FOGR Celtic Cup day two - another hit another miss

Second day of the fray today and another two excellent games of FOGR.
First was against John 'brushstroke' Lavery who was using a very nice Jacobite Rebellion Scots army.
Nicely painted plaid and some really nice little touches such as Highlanders being blown into the air and dead English on his bases (my photos do not do the army justice).
John set up in a fairly defensive configuration but manly came out to play (probably once he saw how slow and cumbersome the Tercios are.
I had good luck with my Cannons for once routing a unit to their front.
On my left I was reluctant to move my mounted too far forward as their would be flanked by Musket armed Warrior units in a vineyard. On my right John had a large enclosed field which he occupied with one unit but failed to get second unit in and these succumbed to charges by my Kurraiser aided by Croats. He had a unit of Irish muskets that went disrupted leaving another unit of Scots to get hit and defeated by a Tercio.
The Scots mounted are weak being only two units of two bases and the victory was mine when they both Auto Broke due to failed Death rolls.
I was however lucky with a 2 base Kuirassier unit to survive a 4 hit Death roll and cohesion test.
So another morning win with my only loss being my unit of Dragoons.

Afternoon and this time a 80 Years War Dutch army commanded by Scottish bloke George.
He had three units of medium Cannon which played merry hell with one of my Tercios rolling a mighty 14 hits out of 18 rolls from which I failed Cohesion tests to become broken rather quickly.
Both flanks saw clashes of mounted forces.
Dutch had a Swedish ally with Determined horse on my right one of which crushed a unit of Kurrassie and then swept over my isolated Cannon.
My other Kuirassiere and a Reiter unit manfully held on but could not destroy any enemy and the Reiters then broke under the pressure.
On my left we had a Kuirassier vs Kuirassier clash that went on for several combats with my lot losing a base and going Disrupted and losing their General ! for no effect on enemy.
I did however manage to swing my other Reiter unit around in the rear of the enemy but unbelievably in the Impact I failed to gain any hits (needing 3+ on 2 dice) but suffered 2 hits (needed 5+ on 2 dice) for a Cohesion and Death test of course I managed to fail both and ended up Fragmented !!
By this time my army had Broken for no loss to Dutch so a 25-0 defeat, which gave George the win in the FOGR competition and Team Scotland the team title.

Another two entertaining games against another two gents.

Couple pics of other games/players

Celtic Cup Second Day (and torpedoing)

Second day of Celtic Cup Field Of Glory competition and another couple of fun games










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

 

Gamers best sides on view

 

Dave Taylor and John Muir trying to work out which way lines are facing

 

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.

Celtic Cup 2013 First Day on Field Of Glory

First day completed of this years Celtic Cup in Belfast. I decided to try Field Of Glory version 2 this time in lieu of Dbmm. I fielded Early Mediveal French with Viking Allies as these are troops types I struggle to use with anything approaching success in Dbmm. An Undrilled army with nothing really special about it and totalling a modest 11 Battle Groups












Two excellent games today against two gents.

Despite being the most British of Brits I offered to play for (Southern) Irish team (as they only had blokes in Dbmm competition), hopefully my efforts will be aid and not hinderance to their team chances !?




First up was against Selecuids under the command of Scottish gent John Muir (an accomplished FOG exponent it turns out). I had no real answer to his Cataphracts. However I had some really good dice rolls early on with my humble Lancers Cavalry to hold the Cataphracts whilst my Viking Huscarls had nothing short of awesome dice all game (including one turn with 8 hits out of 8 dice thrown) and thereby destroyed two blocks of Pikemen. However my defensive Spearmen did not fare just so well and the heavier armour of the Cataphracts began to tell on my Mounted.
Game ended 21-4 vs in John favour. I learnt quite a few new things about rules which is of course one of best reasons to play against different opponnents. Great fun indeed very much 'a proper wargame'.
We both managed to win a couple of door prizes with John taking prize for first Camp Sacked just after I had taken prize (a nice Osprey on Teutorberger Wald AD9 Campaign) for first General killed.

  

















Second game was against George (whose surname I have forgotten) who fielded a tiny 8 unit Drilled Sassanid army. This is very much an army of manouevre which was evident by George being able to redeploy bulk of his mounted units to his left flank whilst holding bulk of my foot with couple of units. He also had two units of Cavalry Lancers identical to mine. This of course meant I charged them as soon as possible and a regular dice-fest ensued. One of my two six base Cavalry (of course the one lead by Inspired commander) duly broke whilst the other heroically held on despite ending up charged in rear whilst fighting to front. In fact they actually routed both these units !! Alas a third Sassanid unit charged their flank and broke them. The break point for the Sassanids was 8 and I had broken three units requiring just one more to take the game with decent points total. I even managed to cvatch an evading Light Foot unit with a unit of Light Horse but only managed to Fragment them just as time was called. This still gave me a 13-7 win. Huzzah !!
Another fun game.

Couple of pics of general competition area


Tom 'grandad' Worden stands to attention as opponnent moves

 

Stephen Brittain trys to initimdate young Daniel Taylor with vieled threats whilst pretending to smile

More to come tomorrow.......................


And a great game of of footie on TV tonight (partly making up for Ulster Rugby defeat by Leinster)