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Post by elpresidente2016 on Sept 27, 2018 10:35:43 GMT
Dear all, just a quick update. Firstly, a couple of changes of personnel. In the 15mm competition, Richard is stepping in to take Max's place, and in the 25mm Dean is stepping in to take Graham's place. I think its good to have as many people as possible playing in the competitions, and it means I can stop twisting Graham and M<ax's arms to fill the numbers up. But thanks for them for saying they would play, and welcome to the new players. There were several medieval games going on last week. I took on Martins Timurids and managed a win. Neil was also practising, and Steve L and Chris M got another practice session in. However, there was only one competition game which was Geoff against Gavin in the 15mm, Delhi Sultanate against Feudal Polish. I thought the elephants would severely discomfort the Poles, but apparently the Polish archers got there shots in early, and when the troops got into contact, Geoff had been shot up quite badly and so the Poles record the first win of the competition. Geoff picks up a bonus point for playing, Gavin gets three for the win, a bonus of 1 for playing, but as he fielded an early army, nothing for his medium knights. I hope that they checked each others lists at the end to make sure they were legal ! See you on Friday Tony |
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Post by elpresidente2016 on Oct 11, 2018 9:42:08 GMT
Dear all,
an update about the Medieval competition. Firstly, no update on the 25mm, as no competitive games have been played. I know there have been several practice games, and I have been one of those, but come on guys, lets see the big toys bash each other with meaning to the games!
On the 15mm front, a couple of games to report. Firstly, Graham fought Martin, Polish against Timurid ( dont you love historical games!). Graham had war wagons which are slow, and Martin took the horse archer art of skirmishing to extremes... its not often you see elephants reversing away from combat! However, they kept on drawing each other in dice rolls when they did get into contact, and with all the manoeuvering, didnt have time to get the game to a finish. So a draw, with Graham picking up an extra point for fielding knights.
The other battle was Ken against Chris R. This was a proper scrap. Chris' Serbian ally went unreliable at the beginning of the game, Ken went close enough to activate it, generals were killed in combat, but eventually, Chris prevailed and broke Kens's army, although his own army was merely one point away from breaking itself. Ken persisted with only taking ordinary generals, and chris admitted that if Ken had had an extra couple of pips to get flank attacks in, he would have one the game. Chris picks up a full 5 points, and Ken just the one. (as an aside, Ken went Feudal... its a late middle ages competition, you only get bonuses for heavily armoured foot knights/heavy knights. Ken's list was legal, albeit from the wrong period, or else he would have forfeited the game. Please take care with your lists)
Tony
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Post by elpresidente2016 on Nov 2, 2018 9:55:47 GMT
Dear all,
Apologies for being slightly remiss in updating you all. Now a lot of you have not got into the habit yet of sending me reports on your games, so you will have to rely on my all too fallible memory.
I think Ive captured all the games, but if i have missed any, please let me know.
On the 15mm front, I am fairly sure there was a game between Geoff and Richard, but I haven't got a record of what happened. When one of them updates me, Ill let you know.
George has put in several battles, and won both of them. He has sent me a coiuple of reports, and so gets the glory of going into print first!
Firstly, George against Martin.
So tonight's game saw Timurids with elephant (Martin) face off against Timurids without them but with javelinmen instead (myself) . TE Vs TJ if you will.
The TE forces won the initiative and the terrain fell very open with a few hills on the TE baseline in the centre where they quickly deployed heavy artillery and bowmen. The elephant then their cavalry deployed to their left. There was another hill facing them and to their left behind which the TJ forces lay their javelinmen in ambush in rough terrain. The TJ cavalry deployed to the left of this hill.
The TE cavalry forces steamed ahead on their left trying to rundown the ambush marker behind the hill while the elephant lumbered forward. The TJ forces steered clear of the artillery and instead drifted to square up to the TE cavalry. When the TE cavalry triggered the ambush their commander erred on the side of caution and pulled away from attacking LMi in rough ground.
In the centre the TE cavalry tried to run down the TJ cavalry but some good dice meant that the TJ cavalry stood their ground when they did choose to fight long enough for the javelinmen from the terrain to get flank charges in. Elsewhere the TJ cavalry evaded to pull the TE cavalry further from the elephant at the back. This meant the TJ left flank could wheel and flank charge eventually. The elephant never got a real fight. Nor the artillery an effective target.
Some bowmen on the TE side came off the hill and tried to shoot down some TJ Hcv elite impact bow on the TE right flank and got run over for their troubles. Furious charge and a 6-1 is nasty. Although another bowman unit did eventually get one back after a prolonged fight.
Eventually the TJ camp was sacked as the TE left hook navigated around the rough ground but by then command and control for them became a problem. The left flank commander was on one side of the hill while what was left of his cavalry was on the other. so the attack lost momentum long enough for the TJ forces to kill enough to win the game.
No knights were used. I broke Martin's forces and lost over 50% of my own if that helps.
Giving George his first 4 points. Then he took on Grahams Poles
Medieval Polish bs Timurids
It was a fairly open table with some rough terrain falling on the Poles left flank and little else. Graham began by deploying a command of 1/2 Hv Sp, 1/2xbows flanked by warwagon crossbows on the flank. The Timurids deployed elephants, medium spears and HV artillery across from them. The remainder of the field consisted of two polish impetuous heavy knights (mostly) commands facing off against two Timurid heavy cavalry bows commands.
The Timurids played it cagey. Facing Heavy knights impetuous will give you that outlook. In the centre the light horse were sent forward to try and force an unwanted charge where possible and hopefully pull the Polish line apart so it could be attacked piecemeal. Some low rolls on the pip dice from Graham saw this succeed very well and a number of knights were pulled deep into the Timurid line. Unsupported and surrounded knights make a much nicer prospect and several were made casualties for little loss.
The Polish left flank of war wagons and infantry exchanged some fire with Timurid light horse on the extreme left but the light horse managed to get round them and make for the camp. This forced the centre knights supporting units to retreat to cover the rear and pulled the lines apart further. The elephants and medium spears of the Timurids eventually charged home against the Polish infantry. I was lucky not to lose more than a few cohesion levels here as the dice gods were definitely against Graham on this flank. Several polich infanh units were beaten for only a few markers return.
Only the extreme right flank of the Poles the I'm sure the dice gods would have preferred Graham - had it not been for the determination of the Timurid wing on this flank to refuse to fight for a long as possible. A bit of manouvering and some sacraficial light cavalry later and the Timurid left flank had vacated the area and redressed itself in the centre. So the polish knight had to wheel for several turns to get back into the fight.
By the time it arrived the polish centre had been picked apart, the baggage was underthreat and soon to be taken, the polish left flank - though not gone - was suffering unfair combat dice and the Timurids had only lost one expendables unit and a light infantry. One flank charge later and the Timurids claimed victory
Giving George another 4 points, and leaping to the head of the table.
On the 25mm front, we have seen a few games. Joe took on Chris R. Joe described it as all out attack followed by grinding. Despite his mediocre spear catching crossbowmen in the rear, they still managed to lose. However, Chris managed to roll a bunch of appalling command dice, which gave Joe the free hand to pull a victory out.
Brian and Bryan had a game. This was Medieval French (Bryan) versus Bulgar(Brian). The Bulgars ( cant use their names, its too confusing!) tried to maximise their mobility. Unfortunately for them, this led to impetuous troops going uncontrolled, and left a lot of flanks exposed. The wily French managed to exploit these, and claim the win.
Lastly, Max ( current club champion) took on Dean, which was French Ordonance against (I think) Medieval German. Max managed to get Dean moving his army this way and that, and Dean couldnt roll a dice in shooting to save his life. Max managed to kill off Deans damaged shooters, and then mangle Dean's knights and swordmen for a win, although he did take significant damage on the way.
Thats all for now folks, although I will update with any results from tonight and any more that people remind me about. Dont forget to email me any results and a short report is always apreciated.
Tony
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Post by elpresidente2016 on Nov 14, 2018 10:53:32 GMT
Dear all,
Friday saw several battles, in a packed club, which is good. However, my little teaser from last time arrived, so here is Gavin's report against Richard:
Richard has indeed switched to medieval Irish but defying gamesmanship has decided not to bring along Edward Bruce for the bonus point.
It's an army that really needs terrain but the dice placed all his forests in the rear left corner of the Polish deployment area, leaving the right wing open for a knightly rampage. And rampage they did, trampling four units of kerns and their general, and chasing two units of Irish horse off the field. For no loss, giving the Poles a 12 point head start. Richard did think about just luring the knights over to the corner of the field and then running away, but decided to fight it out.
On the other side of the field, however, interminable vodka-fuelled dynastic arguments led to a refusal of the Polish left wing to move for 5 turns. The Irish right hung back to avoid triggering them, and sent their Anglo-Irish cavalry into the centre to chase away skirmishers. They then got in the way of the advancing galloglasses before retiring in confusion. Eventually the Polish left decided to get involved and a back and forward struggle began between the Irish kerns and Polish bow and axe men.
In the centre the galloglasses finally closed with outnumbered Polish spear and ground them down quickly. But not quickly enough to prevent the Polish C in C's household knights taking out two units on the Irish right with furious charge,s supported by Hungarian light horse. This finally took the Irish over their break point.
And he followed that up this week with another victory, this time against Steve T. Needless to say, the report arrived quicker!
Steve Tanner and I played last Friday. My feudal Poles against Steve's French Ordonnance. I've made my Poles as late a possible to fit in with the competition theme; Steve followed suit by taking the early list options and bringing Swiss along as unreliable allies.
Poles won initiative and were very lucky on terrain deployment, with several pieces of rough being discarded. I deployed conventionally with spear supported by bow in the mixed terrain to the left, bow and axemen behind a field in the centre and knights in the plain on the right. Steve outguessed me, deploying foot knights against my left, longbow and voulgiers in the centre and the Swiss phalanx facing the mounted knights. This prompted a panicked redeployment with the spears and knights double-marching to swap positions and avoid catastrophe, aided by the slow advance of the Swiss and French foot knights.
Steve didn't hang around to be outshot, and his voulgiers, longbows and Swiss halberdiers attacked the Polish centre. They did well against the Polish bows but were hit hard when the 'murderous rustic' peasant axemen counterattacked. On the Polish right, the Poles hung back by necessity as the spearmen redeployed, resulting in the Swiss pike being just one round too late to influence the battle.
Two units of bow holding a field on the Polish extreme left were out-skirmished by mounted crossbowmen, but the light horse were overconfident about raiding my camp and were caught in the rough terrain by a bow flank attack.
The decisive melee took place on the Polish left. The knights rushed into their new position and 'furiously' charged the French foot knights and voulgiers. To Steve's dismay, the Poles ignored his foot knight's heavy armour in the charge round. A few good die rolls and the Poles were drawing ahead. A victorious knight unit swung left to support the Polish general, destroying a foot knight unit to take the French over their break point. 4 points to Gavin and 2 to Steve.
So Gavin has played his games, won all of them and would have had maximum points except he took a Feudal list... Still in a very strong position to go through though, and well done for getting all the games played.
In 15mm, Joe played Graham. There were a couple of "Umpire" calls, but Joe proved victorious. Heres a report:
JB attacked with the Med Scots. Waterway anchoring the left flank of the scots there was little else on the field. The Pike pushed forward faced by a wall of light horse. Their first moves where slow but emboldened by the success of the crossbow angins the light hand gunners they picked up the pace. This is when things got messy. GB the Polish commander put hi med Cavalry into the Crossbow which died within 2 combats not leaving enough tim for the French knights to help them. This in turn left the flanks of the knights exposed. Graham] being the perfect gentleman obliged and charged into the flank.The is made up the Scots minds and it was all steam ahead. GB had javelin armed light horse and got them bit too close allowing Jb to get behind them and then charge in the Pike. This worked wonders. Mean while on the left flank the French were fighting on but not very well. Still there is only so far an army can evade and GB had reached his limit and the pike had pinned them to the table edge. the french command did collapse but not before the rest of the army had pulled it out of the bag. Haggis all round!
Which means Graham has played all his games, and the Polish Empire is in a state of contraction.
Olly and Neil had a game, Swiss against Lancastrian English. According to Olly, it was a slogging match, but eventually the power of the Swiss ( and a bunch of sixes) took Neil over the tipping point and gave Olly the win.
On to the big toys. Firstly, Deran and Chris M faced off. Dean found out the hard way that crossbows get outshot by longbows, and was also hampered by several rounds of poor command dice, which gave Chris a decisive, if not crushing, victory.
Steve and Max played. heres the report ( hopefully with illustrations)
The game last night was fantastic fun, we laughed all night.
Max was using his French Ordnance a highly elite good quality fighting force, but small with a break point of only 17. I was using Medieval Scottish a much more mixed lower quality army that had been slaughtered a couple of weeks previously by Tony with his Medieval Spanish. So I needed to mix it up a bit so that Max could not do the same as Tony and just roll over my army. This was particularly important as it was a battle of champions as both Max and I had won at Devizes in the past, me at DBM a long time ago, so Max was like the young pretender to my throne. By using an unusual army for me I think I succeeded in making Max think as he could not decide whether to get on or off his horses on deployment, starting all off, then putting some back on, and eventually before we started having them all mounted.
Max won the initiative throw, and chose to defend in a plain. He wanted to respond to respond to my first moves so that he could concentrate on only part of my army. I wanted to reduce his room for manoeuvre so chose as much terrain as I could. However terrain ended up mainly on the sides so it was mainly a large central plain with just one large field in the centre on the French deployment.
The French deployed in the traditional manner with two strong Mounted Knight wings supported by Long bowmen and his Swiss Pikemen allies in the centre in the large field. All his generals were included in units.
My deployment was the Heavy Foot (Pikemen) on my left with mixed Knights and Bowmen on the right. Deployment below:
Gully
Baggage
Field
Bowmen
Bowmen
Bowmen
Knights
Swiss
Knights
Lt Horse
Field
Plantation
Pikemen
Bowmen
Knights
Knights
Bowmen
LI
Low Hill
Peasants
Field
Baggage
As attacker the Scottish moved first inclining to the right moving across the battlefield keeping the Knights in line with the slower pike. The French responded with the first bit of luck that the Swiss ally first throw was a 2 so they did not become unreliable pike stuck in a field. They moved out and inclined to the right to face off against the Scottish pike, the left Mounted wing inclined to the left to match the Scottish movement. The right mounted wing dramatically into column towards the French left behind the pike, obviously did not fancy the Scottish pike head on. The two weakest bow units were sent in the opposite direction to hide in the gully.
Position after completion of turn 1:
Gully
Bowmen
Baggage
Field
Bowmen
Knights
Bowmen
Knights
Swiss
Lt Horse
Field
Pikemen
Knights
Knights
Bowmen
LI
Bowmen
Plantation
Low Hill
Peasants
Field
Baggage
For Turn 2, I wanted to prevent the Lt Horse getting past me to my baggage and get more of my pike into a position to attack, so I inclined right again. This got us into range to start shooting, fortunately I managed to disorder the Lt Horse. The French responded by retreating the Lt Horse and lining up the Knights and bowmen, which immediately disordered some Scottish Knights.
Position at end of turn 2:
Gully
Bowmen
Baggage
Field
Lt Horse
Bowmen
Knights
Bowmen
Knights
Swiss
Bowmen
LI
Field
Pikemen
Knights
Knights
Bowmen
Bowmen
Plantation
Low Hill
Peasants
Field
Baggage
The Scottish and French spent Turn 3 lining up ready for impact, the French long bowmen between the Knights put down stakes and kept up a steady flow of arrows against the Scottish Knights, even the Swiss hand gunner damaged the end of the Scottish pikes. The Scottish did have two important successes as a second hit on the French Lt Horse destroyed them, and the Bows hit and disordered the French Knight General on the left end of the French line.
Position at end of Turn 3:
Gully
Bowmen
Baggage
Field
Bowmen
LI
Bowmen
Knights
Bowmen
Knights
Swiss LI
Swiss
Field
Plantation
Pikemen
Knights
Knights
Bowmen
Bowmen
Low Hill
Peasants
Field
Baggage
With the punishment that the Scottish Knights were receiving from the French long bowmen they were forced to charge in on the right, still keeping some knights in reserve in the centre. They inclined left to avoid the French General so the bowmen could target him from shooting. The Light Infantry set up off to capture the baggage. Scottish Pike attacked the Swiss who had formed a defensive position to avoid a sudden catastrophe. The results were mixed in the knight combat both sides won a fight but no-one was broken. On the right the Scottish Pike disordered two of the Swiss pike blocks. However the Bowmen now got another hit on the French general on the end of the line.
The French response was dramatic, the remaining knights reinforced the Knight combat and the bowmen in the centre now targeted the Scottish Reserve knights and immediately disordered them. However the Swiss General was killed in the Pike combat causing more disorder. But the Swiss were doing the job well holding up vastly superior forces attacking them.
Position at end of Turn 4:
Gully
Bowmen
Baggage
Field
LI
Bowmen
Swiss LI
Bowmen
Swiss
Bowmen
Swiss
Knights
Knights
Field
Pikemen
Plantation
Bowmen
Knights
Knights
Bowmen
Low Hill
Peasants
Field
Baggage
Now we were getting to the crucial point of the battle. The Scottish Knights were getting hammered, so the Centre force still surviving retreated away from the action. The Knights that had charged were clinging on for as long as possible to prevent the collapse of the Scottish right flank, and I had one chance to finish off the French General with one shot but failed (I would have run a lap of honour round the club if I had succeeded, despite Max insisting on no gloating). Fortunately on the flanks the battle was going better, the Light Infantry got to the baggage and captured it and the Scottish Pike destroyed one of the Swiss Pike Blocks causing some disorder on the French long bowmen behind. This was important as the French are a small army and they now had destroyed forces, a dead general, captured baggage, and a lot of disruption. The French launched the rest of the knights into the action, and the wounded general got into combat with the bowmen.
Position at end of Turn 5:
Gully
Bowmen
Baggage
LI
Field
Swiss LI
Bowmen
Swiss
Bowmen
Bowmen
Swiss
Knights
Field
Pikemen
Plantation
Knights
Knights
Bowmen
Bowmen
Knights
Low Hill
Peasants
Field
Baggage
The battle was now in the final stage, the French were only one disorder or a destroyed unit away from defeat, which was likely to happen on the Scottish left where the pike had contacted the bowmen, and were throwing everything in against the Swiss Pike block, including overlaps and the general into combat. This was vital because all was collapsing on the Scottish right. The Bowmen hit by the Knights were quickly destroyed and Knights could not last much longer and were attacked in the rear by the victorious Knights after beating the bowmen. The main concern was getting the general out without losing him as if lost the Scottish would be near breaking.
Fortunately the Swiss finally broke, and the French bowmen in the centre were disordered, and the game was over.
Final positions at end of the game:
Gully
Bowmen
Baggage
LI
Field
Swiss LI
Bowmen
Swiss
Bowmen
Bowmen
Knights
Field
Pikemen
Knights
Plantation
Knights destroyed
Bowmen
Knights
Knights
Low Hill
Peasants
Field
Baggage
The final result was a Scottish Victory. Max was magnanimous in defeat putting down the Scottish success to the key moment when the centre knights retreated avoiding destruction, without that the French would probably have won before the Swiss collapsed.
If all my competition games were this much fun I would want to play them every week.
Blimey it worked NOT IN THE FORUM, SORRY ABOUT THIS!. So thanks for the report, it was a champion effort.
Lastly, I played Bryan, Medieval Spanish ( with the Portuguese option) against Medieval German. the terrain went down so Bryan lined up between some fields and a village. I closed him down as quickly as I could, before his very strong knight wing could get out in the open in front of the village. My English ally was at the other end of the line, and went full speed for the safety of the enclosed fields. Once there, they out shot and out fought anything they came up against. In the middle, my line of foot knights and militia spear closed against Bryan's spear and swordsmen. Not surprisingly, my elite foot knights did well and my militia spear did badly. Bryan's big knight command was slowly winning. It looked like I had it in the bag, 10-17 (with both of us going on 20) Bryan then had a good turn, his knights finished off their opposition and he fragmented the middle of my line, making it 17-19 in my favour. However, I had penetrated in the middle of his line, and with a swift flank attack, took him over the break point and secured the victory. A very enjoyable game that nearly turned dramatically!
A long report, but I hope you enjoyed it. The leagues are taking shape now, so keep playing the games and I hope we will have more to report on this friday.
Tony
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