Game 4 vs Khurasanians
Again another nice lunch, this time we avoided the calamari, but went for a pizza. Apparently a Cappriciosa in Rome has ham, which came as a surprise to Veggie McKay! Because I was a bit thirsty I started with a pint before moving onto the wine with the rest of the group, who were also impressed with the quality of the tomatoes.
The game saw me playing the same Spaniard I was supposed to have played that morning.
A
very small Khurasanian army anchored itself (and its spears) on a BUA,
attempting to cover 3/4 of the table with 10 Cv(S) and 2 Elephants, and the
Lithuanians chose to respond by hurling themselves forward to try and cut off
the exposed LH (S) line from any reinforcements by inserting a couple of wagons
and 3 Teutons into a painful area in the middle of the board.
Desperate for extra distance, a Wagon projected itself forwards from the line to use up an odd extra pip, offering the Khurasanians a shot with an early 2-2 with 3 Lh (F) to kill a vital wagon - and the Lh F obliged. However once committed this close to the Lithuanian lines they could not be extracted, and one of the key Khurasanian commands was soon 3 elements down before its capital troops were committed.
The Hussite blades battled unconvincingly with the line of Sp(I), and LH maneuvered round the dunes and faced off the auxilia in the village.
The Khurasanian right was re-inforced by cavalry redeploying from the village before the Teutonics could cut them off with a speedy advance, but it was gradually eroded, pretty much single handedly by one Bw(I) (who had some help from my LH sneaking behind the enemy lines).
With their position being eroded the Khurasanians decided it was time for the
face off by the village to spill over into real fighting with a Lh vs Lh 1-1
skillfest causing fear and opportunity in equal measure.
Finally the Khurasanian open flank command goes down, with a wagon rushing in to save the rather inappropriately positioned Teutons, who had just survived one elephant turning their flank and didn't fancy doing so again. The super-wagon shooting killed both elephants!
Then shortly afterwards the face-off boys also imploded, as the Khurasani auxilia realise to late that they probably should have stayed in town shopping instead of venturing into the country.
10-0!