Game 3 vs Kushan

The Kushan list was this one 

Gary had just bought a metal toolbox from me and now I had the task of getting his troops to spend as little time out of it as possible - thats called "synchronicity" folks!. 

The BHGS "elastic band" deployment rules applied to baggage as well as troops (IMO baggage should be excluded from the elastic band, but that's just my opinion) had meant that the Kushans had deployed with one command towards the back on their right.

 This left a huge hole into which two of my Numidians inserted themselves (you can just see them to the left of the large pair of hands) preventing the Kushan cataphracts from concertina-ing out as my spear and warband (ie elephant) line rushed forwards.

These two geezers were to prove fairly decisive in what turned out to be a protracted slogging match - the Kushans attempts to deal with them with LH whilst simultaneously extracting a skirmish screen and deploying the cataphracts proved an impossible task, and 2 cataphracts died to a bad recoil as some of their own troops reversed into their flank after the traditional LH vs LH luck-fest. 

This continues, leaving a mess in the middle of the table  -  these elements are all in their actual positions at one point in the game - even though it does look like a really fat bloke has just attempted to squeezed past us unsuccessfully during a minor earthquake after someone has opened the door to a game being played on a ship in the middle of a force 10 gale in a high tide day in the South Georgia islands. 

Eventually the main cataphract strike force was overwhelmed by brave spear action and harassed flanks, and it was left for the warband command, which had been ploughing on straight forwards in a vain attempt to record a touchdown to detach some auxilia to assault the hill behind which some Indian archers had been hoping to hide un-noticed.

But it was not to be - and they were well and truly mugged, tipping the command over the edge as the cumulative effects of other casualties (including Wb(F) fleeing LH (F) off table!) took down the army - and the Hunnic ally, arriving by flank march was just in time to see his paymasters leave the field. Big win (10-0 I think?) to me.

Game 4

vs Dave Madigans Gyppos.

This is Dave's report  Compare and Contrast ! 

Anyway, here's his army

With 40 Wb (F) on table this was always going t be exciting, and it indeed went right down to the wire, the NKE winning 9-1 but with 48% losses (ie one combat result the other way and...). From where I sat probably the only thing between the two armies in the end was the NKE managing to attack, and then rolling 4566 for their first pip roll, allowing them to redeploy to meet the many threats of the Carthaginian second list (2 Wb commands). However I lost 9-1.

With the warband initially covering behind a line of Bw my plan was (unsurprisingly) to rush them before they could react, and hopefully kill the Bd (F) who were strung out towards the center of the board before matching the warband. On my left Dave had redeployed cavalry to face off the warband in my flank command, however I felt I still had scope for chewing  up the bowmen defending their flanks, and possibly event taking on the small cavalry command with Wb anyway.  

 The Egyptian warband were indeed forced to an incoherent attack after I had done some damage to the 4 Sherden.

I had a glorious round of combat opportunities with single ranked warband being hit by spears, double ranked warband and cavalry with plenty of overlaps. However the sea people failed to sink, and the next turn the wave crashed over me and my ability to conjure up more dodgy metaphors was washed away like a pair of old pants in a brand new Zanussi with a faulty drum mechanism. Soon after the warband broke, and the Cartho cavalry were in full pursuit, hitting NKE army troops caught up in the flight in the rear, but it wasn't quite enough. And that was that.

Game 5 - vs Portuguese 

The Portly Geezers were another bad army to fight, and despite much goading and encouragement, they failed to fall for my "I've got loads of spears, please start dismounted" line :-(

The first thing I noticed about this game was that my warband had deployed in entirely the wrong place - but that the elephants with them were exactly right. So, in a radical break with tradition, my army decided to risk everything with a new strategy, moving away from the tried and trusted "charge up the middle" to an almost Patrician-like "redeploy the irregular Wb (F) 3 feet across the table behind a screen of Sp (O) to attack auxilia"

Emboldened by this the 4 elements of English longbowmen on the PG left decided to lead the attack - after all, there were only a few Psiloi (S) there, no problem - clear them out the way and the knights could play...?

However Super-Psiloi were now in play - and their underpants were definitely on the outside this afternoon. Well, 1-1 isn't that difficult to win, is it....

but all 4 is taking the p------------------.

On my left the clever redeployment had worked (maybe I should try this maneuver thing more often...?) and the inevitable was slowly happening with the warband and auxilia. In this case "the inevitable" was that the Portly General remounted for the 2nd time in the game to throw himself into the fray - promptly to get double overlapped and killed to take his command down!

The cream of Portuguese chivalry in the meantime had stood by disinterestedly with a string of very low pip dice, and no meaningful opponents as the warband had left. Finally the Sub general managed to order his skirmish screen out of the way and charged the spears - unsuccessfully as it turned out. 10-0 to the Carthos!!

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