Birmingham Alabama Game 3

Game 3 came after a barbequeue (or a lot of beer for those who finished early!) and saw me matched up against Christian Nubians... with a plan!! 

In fact, it was more than just a plan. They had been plotting my downfall in the Nubian deserts for many months. Whilst I had been plotting how to finish early and get to another bar. Ho Hummm..

 

There was almost no terrain, and I was defending again. I had also failed to anticipate the (compulsory?) 24 Warband...and was facing some light horse, this time with plenty of room to fall back, and with reserves of camelry sitting nicely behind. 

Faced with this challenge, I decided to adopt a new tactic. Instead of charging straight forwards, I decided to WHEEL a BIT and charge straight forwards.

With an excess of pips, I also detached a lone Teuton from his colleagues to go and spread the word of the Sword Of Joshua Independent Full Gospel Pentecostal Assembly (which is located just off State Road 23 on the Frontage Road) and threaten the entire Warband command, foolishly hoping that he would keep them safely tucked up in the rough ground. 

 The rest of the Teuts were hoping to race forwards and get among the enemy cavalry before the Camelry arrived....

But the initiative was being wrestled from me across the board as the warband charged out of their safe area, aided by a couple of 1's on their pip dice...

Even the Lithuanian CinC was being threatened by a rapid cavalry redeployment, which forced the flank guarding light horse force to retreat

The Arab warband got off to a great start, pushing back a line of light horse and also forcing the Brother Knight to recoil. The Lithuanians desperately attempted to plug their lines and take advantage of the ragged formation the warband were breaking up into 

Meanwhile the Lithuanian commander called across his own light horse to support the flank guards, and as the wagons advanced, a trap was sprung - with the jaws being firmly closed by enfilading fire from the bombards, which started removing Arabic cavalry like shots of whiskey in a free bar at the border of a dry county.

The sole Brother knight was also earning his corn and grits as, encircled by raving pedestrian maniac peasants, he carved his way through them fearlessly, threatening to beat the command on his own.... and just after he was finally overwhelmed, the last warband was shot down by a wagon and the command broke! 

But by now my left flank was also on its last legs, and were being overwhelmed from all sides by a sweeping force of Camelry as well as warband turning their flanks... They attenpted to fight a valiant rearguard action...

But they were unable to extricate themselves from the impetuosity caused by the demoralized warband, and light horse, expecting an easy pursuit and slaughter of broken warband, soon found themselves under flank attack from Cm S - not a good thing. They too were now at the edge of broken! 

  

Things were now touch and go for us both - my CinCs command was pushing forwards to take advantage of the wavering troops before them, who had been brought to the brink of collapse by sustained artillery fire - but blades are not the best anti-light horse troops, and my flank command of light horse had taken too many losses to engage in a spot of lottery against the remaining Cavalry.

 

Meanwhile the Teutons had become involved in what was for them a traditional losing battle against enemy camelry - even with the support of war wagons, the camels refused to die, and soon blasted some holes in the Teutonic lines - The Teuts went down! 

The left flank was a chaos of broken troops and pointless pursuits - my light horse fought desperately to extricate themselves, whilst auxilia poured forwards, hoping to avoid dice based catastrophe against demoralized warband

 

On the right, I was chasing the last 3 or 4 elements I needed, but with no clear opportunities to get more than 2 or 3 of them ..

My light horse valiantly dragged a few more Cavalry from their saddles...we might just do it! 

But the demoralized general of the warband command had other ideas - as he threatened to be engulfed by a tide of auxilia, he stepped up to the plate, swung the bat and hit a home run out of the park to take down my flank command - thus turning the game on its head - a 8-2 defeat for the Lithuanians!!

Post Match Summary

The Nubians had a plan - and executed it quickly, decisively and without compromise in aggressively shoving two units of camelry at my army, one to neutralize the Teutons, and the other in tandem with the warband to eventually overwhelm my largest command, whilst two of my own commands were struggling to wheel round in time to get into the game. Heroic combat performance by first the lone Teutonic Knight despatched to help my flank command against the warband to kill them off, and then by the light horse in my largest command to try and save themselves meant that the Nubians were also dragged to the brink of defeat, but it would have been a remarkable smash-and-grab raid on my part to get anything more from this game than I eventually did. 

The Teutons always struggle to deal with camelry, and were relying on the Wagons to shoot some of them down on the way in, but this was not to be this time, and the Cm O got into combat almost unscathed and then proceeded to neutralize, and then finish off the Teutons, dramatically reducing my ability to push forward with any speed.

The above Hammy Chart doesn't however show the full picture, as most of the action took place involving the 2 commands (each) on my left. 

This detailed chart shows just the pips for these commands, and highlights how the Nubians initially were able to move their Cm (S) & Wb into position whilst the Lithuanians were paralyzed and unable to react with the large command and Teutons, but then were forced to continue advancing - especially with the warband. In this period the Lithuanians then had the pip advantage, but at a time when the Arabs had already committed their impetuous troops to battle. The warband command had the worst of the pips, with a series of four 1's and three 2's between bounds 3 and 9. I'm not sure what would have happened if they had got the pips to be held back....

Post Match Expert Analysis

 

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