Mortem et Gloriam - testing for God Will's It (II)

Paul and I met up at Leighton Buzzard Wargames Club for a playtest of of our planned armies for the upcoming God Will's It Crusader themed competition. My army was still in the process of being painted at this point (it's done now), so there will be unfinished figures on table - tough!

This was our third attempt, after my efforts with Lithiuanians fell to a 0-15, and my possible list fell 6-15, could I better it?

Deployment fell right, with me holding the terrain where I wanted it in dense, and Paul not rolling his usual barrel full of 6s to remove EVERYTHING! In fact I managed to secure the flank with a tasty wood, and the centre with a village and Paul plopped in a marsh, it was playing into my hands rather well. My skirmishers held the village, and my infantry and guns stretched the front line while my cavalry lurked behind. Paul sent his skirmishers out wide left, and his horse came in..


Here you can see the horse master at work, trying out ideas.


People keep accusing me of taking these rules too seriously, well, who is the Muppet now?

Dodging my guns, Paul send in his lighter cavalry on the left, while on the right heavy and SERIOUSLY heavy cavalry comes into the centre, to the far right, he tries to pull my line apart to provoke chaos theory, would it work?


Paul tries something, six flexible unprotected cavalry vs two artillery behind barricades, an interesting meeting of units. The result was spectacular, and bloody, for both of us!


In the right wood, my infantry decide that they do not want cavalry riding past them, and push them out, while my Muppets ride round like headless chickens to provide support..

In an unexpected, but really quite amusing moment, the guns AND the cavalry break simultaniously! (2-1), my general scampers off to the infantry, while one of my reserve cavalry units thumbs through the rulebook to see if they can occupy the empty gun pits?


Paul sends in some even more heavy cavalry, who meet my normal and upgraded crossbows. I killed a base and a half on the way in, wow!


Next door a unit of superiors also pile in, and in the process lost a base too. Hwever, Paul has shoot and charge, which he is a master of which takes out one of my front rank of bulked out crossbows.


Well, that was bloody! His heavy horses in white blow through my better crossbows, leaving a rather large hole, (2-3) and this also kills a base on my Muppet cavalry with a KAB. The enemy extra heavy cavalry ends up toe-to-toe with my reserve knight, but only needing a hit to break. My normal crossbows go down fighting, and they also take an enemy superiors with them (4-5). Ironically at this point we both lost an inspirational general and both of us had lost all the troops in their command, they were not coming back and we were both down to three commanders each!


Boom! The Teutons go down... (they are also dropped from future lists from Paul in disgrace, so don't expect to see them at GWI folks). (6-5)


My knights pile through, finding a tasty unit of Paul's cavalry with their flank in the open (they would not stay there long).
 

What has been missing here was the action on the left, where Paul's unprotected cavalry had hit my other(!) artillery battery, both had perished. (8-6) On the far left, to save my flank, one of my reserve cavalry units tangles with another of Paul's cavalry and fails to stand (8-8). One of my infantry units is pushing one of Paul's cavalry right to the back line. We were in the end game, I was swinging left, while he was pulling back left! Can I catch the horse lord? Probably not as I had left an infantry unit with my flank exposed. Oops...


Paul lobs in a flank charge as my foot scare off a unit of his cavalry and my cavalry attempt to move up.


However, Paul's attack blunted, I turned to face and was dealling heavy damage, and I had him a wound off breaking when Paul capitulated (15-8)

Wow, what a game! Did not expect to do this much damage. Terrain helped, Paul's experimentation helped, but I also had a huge amount of luck in the dice. Will it hold? (Doubt it. I know Paul has gone and rebuilt his list since). Great game.