Deployment Disasters

ME AT THE CLUB - a fall comes after pride A classic example of taking things for granted, and the perils of changing army size!

OVER EAGER ARABS - bad deployment , exacerbated by bad dice But which is cause and which is effect...?

Just after the Oxford Doubles I played a game down at the club with 400 points of Carthaginians. The biggest command was one of Spears and a few padding Auxilia - it went on my left, aiming to contest an orchard, whilst putting pressure on the Selucids likely pike deployment area.

Second to go down was my Cavalry wing - Irr Cv (O) + LH on the far right - a sweeping maneuver pressurizing the Selucid left is what they are paid to do.

Third is the Wb & Ax (S) command - in the center, opposite a wood. The Ax can contest it, whilst the Wb help the spearmen dispose of the Pike Phalanx.

Well, being used to a largely LH army at 500ap the weekend before, by the time the center command goes down, it becomes clear that they are suffering from agoraphobia - acres of open space separate them from either flank command

"Gallic Warband prepare to dispatch a carrier pigeon to contact the Cavalry somewhere to their right"

Of course, the Selucids deploy packed into the corner, my cavalry are totally useless, and I get turned over big-style largely due to the lack of ability to concentrate my force (but also because I fell sucker to a Kn(X)-out-of-the-woods sucker punch on my left flank!

I was once in a doubles game playing Christian Nubian against Arab Conquest. I had the C-in-C's command, which consisted of impetuous Wb(F) and impetuous Cm(S). For some idiotic reason I deployed the camels directly behind the warband.

In the first bound I threw a 1 for PIPs which meant that I was unable to move both of my impetuous groups, as the camels were to close behind the warband to do a full move with the C-in-C's free PIPs. I was forced to let all the Wb(F) make spontaneous moves, directly towards the Arab Wb(S) which had marched a long way up the table.

Of course I unable to regain control of my warband, and they were rapidly massacred by the Arab Wb(S). I didn't manage to get the Cm(S) into contact before the command broke either.....

The classic one I experienced was a Medieval French commander, who shall remain nameless, who deployed his primary Kn command (about 15 I think) on the edge of a wood in my half of the table, in ambush. He was planning to sweep out and pounce on my Auxilia before they could get
into the woods.

However, he forgot that my Auxilia would only stop marching when they sighted enemy, putting them 50p (25mm) away from the wood edge. Thus, when he charged out, his Kn failed to clear the wood, and were left fighting in DGo at -2. It didn't take long for the Roman Auxilia to demolish them.

Doubles Masters at Oxford. Hutchbys Patricians versus the Early Croatians belonging to the Servants of Cthulhu. Table quite open. Small hill on one flank with an area of rough to one side. The Patricians deploy in "The Corner", Ax nearest the table edge, on the hill, and Bd to the right. The Croatians deploy a wall of Kn opposite the Ax and Bd with a Cv and Ax command to the left of the Kn. At this point 66% of the table is completely free of troops.

Now here comes the good bit! As deployment reaches conclusion Mr Hutchby smiles and tell the "Servants" they cannot see his last command.

Unperturbed, the Servants smile back and tell Mr H that he cannot see their last command!

At this point Mr Hutchbys faithful companion realizes the full significance of this and begs him not to roll a 6 for their flank march. Mr H, whose face is now somewhat ashen, reaches for his calculator and concludes that the Croatian flank march is approximately the size of his whole army put together!

Upon rolling the 6, the Croats come on and duly proceed to begin butchering the aforementioned Patrician army. However the Coup de Grace is not administered by the Servants but by Mr Hutchbys faithful companion who arises from his chair, offers his surrender before turning to poor Mr H and calling him a "complete chimp whose plan was not worthy of a banana"

The following 2 Classics were both created by Mr Sherrington - a general who has on two occasions shown strategic acumen exceeding even that of Dave "The Tank" Everett himself. Kindly provided by his "mate" Andy Bascome...

A unit of 24 Pk(O) from the largest of three commands deployed in ambush in a wood, close to the enemy baseline. In fairness, this did have the effect of surprising the enemy, whose 4 Wb(F) found them and proceeded to completely munch them up impetuously for the next 3 or 4 bounds at which point the Macedonians became demoralized.

4 commands, two on flank march, two on table and all in ambush except the C-in-C and baggage. I forget what army this was, as much of it failed to appear at all, but the enemy were Huns. While this caused much thought during the enemy's deployment, it also allowed them an unopposed run at the baggage with a very large number of LH when one of their first PIP dice was a 6.

Having just returned from the Nation's Cup, I thought I had better take a deep breath and own up to my contribution to the hallowed ranks of PANTS!!!

In my first game, fielding Early Samurai, against Kai Kunze of Germany (a strong player I am told), who was using Late Hungarians, I defended.

Kai placed two large, long, H(S) which fell in my left flank on my side of the table, forming the inner sides of a square with the two table edges. He then placed his baggage opposite these hills.

In a moment of brilliance, I decided these H(S) were crying out for an ambush, so what to deploy?

Now the maxim I have been told with ambushes is put a whole lot in there or just 1 or 2, this advice I proceeded to ignore and put 4 Ax(I) in line just behind the crest from my largest command (10 break).

In a moment of startling insight, I then thought about the 4 Bd(F) in my C in C's command (9 break), and cleverly put them in column just below the crest.

Reasoning being(!?!?) they could be held for 1 pip, and they could make a dash for his baggage if the opportunity arose.

This plan did not survive the acid test of deployment... Kai deployed his army, the expected Lh screen in the middle, Kn's in reserve, and...shed loads of Ps(O) and (S) aimed right at my hill!!!! My ambush was rightly toasted. Kai proceeded to break my army in the last bound, by one EE. I am PANTS at ambushes!!!

Many thanks to a large number of people who drew my attention to the following bizzare and almost inexplicable deployment witnessed by most people at Derby for the Worlds 2000.

Steve (famous for his bald head and traditional use of Abbasids) is clearly very familiar with his favored troops, and rarely makes deployment mistakes. However the weekend in question, he had been attempting to arrange, deploy and organize something with which he was clearly totally unfamiliar

Distaining the many usual wargamer hair deployments, (including the well documented "receding hairline", "lank and greasy", "clearly never seen a comb" and even the famous "I bet his mum still cuts it"), Steve instead went for the little seen and difficult to succeed-with "pudding basin", but with "looks like a toupee" allies.

It's difficult to imagine if you haven't seen it, but just so you can get an impression, here is a picture of Steve in his full hirsute glory (pictured here with celebrity friend Jane Seymour)

DB Oh Err

My ultimate "pants" moment fell into the "lightning doesn't strike once" category as I lost a command in two consecutive (DBR) games by pursuing a beaten command off the table. A similar pursuit happened in the last game too, which contributed to the loss of a third command, and led to my worst (by far) ever result. Does anyone think this is not a bloody stupid rule?

My sparring partner Corbon, twice the NZ 15mm DBM nationals champion, so by no means given to too many pants moments, was once teaching a newbie to play, back in the days of version 1-point-something. Deciding it would be more interesting to field an under-rated army, our hero ran Scots Common. His CinC was deployed on foot leading the mass of the Scottish spearmen. On the first bound with high PiPs, the Scots schiltron surges up over a gentle hill in the center of the table. Only to find some enemy bowmen waiting on the other side. (Just because you are a newbie doesn't mean you have to be stupid...) These then promptly shoot Corbon's CinC dead, and Corbon inevitably rolls a 1 for his next PiP dice, breaking the command and thus the army without the newbie having to move a single element... Luke Ueda-Sarson

Here's one for Firefall, since he's got a few others on the boards...... A 500 AP doubles game, Early Burgundians ( Angus Osborne and myself in the generals saddles) vs Firefall and Blair Christian, using Konradins Medieval German army.

Some genius deploys his DBE Kn(I) wedges in a wood in ambush, and they wind up facing a stack of Bw(I). On the first bound they all come leaping out.

On the Second bound, the General turns around and wonders........"where did all my friends go?" ...

Angus Osborne and myself took New Kingdom Egyptians to the recent Nottingham Doubles in the Biblical period, and had a 4^th micro command including 2 Bts(S) with Ps(I) crew. The theory being that as we had a compulsory WW when defending, we could with ½ the required naval elements, also elect to place a WW when attacking. This could then, we decided, give us a secure flank in all our games.

Our 2^nd game was against Ian Stewart and Simon Brown from Milton Keynes using Early Carths/Greek allies.

As we were the attacker in this game we diced for, and got, a WW, but couldn’t understand why our opponents were grinning from ear to ear! Reality dawned when they deployed 10 Galleys in the WW, that we had placed, and they would have had to dice for!!

Here's me, one Sunday afternoon, playing Eric Doman in a friendly. Just for a laugh I decide to use a fun army - West Frankish with Viking allies - 3 big Norman commands, and the mounted blade 13 strong flank-march, to try and catch him out.

So, Eric wheels out a Beja army - a few Cm (S), some Bd (F), some LH - an interesting test of how good Cm(S) are against greater numbers of Kn (F) methinks. Eric defends, and lobs down loads of Dunes and RGo - all on his side of the table pretty much.

I decide to try and force a passage past the dunes on my right, with a block of Kn either side, whilst holding the other 2/3 of the board with a single ranked line of spears, and a few LH. The surprise Vikings are on the flank march, and the supposedly bigger surprise of Bw (I) line up against h6te Dune - obviously there will be camels in it, eh...and with a few Kn behind, we should be Ok to fight off most things we might find ?

My first move and the Bw (I) move up to the dune. They find, not Camels, but Bd (F) - and have to stop at 3" - having marched, they cannot shoot. The Vikings don't arrive, and in fact, roll a 1, so are unreliable.

In Erics first turn, he Bd (F) rush the Bowmen, and also some Cm (S) who were hiding behind the Bd (F). The Bd go in, and kill 6 out of the 12 bowmen - all from the CinC's command, which breaks on 7.5. Ooops!

I then unleash the knights back - and have an excellent chance to run down pretty much the entire set of blades, and by turning a Cm (S) flank with a Kn (F) move-into-contact-for-one-pip move, nail the Camels as well. But, I don't - the Kn get bounced all along the line.

Eric then (in his turn 2) throws the blades back in, and gets the requisite extra bowmen. The Vikings change sides - off table. The game is over. In 2 turns.

Continuing our Western Doubles success, Dave and I take the Samurai to Clevedon, only to be drawn against Rus in the first round! Lady Luck smiles on us and we get acres of RGo in the center of the table.

Someway into the game a stand-off occurs with my Bw(S) and Ax(I) sitting in the RGo looking out at some Sp(O) in the open, when the fateful phrase "I have a cunning plan..." issues from my lips. If I charge the Sp(O), I'll lose, they'll follow up into the RGo and we can butcher them. Now the whole point of doubles is that I play with someone who stops me doing stupid moves (although I play with Dave, so I don't know how this is supposed to happen).

Anyway, it's only after I've charged in that I realize quite how stupid the move is when we look at the factors and I'm at 3(I) v 5(O), but it gets worse...by some fluke I survive and the Rus start to follow up, only then do I realize that I have to survive 3 rounds of combat before the Sp advance into the RGo! By an even bigger fluke this happens, where the dice promptly change and the Rus recoil safely out of the RGo and back to the security of GGo. Needless to say I didn't try it for a second time. Jason

Day Two of NORDCON. I'm doing well with my Swedish Leidang. 1st or 2nd if I recall correctly.

I'm playing Gerry Fallon and some Biblical Army with Blade (F) in it. I deploy my army and consider the match ups to be fairly good in my favor. My Bondi Bow(o) in the center have Gerry Fallon's (read: "Mad pissed Scot"), Bd(f) bearing down on them.

NO PROBLEM, I now move my Blade (o) that I have deployed to the rear of the Bow(o) through and,... Ummmm, where is my line of Blade(o) Huscarls?

"Tell ya what Scott,.." says Gerry, "I'll let you deploy them behind that SWAMP over yonder left flank"

Gee Gerry, how sporting of ya. Huscarls wade knee deep through shite as Bondi Archers are butchered. Centre cracks, game ends not long after.

Moral? Try to avoid engaging in mindless chit-chat with pissed Scots during deployment.

A Scottish-monikered Scot In Italy playing The French With R*m*ns... what could possibly go wrong...? Last round of the Pisa teams championship in Italy, and my team is leading. We're playing against Nice 1, and I have drawn (apparently) their strongest player, so I'm told to make sure I don't lose. I've got Huns, he's got LIMP R*m*ns. Bad start - my Sciri ally is unreliable. He's got a very strong right flank, and very weak left flank, with a LPIA ally on a RGo hill and some LH(F) & LH(O) sitting on a gentle hill. I decide that I'll try to lure him off the hills by presenting my 7 LH(S) command to him with unsupported. Then I'll kill them and have a huge whole to rip into his flanks and the baggage. The good news is that he is lured off the hill. The bad news is that he immediately kills my LH(S) general with LH(F) and an overlap, then he gets one more element. I only get 2 PIPS - one move - which means I can't get the rest out of the way. He swiftly surrounds me, and gets the third element to break that command. The ally changes sides, and one move later has charged into the baggage. He won in half an hour without losing an element :( Luckily the rest of the team did well enough for us to win the competition anyway. Regards, Angus

Charrrggeee!!!!!!!! :-

Warfare 2001 - Punic Wars Section. I'm using Ancient Spanish against Late Carthaginians - Carthage is invading. Not a great deal of terrain except a patch of rough on my right and some rough hills on the left.

My opponent deploys a big block of Celtic Warband in his center - bolstered by a few Ax and with his C-in-C behind to control them. The only Ps available are behind the Ax!

Facing them I have my Celtiberians - who also have 3 Exp(O) Blazing Ox-Carts. On his left he has a Numidian ally command of 16 Ax(I) and 6 LH(O) - facing a small command of Cv, LH, Ax(S), Ps(S) with a bigger command of the same available next to it to help.

Move 1 - he marches the Celts to 200 paces from the Exp(O) (takes 3 pips and his C-in-C's pip to do this. Meanwhile the Numidian Ax(I) advance towards my Ax(S). The Carthaginian cavalry lurks back near their baggage.

My bound - My C in C roll a 1 - I need this to Control the Celtiberians so off go the Ox-Carts into Wb(F). First one died - bu**er. Next two break through - 4 Wb(F) dead. Behind them sits the C -in - C who they pursue into and pin. He survives his bound, bur has no one to help and can't do much with his Wb. In my next bound I move an Exp onto his flank and it is goodbye C-in-C and the centre.

Meanwhile 16 Ax(I) attack into rough going held by inferior numbers of Ax(S) Scutari - they spit on their hands and after a few bounds - goodbye second command and the army.

At the end of the game, I still have 2 Exp(O) alive - who are being moved round to attack the Libyan spearmen.

Morale - Don't use Wb to take our Exp and if you do, keep your C-in-C out of the way.

- Marc Priest

The terrain with nothing on it is a marsh, the thing in the center is a wood and most everything else is rocky ground.

A team competition where more than half of the teams would get through, therefore draws were a good result

From my last game against Nick Ashby, my Dynastic Bedouin invading his Leidang. I'm attacking his C-in-C's command with 10 Cv(S) in a desperate attempt to get a result. To maximise my Cv combats I also send in 1 LH(O) on the end of the line to take out an overlap. I also remember to careful measure with the appropriate tool that another LH is covering the first LH to prevent the whole line being flanked if the LH were to stick - which it promptly does. What I had not noticed, even whilst measuring the ZOC, was that the second LH was facing away from the enemy and not covering the flank at all. Exit the LH and Cv(S) next door the following move.

today I'd like to examine something that happened a while ago....to a .......friend of mine.

Using Early Serbs this nameless player (Andre Evers) deployed his Serbs with Kn(S) behind some other foot, and with Lh in a front rank - all ranks being contiguous, and quite close to the edge of the table. This is in the days before sub-generals got -1 if they hadn't moved.

Rolled a "1" for his first PIPs, didn't he......couldn't move the Kn could he!!

Couldn't move the infantry either 'cos of the Lh in front - so he moved the Lh out of the way, the knights went sponno through the infantry .....

.....which fled off the table - command demoralised due to lost 1/3rd it's troops!

he sets up with a lone naval Bt (S) on the compulsory WW of his S Dynasties Chinese army, ambushed behind a hill ready to enfilade my advancing khmeric elephants.

unfortunately he has not realized the khmer also have a navy. not a big one, ... but big enough!! 3 boats round the headland, and the chinese seamen are forced to eject too soon out onto dry land. unopposed, the khmer navy then sails nonchalantly up the coast and disembarks.... into the Chinese BUA... which houses all 6 baggage.

6 combats later, and the Chinese are 6x2 + 4 = 16 elements down. Which is quite a large dent in an army that breaks on 16 :-)

"Paul as usual lines up the WW with BUA and baggage with its small boat and is discovered by the entire Khmer fleet as it exits from the delta of the Mekong and then decides to disembark in China.

Result - immediately the Chinese fleet is sunk and the Khmer troops disembark in the citadel, and make off with the women and children who make up the baggage, together with all the citizenship (who cry like babies as the Cioffi might say). A pair of blows like this and the Chinese cannot recover!"

I was playing my second only game of DBR version 2.0. My Moscovite army against a very good and mobile Polish Winged Hussar army. I looked and decided that I needed to hide behind a river, the terrain dice came up with a river that covers all of my deployment area and 3/4 of the table width, all except the right hand 1/4. So far so good.

I deploy in a nice line, only for the dice to throw up fog. My opponent waltz's up my uncovered right flank. It is then that I discover that the fog limits my ability to react - my fault for not reading the rules correctly. As my opponent proceeds to roll up my right flank, he decides to cross the river to my front. Panic and indecision sets in so I try to turn some troops to the flank instead of attacking the firearm equiped enemy while they are still in the water and can't fire back (don't ask). All I succeed in doing is allowing the Poles to attack me from two directions at once.

By the time I conced the game, 1/3 of my army is broken, 1/3 dead and 1/3 do not even realise the battle has started, as after 6 hours of battle the fog has not lifted! I did not eliminate even one element of Polish. My only real success was giving my opponent backache leaning across the table to move his troops behind my flank

The Grand old Duke of Walt

Pants moment - Game 3 Birmingham vs. Mike Hart. My Seleucids vs. his Sicilians. I put down 1.5 H(s) w/ BUA out to 18" line (back touches baseline). I know his Almughuvar AxS will head for it. So after a bit of Pk screen mtd deployments on the other flank/middle, it's time for the hill. Yep, there they are. And, per my plan, I put out my Kn on the hill to roar off it and eat AxS.

But I also put a Bw/Art/Bw/Bw/Art/Bw line on the hill ready to come off in one brilliant 2" move to finish whatever Ax are left.

But Art only move 1" on a hill. So the group can't clear. And since the Art aren't together, I can't get enough pips to move them off. Meanwhile the Bw don't get back ranks for shooting, nor close combat.

The Kn do OK (w/in 1 element of breaking the Ax) and I do kill 2 other commands, but the Ax kill my CinC cmd. In 15-0 scoring that's my 6 to Mike's 9.

Too clever by half.

Walt Burgoyne