Registration, I am in there somewhere !
Finally getting around to doing up a few battle reports from my very enjoyable
outing to Britcon (my first UK comp since Derby back with 7th Edt). Hope I
recall events with at least some semblance of accurracy.............
Used Avar army (yes I know an S-fest type) mainly due to it being able to fit
into 2 small tins making it easy to transport by plane (I travelled over from
Belfast ie from the colonies)
Army baggage of 4 Irr BgF
Scouting Strategm
Cic with 3 rCvS 10 Irr LhS 1 Irr PsO & 3 Irr Ps I (for Scouting) 24ME
Sg with 4 rCvS and 6 rLhS 20ME
Sg with 1 rCvS 12 Irr AxO & 2 Irr PsO 15ME
Sg with 4 rCvS 14ME
Army total 75 ME
I had toyed with an even smaller all reg all mounted version (4 Gen 19Cv 10LH)
but plumbed for using Bulgar and Slav subjects as I thought the Ax would be of
use for holding/contesting terrain.
Game 1 vs Steve Rathgay using massive Early Summerian (Kish)
An anti-cav army to face first and me with....umm.... a Cav army.
I was invader. Deployment completed during Night but only for 1 turn (0500-0510)
and another 20mins worth of Dawn so not much chance of sneak attacking !
Steve (a very nice chap) set up between two RHs (which I inexplicably took to be
DH throughout the game....doh !) with a BUA on his right rear edge and a GH
kindly gifted by myself along with another king gift of an O. On my side were 2
large M placed by Steve (my Slav Ax occuppied one) and a small SF. A never
ending line of PkX faced me between the RH and O with some Ps/Ax in the BUA and
his cowardly Battlewagons hiding the GH (I cant recall what he had on his left
(Cav ?)
Faced with this posistion I guess I could have simply stayed away and played for
a draw............but that aint my style (and to be fair Steve seemed to want to
come out and play too) so I essentially just charged straight in with all I
could bring to bear.
I did ride some LH to Steves right but stopped short of the RH I took to be
difficult.
In short order my Lh feel foul of the Pk and loss of 1 or 2 CvS was enough to
Break 2 Cmds ending game.
Steve won a resounding 25-0 and I managed to only kill a feeble 3 elements ! not
an auspicious start and I felt I had not played at all well formulating no real
plan and even executing that poorly :-).
Game 2 vs Niall Taylor using all mounted Early Tang
I was invader again on a fairly open table with a few GHs a SF and a Chinese BUA
scattered and none of which had any bearing on game. Niall (another nice bloke)
set up with Cvs on both flanks and an Allied Cmd of LH on a GH near his centre.
I placed Slav cmd in centre flanked by CvS/Lh cmds and decided put my CvS only
cmd on an out flank to the right hoping to get in behind the Tang
A fine plan of course the flanking lot only arrived on the turn my army broke !
I dont recall a lot of the game other than a lot of LH vs LH and Cv vs Cv
match-ups which I would have expected to at least win some
of.......however.........dice rolling was appalling on my part (Niall at one
point said 'I have never seen so many 1s' I think in an attempt to cheer my
frowns ?) I do remember 2 identical combats wherein I had a Lh to front and
flank of 2 seperate CvS but both rolled 1 whilst Chinese rolled inevitable 6
meaning not only did they survive but killed my Lh to boot ! The low rolls
included my Pips which curtailed my manouvering whilst the Tang swanned about at
ease. Such cruel twists of dice rolling fate saw my losses mounting in short
order and another 25-0 stomping. Only ray of hope was that I had killed double
the enemy from first game (ie 6 elements !) and had at least executed a plan
despite its not working.
Game 3 vs Tony Dennis using KnO version of East Franks
Again I invaded and Tony (another nice chap) placed a road running from his rear
to mine with a BUA upon it a WH on his left and a Wood which ended up in my
center (a fine spot for the Slavs). I deciced to place my 3 Mtd Cmds to my right
essentially ignoring the Rd & BUA with the Slav in that Wood to screen my left.
Tony placed a lot of Bd in the BUA (dismounted Swabian KN IIRC) with Knickets in
centre and a large Knicket Cmd on his left. This was Cmd I deciced to pick on as
I hoped that my Reg Pips would allow me to out manouvre the Knickets. So it
transpired as I managed to gang up on the Knickets to my right whilst screening
his other Cmd s with Slav and LH. I charged in with LH as quick as I could to
stop Tony gaining any room to manouvre, somewhat risky but it worked. Despite
several bizzare combat outomes (if I rolled a 1 he rolled 6 and vice versa)
which had me at times laughing out loud (I must apologixe to those on
neighbouring tables) I found that I was fighting Knickets almost exclusively and
was able to kill them mainly due to some Lh breaking up their formation and
their going Sponno which allowed my Cv to pick them off (KnO being slower than
Cv was a factor as well) Still Tony had a few opportunities to QK my Cav but
only managed it twice in game. His losses acceralated to the Knickets being 2ME
and once his large Cmd broke it carried the neighbouring damaged Cmd with it due
to the -2ME temp hit. This gave me the game 18-7 as he had broken my largest Cmd
but thankfully done no damage to others.
At last a win...............
Game 4 vs Keith Nathan using a huge Kushite Egyptian horde
Invader just for a change which meant a compulsory WW on my right.
Keith (another nice opponnent I am spotting trend here) placed a Dune in my
centre and there were a couple of SF and RF (again none affected proceedings).
Keith placed his Cmds essentially crooss the table with Chariot KnS on his left
and in centre and a massive array of Bow and Aux types to his left. He had
several Cav on his right. With Keiths bunch being Irr I was quitely confident
that I could out manouvre him and having had success last game I again decicied
to try to ignore half his army by placing all my Mtd on my left with Slavs to
screen my centre/right using the Dune as cover. Again twas a fine plan except my
dice decided not to play along yielding me some sorry batches of PIps. Despite
this I did manage to get onto the Kushite right flank with LH and did some
initial damage with a massed charge. Keith did exclaim 'you certainly seem to
want a quick game' (did he think I was busting for the loo ?) but....as always
there is a but......having disheartened his right Cmd I singularily failed to
make good my advantage even being pushed back for several turns by disheartened
CvO. Keith had decent Pips and was inexorably moving his Chariots and other
nasties from his left and centre to his threatened flank. He massed and my Mtd
army withered. Keith gained a 16-9 win
Game 5 vs Geoff Pearson using Swiss (lots of PkS)
Invader again which meant I was fighting in foothills of Alps as several WH & DH
appeared giving Geoff (an even nicer chap !) a handy redoubt to line his Pikes
between. On Swiss left was a sort of valley formed by a DH and a WH upon which
Geoff placed some Ps. I decided that my LH/CV would take on the Pike whilst I
gave (for first time) the Slav Cmd my highest Pip die to advance to this valley
and hopefully take the WH (it is just this sort of task I brought them for after
all). Throwing the Lh/Cv into the Pikes was an interesting experience as I had
hard time killing them as hard to flank them and head to head hard to double
Supr PK conversely whilst Swiss could beat me most often this resulted in a
Spent LH. Meanwhile my Slav advanced merrily to then find Geoff (nice but
sneaky) had a delayed Cmd of BdF/Ax come on at opposite end of valley. Game then
developed into a slug fest. I did gain an advatage on Geoff right killing some
Pk and almost getting in behind him with LH but he had excellent Pips and was
able to thwart this move and in fact drove off/killed my LH ending the threat.
This prompted me to conduct my only backwards moves at Britcon as my CvS on my
left rode off from the Pike to save their Cmd going broken. As this was
happening my Slavs were doing very well against the oppossing Swiss killing
several BdF and flanking some Pike. In centre my CvS rode into Pike (many of
which were now in small groups of 1 or 2 rather than a coherent line) and began
to do some damage especially when I committed 3 Gen to combat. Two of Geoffs
cmds broke in one turn carrying his army away giving me a hard fought 23-2. This
was by far my longest game (all the others were blink and you'll miss it
affairs) and kudos to Geoff who pointed out to me that I was calculating Spent
troops wrongly as regards breaking a Cmd (was only disheartened when I thought
it was broken). Damn fine attribute for an umpire :-)
Game 6 vs Stephen Brittain using his Seljuk Turks
Bit of a misnomer this one as myself and Stephen asked organizers if we could
play each other in last round as we had to rush off for a plane and didnt want
to spoil final game for anyone else by having to finish early. For once I was
defender and so a vast plain was result with only a couple of GH. Stephen (btw
yet another nice bloke) deployed first by mistake as he forgot to use his all
mounted -1/+3 adjustment (long weekend burning out the brain cells). Two evenly
matched armies which we both know well with Stephen having a slight advantage in
numbers. He had a mass of Lh on his left which I tried to match with mine but
ominously he had a second rank behind his first...........
He had a smaller Cmd on his right which faced with my small Cv cmd my Slavs
filled centre.
On my left I managed to gain upper hand but on my right despite initial gains
the reserve Turks bagan to overwhelm my Cmd. Losses mounted on both sides with
us both having a Cmd broken. But we had to end proceeeding as we had to run off
to ctach a train to airport. Game ended 15-10 to Stephen and I suspect had we
played mant more turns his winning margin would have been greater.
So 2 wins 4 losses and 6 highly enjoyable games against 6 very nice (there that
word again) opponnents.
I plan to be back next year...............
