Britcon Game 5
Sunday Morning saw me facing my old bowling buddy Paul Brandon and an equally anachronistic 3.1 Beja army.
The terrain was, well, not really there at all. I deployed 4 woods, and all fell in my half of the table, in the same right hand flank sector. The Arabs also deployed 3 pieces of rough, which were equally non-relevant, and so the game commenced.
I had strung my army out, with the Teutons in a vaguely mobile semi reserve aiming to go blade hunting (and Camel avoiding) safely ensconced between two blocks of wagons who were likely to be both kings of the battlefield and magnets for mounted blades. The Arabs also kept their mounted strike force - 2 blocks of Cm(S) - well back. On my left flank the arab CinC had terrible dice allowing one of my light horse to sneak round the back and menace some baggage-guards early on, as the rest of his command chugged forwards slowly wondering what they could do against artillery.
In the middle, the mounted blades set themselves up against my own blades and wagons, but the Teutons were looking on hungrily, and with the arab camel reserve still some way off, the Teuts shuffled sideways to sit in front of my blades - who rather felt they did not need that much help anyway, being O vs F.
I was also pushing forwards on my right against a tissue-paper thin screen of light horse, who threatened to get horribly tangled with the oncoming camelry reserve as my wagons maneuvered in a positively Kursk-esque manner forwards, presumably applying to join the German army of the BKC game we had played earlier that weekend.
The Teutons were readying a 5-man sidestep to get in front of the blades, who were clinging desperately to the fig-leaf of "We are Camelry" in the hope of deceiving the Teuts into going elsewhere.
However, having decided that their game was up, the Arab swordsmen adopted a different strategy, and started killing Teutons in frontal combat !
With one of their number falling to the evil swordsmen, the Teutons decided that it was better for them to go and deal with the rapidly arriving Arab reserve of real Cm (S) - otherwise they might swing round and run down my own blades. And surely my CinC could come and beat off the Bd(F) with his own Bd (O) and LH and protect their flank ?
But the swordsmen of the desert were indefatigable ! They advanced relentlessly onwards, casting my Hussites into disarray, throwing off flanking psiloi with distain. At one point things got so bad I even committed my CinC to overlap combat to help take down anything I could!
On my left the long file of camelry had gotten impatient, and broken free of their controlling general. Looking around and using all the mysterious pre-medieval learning of the scholars of Islam, they decided that an Artillery (S) was the ideal target for them to have a punt at, and if it exposed their flanks to my light horse, all the better !
This is another photo of an Arab blade (F) pushing back a Hussite Bd (O), despite being double overlapped and unable to recoil. I have a large number of other similar shots should you wish to borrow them, just drop me a line...
With the other mercenaries performing so poorly, the Teutons decided it was time for heroics from them. The fearlessly took on the Cm (S), showing total distain for the concept of flanks.
"Who needs f...." was the cry of the Meister of the Order as he was trampled underfoot by a recoiling Brethren moments later.
Despite surviving the command roll, the Teutons were now in desperate straights, and my artilleryman was unable to load quickly enough to stem the tide of camelry and light horse. One of these commands fell, and as the game moved towards its twelfth bound conclusion the Arabs pulled back, leaving the Lithuanian army puzzled and confused, wondering where all the elements they needed to claw back a command had gone to, and how they managed to throw away such a promising position to come out with a 4-6 loss.
Post Match Analysis
It had all seemed so easy, as Mikey Skinner from The Streets says. But it wasn't - falling for the classic combination of overconfidence and failing to work out how many elements were actually needed from each Arab command (clue - 2 more than the number of committed front line combat troops in each one) meant the Lithuanians ended up punching into thin air. Normally the secret is to nail the combat troops quickly and then race after the squishy stuff hiding at the back, but the Mad Swordsmen Mudjahadeen fought astonishingly well, and looked more likely to push me off table than die like ninepins, making that strategy impossible.
The pips were not too kind to me also, again denying me the opportunity to push onto catch the LH in each command and put the Arabs under pressure before the Camelry arrived to help deliver the telling blows. I also was recording far more erratic dice to achieve my totals, with a significant advantage (ahem) in 1's and 2's throughout the game, especially for the CinC facing the Arab swordsmen - after an initial 6 he then rolled 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 1, hardly ideal to cope with the ravening horde!
(no bound 12 as I did not record my dice)
