Field of Glory Wargaming at Roll Call 2009
So, one game under the belt, and a win. What could possibly go wrong? Well, a LH-heavy Dastardly Ottoman Turkish opponent could figure quite high on that list!
This would be a real test of one of my core theories of FoG army design - make sure your army can pretty much cover the table and advance against skirmishers who shoot. It was in theory possible with the Free Company, but it would entail them deploying pretty shallowly - and advancing as quickly as possible, especially on the extra-deep tables which I had just realised were in use at Roll Call (in FoG the rules state that deployment areas is measured from the back edge of the table, not from the middle, so these 4'6" tables would take at least 2 extra turns for my men to waddle across than the standard 4').
Pictures of Ottomans from my Ancients Photo Directory
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The terrain was of course pretty light, which probably favored me as much as my opponents who's list is available here.The one key element was an enclosed field that had fallen pretty centrally and gave me a "Bow Motorway"TM into which my crossbowmen could sprint.
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John Hawkwood: "You look like a decent British bloke. I'll park the old booties on you if that's okay." Private Baldrick: "It would be an honour, my Lord." John Hawkwood: "Of course it would! Ha!" [Hawkwood rests his feet on Baldrick's back and sighs] John Hawkwood: "Have you any idea what it's like to have the wind rushing through your hair, George?" Lieutenant George: "No, Sir." John Hawkwood: [Hawkwood breaks wind in Baldrick's face] "He has!" |
Immediately the game started my theory of advancing in a neat line fell into disarray as enemy LH advanced to harass my men, and my limited number of shooting units maneuvered to drive them off.
... but at least my huge investment in attractive terrain had paid off and the enclosed field had a nominal amount of fencing behind which my archers could hide to rain down arrows on the enemy LH.
On the right, some of my knights had cleverly stayed mounted this time, and were advancing as quickly as they could afford to whilst still keeping pace with their accompanying men at arms. By creeping right up to the craven enemy LH they forced the LH to take the difficult decision to either turn and move away and not shoot, to try a risky CMT to turn and fallback to 3", or to be even bolder and sit there hoping to evade far enough.
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John Hawkwood: "Mind if I use your carrier pigeon? If word gets out I'm missing, five hundred girls will kill themselves. And I wouldn't want them on my conscience, not when they ought to be on my *face*! Hello? Cancel the state funeral, tell the king to stop blubbing, Hawkwood is not dead! I simply ran out of juice! And before five hundred girls all go 'oh, what's the point in living any more?' I'm talking about water for my horsel! Woof! Send someone along to pick me up. Sulieman the Magnificent's coachman will do, she hangs round with a big knob so she'll be used to a fellow like me. Woof!" |
The enclosed field was proving a great bastion for my archers, but as they drove off the contemptible enemy light horse they would soon have to dare to sneak out..
In fact, my archers were doing well all across the field. As they co-operated tightly with the invulnerable men at arms, the longbowmen were able to inflict great damage on the Ottoman horse skirmishers in relative safety.
Intimidated by this awesome show of force, Ottomans fell back and the bowmen bolted forwards - they were starting to outpace their infantry though....
But the targets were so tempting - and so gutless - that the opportunity to shepherd buckets of despicable enemy horsemen into a killing zone in front of the advancing knights and infantry was too good to resist.
But the concentration of forces on my right had meant that I was slightly overstretched on my left, and soon the other longbow unit were forced to spread out - and present a rather large target - to avoid being surrounded by enemy skirmishers.
But despite these local difficulties, things were looking reasonable, as my army was pushing back the paper-weight pusillanimous Ottomans across the whole width of the field.
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John Hawkwood: " All right men, let's do-oo-oo it! The first thing to remember is: always treat your horse [Hawkwood taps the picture of his trusty steed with his cane] like you treat your woman!" [Hawkwood whips the air with his cane] Lieutenant George: "How, how do you mean, Sir? Do you mean, do you mean take her home at weekends to meet your mother?" John Hawkwood: "No, I mean get on top of her five times a day and ride her as hard as you can!" Captain Blackadder: "I'm beginning to see why the suffragette movement want the vote." John Hawkwood: "Hey! Any girl who wants to chain herself to *my* railings and suffer a jet movement gets *my* vote!!" |
But the Ottomans were not going to wait forever, and whilst the skirmish screen skirmished furiously their classic Mikes-Models Era Sipahi's initiated the fightback, and charged into the thinned out (and already disriupted) longbow unit on my extreme left! A bad result here might unhinge my whole line ....
With an almighty clash underhanded Ottoman Janissaries piled into the fray, attacking my two archer units on my right as well - the Ottomans were better, but seriously outnumbered.
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John Hawkwood: "You live well, Scaramanga." |
The initial clashes were brutal, with the sword-wielding longbow unit holding up well against the appalling Janissaries, both sides being urged on by generals in this vital first clash.
Both sides started to lose bases - but the Free Company have more bases to lose ..
Soon at the other end of the line, the other longbow unit found itself being whittled down as it dropped from 6 bases to just 4 - but its cohesion was holding up as well against the Elite Depraved Sipahis - and they had become disrupted in the fight.
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John Hawkwood: " Ok chums, let's doooooo it. As the bishop said to the netball team." |
Back on the left, the rather outrageous battle continued, as both sides raced additional units over to try and join in - but with both engaged units just one base loss away from evaporation, there was a risk that both sides reinforcements could arrive too late!
As the hacking on the left continued relentlessly, the Janissaries looked around and realised they were being badly ground down by sheer weight of dice against them - they were now only a base away from evaporation as they crept towards 50%+ losses - and the Ottomans rushed more Sipahis in to take on the advancing men at arms as the horrid Janissary thrust looked set to implode.
The Essex Sipahi's repeatedly bounced off the weakened longbowmen, who had regained cohesion through the intervention of their general - much to the surprise of the other unit of perverted Janissaries as they tried to lend a hand.
But, unnoticed by all of the buys ottomans, a unit of Men at Arms had crawled their painful way across the entire 56" of the table and were furiously setting about the Ottoman baggage!
The same fate soon befell the noxious Janissaries, and after taking a beating from vastly superior numbers of Free Company bowmen and crossbowmen they routed - straight through some Sipahi's who had gotten too close to get out of the way - a couple of Ottoman units were now routing as their left flank teetered against the table edge
But even as their comrades fled past in rout, the rest of the Ottoman noble cavalry fought back - taking on he baggage looters and also another unit of men at arms who had also crawled snail-like almost the full width of the table to get into the action.
The table was also running out for repellent Ottoman forces on my left - but this time it was the side edge, not the back, as the Elite Sipahi's had finally broken, allowing the longbows to unwisely advance into a situation in which they faced Janissaries, but also drawing the Ottoman forces into a decreasingly tenable situation as Knights, crap cavalry and men at arms all sought to hem them into a space smaller than they rightly should have occupied.
With the focus of the battle now in two places, both were looking bad for the Ottomans who were fast running out of units and of table. Eventually, the final nail was hammered into the abhorrent Turkish coffin as a wall of rampant Free Company soldiery swept the base Ottoman rabble from the field - a 22-3 victory for the Free Company!
Post Match Summary
Well,
am I ple-ee-ee-eeased by that result, or did I just put a canoe in my pocket??
Fantastic, and how satisfying to push these flippery-flammery light horse jockeys off the table and back intro oblivion where they belong!
I always say if you want something, you should take it, and here I took the Ottomans roughly from the front, and a bit in the side as well. And all this by dint of my fabulously complex tactic of making my men invulnerable to bowfire, and then advancing in a fairly tidy line to sweep the enemy off the table. Genius of the Highest Order! .
Having the one bit of decent terrain in a good spot was a great boon to me, but also the biggest bonus was the reluctance of the Ottomans to commit until they had almost run out of table - and also to spread their strike troops across the table. They knew their bowmen were going to be useless, but because they'd taken them and built their plan around skirmishing the continued with that strategy for far too long. It was like they believed that if nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face would still see them through.
Anyways, I won and I've got better things to do than sit here and talk to you lot of oiks. Hoorah!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Five
star genius that - cover the table and advance. Wonderful. I bow down before
your military impressiveness.
Really here you got lucky. Lucky you opponent didn't spot that his standard skirmish tactics were doomed to failure until too late. Lucky that the 6-man average longbow unit you used to anchor the end of your entire line (can you see what's coming here?) managed to hang on against the odds for a remarkable amount of time. And lucky that several of your units recovered from fragmented on several occasions all game.
Really I put this down as an event your opponent lost rather than one you won. A big chunky charge with all his decent troops would have overwhelmed at least 2 parts of your line, leaving the rest flailing about aimlessly whilst they tried to catch LH with a move 4 inches faster than theirs for much of the game. I suppose in your defence that the composition of your army is inherently flawed and it has to have a couple of weak spots in games like this - but having as a positive the fact that your army choice is flawed is hardly ideal is it?
I mentioned in the last game the limited number of small units, and the over-reliance on expensive full tin can armour were threats - luckily you got away with it this time.
Just be grateful you got the points on the board early enough as I'm sure you wont get as many tomorrow.
Lets see how the next game goes.
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