A warm-up game vs Mark, then two competition games at TOIL vs Matt and David. Not all four on a weekend, becasue of a drop out on day two. So, these are a condensed report of Arthur, King of the Britons and his quest to avoid the Wooden Spoon.
My list. Two units of decent cavalry, a lot of stodge amd a few skirmishers. Yes, I am running two allied generals. 
Game 1 vs Mark's Vikings
A Wednesday warm-up, you were wondering where my last Wednesday report was? Well, here it is!
Over a thousand 10/12mm figures on table, Gawain is on the left, Lancelot in the middle with his cavalry in reserve, and Arthur on the right. This is turn two, I was pushing my Arthur's cavalry and light horse right to distract Mark's line, supported by an infantry block .Lancelot advances, while on the left Gwain moves to cover the gap left. Mark and I both ahve 11 units, but mine are nearly all 8s, whereas his while three are way harder, are all sixes.
Gawain forms up his line in expectation of Viking troubles, Lancelot swings his companions left to plug any gaps while Arthur;s Companion find a tasty flank of a Huscarl elite unit.
I get Maerk's charges to come in piecemeal, which allows my skirmishers to do their thang with tehir decent javelins. On the right, one of my units takes a fair few hits.
However, because I did not control the turn, Mark got the charge on the flank of my cavalry instead, but only caused two wounds on a red and grenn dice! Meanwhile, my foot troops/pedyts take on his Bondir on equal terms, except I have 8 bases to his six. This allowed a second unit of Pedyts to get behind his Huscarls, ready to charge them.
On the left, Gawain deals with a huscarl unit, archers and another bondi mob, Meanwhile, Lancelot's boys lob javelins as my skirmishers retreat as far back as they can get for safety.
A few turns later!
Hey, it was one big swirl of infantry lines, of course I forgot to take photos, I was excited! Anyway...
Gawain's left hand unit breaks, despite having teh opposing Bondir at break point, while the second unit of Pedyts also legs it, embarrassed, from the archer unit they have been fighting, while Mark, having ghone through teh third Pedyt unit like a knife through butter, is crashed into by Lancelot and his superior melee expert cavalry, which shatters and breaks the Huscarls. (2-6).
But on the right, my cunning ploy had worked, as I had got rid of the huscarls, and two bondir units in quite quick succession. Despite losing another Pedyt unit, the Knights of the Round Table turn around to threaten the victorious unit's rear. (6-8)
Despite heavy losses, Lancelot'ss Pedyts break two more of Mark's foot and that breaks his army (15-10)
Tight game, Gawain took a lot of damage, but Lancelot's reserve worked well, and Arthur's knights took a beating, but did not break. Stodge for the win! Great game as ever with Mark!
Game 2: vs Matt McVeigh's Almoravid.Game 1 of TOIL
Last time Matt and I had met, his Swiss had absolutely stuffed my Romans, so I was expecting more of the same treatment here. The Boards and Swords tables greeted us. Matt was using Almoravid, but no Black Guard, just hordes of superior long spear, a unit of decent knights, lots of light horse and a decent set of supporting cavalry, including Jund horse archers
Guessing he didn't want the left of the table then? Gawain and his command feels a bit left out on the coast. All Matt's decent troops were on our right, and he was hoping to envelope me there.
Lancelot and Arthur shrug and get on with it.
Light horse to our front, being a pain, so Lancelot's poor skirmishers get sent out to deal with them.
All of Gawain's foot is tribal, so manoeuvre was always going to be an issue. They decide to go for the age old technique and walk forward and throw sticks at the light horse.
On the right. Eep!
There's a lot, and they're better than me! Arthur detaches a unit of light horse to annoy and slow Matt's somewhat better light horse, while weighing up possibilities. Matt's plan was to weaken Arthur with shooting, the ger round my flank and roll me up. Good plan, not much I could do about it as I had been 100% out scouted on four cards, so he knew exactly where my lines ended. 
Woohoo, a straight flush for Arthur (Legendary Generals get five cards, one of each colour is rare).
Arthur's foot use those cards to wheel out to face the Morish horde. The cavalry hold back out of bow range to try and delay the inevitable.
Almoravid light horse take exception to having stick thrown at them by quite so many units and pull back. Lancelot's foot follows them up. 
On the left, Gawain's foot advance through the wood, pushing the light horse back towards the gap in terrain.
The Almoravid bring their Ghuzz horse archers forwards, and Arthur takes the bait, and a wound from shooting, but Matt rolls a 1 to evade, and his unprotected horse are caught by Arthur and his boys. Ouchies time!, 
Hot light horse on light horse action. My shooting had already weakened Matt's unit. Matt charges my combat shy ponies, who promptly kill two of his bases though closing fire. Good thing too as they would be desperately down in melee.
But then serve a nasty shock with their shooting with their closing fire. Muhahahahahahaha
Where did they go? (1-0)
That was our melee dice to break Matt. My light horse had paid for themselves for the weekend already Looks like the dice gods were on my side! 
Matt's foot skirmishers, being poor, upgrade my shooting dice at them, and my boys pointy sticks do lots of hurts 
Meanwhile, Gawain's command and Lancelot's boys are working out they can, in an emergency, turn corners! The lower unit in the wood had started in the middle! Lancelot's boys start to work out there are enough of them to wrap round Matt's foot command.
No, really, my foot is quite happy to stand there and throw pointy sticks at these way better enemies than get mown down! On the right, after two turns of fighting, my knights break the unprotected Jund cavalry (3-0) They are niw parked in a unit of archeres, with Matt's Christian knights about to launch a killer charge in. Not that Matt's worried, but that is a unit of poor spears coming up from reserve!
I suspect the action got a little heated here, because I'm sure there more events before we got to this stage! Arthur's cavalry had finished off the Jund mounted archers (3-0), but then been swatted away by Matt's Christain knights (3-2) Matt has brought his camel troops forwardsto threaten Gawain who has his eye on the enemy camp. I bring up a unit of Lancelot's foot to ablate this moe. His knights (off camera right) went through my knights like a cheap curry. Arthur's pedyts are taking a battering from the spears, but my right hand unit has been joined by Arthur himself after his companions legged it. My skirmishers have got round the back left of the Almoraid line, one, to get them out the way of Matt's camels, and two to try and shoot the back ranks of his foot.
Matt's knights turn in to try and flank my forces, thankfully, Lancelot was able to march his cavalrty into range. One of my light horse has moed to saftely, while the other is in the backfield shooting at his poor spears. We are basically trading bases. Howeer, my eights of dross, despite being seriously outclassed are doing more hurt than the superior spears. 
The camel corps goes in. My other foot units hold on, maybe...
Matt swings his bows in to support his line. Lancelot's cavalry charges in on Matt's knight. 
Matt looks on aghast as Lancelot piles staright through (5-4) but one of Arthur's units has fallen, leaving a gap in the line.
Another Pedyt unit falls (5-6), but Gawain is basically in on the enemy camp now. 
Go on Gawain! 
Second straight flush of the game! 
And Gawain takes the camp (7-6)
At the same moment, both our centres do a vanishing act! I lose another Pedyt (7-8) while Matt looses two blocks of very expensive spears (11-8)
Lancelot and his horse decide that poor spears and unprotected archers are there for a light snack, and crash in. Arthur, haing lost nearly all his units, joins his light horse. 
With that, Matt's army crumbles. Leaving Arthur slack jawed at the caranage and in possession of a 15-10 win and a decent ranking!
Maybe we won't claim the spoon.
Game 2 of TOIL vs David Gollop's Arab Conquest
More horde on horde action! This time I would be against superior, melee expert flavoured foot!
Same table, same coastline, less terrain! Massive amounts of foot, and on the right, David has decent cavalry, but also a wodge of unprotected types. I went with the same-ish deployement, it's not subtle, but it appears to work! Only difference is Arthur's cavalry and light horse was caught up around some bad going.
Very quickly it became apparent that this would be fought out in two straight lines, like Barker intended! This time it would be Arthur's units trying to swing in on the right.
The almost inevitable crash of two infantry heay forces. I had managed to inflict some losses with javelins as teh arabs piled in. Gawain gets involed too.
Third straight flush in two games. Maybe not so rare after all?
That's Arthur on the enemy base line killing a units of Jund horse archers (2-0), while his light horse catches David's light horse in the flank. (3-0) 
Meanwhile, the righ of centre, the centre and the left is becoming a bloodbath. David's superior foot and cavalry in sixes vs my not so good boys in eights. This would be attritional.
On the left, Gawain is losing bases, fast! But to be honest, so is Lancelot, but so is David! Lancelot's cavalry is on standby for the inevitable breakthrough. You can see my dead pile behind the cards. Lots of units on half strength when you break on OVER half-strength!
Before...
After!
We had one final turn where:-
1) Gawain died.
2) The unit he was with broke.
3) This caused enough KABs to break the other units in his command (3-6)
However,
At the same moment...
4) David lost a unit, which caused a KaB...
5) Which broke two adjoining units.
6) which broke two more units!
7) Which broke his army!!! (15-6)
Yes, eight units and a general in a turn. Complete and utter carnage. That's another resons why these rules are so hilarious.
A top day's gaming, leaving me on 30 points for, 16 against, and in the top 3 going into round 3/day 2. Except Si had to drop out, and I had a day's painting instead while organising the later rounds. Two brilliant games, lots of laughs and many, many dice that went my way.
Who says dross armies can't win?
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