Ahh, the anatomy of a loss!
Mark and I met up at Leighton Buzzard Wargames club for a friendly game of MeG, using the Magna (28mm) variant. I have been rebasing my inherited Ghaznavid/Andalusian/Arabs of late (there will be future post about these), so when Mark suggested Magna I agreed and tried to build a viable list with what I've got. Mark, fresh off getting a drubbing at Campaign with his army, was looking for blood!
The terrain fell as featureless, a waterway held one side, which we both anchored our camps on, and Mark got a piece of rough going. That was it.
My army was based around combined arms, Mark's around a great slab of powerbows! I out scouted him by 30%, but what came out was scary for my mainly cavalry army! On the right, two units of billmen support four units of retinue archer and artillery! The rough going is held by mercenary crossbows, on the left, two more archer units, a ubit of hand gunners, dismounted men-at-arms and a unit of heavy knights. Most of his archers deployed behind stakes. Mark had brought a really scary force for my army. If I had brought my Imperial Romans, I would have been laughing!
Why is this a worry? Well, power bow get a +1 vs mounted. I have two units of unprotected archers, which give him a plus, and my two horse archer units are also unprotected. I put a superior cavalry unit with one horse archer on the left. Dailami and elephants, supported by skirmishing archers, then a mix of bows and spearmen in the centre, keeping my lancers, another superior cavalry and my second horse as a reserve behind. 
The sun shines on the righteous?
My left hand cavalry command, with two black cards, decided to sunbathe and sit still, not getting into power bow range (they have a range of 5BW, in Magna, that is HUGE). My elephants and Dailami went for his men-at-arms, while I peeled off muy archers to try and upset his crossbows. My main foot command wheeled right, whild my CinC with the heavy cavalry started a Longstreet and swung out to the right. 
Turn 2, and my archers evaporate under Mark's shooting. Two green dice from the crossbows (unprotected troops give your opponent a +1 to hit) and a green from the powerbows, two skulls and a wound! Bye! Just rude! (0-2)
Turn 3, Magna isn't subtle! Charges go in. My Dailami on the charge are better than Mark's men-at-arms, so I took the risk. A wound from closing fire was okay. My elephants, annoyed at Mark's crossbows, charged in, taking a wound on the way (hint, although I'm heavily armoured nellies, crossbows and powerbows ignore it). 
On the right, after a turn of brutal shooting that had seen my left hand spears stripped of their back rank by closing fire, and my archers losing two bases too (lots of greens on the archers, many whites on the spears from archers and artillery, none of which Mark missed with), my two spears charged in, knowing they had the advantage on the charge and had close order, giving them shove potential too, I was slightly up.
The Dailami launch in, and promptly, despite being up, miss! Mark did not! His two white dice wounded, killing a base and and with a wound already, my Dailami are looking brittle. My two green blanked...
And on the charge, my spears, with an advantage, did, nothing! Mark missed two. Nothing says faith in your own troops like turning the reserves back and marching off by the Billmen, Mark! 
A success! The elephants in melee crush the crossbows (2-2). However, the crossbows ran short, so a free charge in the artillery without it shooting at me was off the menu! 
Melee on the right, well, that went well. Green on green dice, Mark rolling green and white (overlap) scores a skull and a wound with each of his dice on the right to break those spears, while only losing a base himself. The left hand spears fail to hit again, and they die, as does the attached general! The bows take three KAB rolls and leg it too (2-8). The resulting KaBs wounding both the knights and superior cavalry lose a base from their two KABs behind! My plans had been simple, I had moved the bows out of harms way. If I held on with either spear unit, my knights would only have to face two green dice shooting on the way in, now it would be four! 
On the left, my Dailami are crushed by two-handed chopper welding heavily-armoured melee experts. Carrying a wound, they suffer two yellow skulls and only cause a wound in return with their one white dice! (2-10) I break on 6, and have lost five so far!!
Turn four: On the right, CHARGE! My knights make it in, with only two slows and a wound from four green dice of shooting, causing a wound and a skull, but Mark manages two wounds, on top of the one he caused with the KaBs, and two bases are gone. The superior knights kill one billman on the charge, but inevitably loose a base too as Mark can't miss! 
On the left, Mark had pursued one base with his armoured men at arms, which did two really useful things, it took him out of supporting fire range from his two archer units, and allowed my superior cavalry to charge in while he had no bonuses from his two handed weapons or armour or melee experts! On the charge they caused two skulls, breaking Mark's cream of his household! (4-10)
My final success was my elephants, despite taking a wound from the artillery on closing fire, contacting and destroying the guns, unfortunately, they were just at the wrong angle, so missed the flank of Mark's massed foot! (5-10)
With that, my right hand superior cavalry died to Mark's Billmen, and it was all over! (5-15) to Mark. All over in an hour and a half and four turns
What could I have done better?
Not getting my unprotected bows into shooting range would have saved four points. Not bringing Ghaznavid would have saved 15!! Great game, really happy to have got the points I did. Mark's dice were incredible all evening and he deployed and played brilliantly. Sometimes you just get a bad match up, but in MeG it is very very rare. The lack of 28mm armies between us means that this sort of match will result in losses until we tweak and fettle to something that will win. My spears, for instance, could be 6s, which would give me more staying power. A unit of the bows could be dropped. I have more skirmishers, and more importantly, four more fully-armoured elephants that one day might make an appearance. Or I might go Andalusian/Alhomarid/Almoravid and bring the Black Guard. So many variables!
Still a huge laugh and very enjoyable.
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