FINALLY! After two long years, a competition!
Battlefield Hobbies, the great game store in Daventry hosted one half of the comp, and Ray's holiday home on the south coast the other, as COVID restrictions remained in force. It was a hot, hot and sticky weekend, so if there are bottles on table, tough, as dehydration is a pig!
Our half of the competition looked like this, The Thraco-Romans pulled out to allow one of the Westerns Hans under Nik to defect from the Southern Super League (sorry Hammy as you did not get your games) and join us:
Since I had been painting them for both myself and Si for the last 18 months, I decided to use my spin on the Dacians, with Sarmatian allies, based on the list I had borrowed from Nick all those moons ago. Why Dacians?
Why not! Devastating charger, tribal loose or short spear useless javelins is the common argeuement why not! This is not your usual horde army, it is a horde army with teeth! You get it right with this army, and you can tear holes out of any opponent, especially with a unit of superior dev charge, melee experts with a legendary general (net +5 on the charge, gross usually somewhat less), this even upsets Guard Legionaries! As long as I don't face catafracts or horse archers, I will be fine.
Game 1: vs Graham Wilmott and his Tuyuhun
A quick scramble into the army lists and Tuyuhun turns out to be from the gap between Tibet, China and Mongolia, a pre-Chinese, pre-Tibetian tribal section of modern Mogolia and the army is full of horse archers and catafracts!
Oh bother!
Graham is an old opponent from my days in Flames, a great player and an absolute gent. This was his first competition, and this was going to be an interesting match up.
With a legendary general, I only lost the terrain roll off once, and it was against Graham, but he decided to attack. The terrain all weekend stayed in the mountains and was at least dense or very dense. This time my village fell on the left, next to a (small) mountain, and a wood dominated centre and on the left tall crops and a wood stopped that flank too. Perfect for loose order troops, not so great for an all mounted force. 
Graham split his forces, with a heavy detachment with all 3 units (gulp) of catafracts on my left, and horse archers supporting them, on my right, there were horse archers, horse archers and horse archers...
My cavalry and elite foot with legend went left, my other elite foot and the spears went right. 
HEAD FOR THE VILLAGE! Trying to avoid the horse lords, we moved as quickly as possible to avoid the arrow storm. Graham then snuck a unit in towards my camp, so a unit of lancers is detached from the left to chase them down, but I stupidly missed his other unit which was perfectly set up for a flank attack on me. 
On the left, I tried plugging the gap with Dacian elite and Sarmatian lancers, waiting for the extra heavy cavalry to arrive and spead me across the landscape. 
CRUMP! The charge goes in, and I take a deep intake of breath and cross my fingers as Graham rolls his dice. Pretty sure I'm about to loose a unit here. 
Two rolls, three cavalry dead! I've really blown this one and all Graham needs is a wound to smash me.
Melee, and Graham misses completely, despite genaerals and overlaps. No idea how, but we got lucky!
Their slavation, if I can get them there in time, lies in the shape of a unit of superior, melee experts that swung off the hill, hoping that the flexible cavalry to their front does not shift to loose and kill me!
Dacian flavoured flank charge comes in. +4 for the flank, +2 Dev charge, +1 superior, +1 general, -1 for charging mounted, -1 for being loose in the open vs mounted! Good odds!
Onkly a base and a half on teh charge, pity, but my deck and I get the first swing in combat. It will be the Dacians, not the Sarmatians who take that bat!
Melee flank attack, that will do nicely boys! (2-0) 
Dacians pursue, the Sarmatians breathe a huge sigh of relief! Above and right, I start chasing horse archers with loose foot, it likes catching fog.
On the left, a unit of Dacian spearmen wanders off through the wood right towards the enemy camp.
The Catafracts pile in. They were not devastating chargers, but still heavily armoured and long spear, and one is superior. This could hurt us loose foot. On the right my Sarmatians step in to the heavy cavalry. No where in this line do I have less than two units fighting any of Graham's, this is teh unspoken key to survival, mob your enemy!
A battlefield overview, as the Catafracts break, the Dacians push forwards (10-4) The beaten up Sarmatians had already taken their leave, as did my superior Sarmatians.
Graham points out where nothing was fighting! His forces are penned back towards the rear of the table.
The dead pile, almost hit by my Dacian spears who just can't get the cards to wheel (gotta love tribal, cheap as chips but ain't going anywhere in a hurry).
Graham's dice mark the end of the game as we time out. I cannot catch him here.
Excellent game, and the final score was 12-6. A great result and Graham really played well for someone trialing an army, with lots and lots of laughs.
Game 2: vs Peter Reilly and his Ancient Britains with Roman Allies
Boyed by my success, and somewhat lacking in hubris, I thought I could take on a devastating charge and impact weapon army.
Nope.
I was completely outplayed by a superbly handled and brilliantly thought out army, which I thought I had on the backfoot, but actually was suckering me in.
I thought I had enough units to pull this off, but if you look right, the start of the envelopment begins.
It finally fell apart on the right, where despite lining up for the charge, I miss read the situation, and allowed my units to be flanked and destroyed. 
When you are facing 4 flank charges, these cards with tribal troops will not let you get away from the situation. I conceeded.
Sometime, you have to admit you got it wrong, and in the heat of the day I was an idiot who at first could not see that, but Peter deserved all 15 points, and I deserved my 0.
Peter is an absolute gentleman, I hope to play him again soon, and this time learn rather than belive I hae the upper hand. I am glad to say he did very well in the rest of his games too.
Hammy plicated my mood . Ice creams were consumed, Legion figures were purchased for my daughter, and I actually helped Peter beat Hammy at Quartermaster General before heading home.
Tomorrow is another day.
Game 3: vs Mark and his Royal Achaemenid Persians
Like some wounded Greek hero, beaten down in act two, I arose for act 3 and a new day and a new opponent, in the shape of Mark and his Persians. I have a long history of playing Persians as they are Paul's go-to army, and this would on paper be another hard fight for the Dacians against their (technically) third horse archer army of the weekend.
I was determined on two factors though, one:- to enjoy myself, and 2:- to not be an idiot like yesterday. I was out for a good time, not a chance of winning, and I knew Mark was relatively new to rules so intended to give him a good learning game.
Well, that's not something you see every day! The Dacians outscouting a horse archer army by 70%! (Red is 40%, Green is 10%, Yellow is 20%, white and blacks are worth nowt). Mark deployed while I picked my jaw up off the floor.
As ever, I won the terrain and had fallen in very dense, with a secure wooded flank, allowing my village, a marsh of Mark's, a rock hill and another wood on table. A lot of other terrain I chose disappeared as it was either heading into the right flank where there was no room, or Mark got rid of it on a 6. Mark was wanting to get his cavalry moving had also taken some open terrain. Seeing how he was depolying on my left, I opted to stick to the dense terrain on my right, knowing that I could always hide in it. Loose order troops against cavalry is... painful!
Like I ever hide! 
I was expecting a Paul-chaos-theory horse archer shoot and scoot pull apart, but instead Make swung his superior chariots, his exceptional (yikes) cavalry and superior cavalry round to take my flanks. I had a unit of spear armed warriors isolated with the mediocre commander in the village supported by the javelins, which found themselves facing a unit of Immortals. The rest of the army was moving through the woods and marshes looking to push him back on his base edge, maybe. What I did do to counter the threat was to swing my elite foot and legendary general round to meet the exceptional cavalry threat.
It was shortly after this I noticed a lack of movement and manouvre from some of my opponent's units, it became clear that despite having four generals, they were two competents and two mediocres, all instinctive, generating 10 cards for 12 units. I was generating 14 for 13 units, each general had spare capacity. I did the only honourable thing and surged on the right while my centre adjusted itself to take on the horse lords.
The exceptional cavalry, superiors and chariots position themselves for their charges. It was ital here that I did NOT charge, as I would be giving away an extra +1 vs mounted. My eight warriors in the village were quite happy to get involved with the six approaching Immortals though.
Persia's coming home?
My spear armed warriors have shoot and charge, which normally does nothing with unskilled javelins, but this time stopped the superior cavarly evading off into the sunset (Normal move is 5BW, skirmish -2, -3 for slowing results, +1 for superior, -1 for a 2 on thr die, it was not good) as the chariots charged in on my falx weilders.
The results of some charges, the Exceptional cavalry kill two stands of flax armed warriors on teh way in, but they also contacted my superior falx armed legeandary general unit, losing a base to them. My average spears rip into the pavaise of the Immmortals, tearing them away and causing a death and a wound on green dice, compared to a wound in return.
My Sarmatians also contact the Persian average cavalry with two units, lances tearing through the ranks, while my third unit countercharges the Persian heavy chariots, both causing a kill and a wound on each other. However, I start on a six, so I can shrug off that kind of damage, while four chariots that damage hurts.
The slug fest begins with both armies elites. Decabalus is having none of it and causes more damage on the Persain elite horse before we expect them to break off.
Lancers and chariots both expand to meet each other, but this makes life easier for my supporting Falx armed warriors, as they now have a LOVELY flank charge to play with! Howeer, it was not needed...
The Persians did not have enough cards to break off, the shower of arrows does not appear, and the Dacians gleefully get stuck in! The next turn brings shame on the Persian elite as both the chariots and the guard cavlry, as well as the Immortals by the village, crack and flee. Above, my lancers break through the average cavalry. (8-0). The enemy cavalry then proceed to run a minimum distance, allowing the the Sarmatians lancers to turn and charge a second unit in the flank, while my falx armed loonies find the exposed flank of the superior cavalry and a second Immortal unit lieing open.
The result is a bloodbath! Unit after unit of Persians falls beneath the falx and lance.
Smashing in from two directions, average and superior lancers catch horse archers. The result is not for the faint hearted (10-0)! The Persians superior cavalry in in teh centre disintergrates, leaving teh field to the Dacians, allowing me an unprecidented 15-0, and after three games puts me back up to a respecatble 27 out of 45 points. 
My entire losses for the game, 10 bases! Incredible. It's like something out of Heroditous!
Game 4: David 'The War Doctor' and Chatti Germans.
If you are going to have a last game against anyone, having a game against the Doctor is the best possible result, it honestly did not matter what I scored against him, I knew it was going to be a great game fully of laughs and incredibly bad puns from both of us. Perfect.
What was not perfect was my photo journalism skills, as I took lots of photos, but not of the relevent or interesting bits (including two of the carpet and one of a chair leg), I blame the heat!
The Doctor with Chatti, interesting choice, units of infantry that are either superior though and through, or superior front rank and average rear ranks. His cavlary (half of which were allied) also hae an interesting 'special' rule where if they do not got over 4BW they are melee experts.
The Doctor won the scouting, and chose to attack. Both with devastating charge we piled in, knowing it would be a bloody affair. My cavalry went left, three units to face his two, into teh centre wood went a unit of spear armed warriors and my javelinmen, and to the right, my horde did it's hordy thang! 
Out to their right, three of my units faced down three of the Doctor's. 
As things went, this should have been a clue as to my ineptitude, trying to evade after only causing a slow on the Germans coming out the rocks, my light horse rolled a 1 and were caught. (0-1) 
My lancers crash into the German cavalry, and despite being up on the deal, we fail to do anything with two units, and this leaves our backsides rather exposed to superior German devastating chargers. Could be nasty. 
In the centre, two of my units crash into two of the good Doctor's. 
On the right, it is three vs three again, but my right hand unit is spears vs superior devestating chargers. It will be a slow gring for them, In the middle, two superiors clash, but I have melee expert, and on the left it is 9 vs 6, while The Doctor has spare units waiting. In the wood, my spear armed average 8 will meet, and eventually defeat the only average TUG in The Doctor's whole force!
A long, drawn out grind in the centre proceeds, and our reserve units go hunting each other too. My reserves would get the better here, as would (eventually) my centre. On the right, my right hand unit is taking lots of hits, but my middle superior unit is also dealing out the hits too, and soon to break through the German line.
After the break through, get my superiors onto the flank of David's line to the left. However, I made a stupid mistake here, I should have gone right and taken on the unit beating up my spears. Only after the event, with 20/20 hindsight, I realised that this would , in effect, cost me the game.
The general scene as the end approaches, the dead pile up and the tension rises. On the left, two of my three lancer units have exploded, unable to roll decent hits on their dice and then flanked by the Doctor's cavalry. In the scrub in the centre, my spear armed troops have eliminated a warband. My elites have broken through, both in the centre and from my misdirected flank charge, but I have lost my spears to the right. 
Flanked by two units of skirmishers, my victorious superiors approach the Doctor's women and children, but are slowed by shooting and neer reach their easy target! Meanwhile my average spears grind away within the centre, backed by the CinC and my mediocre general. It would not help that at some point durig teh game I lost rankings on all three subordinate generals, and my mediocre died! 
The score is 8-10, all I need is one unit to win, and my lancers charge in to the Doctor's wounded cavalry. I only need a base and a half to break them, and, yes, inevitably, we miss completely! 
I had three units roving here, but due to losses from generals, I fail to produce enough cards to get them out of trouble, especially as my lower right hand unit was down to half strength..
My flank was hanging in the breeze, I knew I should have turned right, not left. 
The result is quick and brutal as the unit that was charged evaporates, and that damaged unit mentioned earlier decides to follow the example of their friends and leg it, two more units lost, and it puts me one unit off breaking myself, with teh Good Doctor lined up for at least three flank charges and it is his deck next!
The two warbands crash together, hoping for a swift victory to seal each other's fate, but we only manage to swing handbags at each other!
The end comes in a bloody manner, before I reach the women and children, David's cavalry smash into the rear of my lancers, cracking them like an egg, and the victory lies with the Doctor.
As ever, an amazing game and 10-15. What a nail biter! Fantastic way to end the weekend.
That left me on a respectable 27 out of 60, just above halfway in the Daventry table, and 13th out of 26 players overall over both events. I can live with that, especially after game 2! A top weekend, I look forwards to the next one, Sword and Cresescent in Stockport, where my Early Scots may make another showing.
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