The theme, Eastern armies, and there were 22 of us! What's not to love?
Who knew there were that many Eastern armies out there...
Matthew Poole and Malay for me, interesting!
The army has an absolutely solid core of spears, two units of foot archers, one amazing, the other... Well, you'll see! ;) It also has two amazing units of cavalry. Each base costing 314 points, that's more than some people's units! It makes a deadly strike force, I just wish it was bigger, sixes would be awesome!
So, game one, vs Matthew's Malay. Never fought it before. In fact, never seen it before!
The terrain, very dense jungle (most terrain was lost to the secure flank on the right). All this terrain went down and then I did point out to Matthew that all my troops were either Loose of Flexible, and terrain did not bother me! His face fell rather...
My initial deployment, my village fell well, slap in the middle, a forest protected my flanks, and three ambush markers were out.
On ambushes, in MeG they are great, they allow you to deploy forwards of your deployment area, and you get to see more of your opponent's army. However, if you choose badly, you will end up with troops in the wrong place!
On another table, Roger Pitfield deploys 15 bases of elephants, plus elephant general, with two nellies per bases. Richard had 6, and I'm surprised the table didn't collapse under the weight of lead!
Welcome to the Jungle! Matthew's army consorted of 8 elephants (plus four elephant generals), and hordes and hordes of shield cover, melee expert loose unprotected foot. And one unit of superior cavalry...
Oh, he's got 'Fleet of Foot' too, which means his foot move at 4BW a turn. Yoiks!! In the village my average bows spring their ambush, defending the Bitsa Wispa!
Swimming round this impassable obstacle is my two units of superior cavalry face down elephants, bows and Matthew's superior cavalry. 8 bases vs 14. I'm outnumbered, but I massively outclass him there. As long as I avoid the nellies, I will be okay, maybe.
Matthew approached, and this was my first shot with my powerbow armed samurai. (It was only after I remembered he was unprotected and should have rolled 3 x yellows, oh well!) Each green die has 1 skull, so this is the equivalent of 3 x 6 on a 6 sided dice, in one roll.
Today is going to be a good day!
Over on the left, one samurai cavalry avoids the nellies, like crazy, a +4 charge is not pleasant, but behind the trunkies, I charge down his bows. Where are his cavalry? Well, they had already lost to my cavalry (hence the wide formation and missing base), but had beaten up my horse, which is why the two bases are avoiding those elephants..
Back in the centre, my two units of allied spears died to a flank charge, plus elephants, plus warriors, yeah, it was weight of numbers! However, if you look left, I blew through two more units of his warriors (I had also caught a unit of skirmishers with a charge, always a bonus). His elephants on the left died shortly after, which brings up an awful lot of RED KaBs (Kill a Base tests are aways one worse when an elephant dies near you).
Talking of KaBs for dead elephants, Matthew tried to charge my damaged cavalry again with his other elephants (and the one in the back is a general), but was shot down (not these dice).
Hell of a game, we timed out at 12-6, it was a lot closer than it looks, his foot were starting to chew mine up and my flanks were going to be toasted by flank charges.
Game 2: Adrian Pitfield and Later Nomadic Mongol
Adrian and I had met at Derventio II, and he has obviously learnt a lot since that game. He chose to ambush AND flank march! Lots and lots of on table cavalry, all bar a few superiors, all bar a few skilled bows. My samurai, a largly foot army could have been in real trouble!
We join the action on turn 2, after I remembered to pick up my camera (oops). Again a forest secures my flanks, and those figures heading off into the distance, they are my allies walking straight towards his camp while pushing back his light horse (1700+ points to deal with a grand total of about 500 there)! My cavalry is taking wounds from shooting, but so is his! More importantly, a flank march had appeared on my right, it had ridden straight past my cam (average and he forgot to charge it for 3 turns) and was going to cause me issues.Thankfully, drilled Ashugaru are dead cheap to turn around, and with a general formed Samurai aren't that expensive either!
And this is what happens when superior long spear and general hit cavalry with an overlap...
At the death, we are both attacking each other's camps (yes, I get there with infantry). HE caused 1 1/2 bases of damage to me, I nearly broke his! Powerbow armed infantry and cavalry were tearing huge lumps out of his cavalry. I had lost a unit of Ashugaru, and had broken him. 15-2.
This left me on 27 points, coming into the third round and the second day in fourth, I was drawn against the great 'War Doctor' David Parish. The problem with playing the Doctor is he is such a nice guy, you spend most of the game in fits of giggles.
I had faced this army at Campaign last year, and had come off worst against it, so this time I needed to play cleaver, especially if we knew the result of either of us getting a decent result was to have to play Alasdair, the undisputed champion of the world (or MeG anyway). We did briefly discuss taking each other down 12-12 and letting someone else take the fall...
The table. Look, two Samurai villages, these Chinese are in our spot! David's army is beautiful, and such colourful fun. He also took an ally, allowing him to basically take 1 of every troop type! War wagons, check! elephants (superior), check! Skilled bows, check! Decent cavalry, check! Artillery, check! Crossbow armed units, with a bloke with a cut and cruch weapon, AND attached artillery, check! Tribal foot, check! Angy cattle with explosives tied to their side... are you kidding me, of course he has! Why wouldn't you take a unit like that, it's insane!! It was also HUGE! Breaking it before he got me, maybe...
Dave's army in all it's glory.
Egads, it's impressive!
This wall of war wagons, purposely positioned to take on my cavalry and deny a flank, it's like he's played me before! Backed up by oxen, spears, cannon and elephants. Yeah...
That's a LOT of firepower there (even his elephants shoot)!
My cavalry appear and move in like TIE interceptors. My powerbow armed foot also countermarched to deal with the expensive flank units coming my way (superior melee expert vs war wagons, let's try it). About this point in time, I was frantically asking our rules expert RJC about various things I could do. You know it's fun and a rare occasion when even he digs into the rules!
The answer is this, it costs a yellow for ANY cavalry to dismount to attack war wagons (meaning you are only on a -2 on impact and a -1 in melee, not -4 at impact or -2 for cavalry in melee). I dismounted one unit of Samurai archers and they carried on on foot to reach the war wagons.
The red dice shows how much their powerbows had slowed his warwagons, and since he only moves 2 BW a turn that was rather useful!
Behind, in a blur of flesh, my mounted samurai clash into the oxen. This was an almost suicidal move on my part, if I get this wrong, David rolls an 'S' on the die, and it counts as a skull (instant kill). This could hurt.
Good thing I was 3 up...
What could possibly go right?
I killed the oxen in melee, but had lost a base at impact. However, David might have overloaded his barrels with power. Three units were in KaB range. Two took skulls, one took a wound that was enough to also kill a base.
That was quite a hole! My cavalry ended up walking around dazed...
After taking losses to crossbows on the way in, my samurai broke the war wagons. Meanwhile, David had charged my superior skilled powerbows with his superior elephants and had lost a basew immediately to skilled bowfire. He had impacted, but it ws not enough, the steely determination of the Japanese warrior elite cut through the poor (superior actually-Ed) nellies.
Meanwhile, to their right, my superior long spears vs short spear armed allies was going rather my way too!
To the far right, I did not have enough cards to withstand 7 units against 4, but I was selling myself dear. Two units of ashugau were catching the arrows of David's skilled archers, crossbows and artillery. Beyond them, my allies were holding up four foot units and a cavalry force. It was a brave and noble action, honest!
After charging me in the rear as I tried to run away, David's elephant damaged cavalry failed to hit! My Samurai cavalry turned around and decked him! It was not pleasant. In the far village, my average, protected bows with attached general were relaxing after dispatching those poor, unprotected, combat shy crossbows. I lost a base in return for 8 of his. It was brutal.
Even his artillery took a Kab for seeing his cavalry break!
Not sure I need all those cards at the moment! My Samurai, pursuing elephants, had crashed into David's allied spears, breaking them too, at which point his gun crews decided that standing on your own, in an open field, surround by blood-thirsty headhunters was not conducive to their long term survival and legged it!
David's bows smash into my ashiugaru and then continue into their neighbours. My superior allied unit enjoy meeting and mushing poor foot too.
A relaxing unit of bows survey the scene.
My Samurai cavalry try to take David's camp and it would all be over. Not quite on the charge.
My Allies had done a good job holding up the flank on their own, breaking a missile armed troop and winning me the game. 15-6.
So, going into round 4, I was ecstatic. A great game against a good competitor who I had finally beaten, now if I was to get lucky, Jason would be playing Alasdair and I could have a great game to finish the weekend.
Except Jason only scored 10 in his third game, meaning he was two points behind me!
I was in second, and was playing arguably the best player around, Alasdair!
Bugger!
Game 4: Alasdair.
A wargaming god, what could I do? He had already chewed up Ade, Paul and Nik, all better players than I (I say chewed, I mean defeated them soundly, but in an utterly gentlemanly type way).
However, the omens hinted of something...
Forest on the flank, two villages again. Lots of terrain had disappeared off table already, but still enough for me to anchor my front and flanks and put out three ambushes (the right hand one was a dummy and the Post-It did not move all weekend). See those lonely cavalry out right, Alasdair forgot powerbows have a 5BW range! They soon retreated...
The lines advance. My cavalry clashes with his. His warriors (pavaise, short spear, some get unskilled javelins) crash into my bows in the village (who I think were hung over after the last game), but held the line long enough for superior long spears to be brought up in and take down a unit before they themselves left the field.
There was much too-ing and fro-ing. Something miraculous was happening. For every unit Alasdair took of mine, I was claiming one of his! Pity his army has a much higher breakpoint than mine! In this show, we stand at 2 units a piece!
His cavalry try to deal my breakthrough (losing a cavalry unit in the process hurts!
Many flank charges went into my forces as I struggled to do damage, but it wasn't really happening. I was fighting back. This is the deadpool (ignore the skirmishers in the wood) that Alasdair had, At this point, I was actually ahead (having lost four, I broke on 5).
But it was not to be, Alasdair had the deck and chose his fights wisely (he had two more units on the verge of breaking, but too late). 10-15 to the boss!
Rollcall 2019
|
Player Name
|
Army
|
Score
|
|
Alasdair Harley
|
Ghurid
|
60
|
|
Jason Broomer
|
Rashtrakutras & Rajput
|
55
|
|
Will Denham
|
Sengoku Japanese
|
52
|
|
Anthony Leroy
|
Wei & later Qiang
|
47
|
|
Laurence Donohoe
|
Takeda
|
47
|
|
Lance Flint
|
Ghurid
|
46
|
|
Lee Sanders
|
Eastern Han
|
42
|
|
Richard Jeffrey-Cook
|
Gupta
|
42
|
|
Robin Spence
|
Tuyuhun
|
41
|
|
Simon Elliott
|
Yuan Chinese & Goryeo Korean
|
41
|
|
Adrian Nash
|
Eastern Han
|
37
|
|
Peter Simpson
|
Rajput & Early Tibetan
|
36
|
|
Nicholas Gaukroger
|
Shatuo & Southern Tang
|
36
|
|
Stephen Stead
|
Northern Song
|
35
|
|
David Parish
|
Ming Chinese & Shan Allies
|
35
|
|
Paul Cummins
|
Joseon Korean
|
33
|
|
Peter Cross
|
Ming Chinese
|
32
|
|
Bruce Rollett
|
Northern Song
|
31
|
|
Peter Entwistle
|
Later Xiongnu
|
29
|
|
Adrian Pitfield
|
Later Nomadic Mongol
|
28
|
|
Matthew Poole
|
Malay
|
26
|
|
Roger Pitfield
|
Champa
|
22
|
|
Nigel Emsen
|
Joseon Korean
|
17
|
|
Ray Duggins
|
Silla Korean
|
N/A
|
3rd!! 10 points of Alasdair, absolutely ecstatic!
I even won prizes! A Lurkio miniatures voucher, a copy of 'Pikeman's Lament' rules, a floppy BHGS dice tray, and at least two weeks bragging rights until I get stomped at Campaign on the 11th and 12th May. 
Comments
Post a Comment