Early Renaissance at Warfare 2015
Early Danish vs West Sudanese
Game 2 Early Danish vs French Hugenot
Game 3 Early Danish vs Imperial Austrian
Game 4 Early Danish vs West Sudanese
The 4th game, and disaster strikes! The success of the Danes had sprung them up the table to such a point where only the Hoofmeister was above me in the standings, and so the unwieldy beast of the Sudanese army stood in front - or more likely manoeuvred rapidly around the flanks - of the Danish army
The lists for the Early Danish and West Sudanese from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Warfare can be seen here in the Field of Glory Renaissance Wiki.
With an opponent with gazillions of mounted troops, the Danes sought to throw as much terrain as possible onto the table - but strangely the Sudanese were doing the same, with large fields landing right in the middle of the table.
With both flanks rather secured by fields and forests the Danish army was almost wide enough to cover the table, with a Kiel either side of the fields and the levy in the centre. The Sudanese would no doubt be as easy to pin down as nailing jelly to a wall, but with a host of other players within a few points of the Danes 2nd place, and the Sudanese not that far ahead there was no real point in playing for a non-defeat... aggressive and positive was the choice, and the consequences would unfurl as the game developed.
This was no some crazy pipe dream though - the Danes units of heavily armoured shooting horse occupied a large amount of the table in a format which the Bw/Sw cavalry of the Sudanese would struggle of counter so whilst the foot in the Danish army were tough but slow, the horse could drive forwards at pace. Reiters collaborating with a Kiel was a tough proposition for anything in the enemy army.
And, keeping with the philosophy of putting the Sudanese on the back foot, the Danish Reiters on the right launched themselves straight into the face of some enemy troops - LF bowmen and javelin armed LH were not really fearsome opponents for a 6-pack of Heavily Armed Horse, as the Reiters actually hoped that the proper Cavalry who were sneaking down the edge of the table would come and join in the fun.
The Hausa (yes, they did really exist...)
The Sudanese countered by withdrawing the two skirmishing units and replacing them with Cavalry and Camelry - not a troop type regularly encountered in post-Medieval Scandinavia to be fair, but one which disrupted the coherence of the Reiters but also the Cavalry. The two sides had both committed their combat troops into an early fray... who would win out?
The Sudanese took an early lead, with the Reiters dropping to DISR at the assault of the camel lancers.. but with a General and rear support the Danes had scope to recover.
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In the large field in the middle the Sudanese had pushed forward a couple of units of bowmen - one of whom was high quality, but neither of which were really set up to leave the terrain and take on the Levy in the open. The bowmen were concentrating on firing forwards, but this had put them in range of the Danish artillery supported by the landsknecht skirmishing handgunners and a smattering of crossbow fire, leading one of the Sudanese units to quickly shed bases and start to be shredded
But, the other bow unit was also shredding, and the 6-dice of Superior bowfire had wiped out the other Reiter unit in double-quick time. One of the key offensive elements of the Danish army was now no longer on table...
The Sudanese were everywhere - and the Danes found themselves needing to do bizarre things in order to stop themselves being overwhelmed, starting with pursuing evading LH into a wood... amazingly this turned out to be successful, and the horse were caught !
West African Empires
The Sudanese bowmen worked out that standing still until they were destroyed was probably not the cleverest idea in their playbook, and initiated a bold charge out of the terrain into the Levy - probably a short combat...
Back on the right, whilst all of this surreal stuff was going on elsewhere the Reiters were slogging away at the enemy camels and horsemen, and were slowly gaining the upper hand. They had recovered cohesion, and by holding firm they had also bought time for the legendary Average Lancer Horse to find a single-base target which they could just about confidently attack with limited risk of their own death.
The Kiel on the left was trying its best to keep up the advance as the enemy troops melted away in front of it - the loss of the Reiter unit was being keenly felt as the infantry looked around at the clouds of fast moving horse that surrounded them on almost all sides, and started to wonder what would possibly happen on this flank that could end up in them achieving anything constructive against a host of units that could shoot them, but who they could not catch
The Reiter and Lancer combo was in full grinding mode, and the Camelry were first to fall into the bacon slicing machine. Large hands descended from space to take away the routing dromedaries.
The suicidal bowmen in the middle had broken, generating a pursuit charge from the Levy who stormed into the fields and clattered into the rather better quality (but still unarmoured) other bow unit. Vast hordes of enemy horse were sneaking away from the Kiel on the left, which a quick win would leave in a world of pain as the Levy pursued even further.......
Back on the left, the marooned Kiel ran out of options for going forward, and instead was forced t execute an expensive and painful about-face in order to stop yet more greased-up enemy mounted troops from sliding through the Danish lines and capturing baggage, guns and worse. The sheer number of Sudanese units was starting to take its toll, and committing a 16-base Kiel to a reverse march was as good as it now got...
Sudanese Empires...
The Reiters on the right were now facing yet more camelry, and the Average LH had even found more targets that they could be better than as the Danes drew in yet more mounted units to their mincer ... but the 6-pack was now a 4-pack, one base from defeat. This flank was almost good, but almost terrible...
While this had been happening the rest of the Danish foote on the right had been trying to advance - but outnumbered almost 2:1 by the sheer volume of the 18-unit Sudanese army they had found themselves the subject of immense amounts of bowfire, and with not enough units to form a first line never mind a supporting unit, the Levy yet again broke...
As the Levy fled, the enemy pursued them and took a unit of Light Artillery as well - the Danes were 3 units down, leaving the Sudanese with a 3:1 advantage on table...
On the left, immense resources were being applied to try and prevent - or at least delay - the Sudanese LH from stealing away to the baggage - everything was moving like a plague of locusts on the savannah and the Danes only had one can of fly spray...
This at least was going well, but winning in one part of the table was nowhere near enough.....
And as the Sudanese horse wavered yet further, the Reiters got closer to breaking as well...
Both sides broke at once - the Average Horse lancers were the winners, but the Reiters were lost, taking another unit of Danes off table and taking the lancers into a pursuit that placed them a long way from anywhere where they might be able to influence the future outcome. Another lost unit and the ratio tipped further in favour of the Sudanese horsemen.
The Kiel on the left was now surrounded - 3 sides would have been OK, but the unit about to charge their rear was more of a problem. Potentially the Kiel could turn and fight off its opponent, but to do so before the rest of the Sudanese troops charged it from all angles would be more tricky....
Recapturing the guns was a short respite, but then the enemy camelry were in....
As the camels fought, the bowmen recaptured the guns for the second time... the Kiel were not happy..
More guns had been captured, and bowmen were now in the unit-free backfield chasing the once-confident Landsnecht LF arquebusiers. The whole army was within moments of defeat with no prospect of victory against the innumerable Sudanese.
The Kiel fought on....
But less successfully with enemies in the front and rear...
The bowmen closed in on the baggage as the game slipped away from the army of Bacon....
The Result is a crushing defeat.
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 Early Danish Commander
Never has a less winnable game been seen, perhaps other than in the games the brave Romans went down in at this very location many years ago back in the mists of time when FoGAM was the chosen ruleset, and clouds of inumerable LH were the enemy to be despised.
With only 8 maneuvering elements on table, I was fighting a man with 4 arms with one of my own tied behind my back, and every time I cut one off another three would surface to harass, disturb and make merry with my front, rear and everything else - in much the same way as used to happen in FoGAM, the game was not so much about skill, but as attrition, waiting for the inevitable statistical breakthrough, and then mopping up my 2 artillery pieces, and the baggage to take my brave yet futile army down.
In retrospect a defensive wagon laager may have suited me better, but with no hope of a placing even with a draw, the effort of going for the win was the only brave decision.
Next time perhaps I may think again.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it if you ever thought that you were in with any sort of chance of a victory in this game.
Did you not count the number of enemy unit who were available to be engaged? How did you plan to cross terrain and fight 8 units of MF bowmen out of an army of 19 units? What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst thou now find out, to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?
Battle skills are not your forte, but neither it would appear is mathematics thou reeky fool-born bladder-spite! E'en getting to 5 points (which must be killing 9 or 10 BP's of this behemoth) was perhaps the high water mark for you, but it still left you with no trophy, and no salvation
Far from taking Denmark to new heights as a military power in Europe, and in this game, sub-Saharan Africa, instead truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.
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Game 2 Early Danish vs French Hugenot
Game 3 Early Danish vs Imperial Austrian
Game 4 Early Danish vs West Sudanese
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