Final Practice. Probably

We had another DBA practice, with everyone bringing their preferred armies this week. Tim joined ih, although he's not going to Coventry with the rest of us. With Chris, Phil, Steve and me that made five, so there was a bit of swapping round. What with one thing and another I only got in one game, which was against Steve's Welsh pike.

Chris and Phil got in a couple of games. Phil has abandoned his Massagetae + allies, and swapped to later Polish with war wagons. Can't say I blame him. Looking back over my posts the Massagetae have turned up off and on for years and never seem to have won a game. I challenged Phil on this, and he said they did win in a solo game. Hmm. Yes. Not sure that really counts. Chris has settled on his Tibetans, and they slogged out a couple of occasionally fraught games as Phil tried to get his new army to work. Chris had decided to deal with the war wagons by playing defensively, probably knowing that Phil's patience would run out and he'd make a mistake. I didn't find out if he did or didn't, as I was keeping an eye on Steve & Tim playing Welsh v Crusaders. I took no pictures of this game, but it turned into a slog fest, with pikes and spears headbutting each other until Tim finally ran out winner with the Crusaders.

I then stepped in with my Khmer. Steve's Welsh were defending.

Like me, Steve still hasn't got the hang of the terrain part of the game, but he was probably wise to go minimalist, given I've got more Auxilia and Psiloi than him. This is turn one, with Steve trying to decide if he can get round my flanks.

In the end he came straight at me, and my bow supported bolt shooter immediately caused him difficulties. I do have a concern that my bolt shooter will be vulnerable, so it is supported by Auxilia, and a flank attack task force of cavalry and fast Auxilia.

I did manage to slow the advance with my shooting, but he eventually got there. The need to double bank the pikes gives me overlaps in many places. Steve has high hopes for his cavalry general, but my Auxilia with an overlap are a match for them.

My bows fluke a kill against the pikes facing them, aided by an overlap caused by my elephant general smashing into the centre. Everything else is a bit cagey, and my bolt shooter hangs on.

It did end quite quickly in the end. You'll note that compared to the previous picture that some of the pike in front of the bows/bolt shooter have been moved about as I targeted the wrong element (need to revise target priority rules) in my shooting. By double overlapping the cavalry general I got a kill. The bolt shooter killed another base of pikes, and then I turned on the pike column, now double overlapped and flanked, and hit it with a 6:1 roll, killing both elements. The Psiloi held on with a draw. Counting the General that gave me a 6:0 win.

There's not much else to be said on this for now. I think the Khmer will acquit themselves well enough until they run into an experienced elephant hunter with sufficient Psiloi and Auxilia to give me problems. The requirement to pursue when causing a recoil is an Achilles Heal no one locally has really exploited yet, so I think I might be heading for a fall sooner rather than later.

Although they might be quite the thing to deal with Rich & Phil's late Polish War Wagons that I might be coming up against.