Roll Call 2006
The Lithuanians return to UK action!
This battle report contains mouse-over effects on some of the pictures, and some of them might have naughty words on them. If you are reading this with your kids, or if you are Theo Walcott please be careful!
In a themed competition where the rest of the club were opting for other periods, and with no games since the IWF in Greece I broke with tradition and elected to use a Lithuanian army in a loosely titled Cross & Crescent period. Somewhat bizzarrely, Lithuanian was the most popular choice, so I faced the never-before-seen possibility of a Civil War!!!
My list was the "with artillery" list from the IWF
Game 1 saw me drawn against the seeded JD Mc Neil and a Reigate Abbasquid
army.
What a nice start to the day for us both !
My Opponents List (Abbasid Arab)
The map on the left is a thumbnai image of the deployment, and will expand out to full size if you click it.
The Abbasids drew up with a line of spearmen protected on one flank by a Hill + BUA combo (ie, skulking like cowardly dogs in the face of my, erm, light horse), and a set of cavalry on each wing.
As attacker, I rushed forwards hoping to pin the cavalry on my left into some RGo where they had deployed with my superior numbers of LH, get into a slogging match with the spearmen against my blades, divert the Teutons off to my right to protect the blades by preventing any auxilia coming off the hill, and make my big play by overwhelming the block of bowmen holding the middle of the line with auxilia and wagons. The Abbasid cavalry on my right were to be confronted with a hastily redeployed wagon from my CinC's command, plus the LH of the smaller command.
The Abbasid Cavalry on my left were caught in the RGo, and had to expend many pips to extract themselves!
Spears against Bladed. Exciting, Decisive, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
The Teutons were keeping the bowmen on the hill honest though - the flank of my blade line would not be worried by them!
On my right, my "get close and delay them" skirmishing command were not being entirely successful at the "run away afterwards" part of the technique. But it was breaking up the Abbasid formation.
The bowmen were taking a reet pounding from the wagons, and the auxilia were massing to make a charge. Only the lone general from the Abbasid micro command could save them....
Meanwhile, the two lines of infantry clashed, whilst my CinC opened his copy of "The Da Vinci Code" and settled down to read ...
The lone Abbasid general was hunted down and mugged by an inexhaustible supply of auxilia.
On my right, the Abbasid flanking force could find no way past the lone wagon - and the artillery was also knocking big holes in their formation
With the Abbasid bowmen command teetering, the Lithuanians realised they would still need another breakthrough to gain the decisive army-crushing victory.
With no clever or obvious plan to do so, and with 3 full rounds of blitz being played they ordered the Teutons into a near-suicidal unsupported charge (the cavalryman nearest the camera is the Teuton Cv (I)...).
The Teutons charged gamely into the valley of death, running down spearmen and psiloi hastily flung out to stop them! The Teutonic general was assaulted down the rough hill by all manner of Arab nasties, with no recoils - and survived them all whist his men cut down the heathen like wheat !
Finally, the Teutons fell, but they had done the business - the Abbasid army also turned and fled!!!
9-1 ... or 14-2 in the whizzy new scoring system.
Post Match Analysis
The attack of the Teutons pushed the defensively arrayed Abbasids over the edge, and the 15-0 scoring system incentive certainly played its part in encouraging them to go for broke. In the end however the key was that the Arab cavalry had no real answer to the wagons - they were unable to roll up my right when faced with a lone wagon (plus some effective artillery - which killed 2 Cv (S) and 2 Bw (I) elements in 11 shots), and had to back away on my left, leaving the bowmen exposed and ultimately adrift.
New Innovation!! - Enjoy the beauty of this classic retro style Analogue Hammytastic Pip Dice Analysis!!
