Mc Pants Special
The World Famous wargames, "The Young McNeil", is representing his country (UK, not Reigate) in a test match against some no-hoper colonial (well, that's how it was described to me!).
Early in the game his Patrician (surprise surprise) Roman legionaries advance in a 4 Bd + 2 Ps block ahead of the main line. They are confident, they are under the control of the Stephen Hendry of Toy Soldiers - What could Possibly Go Wrong?
Some South African Fast Light Horse are lurking nearby.
Uh-Oh think the Legionaries.....
However these are not normal legionaries. they are Reigate-Issue Theodolite-equipped legionaries, able to calculate a distance to within a few toenails shavings of a Roman Pace just by squinting at it. They never end up in trouble...
The Young Master whips out his special measuring stick, and carefully measures the distances. It's perfect.
The Legions advance carefully, quite a long way, but just not quite far enough for the light horse to hit them in the flank.
The Young Master sits back down, the game is only in it's third turn, but all is going according to plan.
The bound turns, and his opponent leans across the table, and hits the legionaries in the flank with the LH.
the legionaries quake in fear and shock, and as one turn to look imploringly at their young Ceasar "Help us Master - Help Now, Please defend our honor from this cheating Southern-Hemisphere Dog".
"Hey - You can't do that - it's too far - I measured it" cries the Lad.
"Erm, no. I think you will find they can reach" retorts the opponent.
"What do you mean" asks the "JD-in-waiting" (actually, that's quite a good nickname actually, even if I say so myself!)
"Well, LH (F) move 6".... retorts the Pretender..
"Yes....I measured a LH (F) move, and they couldn't reach - you saw me do it" says the JD-in-waiting
"Almost..... but if you check again I think you'll find that you were measuring their 6" move with your 5" stick"
" doh!"
(guess if the Lh won....!!!)
Old Pants Special
McPants @ Grandson
I am embarrassed into this confession, and obviously bloody Porter will try and make a meal out of it, so hear is the true confession of my Grandson McPants Moment.
The army I took was not really up to the task, I had expected to fight a lot more Knights than I did, after looking at who used what last year, and the army was structured to meet these. In the end I fought a Heavy Foot Southern Dynasties (Italy2), Samurai (Greece 2) Abbasid (Spain) and Leidang (Australia). It was pretty "heavy" going :-)!
My McPants moment came in the match against Spain. I had taken out 2 commands of a four command army and still needed half an element for the game. I had taken quite heavy casualties, in getting to this stage, but my flank cavalry command had not really been engaged and had suffered only one casualty.
I had 2 of my opponents Cav(S) trapped both double overlapped and with no recoil. One with a single spear and one with a supporting psilio behind the spear, so it was a 4-1 and a 5-1 shot to take the army, and both failed :-(.
At this point my team mates Eric and Iain, who had both finished already, accused me of not trying (by this the 3rd round we were really scrambling for points) and said we've had enough of this, and went to the bar promising to get 'em in :-), and now for the precursor to the McPants moment. I had also elected to race 2 of my own Cav (S) around the broken enemy and lined them up ready to go spono into the baggage, but this meant that I risked not moving my Sub general from the relatively undamaged command, it was within 6" of a Bow X element which my opponent had peeled of the end of his line. You guessed it, in his turn he moved up, 6-1, and one perforated General :-(, still not to worry, It was now my go and all I had to do was roll my PIP Dice, let the Cav go spono into the baggage and fight my 4-1 and 5-1 shots, and get down bar for an early lunch :-)
I ROLLED THE PIP DICE !!................ 2..............2................1.
The relatively untouched command I told you about obviously needed a 3, so it went demoralised, but with accumulated casualties the army BROKE !!......................................................I was in shock, from a 3-0 to 0-3 in the wink of an eye, don't you just love DBM :-(
And Now The MCPANTS MOMENT, I congratulated Pedro, and under my breath questioned his parentage, and left my troops on the table, I had to get out of there and down to the bar ASAP.
I was sheepishly (why does that remind me of Jer) explaining all this to the team, when Graham arrived, to hear the sorry tale, and with great glee pointed out that the army does not break till the end of the bound and that I should have fought my combats on the trapped cavalry and the baggage.........OH JOY !! it would surely have been mutual destruction. The sympathetic comments from my team mates, turned to laughter and derision and threats of what they would do if we failed to get a trophy by 1 point. Thank goodness we scrambled a decent last round or this might have been a suicide note.
Best Regards
Humbled McPants ( UK1 )