I mentioned at the start of the month that I'd finished another DBA army, it being Medieval Germans (IV/13b). As Chris and I had both been away at the weekend neither of us had put together anything clever for this Tuesday, so we did some DBA. We were themed round central/Northern Europe for the session, which I ran in Shedquarters.
As there were five of us, one had to sit out each round, but I think we all got in three games.
I reconfigured the SHQ tables to save Phil from having to reach across the table too much. For the first games I think we had Tim v Phil in the distance, using one of the iterations of my Germans, against Phil's Scandinavians. Steve was using his Welsh against Chris with medieval French.
Phil immediately pulled a fast one against a newbie, taking advantage of Tim putting his camp next to the waterway. At that point I switched to big lens camera to capture the far table action.
Phil erupted into Tim's rear, who was terribly dismayed. I encouraged him not to despair. I didn't want my new army going down to a meek defeat on the first outing. The figures remember you know.
Whilst sending off most of his army to face down Phil in the centre of the board, Tim swung round his knight general and colleagues to deal with the threat to his rear. Phil was already in the camp (NB I have to say the wording of the outcome for attacking the camp is horribly ambiguous, and should be broken down into several discrete sentences for each outcome).
King Sigismund and cardinal Henry Beaufort charge home.
It is a stunning victory. Tim is back in the game.
In the centre Tim's line, led by the wedge of Teutonic knights crashes into Phil's line.
A stunning victory ensues as the Scandinavians are slaughtered.
We then swapped round, and I took on Phil. He'd swapped his Scandies for late medieval Germans (basically a landsknecht army). I swapped out some options in my mid-medieval Germans to give some different figures a run out, and away we went.
Fighting Phil with an army like this - I mean one he's had for a while - is always a concern, as he tends to know exactly what he wants to do with it. He's got blocks of 6Kn, and quite a few pikes. Plus artillery. I've got some Hordes on the right end of my line, which make moving more difficult.
However, as he was defending I had a chance to get my troops where I wanted the match ups.
Which included me running down his artillery with Hordes, which are a pig to kill and don't count as a loss anyway.
This is the last picture I have of the game. I got a bit lucky on some of the dice rolls. I broke a double pike unit with a cavalry charge, and won the 6Kn confrontation. I also overran the gun. Very satisfying win, in which dice rolling as much as skill played a big part.
As the other guys were still slugging it out, Phil swapped out his Germans for Poles and we had another go.
I swapped out my last variation, so everyone had had a go. Phil's army is mostly warband. I'd subbed in some spears and blades, which are good against them, completely by chance. The trick here is to avoid the dodgy terrain and catch the warbands in the open.
The right centre got into a bit of a tangle, with us flanking each other in turn. This was a tense moment. It could have gone very badly for me.
But it didn't.
Finally I played Tim with Chris' French.
The opening move was a bit silly. I was defending and didn't roll a 1 for my first turn PIPs, so I should have taken the ploughed fields off, rather than go round the one on the left.
The French army has two pieces of artillery, which makes it potentially very nasty.
That's better. A clear board. I'm trying the same anti-artillery horde trick, but I didn't have enough PIPs to keep them moving. Out on the right I've got a blade/psiloi combo, up against bows and mounted infantry bows.
The artillery is keeping me at bay, but I have succeeded in killing the bowmen on my right.
In a way this game was a bit of a damp squib. On the right I hunted down and killed the mounted infantry, who got trapped against the table edge, and on my left my crossbows managed to shoot and kill one of the bow units on that flank. So a 4-0 victory without any of the big guys getting involved.
So I'd have to say a very satisfactory evening for the new boys, who rode their luck to victory.
Now. On with the Hussites.
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