You wait and then five or six come along at once

We resolved last week to play some DBA. Chris still didn't feel up to driving, so we were in his conservatory not SHQ. Besides. He has an ulterior motive. He wants to run a Risk style campaign. He's even drawn a map:

The Mappa Mundi in the IVth Age (c) Chris Kemp. Not to be reproduced without permission

His entreaty to us was to bring our latest armies, so I thought I'd better stop faffing about and get on and finish the Hussites. Boy, has that army caused me some grief. I haven't blogged about building the artillery piece, which caused me a whole lot of grief as I had to build a split trail device for the gun and do major surgery to make the doors fit.

The recent spell of hot weather meant there was a daily window of perfect painting temperature, with the acrylics drying almost instantly on the figure. The use of a wet palette was essential, but I had to work early morning before the paint actually dried on the brush.

I finished - except for the flags - with about three hours to spare.

Their first game was against Tim with my medieval Germans. Luckily we're both arable, which suits me. Hussites are Aggression 3 (Wow!!) but I guess that's a rules fudge to give them a decent chance of deploying second as the army isn't very mobile and that could seriously disadvantage it.

Here's my first deployment. I went for the artillery option (second from the right) and the knight general. The aim on the left is to swing those blades out to cover the flank and use the general as a mobile reserve. As War Wagons have some odd foibles, I prepared a crib sheet:

Here they are from the other side. They look a bit like a travelling circus. Or a car park. That amused Chris all evening. 

A bit bemused, Tim went for a frontal attack with a flanking move by his knights. My wagons blazed away, delaying the central contacts.

Ignore the six. I wasn't get enough PiPs to move those blades on my left as quickly as I'd liked. However, I drew first blood, killing a pike base.

I'm driving back the knights, and my blades are finally moving. The artillery is annoyingly just falling short of killing anything.

Coached by Chris, Tim makes contact. 

Then Tim doubled one of my wagons, blowing a hole in the line. I retaliate by finally killing one of his knights on the left hand end of my line.

The wagon is quickly followed by my artillery. I am driving Tim's knights off, but I just can't get a kill anywhere else.

Tim kills one of the blades on my right flank. That's three elements lost. I can't work out where I'm going to get any back. Perhaps my general will pull something out of the hat.

Alas no. Spears do for another of my War Wagons, and that's a 4:2 win to Tim. An intriguing game for both of us, that took about twice as long as normal. The Wagons are something of a learning curve.

Tim and Chris swapped seats, and Chris pulled out his Polish army. Unhappy with the quality of my photos, I've played with the filters and made them worse. I have swapped out the artillery for mercenary knights, and upgraded my General to a War Wagon (he's three from the right in a grey wagon with three crew).

The templates are woods (goody! I can make more wagons!). The Hill is Gentle. Chris decided to try and flank the position by marching across my front. I seem to recall him doing this in another game, although not against Hussites. Obviously.

I had enough PiPs to move my wagon line up, and unfurl the blades to my left. The knights are acting as a reserve. My shooting has started to muss up Chris's spear formations. I've killed some bowmen hiding in the woods.

More PiPs mean I can wheel my line round to reduce Chris' space some more. His cavalry (not knights) have pushed back one of my blade units, but I've killed one of his cavalry elements. His spear units are all over the place due to my firing.

This is looking really good. Chris is hampered by a couple of 1 PiP rolls in succession, so he can't reform his spear units in to a group. I'm able to bring my Blades into line at the end of the wagons, and continue to squeeze Chris's space. I then shot and killed a spear base.

I was then able to force contacts on my left, and killed a bow unit and a lone spear. 5:0 to the Hussites.

I may have been luckier in the second game, but I think I'm getting the hang of these guys maybe a bit. I was able to funnel Chris onto my killing troops, partly because he seemed to be reluctant to engage the line. This was despite Tim showing that Spears are quite good against Wagons.

So W1 L1 F7 A4 in first two games, which is pretty good for such a different army.

They will surely be back.