They say it comes in 3s...
Well, this was the weekend for it!
Ice and Fire, organised by Ray at Battlefield Hobbies saw 32 of us using non-European lists to beat the snot out of each other in a friendly manner (in my case, literally, more on that later).
My list, it's my developing Canari. I knew there were issues going in to this. It had beaten Mark Spratt 15-4 and 15-8 vs his Mongols and Samurai, but against the wider gaming community I wasn't so sure.
Game 1 vs Hammy and Ghaznavid
This was always going to be a tough game, Hammy is good, his list was tasty, his elephants were armoured, his cavalry was superior, he's too nice a guy, it was his shop...
Enough excuses Will!
Things started well enough, when an all foot army outscouts a cavalry heavy army by 20%. 
Green 10%, Yellow 20% and Red 40%, my hopes were up.
The terrain decided to go only in the fanks, or fall off, so the centre was bare! I did get two man-eating (casuse KaB) swamps down, a wood, a forest and a secure flank in the jungle, but between us the centre was a billiard table!
So bare we could both put our armies down and have space between!
Early moves involved my fleet of foot troops going for it, full speed across table, (excpet the allied TuGs going slightly slower through a forest) in an attempt to bring weight of numbers down on his foot. Unfortunately, the sun shone on the holy!
Even with maximun cards, my hands all weekend were fairly useless, but then so were Hammy's. My plan here, swarm him, push his cavalry back into a ball in the centre, and then keep pushing him back so I get to pick the fights. Never going to work...
Aggresive skirmisher use is definitely a key factor in this army, pity I've only got 6 out of the possible 9 finished in time. A better hand sees me push up and in the centre start to drive in between cavalry dominated areas. 
Another turn, and the push is coming in on the left. Allies clear the forest, and two units face off vs Hammy's Dailami, the Zulus (borrowed from Ian, as I am 8 stands short across the army) are practically in a cavalry unit's face. Another cavalry unit faces down two infantry units with attached skirmishers, who are starting to score hits. My superior guard infantry is facing down the arrow storm of two cavalry units, while three more units face off one elephant unit and another two cavalry. I was certainly making Hammy think here, and a few good dice and it would really make him sweat! The bottom two infantry units were set up to charge on into other of Hammy's units when he evaded, look, I can occasionally be clever with tribal foot!
On the right, it's finely balanced too as my CinC leads my protecxted troops to try and force Hammy to start recoiling from my charges through his own units (which causes KaB tests) or face me. I was hoping to exert enough pressure that something ended up rolling badly and being caught, or something got so tangled it made the situation untenable.
As our first contacts go in, the game behind us has finished! I caught Hammy's screening cavalry with my allied foot, as they rolled a 1! Two bases died and a wound was caused, it was about as glorious as I got all weekend!
In the centre, I charge elephanst with spears. Painful I know, but on the charge I get lucky and kill a base, maybe, just maybe, I can get the unit in melee? Three of my units close on two of hhis, even with one of the two guards units deployed, would it be enough?
While on the right, my CinC leads his spears into hunting Hammy's cavalry, outside him the supporting spears have pushed cavalry back behind and three units are stacked behind each other. A few good cards will keep this going.
Unfortunately, those cards completely failed to materialise, right across the board! My last two turns were pretty grim. Back to the left, and a second charge on the beaten up cavalry, who now have a unit parked directly behind them. The unit falls to my spears and a set of victory point is mine! (2-0)
It's short lived as the other two units of allied troops all die to the Dailami! They die without even causing a wound! 12 bases vs 8, not good. (2-4) Also in the centre, you might notice a distinct lack of my units as 3 break in a turn to elephants, shooting and associated KaBs! Suddenly the score is (2-10), this is not a happy place to be. Unprotected against melee experts, skilled archers and elephants really is quite painful! 
On the right, things are a little more intact, just. All my units are pushing back, but now with no centre, there is no anvil to hammer the Ghaznavid cavalry against. 
Time was called, much to my relief! I had 2 bonus points for not dieing! Hammy also got them, leaving the score at 4-12. A great game, a real challange and one I know I will look forwards to repeating soon.
Game 2 vs Mark Hargraves Senguko Samurai
Senguko, yes, it's my fault for popularising this list! Flexible long spears, superior spears, powerbow superior melee expert cavalry. I loe to play this list, but REALLY hate facing it! However, I was fairly confident as I had beaten Mark Spratt's version of it soundly (15-6) on Wednesday and I knew it's weaknessessssssssss...
Again, I was defending and scouting had fallen my way very nicely. 20% out scouting him. 
The terrain fell well, Mark got an open area on his baseline, but I got two man-eating swamps jutting through his deployment area, a coastline to hem him in, one of Mark's hill's ended up on my side, a wood led to his archer hiding hill and a forest protected my right, perfect terrain, especially as we can bouth fight as loose troops, but causes issues if Mark evades with 'is Samurai 'orse.
Fleet of foot foot pile forwards on the left, in the centre and left of centre, with one of my allied units ready to sweep into the side of Mark's line. Centre right and my CinC however, the cards were not so hot and they trailed slightly.
Mark ended up with his cavalry split, and one of my average protected spear units got in their face early. They took a wound from shooting on the way in (acceptable from green dice) and I was confident at +1 in melee that I could pick up a point here.
On the left, my allies go in hard on Mark's bows and spears. Unfortunately, my plan to face off his bows with 8 unprotected melee expert long spears fails at the first hurdle as his shots on the way in kill two of 8 bases! On the charge my spears start to hurt those dastardly bows, also two average units do some damage to his 8 spears and my hopes ride high.
At this point, I started to feel a little odd and I wondered if something was up.
The spears clashed across the centre. My 12 vs Mark's 8, while to the right his superior 6 hits one of my 8s and another 6, already peeling off ranks on my units.
Guard spears (+2 for long spear s mounted, +1 superior, optional +2 legeendary) catch the other Samurai cavalry unit (+4 aganist my charge, superior, short spear, vs foot who charged and vs loose in teh open) Yellow vs white on the charge for one file, white vs green on the other, a risky charge but in melee it was massively up in my favour. This should have been a fairly easy kill for them! I got a base, Mark caused a wound.
In melee, well, typical, Mark wounds me, killing a base and I missed him completely! Gah! They should be dead by now. In fact they held on for another good couple of turns.
Feeling odder and odder, I failed to take enough photos to do Mark justice as he rightly tore through me. His bows killed my left hand spears, in the centre he blew through three units of my spears, while I killed his superor archers. I would go on to kill his archers and the spears next to them, my spears that were in contact with one horse failed to do ANY damage and his horse broke off, while my CinC's spears missed AGAIN! A few lucky dice here and there and this would have been a very different picture indeed, but it stood at me losing 4 units and Mrk had lost 3 (6-8), we both had severly beaten up units, and with Mark breaking on 5 units (or 10 points lost) and me on 7 (or 14 lost) it was incredibly close, but mentally it felt a lot more like Mark was thrashing me...
My superior spears actually did what they were meant to do, and finally broke those cavalry (8-8). Mark needed two more units to break me, I only needed one of his! It was on tenterhooks
As Mark's general flees for his life, he had the bag, and then he got the charges he needed and my spears collapsed to his cavalry, followed by a flank hit on another unit and it was game over. A well deserved (15-8) to Mark, who would go on to achieve 5gth place overall (beating up Paul on the way too). If he had missed, my flank charge on him would have killed him and I would have won! Man that was tight, a good game but I was not right.
Shortly after getting home, I tested positive for Covid, the third wrong of the day. I had to withdraw from day two, leaving me in second last overall. Thankfully, thanks to the wonders of the NHS I am triple jabbed, and am isolating in the bedroom while feeling like I've been kicked by a real horse and my nose produces gallons of snot! On with some painting I guess while chugging paracetomol!
STAY SAFE ALL! The Canari will return...
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