Napoleonics with Valour & Fortitude

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A rare day off work so what better way to spend it than wargaming!

Friend Si was putting on a 28mm game of Valour & Fortitude, so I invited myself along and ended up joint-commanding a French rearguard trying to get away from some Prussians and Russians.

The Allied force headed straight for us, so our lead brigade stayed in column and headed towards the left hand ridge, whereas my brigade formed line and started side-stepping left as fast as they could!

Almost immediately some Russians Hussars charged our only battery of artillery. The Hussars were decimated by cannister fire but still managed to get in amongst the guns, sabres swinging. The result: retreating Hussars but no more artillery crew!

It was now fairly obvious that we were severely outnumbered, but all we could do is send off messengers asking for reinforcements whilst continuing with out plan.

My troops were now locked into a forefight with the advancing Prussians, but a very steady volley sent some enemy Militia scuttling backwards. There were, however, plenty more coming forward, and things were looking a bit dicey.

Then, huzzah: our reinforcements arrived. Two more brigades: one of which would reinforce Gary’s assault on the other ridge, one would bolster my wavering men.

Things were looking good at Gary’s end of the table, but a bit dicey at mine. Although I won the first melee I fought, the Prussian landwehr curling in from the right then destroyed my rearmost battalion.

My original brigade were, unfortunately doomed: especially as managed to roll ‘snake eyes’ for my two saves against losing a battalion.

But my reinforcements were now in position, and as the game ended we had certainly fought the enemy to at least a stalemate.

The umpire was consulted and ruled that this had been a French victory: I think that you achieved the mission. The Prussians had taken out most of your right but the left was quite intact and the Russians not too strong. They weren’t in a position to exit the table on your side after 10 turns.

Sacre bleu but that was a hard-fought battle! A French victory, but casualties had been high. My thanks to Si for hosting and running the game, and to Gary, my co-commander, and Dave, the Prussians!

Here are some shots of the table at the end of the game:

TTS AAR: Crusaders versus Sassanids

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Time for a quick game of To The Strongest against friend Rob. As I wanted to use my ‘first time on the table’ pilgrims, I would play the early Crusaders. Rob chose to play the Sassanids.

The Sassanids won the scouting, and chose to deploy a long line of Savaran cavalry on the left, their cataphracts in the centre, all backed up by their infantry and elephants on their right.

The Crusaders deployed all their Knights on their left, their lesser troops (pilgrims etc) in the centre, and their shieldwall foot knights on the right.

On the left hand side of the battlefield, the Knights and cataphracts advanced towards each other slowly. I had four units of Knights handy, so was pretty confident that I could use my numbers to get an advantage here and then sweep into the flank of the rest of the Sassanid cavalry.

I was a little concerned about the horse-archers sweeping past my left flank, but I was about to charge forward so would worry about them later!

Or rather not, as a pair of Aces prevented me from getting that first charge advantage!

Worse, once my Knights had received the Cataphract charge, I checked that my general had survived the combat only to see him murdered by a Sassanid spy! Things had not begun particularly well!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, the Savaran had advanced into contact with my infantry.

This was almost equally disastrous: with two of my shieldwall units fleeing the field after receiving a rain of arrows and a nasty lance-charge, one exposing a unit of archers as they did so. The Savaran then crashed into the archers and, to much hilarity on my side, were disordered then broken by the bowmen!

Back to the left, and I had somewhat recovered the situation, destroying both cataphract units and one lot of horse archers. Both units of Knights were, however, disordered, so I couldn’t afford to lose another combat.

Rob and I were both now so short of coins that one more unit broken would lose either of us the game. The initiative was with me, so I had a quick look around the table to see which Sassanid units were the most vulnerable.

I could charge the disordered Daylami in the woods in the right hand picture above, but I was disordered and couldn’t use my lance amidst the trees, and they were veteran javelinmen who would get saves for defending cover…no, I needed to pick an easier target.

Ah ha! The other unit of Daylami were out in the open, and I had two units of Knights that could charge them. Here was my victory!

In went the first unit of Knights: mutual disorder. Good enough, I had the others to follow.

In they went, but I just couldn’t break the insert expletive javelinmen. The cream of chivalry unable to break disordered mountain men out in the open: pitiful!

Well that was my best chance of a win gone, and I could only watch as his elephants thundered forward and broke the Knights in front of the woods. That was bye-bye two coins and bye-bye the game!

An excellent game that I so nearly managed to recover from early losses to win. So nearly!

My only consolation was the fact that I am painting up a couple of Daylami units for my Arab Conquest force. May they achieve similar success when they hit the tabletop!

IABSM AAR: The September War #01: Chojnice

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Here’s a battle repot from a game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum played in March.

It’s set on the first day of the second world war and involves advancing Germans trying to stop Polish engineers blowing a vital railway bridge so that they can bring up their armoured train.

Click on the picture below to see all:

FK&P AAR: Overlord!

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Off to Overlord, Abingdon Wargames society’s annual show, to play a game of For King & Parliament - Eastern Front variant pit on as a demonstration game by friends Si and Mark.

I would play the Polish-Lithuanians versus Gary and Si playing the Ottomans.

The set up was an approximate version of the end of a very important battle in the Vienna campaign (they’ll never know that I can’t remember which one!) in which the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, headed by the Winged Hussars, destroyed the Ottoman cavalry and won the day.

I had set up hoping that history would repeat itself, with the Hussars and Pancieri heavy cavalry on the right of the line facing the Ottoman horse, and with my lighter cavalry and Haiduk levy infantry on the left. The Ottomans had their guns and Janissery veteran infantry in the centre, but only their Azabs on the right, so I was hoping that even if the Hussars didn’t do the business, my infantry could defeat the far right of the Ottoman line and then loop in to roll up the fiendish Turk.

The battle began with the Poles pushing forward strongly across the whole front except the far right, where the cavalry command there stubbornly refused to move forward.

Confident in the quality of the Hussars, my tactics on the right were just “get stuck in”…which seemed to work very well as before long the Ottoman cavalry had melted away in front of me.

At the other end of the table, the Janisseries unwittingly played into my plan by not coming forward but choosing to exchange inconclusive long range fire with my Haiduks.

This meant that I could then, as planned, try to get around the left-hand end of his line…which sort of worked in that I did manage to get into a decent flanking position, but just couldn’t deliver a coup de grace that would let me start rolling it up.

Meanwhile, the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, having defeated their Ottoman equivalents, turned in (well, those who weren’t pursuing did) and started to roll up the enemy line from the other end.

This culminated in a flank charge into the Guard Janisseries plus “marching band army standard” that should have swept them off the board but unfortunately just bounced off!

There was still nothing much happening at the other end of the table. My flanking manoeuvre was still sort of working, the Janisseries were still hanging back…

…which gave me the opportunity to hit the pesky Guard Janisseries with another unit, and this time the extraordinary chits I pulled from the bag did the damage and destroyed them.

This actually won me the game as I think I took five medals from that one unit (two for the unit, two for an officer and one from the marching band standard) which was quite lucky as the rest of the Ottoman line had finally realised that they needed to do something and had moved forward in a threatening manner!

But they were too late. As mentioned above, the game was already mine not, I hasten to add, as a result of any great tactical manoeuvring on my part: it was the Winged Hussars crashing through the Ottoman horse that did the trick. I was having a good day on the chits as well: saving far more often than I should have, and getting some cracking attack chits in as well.

All in all it was a most enjoyable game and a great chance to play with Si’s beautifully painted toys. The Overlord show was good as well: heartily recommended for a visit and definitely on the list for next year.

19thC AAR: British versus Russians

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Friend Neil wanted to try the Neil Thomas Rules for 19th Century Wargaming, so I set up a quick battle: Crimean British versus Crimean Russians. I would play the Russians, Neil would take the Brits.

I set the game up as an encounter battle, with both sides advancing forward to take battle to the enemy. On reflection, I probably gave the British one or possibly two infantry battalions too many as, although they were outnumbered, their infantry was all elite.

My plan, as the Russians, was to advance forward and hold the small town on the left hand side of the battlefield, using the heavy artillery at the back of the column to pound the advancing Britig infantry into a state where I could successfully charge them. I would mass my cavalry on the right, as although that required a bit of manoeuvring to get into position, that would then give me superior numbers and a chance to break through and circle round the British left flank. In the centre, I would mass my infantry against the British , hopefully using a 5:3 advantage to stymie any advance.

The action began with the Russian heavy dragoons on the right facing of against British Lancers, witht he sheer weight of the Dragoons pushing the opposition back.

Unfortunately, the Dragoons were then hit by rockets from some British artillery and charged by Light Dragoons. This sent them reeling backwards past the advancing Russian Hussars. It looked like the cavalry battle was going to be the usual backwards-and-forwards sideshow!

The game then divided into two neat halves: with me facing the British Guards Brigade on the left and a brigade of British line infantry on the right…and with pesky Riflemen all over!

On the left, the British Guards brigade advanced forward and then switched into line, sending multiple volleys of musket fire into the approaching Russian columns (my plan to hold the village had been forgotten!) before launching a charge with the Grenadier Guards that was only held at bay by the Russian heavy artillery.

On the right, again the British moved forward in column and then switched to line. I thought my advantage in numbers might just allow me to break one of the British infantry units, but a charge by the 11th Hussars into the flank of one of my Guards battalions soon put paid to that, and I soon had nothing of significance to throw forward!

So a fairly conclusive British victory, with my only consolation being the pounding my heavy artillery gave the Guards. We didn’t play all aspects of the game correctly (it had been some time since I’d last played the rules) but it was a most enjoyable encounter, even with the hefty defeat!

TTS AAR: Classical Indians vs Hittites

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Time to get a couple of my favourite 15mm armies onto the tabletop: I would play the Classicial Indians versus Rob playing the Hittites.

During deployment, I had weighted my left flank: the plan being to win a quick victory there and then swing around and take his centre from the rear.

Unfortunately, although I did eventually get a win on the left, it was by no means the ‘quick victory’ I wanted.

This meant that my weaker right flank came under huge amounts of pressure, starting with the Hittites’ ally-Syrian Light Chariots dancing around my flank to threaten my camps and rear.

Rob’s clever use of a Someone had Blundered stratagem in the right-centre also meant my elephants there failed to intervene.

In the end, I had to consolidate my right-centre position and hope that the troops out on the right would survive without support.

Paricularly vulnerable were the javelinmen on the hill on the far right of the field, who were beign assaulted from the flank and rear by those pesky Syrians but, unbelievably, the javelinmen were made of stern stuff and just simply refused to die!

The Hittites, well aware that they were losing on the left, slammed everything they had left at my centre and right, but the Indian elephants proved very difficult for the Hittite chariots to kill (+2 defensive bonus for elephants fighting mounted meant my veteran Nellies were saving on a 4+) and those Indian javelinmen on the hill were still refusing to die!

As my left flank force polished off their opponents and began to arrive back in the centre, the Hittites tried one last assault on my troops there, but this proved their undoing: I was ahead on victory medals, so even a one-for-one result to any melees would give me the victory.

In the end, and very appropriately, it was the elephants in the centre that finally broke the last Hittite unit that I needed to rout for the victory: a glorious win for the Indians.

It had been an interesting game. I thought that my chariots and elephants on the left would easily beat the Hittite chariots and infantry there, but although I eventually ended up ahead there, it had been a hard slog and left the rest of my troops to fend for themselves.

The Syrian light chariots proved difficult to contain: a little more luck coming Rob’s way and I would have lost a camp and a couple of units to their depradations, but fortune smiled on me and the resolute javelinmen on the hill gave me the time to adjust my positions to counter their attack.

In the end it was the staying power of the elephants (especially versus mounted opponents) that won me the day, but it had certainly been a close run thing!

FK&P AAR: Skirmett Orchards (Siege of Norchester #12)

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And so Rob and I came to the last game of the Siege of Norchester campaign pack: Skirmett Orchards.

Rob and his Royalists had already won the camapign as a whole, but here was a last chance for the Parliamentarians to salvage a little bit of pride and close what would be the final gap.

Here’s the background to the scenario: Norchester has fallen! Despite the valiant efforts of Sir Edmund and his men, the city’s walls were eventually breached in several locations, and there were just not enough defenders left to cover them all. The Parliamentarian army swept forward, and after fierce fighting in the breaches, got into the city and forced its surrender.

Having escaped from the Parliamentarian trap near Ramshackle Bridge, Lord Arthur “Double” d’Artois therefore finds himself somewhat in a pickle: his mission was to help relieve the city, but the city has fallen. All he can now do is lead his men away from Norchester and join the Royalist fight elsewhere. There is, however, one more hurdle to overcome: Dread-Naught is on his trail again.

With his “English” troops exhausted after their final battle with Sir Edmund Dexter’s men, also fleeing Norchester, Sir Thomas has gathered together his troops from the Borders (along with General Rhapsody and the fittest two squadron of Puritan Horse) and swept up from the south to intercept d’Artois near the village of Skirmett, famous for its orchards.

One last clash remains…

view from the Royalist side of the table. The opposing commanders stare at each other from atop a couple of small hills.

My plan, as the Parliamentarians, was to refuse my left flank Scottish horse, forcing his veteran Swedish horse to come to me. Whilst that was happening, I’d advance forward in the centre to the edge of the town, but my main effort would be on the right, where my Puritan horse supported by infantry, would hopefully sweep away the Swedish horse in front of them before curling round the take the rest of the Royalist line in the rear.

A lot depended on the Scottish horse holding the left and a quick victory in the initial clash on the right.

View from behind the Parliamentarian right flank

The game began with both sides advancing on their respective right flanks.

My Puritan Horse were soon engaged with the Royalist cavalry, but the initial clash did not go well (demned counterchargers!). Where were the infantry?

The infantry arrived in the nick of time to stabilise the line…

…and although one squadron of Cavalier horse did break through, they were dealt with by the follow-up battalia of infantry, and the right flank was soon mine.

Meanwhile, on the left side of the field, my Scottish horse had been doing their best to avoid fighting the far superior Cavalier Swedish horse.

As you can see in the pictures below, they had been pretty successful in staying well away from the Royalists…with, almost unbelievably, the only actual clash resulting in a Scottish victory. This however left one squadron of Scottish horse isolated and with horses blown: it would be some time before they could do anything more.

The final shot shows the Royalist cavalry finally getting their act together and charging the Scots.

Up until now, things had been fairly quiet in the centre of the field, with neither side wanting to get their pikemen bogged down fighting amongst the buildings of Skirmett itself.

Realising, however, that things were not going well, the Royalists pushed forward into the village, and shots were exchanged to no great effect.

Meanwhile, on the right, the Royalists were doing a very good job at shoring up their precarious position, forcing my Roundheads to take a lot of time to get properly around that flank.

It was all happening now!

On the left, my Scottish horse finally gave way, leaving that flank to the Royalists. Fortunately the Cavaliers, as is often their wont, lost control and were chasing their defeated foe from the field rather than heading into the centre of the field where they could easily have turned the tide in their favour.

And in the centre a major advance by the Royalists had forced the Parliamentarians to retreat and consolidate their line, rotating their units to feed fresh ones in as required.

I now really did need to win the game on the right rather quickly.

Fortunately Colonel Rhapsody’s Puritan horse had finally manoeuvred themselves into a position where they could strike at the backs of the enemy.

Which they then did: launching a devastating rear charge that smashed an enemy infantry battalia from the field costing Rob his last few coins.

Aftermath

So that was the end of the campaign: twelve scenarios played over about twelve months, twelve great games, and a pretty convincing win for the Royalists overall. So well done Rob!

Being the ultimate nerd, I naturally kept a careful record of the scores for each game, helped by the helpful tracker included in the scenario pack. As you can see, everything was pretty neck and neck until the last few encounters.

It was nice to have a focus for our gaming as opposed to playing ad hoc encounters, and also good to have the opportunity to get really familiar with the two armies. I’d recomend playing a campaign at least once if you can, although it is quite a commitment!

To The World's Strongest Game Four: Early Imperial Romans vs Late Achaemenids

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My fourth and final game at this year’s To The World’s Strongest torunament was against Pete and his Late Achaemenid Persians.

With two losses and one win under their cingula, the Romans were looking for a big win to get at least somewhere near the top ten when the scores were all added up.

Neither side were in the mood for much mucking around, and advanced towards each other at a rapid rate of knots, determined to get stuck in as soon as possible.

Things started off very well indeed, with the large infantry unti you can see on the right of the Persian line being routed by the two legionary units in front of it.

That had been worth a lot of victory medals to the Persians: IIRC it was deep, had a standard, and the general had gone down with the unit so six medals flew my way. Things were going well!

The action then moved to the centre, with massed Persian horse charging my veteran legionaries...

…and getting punished for their presumption!

I was now ten victory medals to zero ahead, needing only two (or it might have been four) more coins to finish the Persians off.

Unfortunately, things then started to go wrong, so horribly wrong!

On the right flank, a unit of Persian guard cavalry plus some lesser horse managed to take out a couple of legionary units (the ones that had beaten the expensive deep unit earlier) due to some foolishness with the cards.

This then enabled the same cavalry to slip around behind my line and hit the disordered centre of my line in the rear, breaking the unit there.

I reached for the coins to give my opponent the two he needed due to the lost unit and found, to my horror, that these were my last two coins. I had lost the game!

But hang on, I hear you cry, you’ve only lost three two-coin units and a two-coin general: how can this be?

Well, the fighting had been fierce, and my Romans had been rallying in between the action…and I had handed over four - yes, four - coins as the ‘penalty’ for a successful rally on an even card. So going into that final rear charge, I had effectively lost ten coins (two two-coin units, a general and four rally=penalty coins) then lost another two, making twelve in all.

From being ten coins up, I had lost the game!

Now I have never liked the coin-for-an-even-card-on-a-successful-rally penalty rule, and now I don’t like it even more! I may have to move to Wales!

But well done to Pete for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: an excellent example of why you should never give up playing TTS, and how spotting and taking advantage of an opportunity is the key to success. It was a great game to play, even if the result was somewhat of a nasty surprise!

Aftermath

It had been a most enjoyable tournament, despite the fact that my Romans, so successful on other occasions, didn’t rise to the challenge. With three losses and one win, I finished 19th out of 32: not as bad as I had thought it was going to be.

Thanks to Si et al. for organising and hosting, and to all my opponents on the day. Great fun, and I highly recommend a bit of TTS tournament play for anyone who enjoys the game.

To The World's Strongest Game Three: Early Imperial Romans vs Pergamene

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My third outing at this year’s world’s was against Dillon’s Pergamene: a core of infantry and cavalry supported by lots (minimum eight units) of light infantry.

My plan was simple. Hold his cavalry and lights in place on each wing (legionaries to do the job on the left, my cavalry to do the job on the right) whilst advancing forward strongly to crush the inferior Pergamene infantry in the centre.

The action began on the right wing with the Pergamene cavalry coming forward to engage my equites. I chanced a charge with my contariorum lancers and immediately became disordered (which just goes to show that if you have a plan you should stick with it for at least the first turn!) but otherwise the threat of my veteran horse did the trick and seemed to hold up the enemy advance.

Elsewhere on the field, the other Pergamene cavalry command had hung back (Dillon drawing an Ace for his first group move), so I took the opportunity to move my main line forward, English at Agincourt style, to put him under a bit of pressure.

The Pergamene line on the left and centre came forward and the first main clash took place.

This went very much to my advantage, with the legionaries on the far left disposing of an enemy squadron of horse and the veteran legionaries in the centre routing one of the Pergamene army’s three formed infantry units. Four coins up was good, even if one cohort of legionaries had become disordered.

Now contact had been made, it was time to start using the Roman mincing machine to cut through the enemy line. Here’s a tryptych of pictures that show this phase of the game, left to right:

The Pergamene right flank then collapsed spectacularly, with the only units left to them there being a few light infantry that I had to continually send off the board.

Although everything was going well on the left, the action there had tied up a lot of my troops (four of my five heavy infantry units). This meant that the centre was being held by the veteran legionaries (well known for collapsing at the first sight of blood!) and the right by my horse (outnumbered and outclasssed).

The centre proved annoyingly sticky: two veteran legionaries versus one enemy infatry unit supported by a couple of light unts should have been a foregone conclusion…but wasn’t.

And the right was now looking distinctly dodgy:

Fortunately, the initiative then fell to me and, using a little bit of luck, I was able to finish off the Pergamene by firstly taking one of their camps with a rather sweet “10” drawn for a move…

…followed by another ‘10’ to drive a unit of lights plus officer off the table for three coins and the victory!

So a 14-4 victory in game three: all I needed now was aother big victory in game four to get somewhere near the top ten!

To The World's Strongest Game Two: Early Imperial Romans vs Komenonon Byzantines

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After the disaster that was game one, I was looking forward to the chance for redemption in game two. My opponent was Nigel and his Komenonon Byzantines, who I’d fought at Warfare last year, although that was using the Venetians. Let’s see how the Romans would do…

I was facing cavalry on either flank, but was not that concerned about my left: my camp was protected by Impassable ground and defended by elite Lanciarii light infantry, meaning I felt safe to concentrate my veteran cavalry on the right, aiming to overwhelm the enemy horse and, again, loop round to take the rest of his army in the rear. All my infantry needed to do was to hold the centre against the Varangian Guard and all would be good.

I therefore advanced my centre and right forward strongly whilst holding back my left.

My cavalry did indeed “do the business”, with the Equites Alares smashing through on the far right wing and looping around into the rear of the rest of the enemy horse. all was proceeding to plan!

Nigel, however, realised what was about to happen and rapidly transferred his other cavalry command over to this wing, meaning that instead of being able to run riot in his infantry’s rear, my victorious cavalry had to fight more heavy cavalry coming in from the left.

Meanwhile, the Varangian guard had been heading straight for my line, determined to get into contact as soon as possible. That was okay by me: my legionaries were the equal of any infantry, and with the success of the cavalry, all I needed to do was to hold them for a couple of turns.

Unfortunately there was, again, something wrong with my infantry today, with every legionary or auxilia unit that came into contact with the enemy becoming disordered whether they were the attackers or not.

No matter, I had plenty of infantry ready to put the boot in, but some clever use of lights plus the fact that he had one unit of cavalry free to interfere, meant that Nigel was able to take the initiative in the centre.

Would my legionaries like to charge into either (a) the rear of the Varangians or (b) the cavalry threatening the flanks of their comrades?

No, they would not, thank you very much: far too much like hard work.

Worse, when the Byzantine cavalry charged the flank of my veteran legionaries, the “elite” Roman infantry broke and ran…and, like the last game, took the unit next to them with them as well!

Suddenly, from being in a commanding position well on the way to victory, the roles were reversed and I was looking at defeat!

The Varangians charged forward again, and another two legionary units dissolved. What was going on with my milites today?

And that was it: my last two medals gone as I went down to a narrow 11-12 defeat. I had only needed one more victory medal for the game to be mine, but the legionarirs just weren’t up for it.

Congratulations to Nigel for fighting his way back into the game: I think at one stage I was eight victory medals up!

As for my Romans…well, there were still two more game to go, so two more chances for them to redeem themselves or face consequences that could well involve the traditional punishment of decimation, but through the tender application of a large club hammer!

To The World's Strongest Game One: Early Imperial Romans vs Dacians

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Time for this years To The World’s Strongest tournament, once again in Blewbury, near Oxford. This was a superbly organised competition with thirty-two players competing: the largest tournament I’ve been in and, I think, the largest To The Strongest tournament ever.

My first game was my Early Imperial Romans against Andy’s Dacians, with their very nasty two-handed falx choppers. This was a repeat of the first game of the 2023 SELWG competition, and in fact the fourth time in the last two years that I have played Andy first game in a tournament!

Excuse the thumb!

My plan was to defeat Andy’s command on the left flank with my veteran cavalry, then loop around the take his infantry in the rear as the Roman “mincing machine” attacked them from the front. Unbeknownst to Andy, I also had an Equites Alares unit Flank Marching off table on the left: the arrival of which would hopefully come as a nasty shock!

The Dacians seemed to have the same idea as the Romans, but reversed: so as battle opened, both sides’ infanry lines hung back as the left (Romans)/rigth (Dacians) flanks advanced strongly forward.

As battle was joined there, I then sprang my flank march surprise: my Equites arriving on the flank of the Dacians’ Sarmatian allies. All was going to plan!

I didn’t have it all my own way, but as the situation on the flank resolved itself, I definitely had the upper hand and, although I wouldn’t be looping round onto the enemy’s infantry’s rear for some time, had built up an advantage in victory medals that would serve me in good stead for the main infantry combat.

Back to the centre, where my infantry were now closing with the enemy. Five units of legionaries, two veteran, plus a unit of auxilia, versus five Dacian warbands. Given the situation with the cavalry, all I needed was an exchange of units, one-for-one, to win the game, and I had an overlap with the auxilia.

Then disaster struck!

As the two lines came together, the first combat to be calculated was on the far right of my line. The auxilia were broken by the Dacian charge and fled the table. Okay: not good, but, as I said, a one-for-one would still be okay.

Unfortunately, the legionaries next to them were Disordered by the sight of the fleeing auxilia (failing to achieve at least one [5] on two cards drawn: only a 16% probability) and then broken by the Dacians hitting them.

Their rout led to the next unit of legionaries also being Disordered and, you guessed it, then being broken by the charging Dacians.

Almost unbelievably, this rout then led to the next unit of legionaries going Disordered and then being destroyed, taking an officer with them.

That’s one auxilia and three legionary units being destroyed in one charge, with only the veteran legionaries on the left of the line standing their ground!

Just to emphasise, that was four units and an officer gone in one turn: a loss of ten victory medals and the game!

It was only the cavalry unit I had destroyed on the left that gave me any points at all, with the score going 2-11 to Andy…my only consolation being that I now had plenty of time to watch the other round one games!

A fantastic win for the Dacians!

So an unprecedented disaster of epic proportions in my first game but , ho hum, on to the next!

To The World's Warm-Up Game Two

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With a careless loss in the first game, I wanted a chance for revenge, so Peter and I swapped sides, with me now taking the Norse Irish and Peter using my Early Imperial Romans.

As you can see, Peter skulked the Romans into one corner of the table, aiming to concentrate his force against only a proportion of my troops, aiming to beat them soundly before turning to crush the rest.

So I could see what Peter was trying to do: the question was, could I do anything about it!

Battle was joined almost immediately, and you can see that the left wing of my army is currently fighting air! His plan seems to be succeeding!

And given the Roman veteran cavalry were facing my weak right wing, my succeed very quickly indeed!

But I had more success in the centre, with Peter rather pleasingly falling foul of a common bête noire of mine: my cards and veteran legionaries proving fragile as eggs!

Meanwhile, my troops were still rushing over from the left: if I could get them into battle, then there was a good chance of a rare victory.

In they came from the left, and prepared to roll up the Roman line. An easy target was the already-disordered legionaries on the central hill. I had two units that could hit them from the sides, so I was confident they would go, hopefully leading to a cascade of disorders infecting the rest of the Latins!

Unfortunately, the first unit to attack (the bottom one in the picture above) failed to do anything, but I had the other, stronger unit still to go.

Peter, however, then pulled an interpretation of the rules that I had not come across before. I won’t bore you with the details (you can read the 50+ posts on the TTS Facebook group for that!) but suffice to say that Peter’s view was that unit A couldn’t charge the rear of unit B because enemy unit C was too close to let them do that as units D were blocking their path on their other side.

I was there very much to play a game not have an argument, and Peter was the host, so I reluctantly agreed with his way of doing things, therefore failing to break that pesky unit B.

What is the correct interpretation, I hear you ask? Well that’s still not 100% decided. The FB Group was split about 60:40 in my favour, with Simon Miller, the writer of the rules saying that I was 100% right and that unit A could charge unit B, but the To The World’s tournament was played Peter’s way, and I think everyone is waiting for the topic to be finally ruled on in a future Even Stronger rules update.

Anyhow, so back to the game. My units didn’t charge into the rear of the legionaries on the hill, which gave the Romans time to reorganise, react to the threat, and get their line back under control.

With his centre now stabilised, Peter was also then able to use his cavalry to finish off my weak right flank and, despite a last ditch attempt to take the Roman camp, my Norse-Irish surrendered their final victory medal and the game.

So a frustrating “so near and yet so far” loss for the Norse-Irish. Would I have won the game if the crucial rear charge had gone in? I think so…but as Peter was kind enough to remind me: “it’s only a game”!

To The World's Warm-Up Game One

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Always good to do a little preparation for a tournament, so the weekend before it was off to Peter’s house for a couple of warm=up games.

The first game was my Early Imperial Romans versus the Norse-Irish: loads of ‘em, and seemingly all carrying javelins!

The Early Imperial Roman army is tactically very flexible (in that the legionaries can make non-terrain difficult moves with no penalty) but strategically a bit of a one trick pony: get stuck in being the order of the day. I duly moved my line forward, pila and gladii at the ready!

Note my one bit of non-conformist thinking: my cavalry were not deployed on the left wing, but one command in from the left. Let’s see if that works…

My right flank advanced up to the rough ground across the centre of the battlefield, and awaited the barbarian onslaught. Those are my veteran legionaries on the right: they should do the business!

At this point I realised I had made a mistake. If you look at the picture above, you’ll see an empty square next to the right hand legionary unit: a square that just cries out for enemy troops to use it for getting past my line and threaten my flanks and rear.

I had intended to shift my entire line forward and diagonal during the advance to the centre, covering the gap, but had forgotten to do so. I blame Peter’s cunning placement of a mirror at the end of the battlefield. On reflection (see what I did there) I’m not sure why that should make a difference, but I’m sure that it was Peter’s fault not incompetence on my part.

To make matters worse, it was also now obvious that the Norse-Irish had spotted the gap as well, and were heading for it at a rapid rate of knots. Lucky my cavalry weren’t right the way over on the other wing: I could leave a couple of units to deal with the enemy horse, and use my equites to plug the gap.

Unfortunately you’ll also see in the picture above that one of my legionary units has turned to its right to follow the cavalry, and left its flank exposed to the enemy.

I’m not sure why I did this, and can’t remember if it was unlucky cards that left them there, but Peter and the Norse-Irish took full advantage…

They were also taking full advantage of my mistake at the other end of the line:

The Romans are, however, a resilient lot, and whilst I was not able to rescue the situation on the right entirely, I was able to make it a bit better!

Unfortunately (I seem to be using that word a lot) the hole in the centre of my line was not quite so easy to fix. The Norse-Irish poured through it, attacked my flanks, and soon the last of my victory medals was on its way to the other side of the table.

So a fairly horrible defeat in my first warm up game. Come back in a day or so, and we’ll look at game two…

FK&P AAR: Transylvanians vs Ottomans - Take Two

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Plenty of time left after game number one, so Neil and I decided to play again: same sides, same terrain.

Given the above, both sides set up in largely a similar fashion as well.

but this time the Ottoman infantry also come forward strongly (last time they held back).

But the Transylvanian light horse have been at it again, and manage to sneak around the left side of the Ottoman line and take the Ottoman camp!

In the centre, one lot of Ottoman artillery prove a tempting target for the Hungarian Seimeni, but I’m not sure how long they’ll last now they have taken the guns!

Here’s an overview of the battle at this point:

The Transylvanians commit their Household Cavalry in the centre. It’s very successful, but every time it destroys an enemy unit, it pursues them off table and is lost!

That’s a very expensive way to figth a battle!

I have the Ottomans on the ropes, but just can’t quite seem to polish them off. Neil saves a couple of match points on the right…

…and the Janisseries are starting to chew through the Transylvanian infantry!

It is now sudden death: whoever loses the next unit loses the game…unless, that it, I can get one of my three units that have pursued off table back into the action.

It’s still Neil’s turn, but he’s just about out of unist to play. On a whim he decides to try and re-take his camp, lost to the Transylvanian Lights earlier in the game, with some of his Sipahis.

With a couple of good activation cards, the Sipahis hit home…and my Lights die…which is enough to cost me my last on-table victory medal! The Transylvanians lose heart and retreat!

I’m still not sure quite how I lost that game, but I did! The Transylvanians just couldn’t quite finish off the units they Disordered, and the Ottomans proved very successful in saving match points.

A great game of For King & Parliament/Eastern Front!

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Four: Early Imperial Romans vs Later Romans (East)

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Onto the last of my games at this year’s Godentag Weslh Open event. Game one had been a loss, but glorious victories in games two and three had brought me right back into the running. My last game was to be against Si and his Later Romans (East), victory in which would see me somewhere around the third to sixth mark in the competition as a whole.

Incidentally, that would be three Roman armies I faced in four games, and all against opponents who I knew well or quite well. So much for entering competitions for a bit of variety in opponents!

As battle began, both sides advanced forward cautiously. Si then moved his veteran cataphracts up the flank to go just behind and to the right of the hill in front of the field on the left in the picture above. He then failed an activation to charge them, meaning my lancers could get the drop on them and charge in first.

You may notice an absence of my lancers in the picture below:

Yes, that’s right: my veteran lancers with general, hero, lance and all round goodness charged forward and missed both their attacks and the hero’s re-draw. Si then attacked back, hit my lancers twice, neither of which they saved: dead, along with the general! Four coins lost!

Well that was a good start!

I then made a tactical error (I blame the shock of losing the lancers!) and sent my veteran legionaries to counteract the advance of Si’s cavalry on the other wing. All that then happened was that my best troops spent the rest of the battle running after the equites, who merely retreated or evaded combat as required, Si dancing them effortlessly around my hapless infantry.

This was not good, but I still had my centre intact could achieve a 4:3 superiority there:

Meanwhile, Si was skillfully edging his light cavalry around my flanks…this did not bode well for the future!

Disaster then almost struck on the left: one of my veteran legionary units tried to keep up with the enemy cavalry one too many times and got disordered.

The cavalry then threatened a flank attack, but all I needed was an easy activation to get out of the situation, which I promptly failed. Luckily their commander was there to save the situation and get them moving…but it had been a close run thing!

Back to the right where my equites alares had managed to disorder some enemy auxilia with their javelins. Here was a chance to drive the auxilia from the field: all I needed was anything except…

A complicated series of cavalry manoeuvres then took place, ending up honours even (I lost an equites unit, Si lost his two light cavalry units) but with my horsemen in exactly the right position to charge his cataphracts on the flank.

I needed an 8+ to hit, no general available for a re-draw (he had been killed in the first action of the game), but managed to draw a nine. In my cavalry went…

Two misses: the cards weren’t with me at all!

Whilst this was going on, the centre had seen a big melee between each side’s legionaries and auxilia. Again, honours were even, but after the four coins I’d lost in the first turn, I could ill-afford a one-for-one exchange of units.

Back to the left, where my vets had been forced into orbis to avoid being overrun:

But the final moment of the game happened when the enemy cataphracts whom I had failed to damage with my flank attack turned and charged home on my equites.

The cavalry were disordered in the first round of combat, then KO’d as the cataphracts attacked again:

So a somewhat frustrating loss 27-186 which drove me down into 9th place overall.

Si, who hadn’t put a foot wrong all game, ended up in third place overall, the top and second places being taken by Peter Ryding and Steve Butler respectively.

My thanks to Ty who organised everything, and to all my opponents during the tournament. With 24 players, this was one of the largest I’d attended,

And, finally, for those of you who haven’t tried a TTS competition, I heartily encourage you to do so: four great games all played in a fun and generous spirit. Highly recommended.

FK&P AAR: Transylvanians vs Ottomans

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With the help of friend Rob, I had finally managed to get my 17th Century Ottoman force ready for combat. t had been a long haul: the initial Janisseries painted by Rob, the cavalry painted by Matt Slade of Glenbrook Games, then the odds and sods needed to finally fill the force out finished by Rob and I. Their first outing would have friend Neil commanding them as they faced off against the Transylvanians commanded by Yours Truly.

I was a tad concerned about the prospects for the Transylvanians: my infantry were decidedly inferior to the Ottoman Janisseries, and unless I could get my light cavalry dancing around the field, the Turkish Sipahis were going to run right over my horse!

Accordingly, I placed my lights on the wings, sent my infantry into the small village just in front of my start position, and hoped for the best in the centre where my Household Cavalry were facing the Ottoman elite cavalry.

One advantage that I did have was that although Neil is a veteran wargamer and familar with To The StrongestI, this was his first game of For King & Parliament.

The game opened with me taking the fight to the enemy and advancing forward strongly across the whole front except where my Haiduks had occupied the village.

On the right flank, my superiority in light horse enabled me to get a unit around the side of the Ottoman main line, meaning that they could turn and assualt the Turks from front and side.

I also managed to do the same on the right hand side of the field, where my light cavalry effectively managed hold off the Ottoman light cavalry there and counter any Ottoman movement against my weak infantry.

Back to the right flank, where my lights had now effectively cleared the enemy cavalry away, and could think about heading into the center to help.

That left the centre, where my Household and Enlisted Cavalry faced up to the Ottoman Sipahis.

This looked quite serious, as the Sipahis are seriously good troops, but the success of my lights out on the right meant that Neil had to divert some of his cavalry to cover his flanks.

It was a brutal melee, with the Sipahis initially having the upper hand, but dealing with my lights on the right kept siphoning off both their attention and resources: first one squadron was sent left to shore things up, then another etc

All this meant that my Household and Enlisted cavalry were able to recover from the inital clash and then fight back hard. The Sipahis began to give way, with a trickle to the rear becoming a flood, and the battle was mine!

It had been a great game. The Transylvanians, for a change, managed to use their light horse with great success, totally blocking the left wing and allowing the centre to be won by draining Ottoman resource onto the right wing.

Even better, there was time for a re-match…but that’s another story!

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Three: Early Imperial Romans vs Hundred Years War English

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With one win and one loss under my belt, I really needed another big win to give me any chance of placing near the top of the table.

My opponent for game three was John and his Hundred Years War English: longbows, longbows and more longbows!

I hate facing longbow armies: they shoot a lot and a long way…which means if you’re using a mostly infantry army like my Romans that you just have to bite the bullet and advnace through the hail of arrows and get stuck in.

As you can see in the picture, above, John had assumed a defensive posture, with almost a mini-fortress on his left wing and an unbroken line of archers facing the open ground in front of his line. Tricky!

My plan was to have my cavalry cover the ground on my right (i.e. opposite his mini fortress which, whilst being very strong, also tied up a lot of his best troops) and then advance forward to just out of longbow range to see if I could temp John forward. Even if I narrowed the gap to two squares rather than three, that was one turn of being shot at avoided.

This all went to plan, and John saw my legionaries standing there just out of range, resisted for a turn, and then cracked and sent his line forward one square i.e. putting his archers in range but closing the gap between us to two squares. Now was my moment to charge forward and stab his bowmen into mincemeat!

Apparently not! Failed activations in my two main legionary commands meant that the message didn’t get through…which meant that the arrows were about to fly! That’s three Aces drawn in a row by the way: which I reckon only happens 0.07% of the time or one in 1,428 draws. Ouch!

Somehow, however, the Romans got through the storm, and closed to contact with only one cohort disordered and hanging back to reform.

My cavalry, meanwhile, were still “in reserve” waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

That moment came when it turned out that these longbowmen were harder to kill than I thought they would be.

With my legionaries hitting on ‘6’ versus the longbowmen’s ‘8’, and saving better as well, I thought the fight in the centre would be a bit of a foregone conclusion once the Roman Mincing Machine had got into the action.

Regretably not, and the first round of combat led to a single disorder on each side. I therefore moved one equites alares unit up to reinforce the right hand side of my line, where necessity meant my infantry suffered a two-on-one overlap, not to charge the enemy behind their stakes, but to block their attack and throw javelins at them.

I needed something on the enemy line to give, and my opportunity came by way of my Strategem card: for some reason, known only to those involved, one unit of enemy archers suddenly about faced right in front of a cohort of legionaries. Now’s your chance Maitlandius, up Guards and at ‘em!

It was now only a matter of time in the centre but, meanwhile, a crisis had presented itslef on the far left.

The English household Knights had moved forward and engaged the cohort of legionaries that I had stationd there to bottle the dismounted tin cans up. Foolishly I thought a steady unit of veteran infantry supported by horse archers would be able to hold the Knights back but, no, the legionaries were disordered in the first charge, and then had to condust a fighting retreat backwards towards the rear of the table.

Fortunately I had my cavalry reserve and, led by the cavalry commander, they shot right across the table and intervened before the legionaries could be overwhelmed by the tender mercies of both the dismounted Knights andyet another unit of longbowmen.

Naturally my veteran lancers (equites contarium) couldn’t do things the easy way: despite having every advantage they ended up disordering themselves when charging, with their lances, against men carrying nothing more deadly than long bits of wood and daggers!

Things were getting quite serious down in that corner: that was seven victory coins I had at risk, and that’s a lot when you start with only eleven! I could now easily lose this battle before I’d finished chopping through his main line of archers!

Fortunately my faith in the legions was not misplaced, and before I could lose the game on the left, my heavy infantry finally finished off his main line.

Phew! That was close!

It had been terrific game whose scoreline (164-73 in my favour) didn’t really reflect how close I’d come to losing.

Now on to the fourth and last game of the day…

TTS AAR: Godentag Game Two: Early Imperial Romans vs Middle Imperial Romans

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Battered after my loss to Mark’s Middle Imperial Romans (Eastern variety) I bounced straight into fighting Colin’s Middle Imperial Romans (Western variety). That’s an awful lot of Romans in only two games!

This is a picture taken just after I had made my first move. My plan was to defeat his cavalry with my superior horse, giving Colin a headache on his left flank, then temp his line forward so that I can get my light cavalry (you can just see a horse’s head by the trees, far left) around his right flank to either take his large and undefended camp or just generally harrass the rear of his veteran legionaries.

You can see that I wasn’t mucking around in this encounter: my line has advanced towards his and, in an exciting and perhaps foolhardy rush of blood to the head, my equites have charged straight into contact!

Unfortunately I had failed to consider Fortuna’s baleful influence, and the glorious charge of my lancers achieved a big fat zero as all three of my attacks (I had a hero present) missed by a zillion miles!

I was also now vulnerable to Colin’s infantry trying to swamp my cavalry column, but managed to at least counter that threat…but my plan for the right flank was definitely now in tatters!

Meanwhile, in the centre of the field, the two battle lines had drawn together, although I had initially refused my left flank in order to allow my light horsement to get past the advancing enemy legionaries.

The lights were now threatening the enemy camp, forcing Colin to take one of his infantry units out of the main line to protect against them, and in a perfect position to flank charge the unit of enemy legionaries on the far right of Colin’s line.

The light horse, however, were not keen!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, the confused situation with the cavalry had sorted itself out with a series of clashes that left my lancers withdrawing to recover, Colin’s cavalry doing the same, and one unit of Equites Alares finding themselves alone and facing the deserted enemy camp.

Unfortunately, much like the lights on the left, the cavalry just wouldn’t move into the camp: failing the necessary activation on two consecutive turns before being forced to withdraw as Colin threatened them with infantry taken, again, from his main line. How frustrating, particularly as there were nine coins on offer if I’d taken all three enemy camps: enough to finish the game!

Now, however, my luck seemed to turn. My veteran infantry forced the enemy veteran infantry back, assisted by the flank attacks of the lights who had finally decided/been bribed/threatened/all of the above to attack, and my regular infantry, much to everyone’s surprise, had also been successful.

I was on the cusp of a glorious victory, but we were almost out of time. If I didn’t finish the enemy Romans off in my next activation, I would have to settle for a winnign draw rather than an outright victory.

Fortunately things fell my way: the enemy infantry were sent reeling back, and an opportunity to hit some cavalry in their flank after they had killed one of my units proved final, with my Romans taking the day with a glorious 191-18 victory.

That had been a great way to recover from my loss in the first game. Now I had to do it all again in my third clash…

TTS AAR: Godentag Game One: Early Imperial Romans vs Middle Imperial Romans

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I’m just back from another excellent Godentag (Welsh Open) To The Strongest tournament held, as ever, at Firestorm Games in Cardiff.

I cannot recomend these tournaments enough: a whole day of super-friendly wargaming at an excellent venue, lunch included!

I travelled to Wales on the Friday, stopping off at a very windy Uffington Castle and White Horse en route as I hadn’t been there for many years, and enjoying a very convivial evening of beer, wine, curry and conversation with Peter, Tim and Si starting at the City Arms and ending at The Spice Quarter, highly recommended.

I was thus refereshed and ready for my first game on Saturday morning: my opponent being Mark Freeth and his Middle Imperial Romans.

view from behind the early imperial lines

We were tied on scouting points, so when I drew a ‘9’ for the scouting itself, I was fairly confident of winning, only to see Mark promptly draw a ‘10’.

This was unfortunately a harbinger of what was to come, especially as I then realised that I had perhaps not constructed a very good army list as I think I was the only player with his troops grouped into three as opposed to four commands: it seemed that I had sacrificed manoeuvrability to max out on strength!

The game began with Mark advancing his horse on the wings, so I sent out my veteran legionaries on the left, and my veteran equites on the right to deal with them. On the left, my General there had a narrow escape when it looked as if he had been killed in the very first clash, being saved only by the Patroculus strategum card that I had drawn before the game.

A narrow escape for the man in purple

Mark, bit between his teeth, then assaulted my main line with a couple of units of is legionaries, but the fall of the cards meant that both his units arrived right in front of mine but without being able to charge me.

This meant that I could get the drop on his troops: attacking first and with a three vs two advantage.

Unfortunately not. Fortuna had, as all too often, decided to kick me firmly in the fork and delivered the first pair of Aces of my game…meaning my men just stood there and looked at the enemy rather than dishing out a good shoe-ing!

ace…ace

Worse, his attack next turn smashed the legionaries aside, leaving the way to my camp open!

surely a flank charge will KO the enemy threatening my camp!

Meanwhile, the rest of the battlefield looked like this:

overview

In the foreground are my camps with, as described above, his legionaries in combat with what was left of my ‘standard’ legionary command. I wouldn’t even get to flank charge the unit that has burst through my line: more aces for activation!

On the right at the back, I had managed to destroy one of his cavalry units with one of mine, and get the drop and disorder another two of his units. Unfortunately, try as I might, I just couldn’t get through the two disordered units, and even became disordered myself as a result of a poorly drawn card or two.

On the right in the foreground, my other two cavalry units are locked in combat with more of his horse, but I couldn’t win this fight either, despite a two on one advantage. I had managed to see off his light cavalry, but they were merely off table rather than destroyed, and I knew they would return as soon as they were able to do so.

Just left of centre, two of my veteran legionary units are in melee with more enemy infantry. Again I had the advantage on paper, but lost the fight. I couldn’t draw a hit or a save to, er, save my life.

Finally, on the left, my other veteran legionaries were battling two enemy horse units for control of that flank, but, as you can see in the picture below, were rapidly becoming overwhelmed despite the help of my equites sagittarii horse archers who, having achieved the enemy’s flank, seemingly dropped their weapons and assaulted their foe with, as the saying goes, mango slices!

this is not looking good!

Back to the right flank, and I was still trying to kill his cavalry, along with his light horse who had made their way back onto the field.

just die will you!

All the disorders inflicted on me now came back to haunt me with a vengeance. In rapid succession, I lost two veteran legionary units, the auxilia on the hill in front of my camp (although, to be fair, they had withstood three charges whilst disordered), and the cavalry at the other end of the table.

I had one coin left, which I then promptly threw away, thinking to retreat the legionaries on the other hill in front of my camp, rally them and then return. Yes, they retreated. Yes, they rallied. No, they didn’t manage to get back on the hill despite having an officer present. This let enemy infantry slip into my camp and take my last remaining medal: a silly mistake on which to end the game!

A careless mistake on my part ends the game

This had been a very frustrating game: the cards refusing to let me hit or save anything. Even Mark, as he celebrated his 168-35 total victory, agreed that luck had not been on my side.

Not a very good start, but there were still three games to go, so all was still to play for…!