BHGS Open 2004

I took Later Carthaginian - basically because I am locked into a desperate and vain attempt to make Wb (F) trendy again, and having run them in 400ap loose and tightly themed competitions I though it was worth trying them out in an open period. 

It also has a good record of decisive results for me - played 10, won 7 by a knockout, won the other 8-2 and half an (I) element off a 10-0, lost 2 through a combination of bad luck and sheer incompetence. So, my theory was if I had a good day I might win 4 games and lose 1, ending up on enough points to do really well indeed....

My two lists were essentially the same as those I used at Britcon 03 and Warfare 03.

Game 1 vs Carolingians

Not really how I wanted to start - a regular knight army :-( It was >like this 

At least I attacked, and the table set up with my warband (and elephant) command facing off some knights, my spears driving down the middle against some more Kn and my cavalry command and Numidian ally chasing a smaller block of knights and the rarely deployed "Left Hand Of The Steve (O)".

 All the Carolingians were set out in depressing pseudo-Patrician columns... 

In a rare break with tradition I rushed forwards in a big line...

Looking back at this picture, this looks really good, doesn't it? Clearly the Frankish LH on my right were going to get mugged, exposing the flank of the army, who would be paralyzed by the onrushing wall of nastiness and it would soon all be over...

Soon on my left there was a Mexican standoff, which was broken by a knight charge chipping away the end of the spear line.

 Then the clever clever little Carolingians started dismounting - which unfortunately coincided with a bout of poor pips and induced a rather over eager attack by the warband on the spearmen who had magically appeared before them. 

A lone elephant attempted to break through the line to mug the Carolingian general and put pressure on his pips - but it was to no avail. 

Meanwhile the flank where I had all the advantages was of course turning to despair, as my regular Lithuanian tactic of committing Cv against LH was proving equally successful, and they were making negative progress.  

It was all slipping away ....

Somehow from what looked like an initially successful position I managed to lose control of enough the warband to die to knights, and then to lose enough of my LH scrabbling after the small Carolingian command to tip the army over - 0-10.

Game 2 - vs Medieval Germans

The Germans were not exactly delighted to see me at the bottom of the pool in game 2, and even less delighted to see the warband appear as they had wheeled out their anti-elephant list stuffed with Sp (I) and Bw (I) I also attacked, deploying vast swathes of my army after the 3rd (Swiss ally) had gone down for the Germans.

The table looked like this, with regular spears bearing down on the German left, warband on the right and a huge hole with a couple of LH sat in the middle, where the rest of the Numidians from my cavalry command were shortly to appear to make rude North African gestures at the rather "glad they looked harder than the rest of the army" Swiss mercenaries. 

My desperate pips were matched by the Germans (it was the last turn before I rolled my 2nd regular dice of more than "3") and it still got very messy very quickly:

On the left:

Meanwhile, on the right:

The theory of "take a ridiculous list that no-one in their right mind would take and they'll guess the wrong list to use against me" had worked - 10-0 to the Carthaginians!!

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