No horses, camels, chariots or elephants!
Sounds like a good excuse to use my Canari (who are Canari I hear you say? They are a tribe of Equadorian warriors, that the Inca thought were their toughest opponents)! Those of you who have watched me paint it since Warfare 2021, thank you. I had tried to use it before, but succumbed to Covid before finishing the competition.
My list, slightly tweaked so I have more(!) skirmishers and no poor foot:The colouring of boxes relates to teh troops on tbale and how they are painted, see below.
It only just fits on the screen shot! 11 TuGs of warriors, all loose long spear, all but two tribal, five unprotected TuGs, and 8 SuG of skirmishers! Plus a full set of generals. It's impressive, but not the biggest army to be fielded at the weekend.
Some of you will notice, as these match reports go on, painted sticks strewn across my tables. These are colour coded to allow unit identification, as there are (at present) two varients of foot spears figures for this army, and five different varieties of foot spears in the army list. Hence the coloured bands on the image above to help identification both for me and my opponents.
Game 1: vs RJC and his Inca
A historical match up, against the competition organiser! Excellent. Inca is a tough list, full of exceptional and superior troops, and without horses around to annoy them, could put out a lot of damage espcially as a lot of his troops get to use 'shoot and charge' on teh way in. RJC was somewhat hampered by teh fact that due to odd numbers, he was playing me on one table, and Nik on another! We did suggest just combining games, but in teh end Richard would play Nic for a bitm, then play me. We could all see the strain this put him under, and I honestly think it did not help his playing (as his following games, he did rather well). MeG because of it's dynamic playing system, not IGoYouGo, means you have to give the game all your concentration, so is not really suited to feats of mental agility like other systems, so well done for Richard for even considering this feat.
It probably did not help Nik and I both putting out 4 feet of armies for him to face, 8' of armies is a lot to get your head around! Our joking round probably did not help either...
Our terrain fell as very dense, did not matter, as we are both loose, just looks more fun. The Hand sanitiser was not a terrain feature... Oh, I outscouted him by 20% too. 
There it is...
It's practically wall to wall South American warriors, glorious! Richard had three TuGs coming in quickly on my weaker left, while I conentrated on his elites coming strength through the woods in the centre.
Woohoo! Legendary general gets a straight flush!.jpg)
It's two straight lines, as Barker intended... In the rocky ground, RJC's first charge goes in on my skirmishers.
On the right, my blue unit (average melee expert, protected long spear) and my guard infantry eye up the approaching threats, while one of my unprotected fleet of foot white units wanders what is had done to upset someone, facing off against two better Inca units! In the centre, my unprotected allied command holds its breath as the elite of RJC's army is making a b-line towards them.
We didn't pay all the entry fee to hang about! In we go!
Richard had missed that my blues were behind his exceptional's flank, distracted by being beating up by Nik on the next-door table! At this point I decided I was not going to wait around, and threw in the bulk of my army! 
Blues, joined by a legendary general, cause two kills on the exceptional guard of the Inca army, who then shatter (2-0), it cost us a base and a half, but it was worth it.
The general situation, generally, was generally good. two more of RJC's units fell apart in the centre (6-0), on the right a long brawl developed, while on the left I lost one unit, but was fighting hard holding back the tide with another (6-2). My main issue was how much could I kill before his superior and exceptional units piled in.
My archers even got involved by killing one of RJC's units at long range! Unprotected in overlap, twang.
More of Richard's units dissolved, my superior spears break through the line too. (8-2)
In the centre, RJC's elite charge in on my unprotected allied command, this could be very painful. However, the dice refused to go Richard's way and his superiors with 2HCC take an awful hammering. They were due to break soon too.
On the right, my second guard unit holding the Inca foot, but then the Blues slam in their flank and another of Richards units goes. (10-2)
On the centre left, I catch Richard's archers with my superior guard foot. 
On the left, I lost my other spear unit (10-4), but in the very centre those superior spears break, giing me a rather unexpected win against a much superior player and army.
It was a hard game for Richard and he lost both vs Nik and I, but would bounce back later.
Game 2: vs Roger Pitfiled and Southern Mapuche
Another South American match-up, hurrah! Roger is an old friend and he has been building this force for a while, then it fell off the lists. Not many pictures here as this was a very tight match indeed. Roger's army is 17 TUGs, which is huge and almost impossible to break!
That said, tight matches do not lead to good photo stories, as I completely forgot to take many photos of me taking a decent thrashing off Roger.
In this rare shot, my blues and guards engage Roger's backfield troops. All over the game you can see me making the horrendous mistake of attacking with long spears up mountains, where they do not coint and giving Roger up hill adavantages! Stupid really... 
In a marsh, I try the same mistake again! At least this time I am not giving him a hill advantage.
You really can see the mass of Roger's forces here, with a huge amount undesposed, and then the inevitable problem with facing a horde army, on the right Roger has turned (impressive considering he is tribal) one of his units to take my flank apart. 
Roger helpfully points out what a fool I am as my lines start to come apart. 
I would go on to lose this one 10-15. To be honest, I was relieved to have scored 10 as it put me on 25 points and just off the pace. Still more successful than I could have hoped for really, some weekends 25 would be a dream! Great game, and Roger's score would be a lot higher if his skirmisher kills would have counted!
Sunday dawned bright and early, and I was up against the beautiful Romans.
Robin Spence and Late Republican Roman with Galatian allies
Been a while since I played Robin, and even longer since I beat him. This army of Robin's was exceptionally hard, an exceptional guard unit, four superior legions, plus four units of Galatians with devastating charge and melee experts! These are going to hurt.
The terrain fell nearly all to the right. That big dark brown splat is a swamp, yes, it eats units! Anything that enters it or moves through it takes a KaB, welcome to the jungle Robin! I did have to disuade him from deploying in it...
Guessing Robin did not want the left hand side of the table then? We both looked at the right and thought what could we do about each other?
Robin's allied command decided to be unreliable! While being hilarious, it was also positioned right in front of his lethal legions, blocking their way. 
It did not help that I was holding this many red cards from the first deal! I held these cards for the next eleven or so turns. Robin was playing really quickly as he only had one or two units to move a turn. Issue is on the left I had a whole command that needed to move across table quickly to envelop his camp, but I could only move one unit at a time if I wanted to hold those reds.
I got to five reds, but it was not to be, the final red fell to the Galatians! Suddenly the game was afoot and the fight was on! Robin was putting his superiors in line with his camp to hold the centre left, while I was bringing four units in to attack his three, in the middle was nothing as no-one wanted to go bogsnorkelling. On the right one of Robin's legions was coming round to threaten my flanks, while the greater mass of my spears was aimed squarely at Robin's allies. The blues and the guards went in first, braced for the crash of many devastating charge types. Thamkfully, due to help of many skirmishers, there were slightly less of them to worry about than Robin started with!
It COULD have been worse! The guard lost a base and a half, but dealt one, while the blues came out unscathed.
Meanwhile, my allied command, all unprotected, look on as Robin sends a legion round to meet them. My skirmishers pull back, not wanting to be there really. Robin had caught and killed one on the charge. To the left, my pink warriors look at the swamp and wander why they are about to get wet feet?
In the middle of the board, the race for the camp is on, especially as I now can spend those red cards with impunity. 
One of the devastating chargers cannot contain itself, and is forced to charge my long spear unprotected troops, it kills a base of my melee expert allies, but in return takeds a whole load of damage from my troops, leaving a unit that started on eight right on right break (2-0). Slyvester helped.
After taking a kill and a wound for wandering through the swamp, my pink unit find the flank of Robin's left hand Galatian (they say 1:10 are lefties), piling in, but leaving themselves exposed to counter charges by the Roman exceptionals lurking behind.
My skirmishers try to soften up Robin's superior Romans at the camp, but with shield cover these superiors are really superior and do not want to die.
Robin, despite having an attached general, does not have the cards to catch my spearmen in the flank, and so goes off after my poor slingers in the backfield. One of my spears seeing his rear decide that it might be their only chance and charge at it. Pity he was up hill and superior...
Unfortunately, his right hand Galatians breaking had also opened up the flank for my spears with fleet of foot to find the other end of his Galatian line and charge in! 
This is where it got REALLY messy and fun! Robin turned to face the pinks, and nagled in teh excpetionals of the Tenth legion, while in the centre he grimiced and held on, on the right he repositioned bases to face my spears, while a superior legion moved to counter. 
The general view, at the top, the staring match continues, while in the centre all three remaining Galatian units fall to pieces (8-1) and on the hill to the right Robin turns his legion to face my spears and really starts carving them up (8-3).
The exceptionals meet my pink spears who pursue into them, the result was going to be inevitable, as the exceptionals are on +4 to my +1, but we did kill a base of them!
The battle at the camp begins. Romans show why they are just so lethal with a +3 on impact (impact weapons +2, superior +1) vs long spear on +1, I do a wound, happy with that! My charge on his camp ends up with the camp causing more damage to my spears than I did to him, oops.
Sylvester, being deshpicable, hits the side of the superior legion that was meant to be counter attacking into us! Below him, one of my unprotected spear blocks decides to have a go at the back of the exceptionals!
The pinks will not last long here I feel, in fact, in seconds, they were shredded (8-5)! Robin turned his right hand base to fight my average unprotected spears, that could be painful too at +3! However, we do enough hits to kill another base, leaving the elite legion on four bases.
But help comes from an unexpected quarter, Tweety and the blues, average spears, hit the turned bases, and due to a legendary gebneral, it is enough to get us a mighty +5! Double skull on an already damaged Legio X sees them shatter and my army is somehow victorious (15-5)
Hell of a game! Completely hilarious and Robin would go on to beat me by one point overall for the weekend. I figure I must have been one of his his worse results!
Going into round 4, I was on 40 points, utterly unexpected and I am very happy with that, I was less happy knowing I was going to have to fight Si Hall and his horde of Iko horde Ikki next, as he was leading the pack on 45 points and the army was a complete horde... I hates hordes...
Did I mention I hate hordes?
Hmm. Sticky!
All to play for here, I started the round on 40, Si was on 45, but Simon had brought a 17 TuG horde. Many unprotected, nearly all devastating charge, but the cream were two superior, protected, devastating chargers and melee experts, but most of all, six units had the 'fanatic' trait. This means if a general is attached (and Si had four, one of which was a legend), they cannot die by going under half stengeth s normally happens in MeG, they must be wiped out. Completely wiped off the face of the planet wiped out. It's expensive, but used well, incredibly powerful. Si used this perfectly, and when one of his units died, another was in range as a reserve. Fair play!Lots of terrain, all around the flanks and Si's side! It was going to be a tough fight.
It was last game on Sunday, and so some of the photo coverage might be patchy. As you can see, his army is side to side with reserves, all killer, no filler! He detailed three poor units to go down the left, a superior nasty to support, various mixed stuff in the middle, and the bulk on the right to take on my better troops.
Very quickly it became apparent that my 11 TuGs would not be enough to stop the tidal wave of psychotic Japenese rebels, as three units headed right hrough the woods. My guard detatched in the middle to try and stem the tide (Cnut would have more luck)
Despite being unprotected in most units, my 8 strong shooting corps did very little indeed to the Japanese rebels, especially the fanatics.
Okay, they redemmed themselves a bit here! On the left one unit of guards eyes up two of Si's poorer units, while my yellows, greens and reds wander if they can do anything to the custard like non-Newtonian liquid structure of Si's army.
Hmm, solid, yet it flows! I move one of my allies to attempt to stall the superior fanatics, with a wall of skirmishers to hopefully slow him too. My other two allied units brace for the arrival of the mass of poor, rabid, religous peasents.
Yeah, I had two units there! In every other game, the opponents devastating chargers had gone off, done a kill and then fizzled out, ripping holes into nothing. This time, EVERY dice Si rolled was a kill, which then caused a shatter on the next file (+2) which also killed, all the way down the line! At this point it was obviously game over as my Guards crumbled. If you look he has already burst through and is in the back of my Blues (0-7 as he also picked up three skirmishers who decided to roll 1s).
Even against poor, unprotected troops, my long spears cannot hold up. (0-9)) It was becoming almost predictable.
My guards, vs combat shy and unprotected troops, just cannot get the dice rolling, despite being massively up and with a general! They survive a flank charge and actually are one of my few units not to break in this game.
On the left, it reads very much the same. Si's charge goes in, and where previously I had blunted the attacks, this time his dice decided they were going to enjoy themselves, while mine figured they had had enough for the weekend, and refused to hit. To the right, Si's superiors, after killing their target (0-11) chase three units of skirmishers off the table (0-14)!
I had an army here! I killed one unit fanatics, and dragged his legendary commander down to talented, but it was not enough, the sheer weight of numbers (and supporting unit also being fanatic) menat I could do nowt but die (2-14)!
Even when up vs poor troops I could do no damage. I went down 4-15 (actually 4-21 if you count all my lost skirmishers). Not a good game for the Canari, but brilliantly played by Simon. He would secure first place with a full 60 points, and a well played and deadly army.
A shot of game one as RJC tried to take on Nik and I wait for my 10 minutes of action.
I finished the weekend on a very respectable 44 points for, and 39 aganst. I was in 7th place, out of 17 players. Enough to tie me with both Later Swiss armies on points for, but behind them on points against, and one point behind Robin's Romans, several points behind Roger's Mapuche and a long way behind Si's victorious Japanese.
Great format run by RJC, will definitely attend again, and it proved Canari is actually a decent army.
And yes, I will use them again.
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