Last weekend saw us troops down to the Lee Valley Athletics Centre (the very antithesis of most wargamers, for 14 of us, and about 990 other Wargamers of all types, to play games.
The venue, light, airy, decent beer (at almost decent prices), banked track, lots of seating and easily accessible from Leighton Buzzard. Just needed more toilets!
I plumped for my present favourite, MeG, and the runners and riders were...
And this is our global positions, I'm claiming Britain, so neh!
Why Romans? Why Imperial Romans?
Because I have an MA in Roman Military History, and I love the army. However, prior to this, the most powerful army in the world was lingering low down on the overall army ranking, mostly because I had not done well in previous iteration of the army, including dead last at the worlds a few years back. My aim was to boost the rankings of the army, a bit, hopefully!
My list.
So, why the list. Erm... lots of melee experts, mostly all impact weapons, large chunk of superior, an exceptional unit, superior cavalry, and naff bows (to make sure I have a decent breakpoint). For a long time I had included auxilia, catafracts and light horse, but they had never done well (as you can see from Reading last year). You might notice this list only generates nine cards a go, and has nine units, it is absolutely set up to use every card, no matter how poor.
Game 1: Vs Stephen and his Northern Song
Northern Song, classic Chinese, many crossbows, lots of polearms, and some decent cavalry (even catafracts, which he did not use.
Northern Song, sounds fun!
The terrain fell my way, mountains and mountains! In fact, every game was mountains, with me defending. Nice clear centre, busy flanks, nice!
Two of the world's greatest empires eye each other up. Shooty foot vs heavy melee foot.
Stephen unleashes his secret weapon, thunder oxen! Cows with grenades!
Easiest thing to do is to step back and avoid them! The rest of my forces apply chaos theory in an attempt to drag Stephen out.
Everyone braces for the inevitable as the cows approach.
And they charge (should have rotated this, sorry)!
And they fail to do anything!
And die on the spot, as the Romans decide amongst themselves what they are cooking tonight!
Sorry, back to the battle. The Romans go picking on units, catching one of Stephen's cavalry in the flank centre right, while he tries to shoot one of my units down (shield cover is great, especially as you can buy through it)..
I catch and kill a base of horse as he shoots one of my units (0-2).
Drilled horse, breaking off, drat! This also leaves my flank hanging, dangerous!
My heavy foot, somewhat slowed by many crossbow shots, approach the Chinese line.
All I needed was a decent set of cards. Blow!
Better get on with it then!
After lunch, and a lounge on the banking on the track, I was drawn against Robin and his Mid-Republican Romans with Pergamon ally. A Roman civil war (give or take a time machine)
Robin just gets his allies on side (all black and white and an ally become unreliable, further all white or black means they might not move and start taking Kill A Base Tests).
Beautiful figures Robin, just stunning mate!
Thanks Cid for the beer! Yummy!
I surge forwards, attempting to pin the auxilia clearing the rough in the centre, while my cavalry moves right, and immediately realises that they had loused up their movement and would have to extricate them from this quickly! On the left, my superiors and exceptionals go for the kill on Robin's average legions.
A shaky shot, as Robin sends his 4 of Roman cavalry to support his auxilia. My average legion decides it isn't having these equite nobles bossing them about, and smash lumps out of the bankers!
Robin closes in on my other average legions with his spears, pikes and superior lancers, this is quite a pinning action, and will need decent cards to save my bacon.
Hot legion on legion action! Both of us have impact weapons and I'm better quality, but Robin has four units here to my three.
Melee experts and superior doesn't do much for average cavalry and their chances of survival (2-0)!
My legions engage Robin's while my foot smash into the flank of one of Robin's pike blocks in the centre. His lancers expand, eyeing up my average troops on the right, while the cavalry try to sort themselves out...
Superior impact weapons vs a flank, yummy! That's a lot of damage to a phalanx for one attack.
The inevitable flank (Robin 12 unit, me 9, gotta happen somewhere) but my better troops are starting to chew lumps out of the citizen farmers.
Robin crashes into my average legion with superior lancers and a pike block, amazingly, they hold.
18 average bases vs 5 exceptionals. I know who my money should be on.
Hit by elephants, auxilia and pike, my legion disintegrates, but not before taking a fair few farmers, elephants and Greeks with them. (2-2)
My average legion, needing support, got it in the shape of an average legion taking some flack from the pikes, and my superior cavalry smash into Robin superior lancers, and, because he was carrying a wound already, three kills is enough to smash the pride of Pergamon nobility. (4-2)
Trading units, Robin loses two legions and an elephant to my one average and an exceptional (8-6). Soon a pike block would die, and I would pick up a much needed 15-6.
Two games in, I'm on 19 for, and a lowly 10 against. Still more points than the Worlds 2017! :)
Game 3, and my lord, it's Jason! Superior impact weapon melee experts with knights and light horses (cowering at the back), danger abounds, decent foot, with a great player. Somehow I never seam to take any photos when playing him, probably because he beats me in very quick order!!
SO, one hour and 27 minutes later, my army lies in tatters after an excellent scrap. I did manage to kill 3 out of his 4 knights, and managed to pick up 6 points off him, my best ever score against him.
Another scenic shot, as I digest my tea and wonder how I was going to come back from 25 points for and 25 against, fear my mediocrity!
Sunday, and after a game of Quartermaster General vs Hammy in the wee small hours (lost that one too), and a sausage and bacon fry-up in the morning, Hammy having camped out on the sofa bed, we returned to the scene of yesterday's dust-ups, and I was facing RJC's Timurids, many many superior, skilled, melee expert horsemen, skilled bows on foot, and more elephants. What can possibly go right? Lots of cavalry friendly terrain then for Richard, while my attempts to fill the front with terrain missed.
Two forces eye each other up expectantly, as two mismatched boxers wonder what to do. Guess I'll be using more shieldcover then! This one was not a case of if I lose, but how much could I lose by!
Keep the line, walk forwards, keep those shields up. My cavalry reacts by swinging left, against 2 cavalry and 2 cantabrian archers, a tough fight, but I might get lucky.
Several turns later, you can see the mess I'm making of this! One unit shot away (0-2) My infantry has been pulled apart and in the wood, my vain attempt to take on elephants was in trouble. I had detached a legion to deal with the cavalry threat as the horse archers were starting to cause hits on my horses.
Impact, can we hold? Can we get the nellies? 4 units in the area should be enough to deal with two, right?
I get lucky, I catch RJC's skirmish horse units on a charge, after he rolled massively low for them. 2 1s and 2 twos, a -2 move and a -1 move, seriously. (2 [one each for skirmishers]-2) and I'm in contact with one his cavalry.
Weren't there four units here? The elephants chewed through 1 already (2-4) and are on their main course. My flank is raw too, good thing it's 1BW in a forest so he can't see me to charge my flank..
Backed into a town edge, I catch RJC's cavalry with my superiors.
While my legion obliterates the other cavalry, (4-4) my superiors would do the do. (6-4)
Just coz...
Charged in three directions, my exceptionals put up a good fight. They would die, but do take a unit with them on the way down. (8-6)
Those damned elephants! They take out their second unit. (8-8) RJC also minces my bows, but could as easily have shot other units to pieces, and rear charges one of my legions, winning comprehensively, great game, happy with my result. (8-15)
Going into game 5, I'm on, erm, not much, 33 for and 40 against! Not looking good then.
Game 5 vs Lance with his Rouran Khaganite, and oh look, more horse archers. 17 TuGs of them. This was going to be another shieldwall fest. Jeez, wall to wall horses - yoiks!
I was looking good.
London GT Final Scores
Richard Jeffrey-Cook Timurid 63
Jason Broomer Catalan Company in Anatolia 58
Nik Gaukroger Middle Sasanid Persian 55
Stephen Stead Northern Song 50
Will Denham Imperial Roman 48
Laurence Donohoe Hussite 43
Paul Cummins Feudal German 40
James Hamilton Middle Sasanid Persian 33
Adrian Pitfield Norman 32
Lance Flint Rouran Khaganate 32
Peter Cross Alamanni 30
Robin Spence Mid Republican Roman 29
Roger Pitfield Champa 23
Peter Entwistle Medieval Portuguese 22
Somehow, I had come 5th, having lost to 1st, 2nd and drawn with 4th. Not quite sure how that happened, but no one had a perfect weekend, so was always close. Romans are redeemed, especially in an open competition where they usually don't do well.
Top weekend, looking forwards to the next one already!
Really enjoyed the read, thanks for all the photo's and hard work that has gone into the post ...impressed that you can match so many pictures to the right text.
ReplyDeleteAfter neasrly a week, so am I Norm!
DeleteThankfully, my phone date and time stamps
Hi will, I've really enjoyed all your battle reports. By the way, I played Richard J Cook at Britcon last year and got 4/7 points off his Mongols with Song Chinese.
ReplyDeleteKind regards,
Tommy.