A weekend competition away up at Element Games in Stockport. The theme was 'Cross and Crescent' where players could either choose from lists themed around Christian states or Muslim states between 1000 to 1149 AD.
Looking at the lists, then looking at the stack of toys. Two choices, horse archers, which I am hopeless with, or Early Scots which I used previously. Early Scots it is, a list that stinks, but can occasionally pull it out the bag.
Round 1 vs Hunter's Bedouin Dynasties.
Round 1 draw came up and it was Hunter with Bedouin Dynasties. So far I have never beaten Hunter. *SPOILERS* Give you a clue, not fourth time lucky either...
Did not help I over slept, woke up at 07.49 and it's a three hour drive to Stockport. Games started at 09.30, I arrived at 09.31.
Oops, oh well...
Scouting cards, thought I was doing okay, only 30% outscouted by an all cavalry force is quite impressive.
It very quickly became apparent what Hunter's oh-so-subtle-plan would be. It was to destroy me. A screen in front of my decent stuff, attack four of my units with at least eight of his. 
With decent generals and a couple of good hands, I could sort this situation out.
Really! My cards hate me! This was actually a good hand, it only had 6 of the 7 black cards in it!
This is going to hurt an awful lot! I might just be able to hold on until my Vikings rescue us.
Can anyone hear the suspensful music?
On the charge, I did okay, there was some chance I might make it!
Err.. nope. Three units fell apart in melee, my flank charge on Hunter at the top failed to do anything other than wound, even on two reds and greens!
Hunter was into my camp and poor combat shy camp guards, it was all over bar the sulking. Good game, Hunter played it perfectly, and it tore me to pieces, as I deserved. 0-15. It took longer to write about it than it did for Hunter to beat me.
Last to arrive, first to die!
Round 2 vs Stephen and Tuareg
Another master, another heavy hitter. What was he doing down here? I had last me the Tuaregs in 2015 in FoGR, so knew how lethal they were. Stephen was going to go on and place, so some mighty submarining here, he just needed a willing victim to launch himself up the table.
Legandary general wins the terrain for him, so where to hide? Nowhere, he ignores most of the terrain! There's an awful lot of superior, devastating charge, short spear melee expert camels out there, and if not superior, they still had all the other stuff!. This was going to be hard! I decided to line the scrub and let him come to me so my close order troops were not disadvantaged by terrain Stephen ignores, and my shieldwall capability stops him shattering me when his camels rolling 'S'. 
Then I pulled the Vikings back to the left as I could see a unit of camels trying to sneak around, meanwhile in the centre my mediocre commander takes his two units deep to try and draw out stuff, while on the right my cavalry tries (desperately) not to get swatted by superior camels with a legendary general while I bring up something (anything) to stand against them! Pink counters are useful markers for who has already fought.
Superior camels with a legendary general, I move infantry to counter, as below my cavalry wants nothing to do with this fight!
One of Steve's superiors breaks! Unbelievable, but my average short spears saw them off! (2-0)
The general scene, massive carnage as Stephen deals. His superiors on the right are dented, but have killed a unit of spears (2-2), in the centre a bloody maul takes place, on the left, while he tries to envelop me, we melee on the edge of the scrub.
Close up of the right, I swear I had a unit of infantry there a minute ago!
There were more units of camels here too, but we got them! Never have so many white dice hit while the opponent's greens missed...
My Viking ally shows quite how to deal with camel riders, double skull breaks another unit (4-2).
And a double white does an awful lot of damage, not sure how, but after game one we are doing okay!
End result of an epic game is a 10-15 loss, literally down to a'whoever throwns highest wins' combat. Stephen played brilliantly, and despite his early bad rolls it came back round for him (and he went on to place, so well done sir).
Game 3 vs Mike with Eastern Seljuq
Mike's first competition, and he was certainly getting the hang of things. This could be another tight game against a (mostly) mounted force with elephants!
Scouting, I have 50% on two cards, Mike has 40, so I outscout a mostly mounted army! Wooohoo! (I know it's only by 10%, but hey, it counts right!) 
After turn 1, Mike has a horse of infantry and elephants lurking in that brush on the right, a large unprotected mounted command to the left, which I decided my cavalry and smallest infantry command should pick on, and cavalry in the centre, while my Vikings went right to deal with the Dailami infantry and elephant threat.
Crunch! His cavalry engages my foot, causing hits all over.
The old 'lancers vs horse archers' play off. To the far left a unit of his horse go after my skirmishers, who are throwing double yellows and causing hits.
Elephants (+3) hit short spears (+1) and I cause more hits than the elephants! 
Infantry and cavalry clash in the centre.
Pink counters show who has fought, useful when you have longer lines of combats. Superior vikings hit hard against fully armoured catafracts (ignoring their armour helps, as does superior, a general, and 2 handed cut and crush). His catafracts do not last long at all.
That is a big smacking crunch! My CinCs unit takes a wound, but deals a wound back.
Back to the elephant melee, despite being outclassed, I cause even more hits! Elephants break, causing massive
KABs all round them (all units test one die level worse when in range of nellies, so yellow
becomes red) and what's even worse for Mike is that the attached general
(put their to rally hits), is run over by the routing elephants and
killed! (0-2)
Mike catches my light horse, as I am running out of table. Both are on greens as both are in skirmish and unprotected without melee or impact weapons. This is a fingers crossed moment!
But at the other end of the table, my cavalry chases Mike's unprotected horse archers to the table edge, nothing left to do but fight! My Scots cavalry go in, and despite a shooting hit, manage to contact.
It's quite a gap between units, we are both rather out of command here! If you look carefully, you will notice Mike has a unit turned to flank my mounted warriors, while I have a unit of foot ready to hit his flank.
My light horse fail to hit, Mike wipes them out (6-1)
Zebras! Not too important now as the majority of my forces are already engaged. 
I have the deck, and in my spears go into Mike's back, at the same time, I catch his other cavalry in the back, it's all over bar the shouting.
A 15-1 to my Scots, reminding me that yes, in the right conditions, this army can do the do. Mike will be dangerous indeed once he gets the neuances sorted. Great game and a lot of laughs.
Game 4: vs Hammy and Great Seljuks
Oh my great friend and long time opponent Hammy and I meet again! He was a good three points clear of me, but my nearest opponent in the Crescent side of things. I needed a good result here, but against a list of nine horse archer types, it was always going to be difficult and I feared I would suffer badly vs superior and even exceptional horse and skilled archers!
One advantage I did have was the fact that my line was always going to be a lot longer than his as I had 12 units, plus a SUG, and could deploy most of my army three wide. This allowed me to use my mediocre on the right to push aound the flanks of the horse archers and generally be a pain to the horse lords!
CinC in centre, Vikings to his left, and then my cavalry, who did not want to get shot away,
Two straight(ish) lines as Barker intended.
I realised that with a few well chosen charges with my line would disrupt him more than it would me, and by alternating chargers, no unit was getting blown away quickly, especily as Hammy had a fair proportion of skilled horse archers out there! 
In fact, this caused Hammy no end of probelms as my right hand units kept causing him to cross over each other and cause each other KaBs! I was taking the odd shot, but no biggy with 8s.
Hammy's Kurdish cavalry charge home on my mounted warriors and Norman knights. As they cross my light horse's frontage, the light Scots cavalry use their cantabrian upgrade to good effect! The unit paid for itself with that shot!
Yup, a kill, a wound,
two slows and a headache there!
A beaten up unit of spears charges against Hammy's gun line, having aleady taken losses, this could be it, they could break! Nope, only 3 slowing hits, so slowed by two and away we go!
A general ruck breaks out. My lancers, after having fought superior cavaly break off and then join in with the warriors against the Kurdish forces. My Viking Huscarls tangle with the exceptional cavalry and superior horse. I'm down on impact, but up a lot in melee. Hence Hammy broke off and allowed me to charge him again and again! On the right, my two other viking units suffer from the shooting of Hammy's horse.
On the right, my spears threaten the flank of Hammy's cavalry, one of is units is engaged frontally, while one of my superiors is tieing down two units of Hammy's cavalry to buy the other's more time.
I break the Kurds, Hammy's dead pile grows nicely.
Pushing Hammy back, my spears advance. Hammy's cavalry might just have to fight as they are on their own base line.
My 8 viking huscarls vs 10 superior or exceptinals, they did well, but not well enough, eventually they are shot down!
My viking hirdmen charge, but again, too little too late and after being shot to pieces, all the vikings break. The flak units keep pushing and closing down the right.
The right has been so busy all my units are in a tangle! There is an awful lot less of Hammy than when we started, but then there is even less of me in the centre/ On the left, my cavalry and light horse has a slim chance of winning it with a luck charge and a lucky shot.
I mssed with my shooting, and then despite a mutual swap of units, which was perfect. It was all over as I broke. 
8-15 to Hammy, if it had gone the other way, it would have been 15-10 as he had done more damage to me, and he only needed to lose 5 units to disolve. A fantastic game, and I was really happy with that result as he could have got me for nil I am sure.
Overall, 33 points, which put me firmly in the lowest quartile of the results, but two close losses was brilliant. Next time, I will find an army that can actually beat horses! A fab weekend, good company, good curry, lots of beer, four great games, a beautiful drive home over the High Peaks, and onwards...
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