The final (for me) themed DBA evening of the summer saw us back home for Dark Ages in our Sceptere'd Isle. We were all supplying our own armies (except Tim, who is still working on it) for this one. Phil had four different ones, Chris had cobbled together a couple, as had Steve. I also managed to produce two armies by virtue of owning one (III/24b Middle Anglo-Saxons) and having a Byzantine Armati army that will pass muster as Sub Roman Britons (II/81a).
As we were back using 15m figures I reconfigured the SHQ tables to make it easier to reach across the board.
Chris and Phil arrived first and set to it. I think they were both using Sub-Roman Britons, II/81b & a respectively, representing Vortigern fighting Arthur. Tim & Steve were delayed by a nasty incident on the Northampton southern bypass but were soon setting up whilst I made coffee. Tim took a shine to my Sub-Romans (they are pretty - see the "Can you tell what it is yet?" posts from late 2011) and took on Steve with one of his Welsh armies. I think Tim won, which pleased me as I do like that army.
Chris and Phil were over in a trice, so Chris and I swapped places. As Tim was still fighting with the Sub Romans, I got out my Anglo Saxons.
The Anglo Saxons are a one-note army. It's all Spears (Fyrd) with three 4Bd (Gen and Hird) and a Psiloi element. Phil had Lowland Scots (III/45) which is mostly 3Pk and a 4Wb with a bit of horse. Phil defended. That's an Enclosure on the left.
As the pikes are best two deep, I was always going to be wider than his infantry line. However as I'm slow moving and can't deploy in the outer four base widths of the board there's a real danger he can get at my flanks with his LH and CV. I went as wide as I could then put my spare spears in a column to my right. I should then be able to open out onto the flanks. On reflection I should have split them in to two groups of two at either end of the line.
Phil obliged me by ramming home on my line, filling out his left with his cavalry General. His big plan was to get a quick kill with the Warband on my left. Mine was to hold him, then bring up my reserve spears and the psiloi to close the flanks.
A turn or two on and my line has now extended on the right with some reserve spears. I'm being cagey, and only engaging the cavalry General on the right as I have a double overlap. I think the plan has to be nip away at little bits and don't expose myself to a single turn catastrophe if possible.
Wow! A win for the Saxons! That's a rarity. Phil said he was okay to lose again to my six rolling. Can't help it if I'm a tactical genius.
I sat out the next round. Tim was now fighting Chris with the Sub Romans in a tense and close fought battle.
I now faced Steve with his early Welsh II/19a, which is all warband except for a Cav general and a couple of psiloi. He came unstuck in his last game as he hadn't quite got a grip on the Wb rules, having missed or forgotten the discussions about double ranking them to gain an advantage in combat. I was defending, and Steve helpfully provided me with a hill to put my general on. He confidently deployed in the ploughed fields only for me to roll a 1, turning them into Rough going. This time I put my spare spears on the left.
Steve is nothing if not game, and threw his warbands at me. As he had an odd number of Wb there was a single element in the middle of his line, which enabled me to crack open the position and get overlaps. plus I was up hill on my right. Phil's advice in respect of army choice would have been go for the Wb General instead of the cavalry. I think he's right. With an army like this which relies on quick kills on evens at best, you need every advantage you can get and a general in the middle of the line might just tip it. As it was I was three elements up in a turn or two.
The next turn my General and his Hird finished off whatever was on the hill and I got a 5:0 win.
So that all went quite well. Two big wins for the Saxons in one evening!
Shame I never got to use the Sub Roman Britons.
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