It's quite a trek for neutral, peace-loving, compulsory conscription and gun owning Switzerland to invade Japan, but they tried it!1
It was quite a fight!
Steve asked me to take him and his BLOODY gorgeous Late Swiss army through a game of MeG. So off to Hammy and Nobby's wonderful new shop Battlefield Hobbies in Daventry (there old one wasn't bad, but the new one, WOW).
Blimey! Those Swiss move quickly! I try to pin the mass march of the Swiss with my cavalry, but one Keil sneaks past with their 4BW fleet of foot super speed. Steve measures for safety.
The lines close, and this is only turn two! I drop my superior skilled powerbow foot and accompanying superior spears back on the left, my allies on the right realise they have to pin two Keils (24 bases) with 14 of average or superior spears (at a net minus when fighting vs those nasty pikes). My cavalry swings in from the right, with options of attacking the back of pikes, or picking on Steve's knights, as do my average bows, who are going for their 'staying out the fight, those Swiss are horrible' badge.
My bows, inspired by Richard Burlew's Order of The Stick's Elan:
I had a plan, not much of one, but I did, honest! My allies were to pin two Keils, my superiors bows and spears to take on the third, and my two other average 8s of spears were to go and deal with the eight halberdiers in the middle. I mean, 16 vs 8, I should be okay?
His cavalry still sit on the baseline, so my cavalry takes a decision, especially as Steve has fed all four of his main combat units in, all with generals fighting. To move anything will need two cards for him now.
My average spears, finding a loose flank on Steve's superior halbardiers (on a +2) achieve a double overlap in melee and an unthinkable roll on (+1 and -1 overlaps). This kills two of Steve's bases, and lets me see how this is going to go as he does a wound back. Yes, it's going to be a slow maul.
The melees continue, with Steve being +3 (superior, 2 ranks of pike) vs either +1 for average long spears or +2 for superior long spears, I was hemorrhaging bases. But, even though Swiss pikes are FANTASTIC, if you hit them in the back, they loose all their pike bonuses (they still count as superior), but the units in the back gets a massive +4 on their charge attack, which allowed my cavalry to effectively kill a base each on impact. Steve then turned his remaining rear bases to face, which takes some stress off my beleaguered spears to the front. Taking a red and green is unpleasant though for Swiss. My average bows helped out by scoring a lot (2) wounds with black dice on the hanging file. It's probably about the same price.
After the next turn, when Steve turned more ranks in, I was planning to break off the cavalry (expensive, but soooo worth it as it keeps me alive, especially as Steve is feeding in second ranks which hurt me lots), but Steve hammered through my allied average Ashugaru (0-2). I got lucky at almost the same moment one Keil collapsed, meaning only one unit needed to pull back. In the meantime, my 16 average spears had dealt with the 8 superior halbardiers. (4-2) Steve is two units down, and breaks on three, but where would I get the third?
Not on the left where my superior bows (melee experts, general, not enough) disintegrate under the weight of cheese and cuckoo inspired pikes (4-4), Fluffy takes a wound and legs it to the superior spears. I line up my other average spears, my average bows and two cavalry units to try to envelop the right hand keil.
The spears and cavalry go in. Steve had turned back to face front to try to break through my superior spears, who, being one stand off breaking, were now also looking massively fragile. But he had left me an open rear. Superior cavalry love those.
Well, that serves me right. First rule of MeG, anything over a red is an automatic miss!
It's a big mess. Four units involved in one brawl. It looks like a truly epic fight, especially with Steve's amazing figures (did I mention them yet?).
Fluffy and his superior spears hold on, desperately, to the left flank.
The allies are close to going! EEEK! Steve brings forwards his knight block (had you forgotten about them?), but my cavalry turns to face, and my other average spear block, despite taking handgunner fire, waits expectantly to deal with them.
Another round of combat, and we throw handbags at each other on the left as we fail to do any damage, either way.
Steve surveys the scene of devastation as his central Keil breaks. Three units is fragile, but still a very hard fight for all. Three units down would normally be a 6-4, but because Steve breaks on 3 ,that gives me a 15-4.
Steve's dead pile. About 25 bases.
At the back are my losses, 23 bases, and two units within a whisker of breaking too. This was a lot closer than it looked, a few better rolls by Steve, and I would be toast.
A cracking game, which we both really enjoyed. As I said earlier, Steve knows he is tweaking his force, but those bug 12 are super nasty. I was able to use the Samurai's cavalry to break through, and I knew my two average units should be enough to get through his halberdiers. My options were to try and hunt his knights with my powerbow cavalry, or kill two TuGs of Keil pikes. He needed to anchor one flank so I could not get round, and that could have secured him the breakthrough. He learnt a lot though, especially on how to turn pikes around.
1 In March 2007, a company of 171 Swiss soldiers mistakenly entered Liechtenstein, as they were disorientated and took a wrong turn due to bad weather conditions. The troops returned to Swiss territory after they had travelled more than 2 km into the country. The Liechtenstein authorities did not discover the incursion and were informed by the Swiss after the incident. The incident was disregarded by both sides. A Liechtenstein spokesman said, "It's not like they invaded with attack helicopters. No problem, these things happen"
It was quite a fight!
Steve asked me to take him and his BLOODY gorgeous Late Swiss army through a game of MeG. So off to Hammy and Nobby's wonderful new shop Battlefield Hobbies in Daventry (there old one wasn't bad, but the new one, WOW).
Steve requested to fight my Senguko Samurai, as it was a) in date, b) not my Tudors, c) my most successful army (He likes a challenge). In the 2020 rewrite, yes, Instinctive generals are more expensive, but as bows all dropped in points, I'm actually up on points here, I can have extra figures! So all my Ashuagru are now in 8s. Muhahaha!
Oh, and my cavalry can gain the 'dismountable' trait, and are still 30 points a base cheaper!
Steve has been building this army for a while, and yes, he knows it needs a few tweaks (knights will be dropped in favour of a second polearm armed foot unit), but he really wanted to try it out. However, this is still an enormously tough list to break!
Three TUGs to break the army, but have you seen the size of those things! 6 kills to break them. Help!
Yes, I did type up the list for Steve, and those were my names for his generals...
The table, in the very dense mountains of Japan (we did not want the Swiss getting homesick), Steve chose four pieces of open terrain (a new terrain type, which replaces 'rough ground' which was too cheesy), which suits his masses of close order troops perfectly. I tried to get both villages, a wood, a lump of rocky ground and more woods. Unfortunately, we ended up with everything bar the one village and a wood on the right, which was filled with open terrain so the rest fell off table (Steve had markers that he removed after)!
Blimey! Those Swiss move quickly! I try to pin the mass march of the Swiss with my cavalry, but one Keil sneaks past with their 4BW fleet of foot super speed. Steve measures for safety.
The lines close, and this is only turn two! I drop my superior skilled powerbow foot and accompanying superior spears back on the left, my allies on the right realise they have to pin two Keils (24 bases) with 14 of average or superior spears (at a net minus when fighting vs those nasty pikes). My cavalry swings in from the right, with options of attacking the back of pikes, or picking on Steve's knights, as do my average bows, who are going for their 'staying out the fight, those Swiss are horrible' badge.
My bows, inspired by Richard Burlew's Order of The Stick's Elan:
I had a plan, not much of one, but I did, honest! My allies were to pin two Keils, my superiors bows and spears to take on the third, and my two other average 8s of spears were to go and deal with the eight halberdiers in the middle. I mean, 16 vs 8, I should be okay?
His cavalry still sit on the baseline, so my cavalry takes a decision, especially as Steve has fed all four of his main combat units in, all with generals fighting. To move anything will need two cards for him now.
My average spears, finding a loose flank on Steve's superior halbardiers (on a +2) achieve a double overlap in melee and an unthinkable roll on (+1 and -1 overlaps). This kills two of Steve's bases, and lets me see how this is going to go as he does a wound back. Yes, it's going to be a slow maul.
The melees continue, with Steve being +3 (superior, 2 ranks of pike) vs either +1 for average long spears or +2 for superior long spears, I was hemorrhaging bases. But, even though Swiss pikes are FANTASTIC, if you hit them in the back, they loose all their pike bonuses (they still count as superior), but the units in the back gets a massive +4 on their charge attack, which allowed my cavalry to effectively kill a base each on impact. Steve then turned his remaining rear bases to face, which takes some stress off my beleaguered spears to the front. Taking a red and green is unpleasant though for Swiss. My average bows helped out by scoring a lot (2) wounds with black dice on the hanging file. It's probably about the same price.
After the next turn, when Steve turned more ranks in, I was planning to break off the cavalry (expensive, but soooo worth it as it keeps me alive, especially as Steve is feeding in second ranks which hurt me lots), but Steve hammered through my allied average Ashugaru (0-2). I got lucky at almost the same moment one Keil collapsed, meaning only one unit needed to pull back. In the meantime, my 16 average spears had dealt with the 8 superior halbardiers. (4-2) Steve is two units down, and breaks on three, but where would I get the third?
Not on the left where my superior bows (melee experts, general, not enough) disintegrate under the weight of cheese and cuckoo inspired pikes (4-4), Fluffy takes a wound and legs it to the superior spears. I line up my other average spears, my average bows and two cavalry units to try to envelop the right hand keil.
The spears and cavalry go in. Steve had turned back to face front to try to break through my superior spears, who, being one stand off breaking, were now also looking massively fragile. But he had left me an open rear. Superior cavalry love those.
Well, that serves me right. First rule of MeG, anything over a red is an automatic miss!
It's a big mess. Four units involved in one brawl. It looks like a truly epic fight, especially with Steve's amazing figures (did I mention them yet?).
Fluffy and his superior spears hold on, desperately, to the left flank.
The allies are close to going! EEEK! Steve brings forwards his knight block (had you forgotten about them?), but my cavalry turns to face, and my other average spear block, despite taking handgunner fire, waits expectantly to deal with them.
Another round of combat, and we throw handbags at each other on the left as we fail to do any damage, either way.
Steve surveys the scene of devastation as his central Keil breaks. Three units is fragile, but still a very hard fight for all. Three units down would normally be a 6-4, but because Steve breaks on 3 ,that gives me a 15-4.
Steve's dead pile. About 25 bases.
At the back are my losses, 23 bases, and two units within a whisker of breaking too. This was a lot closer than it looked, a few better rolls by Steve, and I would be toast.
A cracking game, which we both really enjoyed. As I said earlier, Steve knows he is tweaking his force, but those bug 12 are super nasty. I was able to use the Samurai's cavalry to break through, and I knew my two average units should be enough to get through his halberdiers. My options were to try and hunt his knights with my powerbow cavalry, or kill two TuGs of Keil pikes. He needed to anchor one flank so I could not get round, and that could have secured him the breakthrough. He learnt a lot though, especially on how to turn pikes around.
1 In March 2007, a company of 171 Swiss soldiers mistakenly entered Liechtenstein, as they were disorientated and took a wrong turn due to bad weather conditions. The troops returned to Swiss territory after they had travelled more than 2 km into the country. The Liechtenstein authorities did not discover the incursion and were informed by the Swiss after the incident. The incident was disregarded by both sides. A Liechtenstein spokesman said, "It's not like they invaded with attack helicopters. No problem, these things happen"
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