Provancal -
Where? In Early Medieval times, turn right at Nice, no the city, not the biscuit, stretching from the Alps to the Pyrenees via Marseillie. Apart from a nice sauce, what on Earth is a Provancal MeG list?
See below, but basically a monotype 'stodge' tribal infantry with short spear shieldwall, tribal and close, either poor or average, short spear melee expert formed cavalry, either average or superior, skirmishing archers, skirmishing short spear & javelins. I managed to get 7/3 on pre-battle cards, that's better than quite a lot of my professional lists! Generals: I went Legend to control terrain and give something some bite, a talented internal ally (cheap and reliable, why not when you are instinctive), a further competent and mediocre to control the infantry. As long as they don't meet mounted horse archers, elephants, or anyone with an axe, they will be okay...
So... Why on Earth a Provancal list? I wanted to avoid my usual Anglo-Scottish bias, and in the Dark Ages that does not really leave many options with the figures I own, Sassanids, or erm... Anglo-Scots bias armies, but I did have a bunch of new cavalry figures bought from Neil, a Roman army with lots of spare militia and Pendraken on call. A flick through the Early Medieval pdfs to find what I could field, I ended up in Frankia, I came across Provancal; which means Karmarge! That's not a typo, it's Moorcock, and was soon reminiscing about my teenaged years and the Sci-Fi section of Shrewsbury Library,
I also own the 1986 'Eternal Champion' boxed set, so BC5a Hawkmoon as an internal allied commander it was!
Quick spruce up, he's ready to go along with Jheri-a-Cornel as my mediocre commander!
This has to be the slimmest pretence to use an army EVER!
So round 1: Simon Clarke and Hephthalite (what?)
Simon we all know, but Hephthalite? Simon had brought his beautifully painted Mikes Models Hephthalite, (formally known as White Huns), a maybe-related-to-Huns-or-not nomadic horse archers army that settled in Bactria and India in the 5th Century CE. Oh look, horse archers, with elephants!
DAMMIT! Two of the main troop types I didn't want to face...
The table fell my way (mostly due to Count Brass being a legend in his own lunchtime). Terrain all fell on the centre line, on the right, ploughed fields, in the centre rocky ground and a wood, another rock lump to Simon's base line, and he thoughfully provided two marshes to squeltch through.
To the left, Simon placed three cavalry, and (gulp) elephants. I faced this with three foot and a superior cavalry, on the right sat five cavalry and another batch of elephants (gulp again), some of which were heading towards me through the rocks. To the rear Simon had two units of mixed Indain foot and a unit of four poor cavalry. I faced this with 3/4 of my cavalry and the rest of my infantry. This was going to be a tough, tough fight!
Simon quickly cleared the marshes on the left and three units of fast moving horse archers were in my face. Three heavy tribal infantry and two javelin armed skirmishers were the bulk of my forces here. This was going to be death by white or green (as most of his troops were cantabrian or skilled) shooty dice for my forces. The elephants trundled up behind. My archers on the right had the cavalry on the right under fire for most of the game, while my superior cavalry looked at the gap between the wood and the rocks and the approaching three units of enemy horse and wondered whether they had been sold a pup!
On the right, six cavalry units masked the elephants, as three cavalry and three infantry with attached skirmishers (and lots of spare underwear being put) on faced them! My archers pushed forwards into the rocks, but were deployed too wide so were only shooting on black dice that could only slow (stupid mistake on my part).
My superior cavalry advance to counter the threat of the four cavalry coming through the rocks, as they squish my bows who fail to do owt (0-1).
My poor spears lurk at the rear, hoping they will never actually have to be used. It's all wall-to-wall as Simon shows his garden redesign skills in the rocky ground.
CONTACT! My superior cavalry crash into the single line of horse peeking out the rocks.
Impact was not so great, just a wound, bit embarrassing from the guard! Melee was even worse! Red with yellow overlap! Come on boys, work out which way round your weapons go!
Skirmishers vs skirmishers on the far right, both in bad going, both hitting each other with handbags!
On the left, my skirmishing archers decided that they should show how it was done, casuing a wound and a slow on unprotected cavalry who were not in arc/range to hit us back.
Back in the rocks in the centre, my superior cavalry finally work out how to hit something, and break Simon's cavalry (2-1). Six superior melee experts vs 4 unprotected, should have been a lot more effective. Guards - pah!
This leds them nicely onto Simon's next unit, as they are in charge range even when slowed by boulders and ruins. I decide best to get involved properly and two more of my cavalry charge the other approaching units, and to cover my flank, the infantry engage too. In the fields to the right, another of Simon's units is fighting one of my tribal close foot, where weight of numbers will (maybe) prevail in my favour.
Back to the tricky left...
If you are non-shooty foot what do you do about shooty horse? Basically, get in their face, take the arrows and push them back. So three charges go in, and when one of the units you are targetting is already beaten up by archers, it helps.
ALMOST got him! However, it does allow the nellies in to face my foot. Drat. It's almost like he planned it!
In the centre, a unit of six of Simon's horse lose 3 out of 6 bases. Not enough to break him, but it delays my breakthrough long enough for the second elephant unit to commence their final approach.
Further right, my foot breaks to the beaten up cavalry unit (2-3) and Simon is in my backfield and his life is looking rosy, doing what horse archer armies do so well. Simon's skirmishers pull out of combat and both sides stare at each other and shoot things instead.
Back to the left and the elephants decide to charge, my infantry brace and cause some decent hits on the way in causing three wounds! To their left, Simon breaks off a cavalry unit after taking three hits from my infantry who had expanded to engage his whole line.
But he does not have the cards to do it again (he was hampered by bad cards most of the game), and we both take each other to a hit from breaking, interesting place to be!
Simon's two central cavalry units dissolve (6-3) but it means that one of my files is in bad going while facing elephants (who ignore it), OUCHIES! Thankfully they were joined by my legandary Count Brass whose file puts in enough hurts so the elephants are a hit off breaking!
You know on the left, that one hit off breaking combat? Well, I didn't hit, and Simon did! (6-3) His pursuit leaves him in shooting range of my javelin armed skirmishers who only need a wound on two white dice to break them! Nope, missed!
Simon had seen the danger on the left and pulled all his horse out of range of breaking elephants, as needing only a hit, my white dice apologised and provided what was needed to drop the Provancal ivory prices! (8-3)
Provancal ivory traders are REALLY going to have a good day when the cavalry broke the second elephant unit, exposing Simon's poor Indian cavalry and two units of camp guards and the soft underside of the army (10-3) (Oh go on then, here's the Armadillo advert)
Guards against his poor cavalry, guards against spears, legend vs the flank of the bow/spears. It's all to play for!
Crunch!
At the same moment, Simon's cavalry that had burst through on the left turned about and crashed into one unit of my spears (10-5) and were just teeing up to break their second unit from their pursuit...
The impact of my legendary general and horse on the flank of the camp guards strips out two bases from a file, double skull! NICE (and we don't mean the city this time)!
His spears lose another base on impact, the cavalry loses two bases on impact too, and it's all down to the melee phase now.
And that was it, with the cavalry and spears disintergrating, my 'can't win a thing' list pulls off a 15-5 win! Lunch and regroup before the afternoon.
Game 2: Kev Brewin and Sassanid Persians (Or how to lose a game in two turns)
. Stick to the plan, force hin to come to me, take him apart piece by piece, dead cert win!
So, why in the name of all that is holy did I send 3/4 of my cavalry haring off on their own and let him flank them by the end of turn 1 and allowing them to crush me by turn 2?
Seriously, I've had brain-farts in my time, but as soon as I made my move I knew I had really really REALLY done something stupid.
It was now not a matter of could I win, but how many points could I claw back out of my inevitable loss?
So, what you see here is Kev's charges in turn two, my can-I-get-away-with-it charges, and bottom left my counter charge to stop the left hand side getting flanked by my guard cavalry. I have three units, two average, one superior. Kev from left to right has unprotected horse trying to get my flank, catafracts (fully armoured long spear shove), superior short spear cavalry, and flanking me, superior short spear cavalry. This was definitely Kev's to win,
And boy did he win it with style! On the left my first unit evaporated to his charge, allowing him straight into my second, which lost two bases immedieately. My guard cavalry missed completely, Guards - phah! (0-2)
Elsewhere on the battlefield, two of my infantry units ganged up pretty effectively to beat up a cavalry unit, breaking them and dropping his general a level (2-2)..
But my success was short lived, as my two other cavalry units crumpled like a 2018 Fiat Punto. (2-6) Leaving my supporting infantry with nothing to support, and a swarm of Sassanid cavalry about to enter my backfield.
On the left, I would say I fared better, but that would be a lie. Three Sassanid cavalry units, with a reserve, vs two Provancal! Exhausted from the frst game, my dice deserted me, and had a feeling I was going down with my ship.
These are the cards of a Legendary general desperate to get across table to rejoin his last cavalry unit...
My next success came on the far right, where I managed to use infantry to push light horse off the table edge (flat earthers look away now) for another point (3-6) But with two attached generals, we could not stand in front of the mighty horse lords, and soon my infantry was in danger too.
And that infantry died (3-8), whcih was unpleasent for me, but well deserved for Kev.
A well won game by Kev, who thorough deserved all the points after I threw it away. He went on to score a decent 6th with 46 points overall! I stood after two games on 20 points, a respectable total for a new and heavy infantry list, and better than some weekends with an unexpected win already.
Two great games in day 1, I was off for a night at my mates, so my results were bound to be worse if last time's hangover had been anything to go by!
Comments
Post a Comment