Last Saturday Imi and I headed up to Stockport and the Element Games, myself for four rounds of MeG, and Imi for two days of Star Wars:Legion. I spent much of my time looking after Imi while she played, so the quantity and quality of photos in the following reports may be lacking (you, yes you laddie, stop celebrating)!
My list, oh, this old thing. I thought you would never ask!
It's my completely the same as usual, unchanged, Senguko Samurai. Yes, that one! "But that's not medieval!" I hear you cry. The brief was any army after 1070, so game on! Probably it's last ride before the cavalry lose their skilled status, so we will see how it changes after that.
Round 1 vs Cid and his Frisians (Medieval Danish with German Allies)
Cid, again! In round 1, vs me! But of course this was going to be an epic fight.
We went very very dense, with an added layer of extra denseness. I defended in mountains. Secure forest flanks, another forest, three woods, two villages. We were both absolutely gutted that a lump of rocky ground fell off table too! As we were both either all loose or flexible, so we were not bothered about terrain, so we went for it! And why not? 
My allies and cavalry are sent off right, along with the average bows, to deal with the approaching German ally. On the left, Fluffy and his three units of spears awaited the the onsluaght of the torrent. Loose, long spear, devastating charge(!), but only the front rank is protected and all the units are combat shy.
There was also a unit of long spears lurking in the ranks too...
It's an army I've played before in the hands of both Paul Cummins and Steve Stead, so knew what was coming, but it's still blooming scary!
It's big, scary and moving FAST! The German knights charged, straight into a hail of fire from my skilled powerbow horse archers, who caused a kill and a wound! Cid killed one base on the charge, and I mostly missed. I did move up my superior spears in support. Fingers crossed my two fours of cavalry can hold against that mincing machine!
Cid caused a wound, but I killed another base and a half. His average knights and crossbows lurk in the background, looking to exploit a hole. Coming through the wood are two units of eight base warband units, scary as anything!
They looked on, non-plussed, as the eclesiastical Geramn knights meet their maker earlier than they anticipated! The average knights had charged in to assist on my average archers and oeralpping cavalry, and had already lost two bases.
In the centre, all my spears were angled to take on the mass warbands (and spears), but the shear weight of Danish foot was going to be difficult to shift. It just goes on forever (and it was all beautifully painted too)!
It was rapidly turning into a full on slug fest, I was up in most places, being long spears (or superior long spears, or superior melee experts), sometime double up (as Cid's second ranks were unprotected and if I killed that oh so crunchy outer layer, it was soft underside time, where this has happened it is marked with a die), - but Cid was bigger than me, and his ability to absorb wounds over me was worrying, would it tell over time?
What happened is my superiors died in their droves! My average boys stood firm, the creme de la creme decided they weren't up to it, and kept dieing. On the centre left you can see an example of this as my superior allied spears are down to one rank. Annoying that! My cavalry keep doing there thing, and are whittling down the knights, with solid support from my average archers.
So much so that, supported by their general, my archers break the average knights! This also sets them up for a flank charge on Cid's mercanary crossbowmen (means he doesn't have to pay them I guess).
In the centre, the grind goes on, but Cid has (FINALLY, after about 4 turns), extracted his cavalry from their forest and they now threaten many flanks on the far left. By this point all our units were a wound off breaking, anything going wrong now would be catastrophic.
We crunch into the crossbows on the right after polishing off the knights, while my allies face down hordes of spears, the left hand unit is losing bases rapidly, but so are mine!
It's difficult to tell from this photo, but the carnage was immense! Units are collapsing everywhere; one of Cid's foot has even broken through and his cavalry have turned the flank are are eyeing up my spears rear greedily.
On the far right, the crossbows break, but it is not enough, as in the centre a massive mutual collapse, and my army disintergrates just a little further than Cid's and I have less units.
He rightly claimed the 15 points for a well deserved win, but I had killed enough to secure a worthy 10. He had all but one of his remaining units of foot within a wound of breaking! One hit here or there would have swung it, incredible. What an amazing game, and one that will live on for many a year! I only regret is it all happened so fast I could not get more photos.
Game 2: vs The War Doctor and his Later Crusaders
David is always one of the best people to play in any competition, he is a tough player, but also, as I have stated on frequent occasions, a hilarious man and a pleasure to play.
Pleasentries out the way, would he crash through me? He had three blocks of knights, three superiors and one average, led by a Legendary Richard The Lion Heart himself and two competent military knight order commanders plus a mediocre King of the Holy Land. The bulk of David's force was mixed spear and crossbow armed units, quite a tasty combination if met the wrong way.
Initial photos were missed, due to looking after Imi, but by turn two Richard had decided to show what he was made of. Unfortunately, for Richard, he decided to show he was made of custard. He lead his knights in a mass charge towards my skilled powerbows. It did not go well...
Then David's luck went south as his charge rolled an S (superior +1, charging lancers +1, loose in the open +1 and some devestating chargers +2 or legendary generals (+2) vs superiors +1, so a net +3), and my bows rolled a wound, while David's dice boosts the next knight file, it doesn't help with the killing of Samurai.
It lost me a base in the long run, but once melee started my superior melee expert armed Samurai (+2) were up to the challenge, soon breaking King Richard's knights, oops.
That's quite a hole in Richard's line (2-0) . My spears move to engage the en echelon crossbow/spear combinations as Richard scurries back to safety.
Over on my right, Military Orders crashed into my archers, who failed to wound the uber knights on the way in! 3 out of 6 bases archer bases killed in an instant. Thankfully, my superior allies with their longspears were on hand to assist.
The knights hastily retired, to charge back in and hopefully break my spears on the bounce! Meanwhile, the average spears is pushing back Turcoman cavalry. 
Edging ever nearer my centre under Fluffy moves four units to engage the War Doctor's four.
On the left, my cavalry destroyed the other Military order (2-2) David's average knights took apart my cavalry units, who rolled pitifully despite being massively up, and his Turcomen, despite being exactly half strength, held on.
His militant order of knights broke and fled (these religous nutters aren't that good then?). (4-2)
This led to my cavalry crashing into the victorious average knights. 
The infantry pile in, taking crossbow shots on the way. On the left, the superior spears kill two bases on impact, having lost two themseles, revealing another unit's soft underside, while in the centre the two units are making short work of the enemy, and on the right we lose a base and a half to combined crossbow fire and impact, but cause two kills in return.
One the edge of the world, my spears continue to push Turcomen around, while the military orders eye up another charge after my longspears catch and cause two and a half bases worth of damage, the knights cause much the same back, mostly from the KAB test on them as the average archers break (4-4)
Losing another base, the spears teeter, but the knights decide they have had enough and break (6-4) 
In the centre, Fluffy takes down a combined spear and crossbow unit (8-4)
Shortly after this, my skilled bows turned to face the remaining spears and crossbows which were supported by Richard himself. Their shots missed! Thankfully Fluffy was able to wander over and join in, hitting and break David's left-hand unit, giving me a 15-4 win.
Another great game vs the Doctor, and once his knights were gone it was a pretty clear fight, unfortunately. He was in my camp with his beaten up Turkomen. It might have turned things if he had broken it, as quite a few of my units were shaky. Another epic fight.
Imi and I retreated to Craig's house for pizza and Strictly.
The draw was up for day 2, round 3 and I was in 4th place (wooohoo) would be fighting Pete Entwistles 100 Years War English (eek)! This would be a hard hard fight!
Unfortunately, Ray had to withdraw due to illness (he has since recovered), so a quick shuffle of the draw later and I am playing Hammy (double eek)!
Round 3: vs Hammy and Almoravid
So, what to do? Number 1, not get massively outscouted.
Opps. Failed! 100% outscouted. Oh well...
Number 2: control the terrain.
The terrain was bad, it was almost completely open, and now Hammy knew exactly where I was. Hide and seek is not the forte of the Senguko period!
It was quickly apparent Hammy had a well thought out plan, and I did not! My idea was to put as much into his exceptional Black Guard Meerkats and superior spears while enveloping the rear with my superior cavalry. Unfortunately Hammy left himself three lines of reserves to deal with that. On the left my allies were faced with four shooting units, so that was a foregone conclusion as the one thing this army cannot cope with was horse archers! In the middle I tried to get my powerbows active against his skirmishers.
My obvious target was the crossbows for my cavalry, but Hammy in the centre was keeping a unit of Christian knights in a solid reserve in front of the slightly more wobbly reserve of two tribal shieldwall shortspear units
.
Taken from Hammy's viewpoint by Rob, my cavalry smash home into the crossbows (after losing a base to closing fire), unleashing a perfect storm of double wounds on red and white dice (superior, short spear vs loose in open, combat shy is a net +4), one skull on the reds would have broken them outright on the charge! Hammy ran the odds and proclaimed this as above average, I wanted really above, but oh well...
The crossbows would not survive the melee (2-0) now I had the two reserve spear blocks in my sights, this could be tasty!
Next door, Hammy charged my average long spears with his superiors , I had also moved my average archers to assist, in the possible hope they could do their usual trick and kill some stuff! Had I moved too close? They should have stayed at shooty-support range, not impact range, but with a general attached, I was hopeful of a few cheeky wounds as combined with the spears 14 bases played 8.
On approach, they did well, causing the loss of the base Hammy is presently removing.
But that was all they did! One stand (again, from Hammy's side thanks Rob) in contact, general, two overlaps and they did a single wound, while the superior long spear, with no second rank, killed a base
every turn, and then my general! My eight of average long spears fared no better, and also collapsed giving Hammy 4 of his needed victory points (2-4). 
On the left, Hammy's shooty mass of horse flesh was turning my allied average spears into mobile pincushions, destroying them with two rounds of intense fire (2-6)
Number 4: Roll better than your opponent.
Nope. My dice were on strike.
The superior alled spears were also to follow the same fate, just slightly slower at white+ not green dice. My superior bows engaged skirmishers and cavalry in a firefight, to little effect, while in the centre, despite being equal after impact, my six superior spears (+2) with a general (a further +1) supported by eight average long spears (+1) failed to destroy the Blackkat Meerguards (+2)! Our 14 bases were no match for 8 exceptionals and even Fluffy perished!
The coup de grace came from Hammy's reserve knights, who dodged every shot of my superior, skilled powerbows (green plus and a whie plus after losses) and rolled three blanks! I should have at least killed one base on teh way in, but that's life.
I scooped an extra unit by a flank follow up with my caalry on Hammy's tribal spears (4-6), but it would not be enough.
Too little, too late however, as my centre was dissolving.
With a large proportion of Hammy's army uncommitted and watching on in amusement, his knights smash my Samurai archers to pieces (4-8)/
Which caused enough damage to cause KABs across the two surrounding units who also fled, giving Hammy a well deserved win (4-15). I had both his key units within a base of breaking, but alas, it was not to be! Epic game again.
Imi won her game though! So not all bad.
Round 4: vs Mark Hargaves and his Senguko Samurai
Booted back down to the more sensible position of 7th, at least I had some points out of that last game, but now I was up against Mark and his version of Senguko Samurai which he had done really well with at Skullrollers. There were three Senguko present that weekend, and I was NOT going to lose my role of Shogun to some fly-by-night-new-comer-upstart (Marks's a great guy and uses the list well, really should not have helped him with his list and tactics too)! Steve with the third Senguko was having a nightmare with his, having already lost to Mark, so this was the final of the great Senguko off. Cid and Hammy vied for top spot, both after having tonked me (there's a pattern developing here), but managed to fight themselves to a draw while Pete Entwistle leapfrogged both of them, A good result might see me placing?
My troops scattered across from the last game as the world shifts and warps around them and new terrain goes down (I stayed on the same table all weekend to allow me to keep an eye on Imi). Back to two villages, hills, rocky ground and a boundried and a ploughed/paddy field.
I out scouted the other Samurai by 10%! Woohoo! One card scoutiness!
Early shots are missing as I was a) sorting Imi's lunch and b) stressing slightly about how to beat my equal army. So moving on a few turns, the action hots up. On the far left, out of shot, my average archers enter the crop field and engage Mark's handgunners in a shooting duel. My superior and average spears from my ally went and hunted down his average archer unit (2-0) and all our spears got involved in a series of hot-spear-on-spear action in the centre where I used my usual tactic of trying to put two units into each of his to split losses on my forces and concentrate fightinbg on his weaker units.
Mark's most threating area was to flank charge my superior Samurai archers with one unit of his superior short spear cavalry, and missed, then charged with his superior bows, and missed! My archers were quite happy beating up a unit of his ashugaru speaers, plus his Samurai archers, AND his cavalry.
Admittedly, they did not last, and from this shot it Mark is trying to envelop my line and break me, but Fluffy is holding strong with a unit of average spears as to their left a unit of my superior spears holds up and damages an eight of average Ashugaru. The pursuing cavalry are tied up with the edge of the village slowing them down just enough.
They were stalled long enough for my cavalry countermarch to catch and kill the other one of Mark's samurai cavalry.
While in the centre after the mess of the melee was sorted out, the Senguko were victorious!
Which Senguko?
Yes, my Senguko! My allied average spears had torn through three of Mark's units from behind (two superior long spears and a average) and had crashed their way to victory.
After all that, I won 15-4 in the fourth epic game of the weekend.
With 44 points, I had secured top placed Senguko and 6th place overall. I was pretty happy with that to be honest (it would have been lower if Ray and Matt had both not had to drop out due to health reasons on day 2, I'm sure).
Imi played 6 games of Legion over two days, with two different forces. She won one on day two, but really loved it and also learned a lot.
Great event agaiinst four strong opponents, and we will return, in some form, again!
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