IWF Athens 2006
Game 5 - vs Mycenaeans
Sunday morning saw me facing Richard Aynsley and his very nicely painted Mycenaeans. Lots of men with big long pointy things. And pikes as well. His list was here
By now with 2 wins and 2 draws I was starting to be almost in sniffing distance of the top tables, and I had a fairly balanced record against Richard, and he had successfully fended off Simon Hall in the first round with his army so it was potentially a toughie. His army was also much better painted than mine, which would mean I could be distracted taking too many photos...
I had chosen the artillery list - figuring less Teutons, and more shooting power would be in order.
The terrain fell with two possible obvious corners for the Mycenaeans to hide
in - or, alternatively, an irritating wood which might split any advance they
might try to make. But the key terrain looked likely to be the RGo protecting
their left flank - it seemed to have "Place Bw(I) Here" written in the
sands in large Mycenean characters, no matter how the rest of the army deployed.
The Mycenaeans decided to go for a deep and defensive setup, anchoring their flanks with the central wood and - as predicted by the Lithuanian soothsayers - Bw(I) sat in the RGo. There was also another block of Bw (I) lurking at the far back of the table on the other flank, and a massive deep block of Pk (X) and Pk (I) filling the clear space on the table.
This deployment immediately left my artillery piece out of the game, and threatened to leave my CinC and Teutons out as well, as they were deployed opposite thin air and 4 deep Pike respectively. The weight of expectation in Vilnius was resting on the shoulders of the sub general and his auxilia/warband combo.
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The Pike X stuff the centre
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The Minotaur guards the baggage |
With the Mycenaeans adopting a fully defensive posture, I was able to dictate where and how the battle took place, and so approached the Bw (I) on my right with my wagons and bowmen whilst skirmishing off the Mycenaean infantry with light horse. With both Mycenaean flank commands breaking on 8.5, and with 8 Bw (I) in each the plan was taking shape and so my CinC was also making a mad rush across the table on the left, also planning on driving his wagons and Hussite flailmen into a similar target.
Soon the Wagons were closing in, and were tidily lined up on the bowmen, who were looking anxiously over their shoulders to see if any of the infantry would come to their assistance.
The first few rounds of shooting were devastating as the dice gods had clearly decided that today was a day that Medieval beats Pre-historic in the Divine game of Paper, Scissors, Stone , and in 4 shots, 4 Bw(I) were killed. Thus depleted, there was clearly no way back for the bowmen, and they attempted to initiate a retreat as the spearmen jockeyed furiously for position against warwagons that by now appeared to be being driven by the ancestors of Guderain and Rommel.
But with the main body of spears harassed by light horse to their front, the number of pikemen who could be spared to aid the bowmen was limited - and they also found to their dismay that the "S" for shooting only counted against bowmen. Even the psiloi the Mycenaeans flung forwards became bowman and auxilia fodder as my dice rolled nothing but 6's and the Mycenaeans churned out a steady succession of "1's" (we were both using the same dice - but the imbalance was so pronounced we both changed to a different set at this point!).
To add insult to already fairly grievous injury, the opportunity to run down double overlapped Pk (I) who were also over 3,000 years their evolutionary inferiors appealed no end to the Teutonic general, and at the head of his men he charged forwards to personally demonstrate "Vorsprung Durch Plate Armour and a Ruddy Great Lance" to the hapless proto-Greek nudists flank command.
Unfortunately for the Mycenae infantry, short wave battlefield radio and an integrated C3 communications network had not yet been developed, and the 8 Bw (I) on my left were still in ignorance of the fate of their colleagues and remained optimistic of their chances of shooting down my wagons and blades.
However as my CinC had closed in, a lone charioteer ("heroic" I believe is the official description) had escaped the coming carnage, and sped off around the battlefield to cause, erm, something. This led to the detachment of my entire 7-strong LH command (who's control of the artillery was forsaken) to hunt him down
. 
The charioteer and the light horse played cat and mouse for many turns, until eventually the Trojan in Waiting decided that due to the lack of a handy air conditioning duct into which he could force his way by standing on a chair and levering himself into though a lose grille, he instead needed to attempt to escape into a wood.
The Lithuanians dithered, expended pips, and then finally
decided that this was going to be funny anyway - and went in after him in a desperate
attempt to create the lowest ever recorded factors with which to engineer a
combat between two unbroken elements. (The pikemen in the above picture are 
casualties,
not in play).
By now the carnage was complete - both flanks of the Mycenaean army had been comprehensively stove in by a combination of terrible matchups and even more terrible dice, whilst the center had advanced impotently but largely inviolate under constant harassment by a buzzing cloud of light horse.
The game was over - 10-0 and 32-0 with the Lithuanians losing only 2.5 elements.
A thrilling grandstand finale was on its way.
Post Match Analysis
The hideous shooting and combat dice the Mycenaeans suffered in this game rather spoilt the enjoyment for both of us - a tough matchup for Richard and an interesting puzzle for me to unpick became a evening at the bowling alley with Richard playing the part of "Mr Skittle" and with me getting to have the rails at the sides raised and use a rather oversized ball as well.
Dice aside, once the Bw (I) were deployed where I had hoped, the Wagons were always likely to do the business, and quite quickly. vs Bw (I), a wagon has a 1 in 4 chance of killing an element every turn, against a 1 in 36 chance of being killed, and so with the advantage of moving to get in the first shot, and with 3 wagons and 2 Bw (O) vs 8 Bw (I) on the flank killing one every shot was statistically about right - .
As long as the mass of pike in the center were neutralized by my light horse and the threat of the Teutons they were unable to help out, and it with the Bw (I) not standing up to the initial shock of shooting, the flank command was damaged beyond repair before they could get their own pikemen into action. After that it was a case of waiting for my CinC to cross the table and offer up a repeat performance on the other flank.
Richards (I suspect slightly tongue in cheek) Version !
Game 5 - The Madaxeman - Lithuanians So doing well after the first two days and therefore came up against TP.
I felt reasonably confident of making a game of this as all the X troops in my army counted as Superior against a lot of the Lithuanians.
However I was really, really unlucky and Tim was exceptionally lucky otherwise I would have won - honest. No really its true. Actually TP took pictures and has promised the game will be written up on his site, much better than I could hope to so I'll leave it to him. The result was 32 - 0 to Tim, I couldn't even get the last element I needed to get a point. Apologies I provided no opposition
In this case, both the victor and the loser get to write the history!
