Day 2 - after a Great Chinese in Wallingford....
1 |
Against another Kn (X) outfit - this time with Chinese
inferior supported spearmen to play with.
This time we seemed to have gotten it exactly right - attacking, Warband vs the spears, all our knights concentrated against the Kn (X). What could possibly go wrong.....?
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2 |
Our line of Ostrogoths and Heruls hared forwards like a
hare at a greyhound stadium - totally mindless, and with no sense of
direction. However, unlike an electric hare, they were not pursued ...
by the Gepids.
. |
3 |
Who had decided to wait this on out, having seen the debacle in the previous game when our Kn (F) got mullahed by Kn (X).... | 
4 |
On the far left, the Chinese spearmen (Essex Han figures, with a high percentage of command packs to give more large flags - the flash intensity has drained quite a bit of the colour, but they were very very nice!) waited in trepidation as...... |
5 |
... the Warband charged forwards, led by Atilla himself - they made ground amazingly rapidly - whilst all the Chinese could do was to stand there and wait.... | 
6 |
The Warband were initially repulsed - but then crashed through the line on the right hand side - could the waiting Knights reach....? |
7 |
But in the center it was a different story - our Kn (F) were all over the shop - and all they were achieving with each small victory was to push themselves even further into peril.... and with the Gepids still uncommitted | 
8 |
The Ostrogoth general himself was leading the charge into disaster - here we see his Personal Assistant imagining how their Great Leader will react when he sees what kind of mess they have gotten themselves to... |
| Luckily, the Warband managed to toast the spear command just before the entire Hunnic army collapsed, avoiding the ignominy of our Gepids changing sides - however as all three of our committed commands were at the time within half an element of defeat, we struggled to do better than this. And we didn't.... (The London Boys lose 1:9) | |||
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| Game 4 - vs Dave & Angus - with more Kn (X) !!! | |||
1 |
Great.
Kn (X)......... |
3 |
... but not everywhere ! Now we had 4 deep Warband against Kn (F) - we had LH facing off Kn (X), and also a huge wave of Knights bearing down on unprotected LH. What could possibly go wrong ? |
3 |
Over on the left, we sacrificed a Hun to draw out the General - well, we did have 14 to play with... | 
4 |
But - unsurprisingly perhaps - it had already gone pear-shaped in the center, and our Ostrogoths were totally out of control. Here you see a lone Goth charging a pike phalanx, full of optimism - but soon to be full of pike points.... |
5 |
And the Heruls on the left, not to be left out, also went
bezerk - charging through the covering screen of LH - but would it be to
glory - or to their doom...??
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6 |
Giving themselves every chance, they drew the General out
- would he die...?
Would he heck as like....! |
7 |
Soon it was the usual firework display of incompetent knights - unable to kill anything in their path, they merely pushed back the enemy until they had no choice but to encircle them totally and utterly - here we see Gepids piling in to reinforce disaster.... | 
8 |
Here we see an Ostrogoth, surrounded on all sides, by an attractive selection of elements from the Dave & Angus army.... |
9 |
...And here we see Bw (I) about to fail to kill one of the Kn (F) Generals - after failing to shoot them down at two attempts first. | After that it all went horribly wrong
across the entire table - and after we had thrown away chances to kill
numerous generals - it was all over - again.
(10:0 against the London Boys) |
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How Angus saw it from across the table:
Round 4 defending v Tim & Mick with Attila's Huns
This game we decided to get stuck in, and work off our frustration. We had put LH & Kn across the table, with the C-in-C in reserve in the center, a piece of Go in our left to put Bow & Ax, and the Kn.(X) sub on the far right with all of his Ax and Bow steaming across a Go hill on the flank. They had a big LH command with the Herul Kn.(F) and CV(S) on our right, the Ostrogoth Kn.(F) (in two ranks) and Bow (I) in the center, the Gepid Kn.(F) behind them, and Attila with 18 Wb and more LH(S) on our left.
We held on the left, waiting for the Web to come to our Kn.(F), and pushed on the right. Pushing Bow and Ax over the hill, and charging the Kn.(X) forward. As the Ostrogoth came close to our LH line they split into two separate lines of Kn.(F). For the next two turns Tim, with the Ostrogoths and the Huns on our right got shocking Pips. All the Ostrogoths could do was charge straight directly forward into a pocket of Pk, Reg Kn.(F) and all our LH(F), while the Huns Kn.(F) impetuously charged through their own LH at the Kn.(X), who were efficiently munching on everything in their path.
We won everything.
The Ostrogoth was surrounded and squashed (with 13 LH(F) in the center we were never short of an overlap) and the Kn.(X) smashed the Hunk command on the right. Hero of the day was the Sakae Kn.(F) general who helped destroy every element he touched: 2 CV(S), 1 LH(S), and 4 Bow(I). On the left the Wb(S) got in, and immediately made a hole in our line, but even there we turned a LH with Ps(O) in Go, pushed him back and destroyed it and 3 Wb(S) behind.
Nothing went right for Tim & Mick and our combat dice were good (bloody good in the case of the Sakae general).
31-1 to us.
