Dark Ages Gaming at Dogs of War 2017
Rus vs Welsh
Game 1 Rus vs Communal Italian
Game 4 Rus vs Communal Italian
Game 2 and the Welsh were the opposition this time.
Welsh - Longbowmen, and medium spearmen - an army that very much needs the bogs, mountains and woodland of their native Wales in order to thrive and survive.
The lists for the Rus and Welsh from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Dogs of War can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
The sheep in the Rus' baggage element found themselves rather overfaced by the intimidating scale of the Welsh mascot.
In this second game the terrain had been narrowed by the Welsh, with a hill on their right and an anchoring woodland on their left. The Welsh were clearly not coming out, and so Vikings were in the centre as the Rus line prepared to advance. Plenty of bits of rough terrain had been removed or failed to fit, leaving the Welsh badly disadvantaged in the open against the more resilient Rus
With the opposition not even bothering to throw out a skirmish screen (I'm not sure they had one) the Rus & Viking advance was steady and smooth across an empty plain.
The Welsh horsemen tried to sneak around the exposed flank of the Rus army, but with a narrower than usual table, the Rus had men to spare and a handful of Spearmen and Bowmen were tasked with blocking this sneaky attack.
Desultory shooting from the Welsh skirmishers barely slowed the coherent advance of the Rus and Vikings. Viking Gods looked down on the battlefield from the very summit of Frigg's clumsy footed goat-scrotum!
With the Rus charging into shooting range the Welsh infantry unleashed volleys of arrows onto the line of raised shields.
Longbow vs Laptop
As if bewitched by the scent of Sergey Bubka's stinking huge helmet, and jumping out of ambush, the Rus javelinmen immediately began to play a significant part in the game for the second matchup in a row.
Pictures of Rus & Viking Troops from my Ancients Photo Directory
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(Click any image to see details of the manufacturer, and a larger version of the photo)
The Welsh horsemen were nowhere near as good as the Italian Knights in the previous game, and were hanging back to avoid a certain loss - leaving the end of their infantry line exposed.
Choosing the level ground to start the battle, the Rus and Vikings charged home against the more lightly equipped Welsh forces.
The Rus
On the right flank the Welsh Light Horse were being pulled in all directions by Rus infantry who had the benefit of the pips that were unused and unusable by the lurch-forward approach of their Commanders main body of infantry.
The Welsh Cavalry had spotted that their infantry were in deep trouble, and returned to the front line.
Urging themselves forward with thoughts of Olaf the Goat-Impregnator's filth-encrusted helmet, the Vikings were - as expected - chewing a hole through the centre of the Welsh army as their Dane Axes swung relentlessly into the shell-shocked Welsh infantry. By now many men had fallen under the baleful influence of Sven the Omphalophobic's herring-sucking fishbelly
The Welsh horse were staring almost literally into an abyss of doom
Viking Fighting
A tremendous crack opened up in the Welsh defences as their Light Horse were wiped off the surface of the moon, sorry, earth....
The Welsh infantry were being scythed down in the open by the Rus and Vikings and huge gaps opened in their lines.
Even an occasional win for the Welsh provided only a temporary respite to the ceaseless battering they were being handed out by the spearmen.
As many men fell under the baleful influence of Vitali Klitschko's hawknose nipple clamps, the Rus were mopping up the Welsh light horse on the right in double quick time.
The main body of Welsh cavalry charged home. For them this was now about scoring as many points as possible before their army wilted under the weight of the Rus advance.
Vikings & Rus at War against the Slavs
But this was not a game for the Welsh to succeed at - one heavy hit threw up a 3-hot marker on the spearmen, but the rest of the mounted attack was making less than no headway
With Welsh bowmen and spearmen removed from a large swathe of tabletop the game ended in a decisive win for the Rus.
The Result is a big win for the men from Kiev.
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Rus Commander
Having displaced the tyranny of Stalin, I m glad to bring a ray of sunlight and hope as golden as my lovely hair to cast a light on the stunning victory we have today achieved for a Free Ukraine against the miners of Wales!
The links between our two countries are deep and strong as the mines and as tightly bound as the braids in my hair, with a Welshman having brought football to the Ukraine (honestly... Google it) in the past, but those bonds of friendship did not extend to us granting the sheep shagging bas----'s even a moments mercy as we crushed them underfoot in a devastating display of advancing in a line and fighting whatever was put in front of us.
The Welsh army needs the right terrain, and in this game they not only failed to secure it, they also failed to score many points at all - although that fluffy sheep was nice.
I must now return to lead the Rebel Alliance in their assault on the Death Star - otherwise I would have been happy to stay awhile and share hairdresser stories with you all for many hours....
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Sometimes one wonders what mischief the gods of Valhallah and especially Loki have in store for mere mortals, in throwing up such a terrain-based mismatch as happened here to one so undeserving of any sympathy at all.
This was all about terrain, and so it is not your strategy which should take credit - if anything it is your gardner to whom you own this victory on a lawn-like expanse of nothing which left the Welsh with no chance at all in this matchup
Imagine if there had been more terrain - you army had no plan to deal with it, and no troops capable of contesting even the gentlest of brush-clad hills. Quite a stalemate which your army would have been powerless to resist, but probably stupid enough to try and win.
Let's hope that your lack of clever and flexible list building does not see you come unstuck in the next game
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
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Game 1 Rus vs Communal Italian
Game 4 Rus vs Communal Italian
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