Game 4
With Burtons mixed up table strategy, we could have been anywhere – but even with a big win, starting the afternoon 21 points was going to leave us well out of the prizes for sure.
The afternoon looked like it would be a good old fashioned slog, as we faced up against a Leidang army.
|
General |
General |
General |
|
12 Bd (I) |
10 Kn (F) |
8 Bw (O) |
|
1 Hd (O) |
20 Bd (I) |
12 Bd (I) |
|
10 Bd (O) |
3 Hd (O) |
10 Bd (O) |
|
8 Bw (O) |
2 Ps (O) |
4 Ps (O) |
|
4 Ps (S) |
1 Hd (O) |
|
|
33.5 |
33.5 |
33.5 |
And a slog was what ensued, with yet again our Great Wall of China frightening off any serious attempt to assault it…
…the Viking Homeboys instead deciding to concentrate on our left, following up a massive wave of knights with several lines of blades.
As we didn’t really have it all together as tiredness was starting to kick in, we had forgotten the possibility of the Leidang army containing any knights at all (oops!) and had deployed our main Day-Glo Blade command under General Al one rank deep, with its supporting Psiloi not really supporting at all, in fact they were more like "swanning around on a hill off to the left" Psiloi.
In a desperate flurry of pips, Al & I reshuffled the lines and managed to be two ranks deep just before the wave of mounted huscarles hit home. And this time the Battle Cattle were in the right place at the right time!! What would they achieve??
Absolutely 100% total and utter nothing whatsoever – as both thunder bomb oxen yet again went off to the great milking shed in the sky at first contact with the enemy!
But the Cows were the only troops to end up in the dung – the rest of the line, freed of the embarrassment of marching to battle under the same banner as such symbols of meat-based dismal failure dug in like troopers and repulsed the Viking mounted at every turn! (OK – the Viking ability to roll lots of combat 1’s did help, however the bravery of our troops was surely a far more decisive factor.)
Things were looking good – but the knights were all expendable, and we would need more death than just them to win the game. So, the Orange Brigade stormed out of the fortifications and charged at an isolated pocket of mostly-bow armed Vikings who had been loitering around looking as if they might consider approaching the wall, clearly fascinated by this piece of fiendish oriental technology and engineering.
The two lines of unenthusiastic troops struggled to get to grips with one another – but then Ta Daaah!! For the second time ever, the flank march actually arrived – and this time in time to make a real difference!
The Turkic horde swept down on the flank of the transfixed bowmen
Meanwhile, back in the middle the second wave of Leidang had hit home – ad our blades, having cleared the entire knight formation up and tidied it away were finding these guys a little tougher, even with the Firelance cavalry in support. The Leidang had cleverly deployed so the 2nd wave was from a different command, and so they were unconcerned by the earlier losses, and fought bravely and valiantly against their Eastern foes.
Things were now not so hot however for the isolated bowmen, as after a few heroic stands, the mounted steppe raiders tore through their formation allowing the Orange swordsmen to come in and dispatch the dying and wounded with some alacrity.
But without Antonio Banderas it was not looking good for the Vikings....
With the sound of their colleagues screams echoing in the background, the Leidang attack on the Chinese artillery ground to a halt just short of the finishing line – the artillery congratulated themselves on their clearly fearsome appearance whilst eth Leidang cursed under their breath at the 1/3 and you break rules that prevented them showing the rather camp looking Orientals exactly why a long pointy stick is still a lot better at close quarters than any of this fancy new technology malarkey.
As the clock ticked onwards, the Chinese poured forwards in droves, seeking the last few casualties to take the Leidang army over the edge into total defeat. Time and time again the brave Viking warriors withstood repeated attacks from the garishly attired easterners – how long could they possibly stand this sort of beating?
The organisers called time and we were into the last round of combats. One after another they failed – Viking Hirdsmen extricated themselves from overlaps, held their shields high to fend off arrows, and spun around athletically to force their way out of non-recoil situations….
Again, as in the morning, it came to the last dice roll of the game….. and the Incredible Al yet again rolled enough to take down the final 2 elements of the army, turning an 8-2 into a 10-0 right at the death !!
Post Match Summary
Even at 33-3 and no QK’s, The Leidang knights were astoundingly unlucky to be wiped out and not to achieve any sort of breakthrough – except against the hapless and useless Battle Cattle. With the main strikeforce blowing its chunks in this way, the rest of the game was set against them achieving a result, as Regular blade (O) is simply better than Irr Bd (O) and (I) – however it did in the end need the arrival of the Chinese Turkish flank march to sweep up the rather exposed Viking flank or the game would have surely timed out with an indecisive result.
Pips were fairly even, with the Chinese having an inherent advantage from bound 4 following the arrival of the flank march force and its extra dice. The key problem for the Vikings came in the 3rd and 4th bounds, when they were hoping to control the knights charge a bit more coherently and support them better with a wave of blades – but whereas we were able to sit tight and just about redeploy to 2 ranks deep before they hit, the knights decided to charge in anyway! Again, I failed to record our dice in the last couple of bounds.
So, another Epic Burton over for another year. Who knows what the next one will bring....!