The sun rose gloriously over Clem's pad in Lichefield, and after a fabulous night of Mexican take-aways, Duval beer, Dead Man's Fingers rum and a lot of laughing at great movies at my good friend Clem's pad, filled up with an egg and bacon butty and Neurofen plus, I treked the almighty half-an-hour back to Burton in the sunshine and set up for game three.
Game 3: John Munroe and Khwarij
Who?
John, you know, World Champion, oh, you mean the army... Khwarij are rebels against the word of the Prophet (PBUH). John is lethal with this army, an having fought it before back in 2017, I knew my chances were slim (especially after the trouncing by Kev). It's a huge infantry blob of nothingness, supported by masses of cavalry of nothingness, but there are so many of them you can't do anything about it!
The terrain again fell across the middle, two mountains for John, a forest on the flank, a village, rocky ground and wood right across the middle again and a usefull hill on the back edge for my camp and poor troops to sulk on.
Recon cards, are they Belgian or German? We could not decide, but they were evenly matched so as the defender I deployed 33.3333333333% of my army.
Pretty sure that's Belgium?
Anyway, off to the game! On my left Jheri-A-Cornel and his two units are on a delaying action for the three cavalry units approaching not quite as fast as they would like through the rough ground. Seven units of infantry close on the village where my skirmishers wait, two of his units will have to cross the mountains too. On the right, my guard cavalry and two other cavalry units plus some of the Warrior in Jet and Gold's infantry are tasked with stopping John three enveloping my right (yes, he has 13 combat units to my 10 and 4 skirmishers). On the mountain, my archers and a unit of Basques wonder whether light infantry is the right thing for this job?
Well, here's a very rare thing, a straight flush in MeG for a Legendary general. Wonder if that has ever happened before on a comp?
On the left, ,my skirmishers were pushed back and back and destroyed (0-1), Jheri saw an opportunity to do some damage and went for it with his infantry, a flank charge on the corner of John's cavalry crossing the wood but still in the open, could it do some real damage? (Nope)
On the right, the cavalry crashed and bizarrely, I am up on impact. In the forest to their right, my Guard cavalry (phah!) are ridden down by the Arab horse, (0-3) although we do a kill and a wound on the way out.
On the mountain, one of John's eight Khwarij infatry units charges my archers, who had been happily shooting them down to 7 bases, then in melee they do something completly unheard of...
Three skulls in melee, three kills, leaving the infantry badly dented and within a wound of breaking! I also have my Basque short spear javelin armed skirmishers up there, dare I try it? Normally skirmishers cannot charge formed enemies, only if they are within a base of breaking. 
The general situation as time moves on, John has broken through to the left, and my inevitable demise is now assured, but how much damage could I do on the way? Top left Jheri-a-Cornel is now fighting two units of 14 bases frontally with eight. In the centre, two units of cavalry has joined the front line, waiting for John to engage, behind them a unit of 6 foot secures their flank. To their right Hawkmoon and his two units sit and wait for the enemy charge. On the hill the skirmishers are still lining up on John's last infantry in line, while on the right one cavalry is holding down three of John's while my infantry moves up in support.
Blurred by their quick movement, the javelin armed skirmishers charge in.
And here is something your really do not see every day! Badly disadvantaged troops (+3) caught in the flank (+4) by short spear armed skirmishers (+1) who are up hill (+1) but skirmishers are (-2) for difficult terrain still leaves us on a double red, both of which skull!
I break a unit! (2-3). Oh and my infantry charged as well!
The situation, Jheri is still engaged with two units, and although he is missing the cavalry EVERY time, he is whittling away at the infantry, who potentially could break. In the centre one of my cavalry units is engaged, the other stands off due to lack of room for us to charge, while my charging infantry has engaged two of John's foot, causing a base and a wound on each. At the bottom John's cavalry eyes up my other skirmishing archers and weakest infantry unit. My skirmishers watch from the mountain, Basque-ing in their triumph! After the triple skull of the archers and the double skull of the javelins, I was so elated I really did not mind what happened next!
To the right, in danger of being flanked, my cavalry had expanded to engage two of John's mounted units by themselves, desperately holding the flank. The infantry surge forwards to support and to stop the flank charge. Yes, I am at a disadvantage for charging cavalry, but not nearly as much as a disadvantage that a unit charged in the flank gets!
Caught from behind by one of John's cavalry units that had come all the way round from the left, Jheri's unit collapses, but very nearly takes an infantry unit with it! John had had to use three units (20 bases) to deal with 8 of mine! (2-5). Things were now looking shaky off camera to the right John is pushing his infantry forwards to flank my cavalry.
Weellll, actually, it wasn't that bad, as all three of his cavalry on the right had disintergrated in the same turn! I had now broken 4 of his units, which would be enough to nearly shatter my force, but he still had three units to lose. (8-5) My forces could escape on the right, his victory would not be complete!
In the centre. the engaged cavalry is flanked by John's foot, and evaporates (8-7), as does my six of infantry to John's charge plus the skirmishers (after turn after turn of shocking dice by him and amazing dice by me, it really switched round this turn) (8-10). However, above this, my two infantry units caused untold damage on the troops in the village and the mountain, breaking one of them (10-11).
Bit confusing at the end, but with my army shattered, I lose. (15 points to John) but had managed to claw an amazing 10 points out of him. Another turn in the centre without my cavalry collapsing and I might well have swung it. A fabulous game, played with huge amounts of laughter and jokes, an absolutely classic game, and my skirmishers were amazing! (10-15) Ten extra points puts me on 30 for the weekend, by far exceeding my expectations. John would go on to score a well deserved joint third.
Told you it was a glorious day in Burton as I went out for my lunch!
Game 4: vs Phillip Powell and his Bretons
You know, a game vs Phillip is a great way to finish off a weekend.Giggles abound.
The straight flush, from the last game, never seen it before, look, here it is again!
Armies? Terrain? What, is this a wargames blog or something? Oh alright.. The right flank was secured with forests, the left rocky ground, a village and more rocky ground and that was about it! My camp and my Poor Champagne spears. The rest of my infantry anchored on the forests, with skirmishers waiting to assist. The rest of the skirmishers were set out across the front to help break up the approaching horse. The cavalry were deployed back, waiting for the surge from Phillips masses of superior dev chargers! Eek! There's two solid walls of them, that's a heck of a lot of horse flesh coming my way. 9 TuGs, two Sugs of mounted skirmishers.
My cavalry advances. Phillips's skirmishers were sneaking riound the back of the village, so my javelins wandered off to meet them. My archers snuck forwards to a shooting position, Jheri moved up to support the horse, as there five of them, and only four of us! This was going to be tight.
On the right, Phillip moved up in a straight line, Two straight lines,, just as Barker intended. I could see his plan, collapse my horse, flank my foot. It looked like my army would only to happy to oblige!
lancers. This is going to hurt!
Oh look, a guard cavalry unit (phah!) failing to do their thing, again! Pink counters show files that have fought, and one of my guards (phah) has already lost a base and a half vs one and a half across the whole of Mr Powell's line! On the right Count Brass is doing his thing, causing many hits.
Melee phase, and all of Phillip's superior melee experst show their metal, while one of mine disintergrates (Guards - phah)! However, on the outside, two average melee experst hold their own (having a +2 for a legandary general helps A LOT as they lose 0 bases). On the left, we both expand to do extra damage, and miss! I strip off most of Phillip's rear ranks in the centre. Menawhile, Jheri and his 8 engage 6 superiors of Phillip's. Thankfully, shieldwall nullifies mounted melee experts, so I'm only down on one file here.
This may look like a massive brawl, we both parked at 0.00000000000001 Base Width away, waiting for the inevitable charge (if I charge him, I'm down by two, but thankfully, I don't have to charge mounted, instead Phillip was forced to spends cards to hold the line)..
Guards - phah! Okay, they caused a kill and a wound on the way, but off they go! (0-2)
Revenge! Count Brass and his cavalry break through Phillip's line (2-2).
While Jehri and co are dealing the hurts to an allied Fuedal French cavalry unit too.
He went that-a-way! Two cavalry units pass each other on the breaks, my KaBs were slightly more effectie than Phillips.
And his second units collapses and his general drops a command level (4-2) while both cavalry units return to face each other. Thankfully, this stimies a rear charge by Phillip.
Yeah, we are still here, staring at each other, not doing much... My archers are causing some hits on the light horse, but nothing to shout about.
My charge hits home, causing a kill.
Well, he wasn't going to let me off unmolested!
Eventually, Phillip can't get the cards to hold that line, and they come forwards as a mass. This is what it could have looked like?
Out to the far left, Phillips skirmishing horse charge my javelin and short spear troops. I could do some extra damage here!
I don't, my skirmishers evaporate (4-3)
Phillip's French and superior cavalry breaks, aided by javelins from my skirmishers, which cause enough wounds to break the horse. (6-3) Second time these skirmishers have broke an enemy today!
Crunch! After impact, the second rank is still in tact (the third rank may be a one molecule thick layer across the battlefield) but we are causing many more hits on Phillip on my green dice than he causes on me. Quite a few of his units are looking brittle here.
Jheri and his foot break a superior French unit and hurt their general too (8-3) Unfortunately, at the exact same moment Jheri's unit decided it had had enough of this and legged it too! (8-5)
Phillip's line collapsed, and my troops were busy looking up recipes for cheval aux provincal I somehow had reached a 15-5 in an absolutely cracking game. It could so easily have gone wrong for me, and Phillip could have decimated my forces wityh a well timed flank, but luck was on my side..
Total for the weekend was 45 points, putting me in joint 7th, two wins, a close loss and a drubbing far and away exceeded my expectations of this force, which will be out again in the not too distant future (about 9 days from now) in Derby!
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