Game 4 Birmingham Alabama

Game 4 pitted me against the Later Judeans. I think. 

Their army was supported by a Palmyran/Parthian ally consisting of some Kn (X)

The Game Set out like this

This looked like the classic opportunity for me to use Tactic No 1 and rush forwards in a big long line. I also had the road to make amusing super-speed moves down with my wagons if needed, and hopefully I could overwhelm the Judeans before the Parthian Cataphracts swung round in front of my blades. 

However, fatigued after their long journey, the Teutons decided this was their time for a short rest, and promptly rolled a 1 for their first pip dice, going unreliable. The lack of the Teutons made me realise how useless the rest of my army was, however I pushed onwards as fast as I could, hoping instead to create some sort of opportunity on my right - the auxilia led by Colonel Pickett, fancied their chances....

Here my massed auxilia were facing a weakly held hill, which if they could take it, would allow them to sweep down on the flank of a Bd (I) and Bw (I) formation. 

The Parthians were bemused by the onrushing juggernauts, and frantically tried to work out how to sneak past them unseen under cover of a light horse screen, but devastating fire from the artillery soon put paid to all of that.

On my right the auxilia were grinding forwards under a succession of low pip dice, and soon the flank was acting like a pip magnet for the best dice of the Judeans, as they fought desperately to rearrange their bow and blade formation prior to my arrival.

The Parthian's made a dash for it, but were thwarted by a bold move from a lone wagons, who relied on the Judeans need to throw their best dice at my right in order to keep the auxilia bottled up in the dark brown RGo. 

The right was fast developing as the interesting place to be, and a screen of LH sent to pin the blades to prevent them shuffling sideways into my auxilia found itself flanked by light horsemen from the centre command - I lost 2 elements, far too soon.

The auxilia and blades clashed - my troops having got forwards far enough to catch some of the fake Roman swordsmen in the RGo, evening up the odds considerably.

In the middle tow lines of blades were also clashing, as the Parthians had been almost totally squeezed out as they were eroded by shooting. Bd (O) against Bd (I) - it should only go one way, but slowly....

With his nobility already now long dead from withering fire, the Parthian general committed himself to the fray against double ranked flailmen. As he charged in, a cheeky war wagon slipped in behind him .....

... and then he was dead! The Parthian command was broken - although it had been largely impotent for some time already, and was too small to affect the army as a whole.

But the main effect was to galvanize the Teutons, who came back online, and aided by a 5 for their first "real" dice sailed imperiously forward with the rather unsubtle aim of running down anything and everything in their path.

The wagons were now calling in light horse to help them speed up the process of rolling up the Judean lines

But on my right, reeling under the weight of enemy pip dice, my auxilia were being forced backwards. Now the 2 light horse the command had lost early in the encounter started to make things really tricky, as they could not afford to take too many losses.... but after some frantic back pedalling the time and space  - and elements - ran out and my flank command was also broken!

Losses for the Teutons were merely something that happened to the enemy, as their frontal opponents evaporated with barely a whimper as the white-clad brethren trampled them without mercy or delay..

Even the Judean CinC couldn't last long in the face of such frightening lance-power, and he too fell in short order..

With only an element or two to go, Lithuanian light horse streamed through the gap where the Parthians had been to attempt to sack the baggage.

as the low-rent Teutonic knight tried to run over Bd (I). Not being proper Brethren, they needed assistance from one of the few survivors from my broken command...

Oh the Infamy of being beaten by baggage!

But in the end it was only postponing the inevitable, and with fences falling all over the park, the Judeans finally capitulated, and the competition ended with a 9-1 victory for the Lithuanians.

Post Match Analysis

The game revolved around the demolition of the Parthian command by the Lithuanian wagons and artillery - the Parthians were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and their loss not only removed a dangerous part of the Judeans strike force, it also opened up a hole in their line they were unable to plug. But the real impact was to bring the Teutons online, and an army of Lh and Bd (I) really has no answer to 5 Teutonic Knights - especially in such imperious combat form as they were in this game.

Losing the 2 light horse from my flank command so early in the game - to booze-inspired careless play, combined with pip poverty - meant my ability to trade casualties against the Bd (I) on my right was dramatically reduced, but fortunately once my command broke, the victorious Judeans had no troops capable of moving fast enough to exploit the opportunity, and instead became a series of fragmented targets for my Teutons to seek to mop up to round off the game.

The main Hammy Chart shows the total "useable" pips in each bound, ie excluding the Teutons before they came reliable, and excluding the Parthians once they were totally eliminated in bound 13.

Wheras this detail chart shows only the pips for the commands facing each other on my right - the "Picketts Charge" attempt by my auxilia, showing clearly how the Judeans were able to allocate their dice to redeploy.

Post Match Expert Analysis

So....what next??

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