Hamanids at Usk - Add your comments on our results
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My Post Match Summary
At 900 points and with our center-heavy deployment we were unable to create the flanks and draw out the Byzantines from their solid line - both (or either ) of which our army needed to take advantage of its numbers. The Byzantine advance was swifter than we expected, and with no answer to the knights (who could not be overlapped to give us anything more than a 12/8 advantage) our army was drawn into a more even fight than we wanted across most of the table. To counteract this needed a little luck and some quick results - neither of which we got. Instead all our promising situations and tactical advantages resulted in quick and crushing defeats as the Byzantines overcame the odds to win where they should have struggled even to hold their own. As a 900 point game with mounted troops predominating on both sides it had been a lot more enjoyable than the infantry/classical 800 point matches at Warfare, but the random factor inherent in FoG had made the result less than satisfactory.
Your comments
Name ; Hannibal
Comments ; How on earth can you say the enemy advanced faster than you expected? There are no variable moves in this game - mores the pity - so what you really meant was "we deployed badly and too far forwards". And "we had no answer to the knights". That's arabic for "we picked the wrong army isn't it? If I was being generous I would admit you had what looks like some pretty lousy luck. But get over it - luck and the random factor is bigger in FoG than in DBM or any earlier WRG ruleset, so its something you have to live with. Get over it, get lucky next time around, or move on.
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My Post Match Summary
A game of two halves - one where we rode our luck to ride over the vulnerable Dailami in textbook style, and one where seemingly overwhelming odds ended up in a bit of a pileup, and the brittle nature of average troops was ruthlessly exposed, compounded by the greatly superior ability of drilled cavalry to recover from pursuit and head off to nail the next enemy unit far more quickly than undrilled troopers. There were swings and roundabouts a-plenty on both sides, and lots of casualties - again an endorsement of playing with fast moving mounted troops on both sides, as victories coudl be followed up and exploited across the full width of the table.
Your comments
Name ; Hannibal
Comments ; It sounds like to me you doofed it up yet again, getting your troops into a traffic jam from which it was impossible to extract them, and then you were unable to react to the almost inevitable (given its FoG) bit of intensely bad luck you suffered. Luckily your doubles partner managed to get the hang of charging everything forwards in a big long line and rolling decent dice - saving your bacon. Well, maybe bacon isn't the right metaphor, mutton perhaps would be better. But you get my gist.
Name ; Sayf al-Dawla
Comments ; Well you beat us, so mission accomplished there. However, the pictures do show that you managed to leave a unit of lancers staring at one of our LH units for a number of bounds which effectively took it out of the game and meant you didn't bring all your numbers to bear on your side of the table - thus allowing your bad luck to affect you more than necessary.
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My Post Match Summary
By the skin of our teeth the plan to outnumber better quality enemy cavalry had pulled off an exciting and famous victory for the Arabs - but it was very close to a disaster. The Lombards had again outfoxed our plan to envelop them by deploying all their forces on one wing, and we had neither the time nor the opportunity to react before they hit home. Of the two units that did get drawn out of line it was only the loss of one of them early on that tipped the scales in our favour - the other fought incredibly until the end of the game elsewhere. We also failed to take advantage of a supposedly weaker and refused flank, although here 2 units did eventually fall to Arab harassment, and the baggage was looking in range as well. However a line of poor spearmen and light bowmen proved a resilient obstacle that took a long time to out-fox. But there was undoubtedly excitement and some edge-of-the seat moments as the two huge cavalry lines fought out an intense battle, where each victory represented a potential advantage to those fighting next to it -much like a Kn(F) vs Kn (F) battle in DBM but on a bigger scale.
Your comments
Name ; Hannibal
Comments ; I'm starting to get the hang of thic camera angle stuff here. All the shots are taken from the right hand side of the table. Which is presumably where you were sitting. All the action took place on the left - where you weren't in command. And that's where the real victory was won. Again, without your involvement at all. Over on your watch, there was some ineffectual messing around, you managed to shoot two units down over the course of the entire game, but failed to kill one single unit of armoured lancers, despite being in combat with at least a 3:2 advantage, and eventually a 7:2 advantage in numbers - throughout the entire game. Well, I suppose you didn't actually lose anything. Which is some sort of improvement I suppose.
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My Post Match Summary
With a good 4 feet of the table width covered by spears we had no real answer to (and significantly more than we had been expecting to face), we needed a quick result against one or both wings to stand a chance here - and we didn't get one. Despite an initial success, no further results went our way and in a totally static combat situation the Arab Conquest lancers eventually chopped their Dynastic brethren to pieces. After our previous 3 exciting games and their regular wild swings of fortune and luck this match up proved much more of a grind and provided less entertainment - probably for both sides.
Your comments
Name ; Hannibal
Comments : Well, that's the problem with a lopsided army. It can sometimes fall over - and very easily. To be fair to you - and I don't say this very often - the matchup dealt you a poor hand, and you made a half decent fist of making a game of it here, but you were relying on a degree of luck, and it just didn't come at the right place or time for you. Even their figures were better painted than yours, so humiliation all round really.
Name ; Sayf al-Dawla
Comments : Well I think that Hannibal was easy on you here. This match up was screaming for a Flank March and you'd paid the points for the FC to allow one to get on table quickly, so why not 
Some more terrain would have been nice to try and break up the Arab line, I assume you lost the initiative roll. I think that you were influenced by your partners desire to find out how his bunch of underachievers had performed against the locals 
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