Going The Way of The Warriors in Leighton Buzzard 2016
Buccaneer vs Eastern Forest Indians
Game 2 Buccaneer vs Eastern Forest Indians
Game 3 Buccaneer vs More Pirates
Game 2, and the Pirate army are facing a fellow colonial era Americas army, this time of Indians!
The lists for the Buccaneer and Eastern Forest Indians from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Leighton Buzzard can be seen here in the FoG:R Wiki.
The North American Indian Armies in FoGR
The world of pre-set terrain had gifted this table with a highly unusual 3-sided enclosure, and with an initiative roll allowing me choice of sides, I chose to potentially take advantage of the wall against a foe who were remarkably similar to my army, with a wall of shooting and swordfighting (probably tommahawk fighting) warrior foot.
The previously telegraphed tactic of throwing the warrior foot forward, then bringing the normal foot up later in Divisions was soon repeated in a piratical reign of dice based tyranny which swept across the table like a wave crashing on a sea shore of green cloth
With the small unit of Barbary Pirates in the foreground the boat-dwelling warriors piled onwards as the Indians just sat there and waited for the inevitable clash of swords. Ahoy!
Pre-Colonial Amerindians
As the two sides closed, the front rank shooting of the Indians was proving marginally less effective than the both-rank (or rank and a half) shooting of the Piratey legions
Then, as if by magic, the two armies were almost perfectly lined up. Each side had taken a handful of casualties, and picked up the odd marker... which left little to contemplate other than a full on charge
In fact, the Pirates had taken more of a beating than they really should have - the cutting edge of the army, the 8-packs of Warrior foot with their Impact capability had suffered especially harshly, with some of them reduced to 6 or even 5 bases! There was nothing else to do but charge!
Pirates vs Cowboys!
The first charge was also the last moment of forward movement for the whittled-away 8-pack, who lost the last base and turned and fled at Impact! The right flank of pirate goodness was crumbling like a weetabix left too long in a bowl of milk on the piratey poop deck on a sunny day in late June! But even worse, as the Indians pursued they caused the supposedly robust morale of the Superior Old Pirates in the distance to be trashed as well - the whole flank was teetering already!
You've seen them before, but if not...they are mostly Blue Moon and Peter Pig figures, plus the rather pricey Blue Moon/Old Glory Pirate Ship !
Pictures of Pirates from the Photo Directory
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With their willpower sapped by the loss of their friends, the Old Pirates also turned tail and fled - but whilst they ran in terror towards their longboats the bog standard normal Pirates were proving themselves to be made of far sterner stuff. Either that or they had the better fortune to have their first combat against an Indian 8-pack that had already been reduced to 5 bases by shooting and combat by the time it clattered into them ... they swiftly culled the 4th base, and the large Indian unit too turned and routed.
Well, tie me to the mizzenmast! The Boring Average Pirates had hardly had time to catch their breath when another huge unit of tommahawk-weilding lunatics piled into them at high speed in the middle of a pursuit of the routing Old Pirates - so many pursuits were turning into charges that it was getting quite hard to remember who's turn it was!
The other side of the table was much simpler - here Me band o'Pirates outnumbered and outgunned the Indians, and so they were happy to practice marksmanship against the large and feather-clad targets in front of them whilst they in turn tried to work out how to generate some sort of opportunity in the face of a wall of sword-armed musketeers wider than the width of the table
Shivver Me Timbers! The small, average and barely supported regular Pirate unit was still giving much more than it was taking - the Indians hacking at it were struggling to make any real impact, and themselves were seeing drops in cohesion and losses of bases
Ahoy there Jim Lad! This pattern was also being repeated across increasingly wide swathes of the table, with the Indians attempt to do something sort of clever and American Civil War-ish around the angle of the wall was coming to naught against the simplistic line up and shoot a lot approach of my band o'bloodthirsty hearties. Huge holes were starting to threaten to appear in the Indian lines
Thar she blows! As the Indians crumbled, me band o'hearties steamed forwards like a bag o'mussels splitting open onto a supermarket frech fish counter vending area floor and cannoned into the second line of the Indian - some of whom were not really that good!
And with the Indians crumbling and melting away across vast swathes of the table, only the victorious left flank of the Indian army managed to keep their army from utter defeat as time was called with Me band o'Pirates agonisingly close to another baggage-looting total victory!
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 Buccaneer Commander
Dolloping doubloons, what a success on the battlefield, but not quite one which allows me to toot on a cheroot ... and also, for the first time this weekend, the Shipping Forecast was an utter dissapointment with no ships to forecast!
To see me brave band o'hearties come so close to utter victory but to be denied by time and one of the enemy flank refusing to be stove in is a frustration of the most sea-salt-encrusted variety - dolloping dolphins, it was a terrible shame that such a clever plan to form a line came unstuck on the lack of our maneuvering ability!
My brave hearties in the middle gave a good account, and I will try and keep a wall between me and my enemies at all times, although it may unbalance our ship somewhat I am sure it is worth doing. Those coddling catfish on the wings will however live long in Pirate infamy as tales will be told in inns and bars across the seven seas and five foamy oceans of how they turned and fled at the first sight of Indian nasal hair!
Those lolloping landlubbers of pre-colonial America will I am sure see my steel again - and then revenge will be mine!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
My timbers are well and truly shivered by your display of ineptitude and lack of ambition. To have a plan that involved standing in a line lacks imagination to depths not plumbed by the Great Kraken itself, and then for you to depart from it so soon when your troops crumbled like ninepins beset by terminal termite ..... I fail to understand how this can be anything other than your fault.
And I also don't remember seeing anything about burying any treasure, hoisting the Jolly Roger, or splicing any sort of brace, never mind a main one? Call yourself a Pirate? What a disgrace!
If you plan a broadside, or in this case a front side, make sure you get broadside onto the enemy line and give them all the barrels you've got. I’ll watch you dance the yardarm jig before I see you learn this I fear. If you want a quick game, charge even faster, and give your opponent no options to think at all - just commit your units and hope they do what they are paid to do - and make sure they are supported by your best generals as well. Failure by dice is not a shame, but failure by healf hearted execution of a fundamentally sound and simple plan is a cause for walking the plank./p>
Your army is simple. You are simple. Your plan needs to match, or you will be undone by your own hand long before anyone reaches the point of combat and somene swings a Cat o'nine tails around your ears in the next game my lad
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
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Game 2 Buccaneer vs Eastern Forest Indians
Game 3 Buccaneer vs More Pirates
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