First up was battle with John Lavery and his Aztec army (with rather nice rope bridge camp). Lots of Drilled Impact Foot (mix of Average, Superior and Elite) for which he managed to get a decent amount of terrain for in one half of his table side. My Vikings piled in with support of Spearmen who marched onto a hill top. I had to wheel all my Cavalry around on my left.
My Huscarls took out an Aztec unit but my Bondi succumbed beside them. This led to my having to charge the flank of a realigning Aztec unit with my Gascon Light Horse. No real chance of bearing them but did force them to stop and fight and saved my Huscarls getting charged in the rear (ouch !). Meanwhile I charged one of my 6 base Lancers units with my CinC into a area of brush against an Aztec unit and broke them over two turns. This then broke a couple of nearby Light Foot units and after a mess of routing, burstiing through and pursuits I had broken another two units and sacked enemy camp.
Sadly a unit of supporting Medium Cavalry had been shot to bits by Aztec (who throw javelins). As time was called neither side had broken and so I managed a 'winning' draw 12-8. I also claimed moral victory as I killed two (yes two folks) Aztec Generals !!
Great game with lots of learning points for the rules as several new situations encountered.
Rather poor iPhone pics as lighting not great today
Final game was against Daniel Taylor (a young lad) with a very nicely painted Late Republican Roman Army. Terrain fell very nicely for Daniel with room for bulk of his Legionaries (really tough Superior and Elite types) to line in between. He used a piece of impassable terrain which I not encountered before. However he had a unit of Elephants and Cavalry in front of this lot which he ran forward as a sort of 'suicide/expendable' unit hoping to bash my Cavalry. But not wanting to leave his terrain fort he left them unsupported and I was able to surround and kill them both losing only my Gascon Light Horse. As Romans resolutely refused to move forward I took my time lining up my Armoured Cavalry and Vikings to assault his line whilst moving against his right with my Spearmen and Medium Cavalry, Romans had two Elite Legionary units on this flank. I could have simply attacked his left and ingnored his line of foot but where would be the fun in that for either of us (plus I had the Irish team to think about). So I duly charged in everywhere I could. This lead to a veritable bloodbath with Romans passing just about every Cohesian Test I threw at them but failing every Death Roll. This saw three units of Legionaries wiped out (and yet another General !) whilst I lost a Unit of Heavy Cavalry and the Bondi. My Huscarls were flanked but managed to hang on. On my left my Spearmen were assaulted and both broken by the Elite Legionaries who were then duly charged in rear by my Medium Cavalry.
Game was very much in balance as both one unit from Breaking. Things decided by Huscarls passing a key Test and my recovering a Routing Spear unit from broken with a nice double 6 roll. Next Impact phase I managed to kill another on my right with remaing Heavy Cavalry unit breaking the Romans and giving me a hard fought 17-9 win.
Couple of mistakes in this game 1. I forgot to apply -1 to Cohesion tests to Romans for losing to Lancers and 2. my Huscarls should have suffered -1 POA for fighting in two directions (think we forgot this with Elephants as well). A really hard fought game which I am glad to say young Daniel said was his most enjoyable game of weekend.
So a fairly successful Celtic Cup for me with Field Of Glory. Am now perectly happy to play either FOG or DBMM as both offer different games with same toys. FOG certainly an easier game to play in many ways and possibly one that suits my aggressive style of play more than Dbmm.
Some random shots of gamers(ie geeks) in full flow
John Muir in Speilbergian backlit shot with Brian Bull doing 'chicken dance' in background and Tony Bergin eating his figures
Stephen Brittain about to get his knuckles rapped by Scots bloke (sorry name escapes me) if he moves incorrectly (fairly good old school way to learn how to play actually)
John Lavery trying to force his Aztecs onto horses to try to catch George's 'runa away' Sassanids
As a final aside my volunteering to representing Ireland team in FOG may have had desired effect as the Irish team finished 3rd out of 3 with Scotland 2nd and the glorious N.Ireland team taking 1st :-)
I think George Dick of Scotland won the FOG competition and Mark Gibson of NI the Dbmm version.
Well done to both chaps.
Great couple of reports Gary - makes me want to give FOG a try-out soon. Glad I didn't pay the plane fare over for the Ulster game now :-)
ReplyDeleteCheers Norman