Britcon Game 3
Playing after lunch (or was it before..?) against a vast wall of Pk (I) and Alan Cutner with a rather oversized Scots Common Army...
I threw down a series of small steep hills and a road, aiming to break up
the terrain and make it hard for the pikemen to form a coherent line. Only one
of the hills ended up anywhere even vaguely useful, and it was then joined by
a Large Scottish Wood which had almost - but not quite - closed off one
third of the table. But the Scots had a hanging flank, and would struggle to
contain my light horse and prevent another outflanking move as in game 1.
The Jock General decided to leave his highly vulnerable warband to occupy the defile between the wood and small steep hill, and then placed the Vikings as the central filling in two doorstep sandwich slices of Scottish Pike.
My army was concentrated towards the steep hill also, with the tiny command (and its artillery) holding off the entire open flank, and the blades facing the mass of pikemen next to the steep hill, supported by the massed auxilia of my sub general, who were going to storm the hill and the woods, supported by their wagons and cavalry.
The missing element the observant of you will have spotted was the Teutons - who were facing the bow-rich Vikings!
The Liths probed cautiously, and were soon rewarded by the Galwegians deciding to advance out of the defile....
.... where they were promptly attacked by auxilia and cavalry, as their formation fragmented into thousands of pieces.
The Pikemen the other side of the hill realised their warband friends would not put up too good a fight, and their best hope was to advance, relying on the Vikings to protect their other flank - but the Scots general had not paid the Danegeld and the Vikings decided only to send 2 huscarls to help take on my 5 blades, as their bowmen were afraid of the Lithuanian artillery who were waiting for them to advance into range. The Huscarls were unimpressed with this mission, and unsure whether to go 2 deep to save themselves from Teutons, or 1 deep to make a less tempting target for the Hussite blades. They chose 2 deep - and chose wrongly, as they were smitten down at first contact by the eager Hussites.
This then left the Teutons with a clear path to the Vikings - it would be Bw against Kn (S).
The Teutons advanced into range, decided not to even recoil, and moved seamlessly forwards, smiting the Vikings mightily at first contact and removing them lock, stock, bow, blade and barrel from the field of play in an instant with not a scratch to show for it.
By now the Warband were also in full retreat, and victorious Lithuanian auxilia were streaming over the hill and falling down like a horde of ravening East European Migrant workers who had been told that many fabulous opportunities for low paid jobs in the building and catering trade would be theirs if they could only make their way into the middle of the massive Scottish Phalanx - or would the Hussite blades make it first?
The Pikemen were now like a slowly moving iceberg - but one moving into warmer seas, with bits falling off it left right and rear.
The Teutons also were roaming freely, and started to sack the baggage as well as finishing off the last remnants of the Vikings.
After a couple of traditional Kn (S) bounces off the baggage moments, the Scots crumbled to total defeat - with the Galwegians killed to a man, and only one lone Viking element remaining as survivors from the carnage. 10-0 to the Lithuanians
Post Match Analysis
The terrain played a decisive part here, with the Scots left with few options for deployment as the open flank had to be protected by one of the two pike phalanxes, and the warband had to be kept safely out of the way of the Teutons - but not too far, as they also had to play some part in protecting the flank of the other block of pikemen.. Rolling a 1 early on meant the warband advanced out of their relatively safe place, ultimately exposing the flank of the pikemen, and causing them to decide to advance maybe sooner than they would have liked.
The Hammytastic Graph for the entire game shows little difference in pips overall, however because of the way in which the two Scots allies were taken out of the game, and where the Scottish CinC's command was also skirmished out of contention, this does not reveal the full picture.
This chart removed my small Lh / Artillery command, and the Scottish CinC from the equation, and also takes out the pips of the Vikings and Galwegians from bound 8. The difference is significant as two Lithuanian commands and the Teutons outscore a single large Scottish sub general's pike block by at least 50% every turn, accelerating towards the final couple of rounds. It was the huge break point of the Scots (even after the two allied were eliminated, I still needed 10 more elements!) which kept them in the game for longer than they - and both generals - expected.
