... or at least plays in the Warhammer Ancient Battles tournament at the 'World Championships' held at Castle Donnington over the weekend. Wayne Richardson did a splendid job of both summoning up enough numbers for the event and running it on the day.
Despite being shot to pieces in every game I particularly enjoyed playing with the Almohads at the '
Colours' event in Newbury a couple of weeks earlier so making a few changes to fit into the lower points allocation I decided to use the following:
1 Caliph 233 pts
Hand Weapon, Light Armour, Large Shield, Riding Camel, Army General
1 Standard Bearer 108 pts
Hand Weapon, Light Armour, Shield, Riding Camel, Army Standard Bearer
9 Berber Cavalry 249 pts
Hand Weapon, Throwing Spear, Javelin, Shield, Leader, Musician, Standard. Light Cavalry, Feigned Flight
9 Berber Cavalry 244 pts
Hand Weapon, Throwing Spear, Javelin, Shield, Leader, Musician. Light Cavalry, Feigned Flight
28 Spearmen 477 pts
Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear, Javelins, Large Shield, Riding Camels, Leader, Musician, Standard.
7 Archers
Hand Weapon, Bow, Riding Camels, Combined Formations
28 Spearmen 477 pts
Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear, Javelins, Large Shield, Riding Camels, Leader, Musician, Standard.
7 Archers
Hand Weapon, Bow, Riding Camels, Combined Formations
26 Spearmen 449 pts
Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear, Javelins, Large Shield, Riding Camels, Leader, Musician, Standard.
7 Archers
Hand Weapon, Bow, Riding Camels, Combined Formations
11 Military Orders 433 pts
Hand Weapon, Lance, Heavy Armour, Shield, Leader, Musician, Standard. First Charge, Unreliable
12 Crossbowmen 168 pts
Hand Weapon, Crossbow, Light Armour, Light Infantry, Unreliable
9 Skirmishers 54 pts
Hand Weapon, Shortbow, Buckler, Skirmishers, Unreliable
9 Skirmishers 54 pts
Hand Weapon, Shortbow, Buckler, Skirmishers, Unreliable
9 Skirmishers 54 pts
Hand Weapon, Sling, Buckler, Skirmishers, Unreliable
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| My army with a sickly green hue |
Basically the same list but with fewer but larger spearmen blocks, less Military Order Knights and swapping the Spanish spearmen for crossbowmen. Plus the addition of the
'Secret Weapon'
The first game was to be against Andy Beer with his Avars with subjigated tribes. Andy had no general or standard bearer and his army consisted of two units of 10 Noble cavalry, one unit of 10 Elite cavalry, two units of 10 Horse archers, two units of 50 foot with bow, two units of 20 foot with halberds and one unit of 40 Brigands.
As would be expected, I was unable to tie down the cavalry but I did managed to break all the infantry blocks. However, one of the halberdier blocks rallied a few inches from the table edge. In the closing turn of the game, Andy was two points off of breaking and I broke that unit in combat. The halberdiers were just over four inches from the table edge, I rolled a four for my pursuit dice, Andy also rolled a four for his flee - I failed to break his army.
I scored 1890 to Andys 1725 so a 16-16
After a bite of lunch and a quick bit of shopping, during which I purchased a
Sarissa 'Wild West' shack and some Frontline accoutrements from
Great Escape Games I would be playing Grahame Middleton with his Late Imperial Romans.
Grahame fielded his General and Army Standard, he had two units of 10 heavy cavalry and two units of 10 light cavalry horse archers, two units of 14 Legionaries backed up by 7 archers, one unit of 24 Foederati with heavy throwing spears, two units of 10 archers, four units of 10 light infantry and a bolt thrower.
I managed to get quite lucky against the Roman heavy cavalry, one unit was shot down to 5 men by my crossbows and skirmishers and the other charged my Military Order Knights, I counter-charged, Grahame rolled appallingly and I did just enough to break him with my 'First Charge'. Grahame piled in with the Foederati but my line held and eventually broke them. With my Military Order Knights now on his flank and my Berber infantry on the warpath it was soon over. Grahames army broke and I secured a 23-9 victory.
The final game of the day would be against Phil Vernon who had borrowed Wayne's Normans for the weekend.
Phil fielded his General and Army standard in a unit of 10 Knights and then two heroes in another unit of 10 Knights. He also had two units of 10 Breton Knights, two units of 12 skirmishing Crossbowmen, one unit of 30 archers and one unit of 12 skirmishing archers.
This game was limited to six turns and was very cat and mouse for the initial half of the game. I managed to run off his Crossbowmen with my Berber horse and Military Order Knights and one of his Breton units only consisted of two men. I had however lost a unit of Berber horse and one of my Berber infantry blocks had been severely depleted by bowfire.
Phil saw his chance and declared his charge on my Berber foot, I though 'that looks long' and it indeed was - 14 1/2 inches. I seized my opportunity and declared a charge with a unit of my Berber infantry, Phil passed his fear test for the tethered camels and combat ensued. My dice rolling was particularly poor and Phil easily won the combat although the leadership of the Caliph held the troops. In Phils' turn he again won the combat and held. Now was my chance, my Military Order Knights piled into the flank of the combat....
....and scored a single wound! I again lost the combat and my First Charge was all for naught. Turn six came and went and our losses were within 10pts of each other, another 16-16 draw.
Home that evening for a slap-up supper with Victoria and fell asleep watching The Hobbit on NetFlix.
Had a lie in in the morning and got to the venue around 09:15 to find I would be playing Bob Stradling with his Later Saxons. Bob started the engagement in the best possible way with a slice of his wife's home-made Bakewell tart - yummy!
Bob was fielding an Army Standard Bearer (no General), seven units each comprising 6 Huscarles with heavy armour, shield and double handed weapons backed up with 12 Thegns, one unit of 15 Vikings with assorted hardware and five units of skrmishers, two with bow, one with slings and two with javelins.
Bob had taken a lot of Riding Horses so was well positioned to stop me getting my horse around the flanks. I had a go at it but turned back when it became clear that I would not get around. My missile fire was desultory against the Shieldwalls but most of the Saxon units had lost rank bonus by the time they reached my lines.
Having failed to encircle the Saxons with my cavalry I though I would be doomed once the infantry slog began, however Two of my three Berber infantry blocks broke the Saxons fighting them, while the one on my right flank held up well right until it was flanked by the very troops my cavalry had been trying to outflank.
By the end of the game we were within 300pts of each other and it would be another 16-16 draw.
Another quick bout of shopping around the show, I picked up a bag of 15mm round bases from
Minibits and some more 6mm ACW reinforcements from
Adler Miniatures.
The final round would be against another Later Saxon army, this time in the hands of Simon Pope. A bit different from Bobs army, Simon had a mounted General and Standard Bearer, two units of 8 Huscarles with heavy armour, shield and double handed weapons backed up with 16 Thegns, two units of 8 Huscarles with heavy armour, shield and double handed weapons backed up with 16 Fryd, a unit of 12 Huscarles with heavy armour, shield and double handed weapons, a unit of 15 Vikings with miscellaneous weapons, a unit of an Earldoman, 4 Thegns and 10 Fryd (the villagers) and two units of slingers and a unit of bowmen.
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| Simon's Saxons |
This game was turn limited to seven turns. This time I made a more determined effort to manoeuvre around the flank of the Saxon Army, while the Saxons plodded on in Shieldwall, I pushed my Knights and a block of Berber infantry onto their left flank held only by the 'villagers' My Knights charged in and the three attacks I allocated against the Earldoman killed him dead, but the two hits on the Thegns 'double-oned' their wounds, to add insult one of the Fryd killed a Knight and I failed the subsequent break-test - bugger!
The Knights rallied and the Berber spear got stuck into the villagers eventually routing them but being charged by one of the Huscarle/Thegn blocks and being broken themselves. The Berber infantry rallied but caused a panic test in the Knights who did not recover.
Adding up the points Simon had beaten me by about 450pts so a 17-15 result to him.
Five great games and I'd managed one win and four draws, not a bad result at all, much better performance than when at Colours. When all the scores were counted up I was actually in third place overall - how on earth did that happen?
Wayne had organised a great event and I hope to attend again next year.
The only problem with the venue is the lighting. I only got a couple of decent-ish pictures and they have come out a sickly yellow colour.
I had done some prior recce using Google and had noted that both Pegasus Games and The Last Square were both located about half a mile apart on Odana Road. My colleague Julien from the Lyon office is also a gamer, so we arranged for a colleague to drop us off at Pegasus games.
After about 15 minutes we arrived at The Last Square which is quite a bit larger than Pegasus Games, being about three frontages rather than just the one, a Games Store, an Annex and a Hobby Depot.
