WAB at Britcon 2012

This last weekend I umpired the Warhammer Ancient Battles event at Britcon. There were only six of us playing so as you can imagine it was not too onerous.

I used my Han Chinese list as follows:

		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
1	General	8	5	5	3	4	3	6	3	9	4+	154	183
	Hand Weapon											0
	Light Armour, Shield, Horse											9
	Army General. Stratagem											20
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
1	Standard Bearer	8	4	3	3	4	2	5	2	8	4+	108	117
	Hand Weapon											0
	Light Armour, Shield, Horse											9
	Army Standard Bearer											0
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
4	Chariots	6	4	4	3	4	2	4	2	8	3+	77	335
	One Crossbow, One Halberd											0
	Heavy Armour											3
	Leader, Musician, Standard.											15
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
10	Lancers	8	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	5+	20	230
	Hand Weapon, Halberd											0
	Light Armour											2
	Leader, Musician. Light Cavalry											10
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
10	Archers	7	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	6+	19	190
	Hand Weapon, Bow											0
	Light Cavalry
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
24	Spearmen	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	4+	11	303
	Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear
	Light Armour, Large Shield											1
	Leader, Musician, Standard.											15
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
24	Spearmen	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	4+	11	303
	Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear
	Light Armour, Large Shield											1
	Leader, Musician, Standard.											15
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
24	Spearmen	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	4+	11	303
	Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear
	Light Armour, Large Shield											1
	Leader, Musician, Standard.											15
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
24	Spearmen	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	4+	11	303
	Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear
	Light Armour, Large Shield											1
	Leader, Musician, Standard.											15
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
12	Swordsmen	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	4+	9	154
	Hand Weapon
	Light Armour, Large Shield											3
	Leader, Musician. Light Infantry											10
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
12	Swordsmen	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	4+	9	154
	Hand Weapon
	Light Armour, Large Shield											3
	Leader, Musician. Light Infantry											10
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
10	Crossbows	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	-	12	120
	Improvised Weapon, Crossbow
	Light Infantry
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
10	Crossbows	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	-	12	120
	Improvised Weapon, Crossbow
	Light Infantry
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
9	Archers	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	-	10	90
	Improvised Weapon, Bow
	Light Infantry
		M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
9	Archers	4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	-	10	90
	Improvised Weapon, Bow
	Light Infantry
											Characters	300	10%
											Cavalry	755	25%
											Infantry	1940	65%
											Total	2995

We would play six games over the weekend, as there were only five of us, that meant we would play each other once and then in the last round it would be 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th and 5th vs 6th.

The first round takes place on the Friday evening and I would be playing against Grahames Later Imperial Romans. Things went pretty terribly for me, it was one of those WAB games that crop up every so often (as in a few weeks ago against |Jon) were you lose a combat by a small margin, the unit breaks and several supporting units break, then in the next turn you take panic tests and your entire army is running away. Grahame won this one 23:9.

It was out for a Chinese Buffet and a few drinks then off to bed ready for the first game of the Saturday. None of those 08:15 starts that the other periods are so fond of - it was a 09:30 start for my game against Johns Later Hoplite Greek Spartans, I don't think I had much to drink, but I don't recall much about this game but I do know that had the upper hand for the majority of the game, but John pulled back a great last round and ended up winning 19:13.

Game three is against Edward, who is ten years old ad has borrowed my Republican Romans. What can I say, he battered me all over the table and won a solid 27:5 victory against me.

Well three games down, can it get much worse. The final game of the Saturday is against Tonys Spartans. Joy, more Spartan Hoplites. This was a very ticky-tacky game, I made a good start taking out one unit of Hoplites with my Lancers and Swordsmen. However my chariots are shot to pieces by a unit of Javelinmen. By the end of the game it is star-burst with units all over the table. The Spartan general has a single Hoplite accompanying him, but I have only accounted for two complete units of Hoplites. I've lost rather a lot of stuff and it's another 19:13 loss for me, four games, four losses, and my biggest spanking was by a ten year old using my own figures!

Young Edward is into the lead after four games.

That evening Grahame, Tony, John and myself went out to see the new Batman film, followed by some pretty shoddy service at Nando's. I was going to have a quiet night, but got ambushed by Steve Metheringham and Craig Tannock from the Armarti crew and at three o'clock in the morning were discussing the British Empire in the Retro Bar.

Sunday morning, three hours sleep and it's time to play Jonny with his Carthaginians (well I say his, he has borrowed three units of my troops and a General). Fortunately, Jonny also had a very late night and is in a similar state to myself. I deal with his Elephants very early on, one stampedes off the table and another into the flank of his Celtiberians. He seems to kill more of his army than I do and I rack up a 31:1 victory. Time for a sit down and get some caffeine into my system.

As mentioned at the start of this post, in the last round you would play the person on a similar ranking. My stunning victory in the previous round had dragged me off the bottom of the pile and I was in fifth place and would be playing Jonny again.

It's always a great game with Jon and this time was much closer and I squeezed a creditable 18:14 win.

The final placings were:

1st Tony Garry - Later Hoplite Greek Spartan
2nd Edward Clewer - Late Republican Roman
3rd Grahame Middleton - Late Imperial Roman
4th John Wall - Later Hoplite Greek Spartan
5th Paul Scrivens-Smith - Han Chinese
6th Jonny Harrison - Later Carthaginian in Spain

I see what I was doing wrong now - I was not late for anything :-)

I was also very shocked to find out that I'd been voted as the Most Sporting Player and get to keep the Society of Ancients Trophy for a year.

Here it is on our sideboard

Although Victoria is back from London on Saturday so I doubt it will be able to stay on the sideboard alongside the Emma Bridgewater and Cath Kidston :-)

Here are a few more images from the event.