despite coming under withering shooting the Crusaders charged home across the line - and the Undrilled (got it!!) Knights delivered the final coup-de-grace, destroying the Ghulams facing them in a savage charge and tipping the Dailami into defeat.

All in all another good game - and one I felt I had won by doing the right things tactically. The defensive spearmen were proving quite entertaining in the way they always were on the brink of disaster - but as long as they could hang on, they would eventually come good and win though - although having a reserve of Templars was always handy too! 

Post Match Analysis

A good victory for the Defensive spearmen - they had ridden the initial impact of the Dailami warriors, and then (bolstered by the presence of a general) had managed to grind down their opponents - and even where the Dailami did achieve a breakthrough, I had gotten up a powerful reserve line in the form of the Brother Knights just in time to counter-punch. From then on the Dailami were looking underpowered against the solid line of spears, and the frightening charge of the knights, and although they caused serious casualties, the tide was running in my favour. 

The Knight-elephant interaction seemed very strange - even with extreme dice - and this was flagged to the rules development team by both players as being a bit off kilter. Somewhere deep in the bowels of Slitherine Towers a fix is probably being conjured up as you read this report! 

next game

About This Site & Privacy Information