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…

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.

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…!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans versus Anglo-Normans

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A second run out for my Romans in the same weekend, this time against Peter playing Anglo-Normans.

The Romans won the scouting, achieving a rather nice right flank overlap in the deployment that followed.

My strategy was simple: hammer down the right hand side of the field, then curl round to take the AN’s in their left flank.

I had the plan, I had the men: what could possibly go wrong?

Things began well, with my advance in the centre moving forward strongly.

In response, Peter’s plan was to hold his left flank with a deep unit of Fyrd forming orbis on a convenient hill, whilst the rest of his men defeated the veteran legionaries in front of them. If he could then use his heavy Norman cavalry to outflank my line on the left, then so much the better.

Let’s look at my out-flanking manoeuvre first.

Although the initial advance into an outflanking position had gone well, I just couldn’t quite get into actual combat before Peter had time to stabilise his line.

The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that the unit of Auxilia with the blue shields refused to charge the orbis on the hill three times in a row, despite having an officer present, meaning that the whole infantry command there was effectively moribund, meaning that I had to send in the cavalry before the enemy infantry line was properly softened up.

Despite this, the situation on the right ended up generally positive…but a far cry from the sweeping victory I needed to win the game before anything could go wrong on the left.

Meanwhile, on the left, Peter had advanced forward strongly, intending to beat me there with his knights and foot knights before I had a chance to win on the right.

Although I managed to use the terrain to anchor my veteran legionaries in place, a small but significant gap in my line allowed a unit Norman Knights, accompanied by some Lights, to sneak through and threaten my flanks.

This was a bit of a problem but, meanwhile, there was some very good news from the flank: a unit of eastern auxiliary light horse archers managed to shoot down a unit of veteran Norman knights - and it’s not often that that happens!

The Equites Sagittarii would go on to almost taking out another unit of Norman Knights with their bows, only failing because they ran out of ammo, having used every arrow in the camp as well!

More good news in that a good run of the cards allowed me to stabilise the situation on that flank. I was still outnumbered, but had formed a rough defensive circle as I waited for the game to be won on the right!

Unfortunately my luck then visciously rebounded, with a couple of Aces at critical moments effectively losing me the battle, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious. Firstly, the Legionaries in the centre of the picture above failed to make an easy turn to take two Norman units in the flank. Secondly, a unit of veteran Legionaries failed to activate when in the midst of fighting more Norman knights. To put that in perspective, the two Aces appear like that only 1% of the time!

Then I made a bad tactical error…or at least a tactical error as far as the To The Strongest rules are concerned.

Worried about the disordered Legionaries in the right-hand picture, above, I retreated them back into a square containing another unit of Legionaries, but facing the other way: the idea being that the Romans would fight bravely back-to-back. What I hadn’t realised was that the way that the Zone of Control rules work meant that if Peter was able to get a unit onto the flank of the back-to-backers, the back-to-backers would then be effectively pinned in place unable to rotate to face their aggressors.

I had never encountered this situation before, and it was a bit of a hard lesson to learn, as my Legionaries had to just sit there and be hit in the flank, unable to fight back, until one of the units died!

It’s a quirk in the rules, to be sure, but not one that breaks To The Strongest (I could argue it’s “realism” either way if I needed to!) but is something to be aware of and watch out for. As I said: a hard lesson to learn!

Meanwhile, back on the right flank, my winning situation had been reversed by the fact that my failures on the left had freed up a couple of units of Norman Knights to use their internal lines to rescue the situation: as you can see in the picture below, I went from an “about to take the two Anglo-Norman camps” situation to a “hit in the flank and rear” situation!

All was not lost, however, as high casualties on both sides meant that the game could still be mine. All I really needed was for my infantry on the right to finish off the Fyrd that were in orbis. The Fyrd had already been disordered, and I had two strong units ready to attack them. Surely the Fyrd would now die or, if that attack failed, there were some disordered Knights to kill instead.

All was looking good as I prepared to start my turn…

The bad news continued as we resolved the back-to-back situation, leading to a debate about whther I was actually just unlucky or, given that I had had some luck in the game, just unlucky at the wrong times in a game: is an Ace just an Ace, or is it an ACE!

And unfortunately I didn’t get another chance, as on Peter’s subsequent turn he managed to break one more of my units sending my troops reeling into retreat.

A roller coaster of game that both sides could easily have won. I was glad that I’d learnt about the back-to-back quirk in the rules: something to watch out for in future games.

So my losing streak continues: five games of To The Strongest in a row now. Hopefully this means that I’ll have got all the losses out of my system before the Wales tournament in a week’s time!

TTS AAR: Early Imperial Romans vs Medieval Irish

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Time for a bit of training before the first tournament of the year: a friendly game involving my Early imperial Romans taking on Peter’s Medieval Irish.

The Romans leave their box for the first time in twelve months

Outscouting me, Peter had tried his usual trick of weighting his troops on the side of the table (my left) opposite to where my command of veteran legionaries had deployed: the idea being that he would win the battle on my left without the vets having had the chance to properly take part in the game.

To counter this cunning tactic, I refused my left flank cavalry command and began moving the veteran legionaries over to the left as fast as they could march. This left my right flank open and, sure enough, Peter had light cavalry on the way there to exploit the gap.

The situation was compounded by a lucky shot from Irish light bowmen that took out my Equites Sagittarrii light horse, leaving that flank even more vulnerable!

I wasn’t too worried on my left, as even my standard legionaries are a pretty tough bunch, with the Roman cavalry all being veterans as well.

This was good, as battle there was joined very quickly, with both sides rapidly being drawn into a grinding melee.

Meanwhile, on my right, I had been forced to deploy to contain the Irish lights and the troops Peter had moved up to support them.

This, of course, meant that he had achieved exactly what he had set out to do, although not as successfully as he migth have hoped as, on the far right (picture bottom left in the gallery above) it had taken him abiut 20 points of lights to occupy 20 points of legionaries/auxiliaries.

Meanwhile, back on the left, the grinding melee had not gone my way. We both thought that this was to do with Peter having had the cards when he needed them (i.e. luck) as on paper the two sides were evenly matched with five decent fighting units apiece. Whatever the reason, I had decidedly lost the fight there and was on the point of being wiped out!

The game ended when, on the right/centre of the field, the Irish lights finally slipped through my cordon of legionaries and auxiliaries and managed to take one of my camps. A rather ignominious 4-11 defeat for the Romans!

Some valuable lessons re-learned after the Christmas break: and not just “don’t play Peter if you want to win”!

I understand that Irish armies are this year’s “thing”, and one can see why given how they performed in this game. We Romans are, however, a resilient lot, so it’s just a matter of time before even the Irish will be conjugating their Latin just like the Gauls, Germans, Spaniards etc!

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans versus Hittites

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Time for the re-match: swapping sides so this time I would take the Anglo-Normans and Neil would play the Hittites.

As the game began, I made a bold move down the left flank: sending William the B, Bishop Odo and half my Milites thundering forward to curl round and take the Hittites in the rear.

The Hittites were obviously quick to react, threatening to flank my outflankers. No problem, I thought, it’s my turn and I’ll just move forward out of reach.

This was a bit annoying, to say the least, but the Norman knights are good troops, and I managed to extract them from the mess and even hurt the pesky Syrian light chariots who had tried to rear-end them in the process.

More chariot versus knights fighting followed, with disaster striking the Anglo-Normans as although we killed some more Hittite chariots, William the B was struck down in his prime.

This had serious consequences, as although Bishop Odo had broken through and was riding down the final unit of Hittite chariots on the left, being out-of-command meant that what would usually have been the best ‘pursuit’ card to draw ended up being a failure to move forward, and exposed the Bishop’s rear to more Hittite attacks.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the two infantry lines had come to together and a grinding melee developed.

The Hittites had more chariots, however, and they now burst round my right flank to threaten my camps, guarded only by light infantry - easy meat for the rampaging chariots.

Back to the centre, and the Norman and Anglo-Saxon infantry were gaining the advantage…and Bishop Odo was still alive and kicking!

The situation at the camp was critical (early losses meant that I couldn’t afford to lose it) so I threw everything I could into holding it against the Hittite chariot attack.

It was a close run thing, but eventually the situation was stabilised.

Meanwhile, the situation in the centre had taken an unusual turn, with the Hittite foot, at first looking as if they were going to be overwhelmed, managing to extricate themselves from the danger, leading to a situation that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before:

If you look closely, you will see that the Hittites have the advantage: they have managed to rush back chariots to gain the flank of one of my infantry units, and damage one of the Fyrd units almost to the point of destruction.

Both sides had been haemorrhaging victory medals at a rapid rate of knots, so as the melee resumed, it was a case of sudden death: whoever lost two units would lose the game.

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, it was the Hittites who drew the required blood first, with the Anglo-Normans carrying William the B’s body off with them as they retreated from the field!

So a narrow defeat for the Anglo-Normans, but a great game overall. Much excitement as the fortunes of war swung backwards and forwards, with many desperate moments for both sides!

TTS AAR: Hittites versus Anglo-Normans

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Time for another bout of To The Strongest with friend Neil. I would field the Hittites, Neil would play the Anglo-Normans.

The game began with my ally Syrian light chariots storming up one side of the battlefield to outflank the anglo-Norman line.

They got themselves into a perfect position, but then the cards decided to punish me for some former infraction meaning that the Syrians unexpectedly halted until the moment of advantage had passed!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, a massive melee had broken out between the Anglo-Norman cavalry and Fyrd and the Hittite infantry and chariots.

In the last photo, below, you can also see the Syrian light cavalry attemtpign to take the Anglo-Norman camp.

The mass melee caused carnage on both sides, leading to a battlefield almost denuded of troops.

But unfortunately it was the Anglo-Normans who recovered first, sending Norman Milites crashing through a unit of Hittite chariots led by a general. With that my last victory medlas were gone, along with the game!

A great game that could have gone either way at many points during the battle.

Somewhat annoying that my light chariots hadn’t managed to get properly stuck in on the flank, and that I lost the central melee clash in a way that left my troops vulnerable in the clearing up exercise that followed, but a good lesson in how powerful Norman Milites are!

Now to fight it again with the sides swapped over…

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans versus Siamese (Thai)

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After our recent Naphill game of FK&P, Rob and I had time for a quick To The Strongest. Rob had once again brought his new Siamese/Thai army (Khurasan figures) and I decided to use the Anglo-Normans against them (Museum Miniatures and Forged in Battle).

The Anglo-Normans won the scouting and, after deployment, I immediately saw an opportunity to outflank the Siamese line on the right hand side, sending two units of Milites forward and deep to acheive that very end.

This forced Rob to hang back his left wing…meaning that a strong advance with the rest of the right hand side of my line threatened his troops there, but with so many Thai units available, he was able to form a decent ‘corner’ that it would prove hard for me to exploit.

Threatened on his left, Rob attacked strongly in the centre, but the cards had other ideas, and a unit of veteran Spearmen evaporated under a countercharge from some Milites backed up by Fyrd.

This particular unit of Milites were led by Bishop Odo and a piece of the True Cross. They would go on to rampage up the centre of the table knocking Thai units off the table at a rapid rate of knots. At one stage, it looked as if they would win the battle on their own!

Back to my right flank, and Rob had very cleverly managed to use a piece of Impassable terrain to stop my cunning outflanking move from fully coming to fruition:

Where were the Thai elephants, you may ask? Why weren’t they causing havoc amongst the Norman horsemen?

Well, my deployment had deliberately avoided the nasty Nellies, and refusing my left flank made it even more difficult for Rob to get them into the action.

My advantage from outflanking on the right had definitely now disappeared. In fact, my isolated cavalry units there were coming under some pressure, being hit from front and sides themselves!

William the B had a narrow escape in the combat that followed, but was saved by one of his liege-men who threw himself in the way of an enemy spear.

And meanwhile Bishop Odo was still thundering, unstoppable, down the centre of the field…

This was all taking too long, as Rob had recovered from the difficulties he faced from the initial deployment and had managed to get quite a lot of cavalry around my left flank. The Thai elephants had also now managed to lumber into the fray.

Fortunately William the B, still alive after his close call, was available to dash back and shore up the left flank, leaving Bishop Odo and his rampaging knights the time to take one of the now-undefended enemy camps and Rob’s last three victory medals.

It had been a great game of TTS. My initial advantage on the right flank was countered by Rob’s cunning use of terrain; Rob’s recovery assault on my left flank had been mostly neutralised by me shifting troops rapidly from right to left; and it was left to Bishop Odo, True Cross in hand, to win the day!

TTS AAR: Two the Strongest Game Three: Teutonics & Lithuanians vs Burgundians & French HYW

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Our third game in this year’s Two the Strongest doubles tournament was against Tim and Matt playing HYW French and Burgundians respectively.

This was going to be a tricky one to navigate, as I faced off against Tim’s French with their veteran Later Knights, who were saving on a 4+ in melee combat: the only good thing being that there weren’t a lot of them!

On my side of the field, both armies advanced rapidly towards each other: there was to be no shilly-shallying around in this battle!

As things got into ‘interesting’ range, Tim unfortunastely drew an Ace on his first activation, which neatly gave the initiative to me.just as the initial clash was about to occur.

This meant that my Knights would draw first in the resultant combat and, with a good slice of luck on my part, two of Tim’s elite horsement were first disordered then knocked from the table!

This early success meant that I could afford to send some of my troops to help Peter against the Burgundians on the other side of the table, where he was doing his usual “I’m only a poor little speed bump…oh, golly, have I just beaten the opposition before Rob gets here?” magic against Matt.

I didn’t have it all my own way (one never does against Tim), and had a tricky time actually finishing off the Fremch.

One unit, the one at the back in the photo below, withstood several turns of frontal and flank attacks and IIRC was still fighting on as the rest of the French army gave way.

Another, the one in the middle in the picture below, advanced forward and pinned my rallying Kinghts against the table’s edge next to my camp. Luckily I had rallied before they arrived.

Despite these late flourishes, however, my troops managed to win the day which, along with Peter’s success against the Burgundians, meant that we took the game 38-7.

With three big wins under our collective belt, that also meant that we won the tournament overall, retaining our title from last year.

It had been an excellent day’s gaming against some great fun players - my thanks to Nat and the London Wargamers for organising - now all we had to do was ship all Peter’s display boards back to the car, all the while congratulating the Arsenal fans on their also richly-deserved win!

TTS AAR: Two the Strongest Game Two: Teutonic Knights & Lithuanians vs Macedonians and Thracians

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Our second game at this year’s Two the Strongest doubles tournament was against Alex and Alex’s Macedonians and Thracians. As the right hand side of the table had a huge riverine terrain obstacle on it, I let Peter put his Lithuanians there with the aim that they held off the Thracians until I could beat the Macedonians.

We outscouted again (these Lithuanians do have some uses!) and I had a superb run of cards in my first turn allowing the Teutonics to get around the flank of the Macedonians in front of me.

Macedonian Alex, however, defended superbly against my flank attack, meaning that I couldn’t immediately roll up his line but, as Peter has proved many times in the past, once you get troops behind the enemy line, it’s incredibly difficult to rescue the situation, and Alex soon found himself at risk of losing his entire right flank.

Peter, meanwhile, was holding his own against the advancing Thracians, so I had no need to worry about that side of things and could concentrate on what I was doing.

And what was I doing? Well, by now I had disposed of the Macedonian right wing and could start focussing on the two phalanx in the centre.

The veteran Macedonian cavalry had died hard, however, so a little bit of reorganising was necessary, and there was that pesky unit of Companions out on the far wing, but normal service was soon resumed as I hammered Knights into the flanks of the unfortunate pikemen.

In the last picture, bottom right, you can see Peter’s spare Teutonics heading in from the right of the Macedonian line: he had by now disposed of the Thracians (speed bump, my backside, as they say: the Lithuanian light horse with bow and lance were proving as deadly as my veteran Knights in this tournament) and could send troops across to my side of the field to help finish the Maccy’s off. You can also see in the top left of the picture how I’ve neutralised the “pesky Companions” with a unit of Knights.

The Macedonians weren’t giving up, however: a retreat backwards took their flanks out of immediate danger as all our horse were still wary of charging a phalanx frontally, whether or not the pikemen were disordered.

But by now, despite these heroic attempts, it was only a matter of time before the Macedonians also lost their last coin and game was ours with a 38-8 victory.

Peter’s Report

Deployment and Plan

This was team mate Rob‘s and my second battle which turned out to be very different to the first and needed us to rip up Plan A within the first two turns!

We faced a Lysamachid successor army of pike, deep spears and companion cavalry and an allied Thracian army of wild rhomphai wielding javelin thugs with a light cavalry flank guard.

Plus there was a wide river (the river Larsen) on one far side that Rob wanted to avoid.

So we agreed that Rob would face the Lysamachids. He would use his heavy veteran knights command to take out the enemy Companions command then turn and flank charge the phalanx.

His other Knights command would draw the pike forwards into a position where his first veteran Knights and my command that I donated to Rob could get flank attacks. He would finish off his outnumbered enemies by turn three as per our playbook, and then whack into the flank of the Thracians that I was facing, just before my smaller army was overrun. That was the plan!

I would be the somewhat nervous speed bump facing a solid wall of hairy barbarians who, as javelin men with big choppers (2HCW) , could dash straight through any rough terrain without slowing down or difficult activations.

It Starts…

As agreed in our playbook, I sent my veteran Knights with three supporting light cavalry to Rob’s side of the battlefield to counter the Lysamachid deep spears.

I then deployed a screen of light cav to go forward and harass and slow down the hairies. On my far right I had one command of light cavalry on the far side of the river Larsen - designed to draw enemy to that side of the river - but frustratingly it only attracted one matching command of enemy light cavalry.

Rob’s Teutonics shot down his left flank and turned to threaten a deadly flank attack to the Companions. My donated command distracted the deep spears and opened up a gap for my lights to exploit. But my Teutonics couldn’t risk charging the deep spears frontally. So instead spotted a vulnerable unit of hairies and charged it, whilst my ligth cavalry swarm distracted nearby enemy units to discourage them from worrying my Knights.

Rob was facing gritty Companions on his far left, and his other knights were pinned by the phalanx. My donated command was distracting the enemy deep spear and had opened up a gap ready to be exploited. My knights had disordered a unit of hairIEs but then backed out to avoid the double risk of 2HCW hairy flank attacks.

On my far right, having failed to draw more enemies to waste their time on the far side of the river Larsen, I crossed most of them back over to the main battlefield which drew Alex’s mounted general and bodyguard after them. The single unit I left behind was cunningly protected from being charged by a curve in the river and before long I shot to death Alex’s remaining unit giving me complete freedom on that side of the river. I galloped alongside the river, over the ford and inflicted another flank charge with lance. Three chances to hit! But they were only lights , drew an Ace, Two and a Three and inflicted no damage! Hey ho!

On my side I had pulled most of my far right flank command back over the river drawing Alex's CinC with it and into a vulnerable position with two of my units ready to flank charge with lances and with his evade blocked . On the far side of the Larsen I was about to kill his inferior LC and then gallop up that side of the river, over the ford and into the flank of more hairIEs.

Meanwhile on the main battlefield the Thracian hairy hordes were steadily advancing towards me and threatening to pin me to my table edge. This is normally OK as it’s what speed bumps do, whilst waiting (literally!) for Rob’s cavalry to come over the hill and rescue the day.

…To Go Wrong

However when I looked over to see when Rob would be smashing into the Thracian flanks, I saw that he was stuck facing annoyingly resilient Companions and had Knights stuck in the ZOC of the pike block! No rescue was coming from there ! So it was time for plan B. For me to somehow beat the Thracians and me to then go over and help finish off the Lysamachids!

What Makes Two the Strongest Different To Other Tournament

At this critical stage something happened that I think reflects the whole ethos of TtS Tournaments. In my experience no one wants to win because they know the rules better. They want to win through better tactics and manoeuver and perhaps the odd lucky draw!

So my opponent Alex had galloped his light cavalry general and bodyguard across the river chasing after my “distraction command” but in doing so had exposed his flank - with his evade route blocked by a big unit of hairies.

So I charged into his flank with the first of two lance armed light cavalry. Three cards to hit!

He chose to evade his first unit which could just fit in front of the hairies. But his second unit with his general had no room left and so was due to be wiped out. However, Alex said he did not know that was how the rules worked and if he had done he would not have evaded. So straight away, we all agreed that was unfair to Alex and we went back in time (half a dozen cards drawn) and started again.

Plan B!

Anyway, by this stage my Teutonic knights had finished off the hairies that they had previously disordered. My swirling light archery had killed another unit and a lucky cannon shot from my camp all contributed enough hits, together with a dead general to rout the Thracians! This also left my final unactivated command on my left, to turn and flank charge the deep units facing Rob.

This was happening just as Rob finally killed the stubborn companions and within just one more turn the combined attacks brought us the final VMs needed to rout the Lysamachids as well!

Not at all as planned but a double victory never the less!

Alex’s hairies had killed four of my lights by throwing just four of their pesky pointy sticks (missiles can be deadly in TtS) but thanks to my lights’ ability to dance away from their big units we had avoided any melees and survived long enough to inflict enough hits before being pinned to our base line. A near run thing but with enough safety to not suffer from the “squirting” that @johnhilary has suffered from when using the very similarly brittle Pecheneg horde.

TTS AAR: Two the Strongest Game One: Teutonic Knights & Lithuanians vs Principate Romans & Armenians

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The ‘Two the Strongest’ Doubles tournament for To The Strongest had it’s second outing a couple of weekends ago.

As Peter had returned from his self-imposed sabbatical from competition playing, I made sure to enlist him as my partner for the event. After the thrashing he gave me (and others) at this year’s Warfare event, it was very much a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them”!

After much discussion, Peter decided that we would take the powerful but perhaps risky combination of heavily armoured Teutonic Knights (my bit) and dancing horse-archer Lithuanians (Peter’s command).

The plan (hatched over Peter’s various and mandatory training sessions) was for the Lithuanians to keep one half of the opposition occupied with two thirds of their force, whilst I borrowed the other third, combining it with my own troops to smash my way through the other half of the enemy before turning to hit the remaining foe in the flank. I don’t remember much about what was said, but there were chalkboards and diagrams, plans of action, timetables, many military acronyms, homework, and much army-appropriate talk of schwerepunkt and kesselschlact and the like!

We even brought along this very portable helmet: ideal for the post-match conversations with forest fans (who lost 3-0 BTW)

The event itself would take place at Kingdom Games in north London, only a few minutes away from Arsenal’s Emirates stadium…very convenient, as it meant we (veteran Later Knights) could share the streets with the 60,298 fans (raw Mobs, and, yes, I looked up the attendance figures: there’s a lot of work goes into these AARs!) leaving the ground as we struggled back to where my car was parked (75% premium on cost as it was match day but, like the Murphys, I’m not bitter) pushing the immense amount of display boards and scenery that Peter had brought along to accompany the soldiers we would use. They fitted into two easily portable Really Useful containers rather than the six foot high tower of boxes that were actually on the trolley we pushed over the uneven pavements to the venue.

Anyhoo, moving swiftly on, our first game was against other-Rob and Will’s combination of Principate Romans and Armenians. We won the scouting so lined up with my Teutonics versus the Armenians, whist Peter attempted to delay the Romans.

The Armenians deployed right up against their Roman allies in a very narrow fashion, so my first move saw half my knights heading rapidly towards the Armenian left flank. If I could get around the side, then rolling up his line should be easy.

This very much proved to be the case, and before long I was in a great position to threaten the Armenian flank whilst also keeping the deadly Armenian lancers (yellow lances) at bay.

Around this point Peter began pointing out that there was quite a bit of Armenian light cavalry out on my flank, and that I should be careful they didn’t slip through to threaten my camps, but my Teutonic Knights were not concerned: we’d left some peasants in place to guard the camps and the foot sergeants were somewhere around as well. What mattered was smashing the enemy from the field, not making sure the cooking pots were safe!

And smash them from the field they did…

…and pretty soon the Armenians had been disposed of and I could head over to the other side of the battlefield to see what was going on there.

To be fair, Peter did seem to have done very well against the Romans: turning all the legionaries and their cavalry into stuck-full-of-arrows hedgehogs. They just needed a bit of Teutonic Knight goodness to finish them off!

So a good start to the day with a 39-0 victory.

Now it’s always good to fact check my reports, so here’s the view from the left hand side of the table…

Peter’s Report

At last year’s excellent Two the Strongest tournament Rob and I learnt that to maximise points to win the tournament you had to obliterate BOTH enemy armies in every battle. And in the limited time available the best way to achieve that was to focus our combined resources on blitzing one army first and then quickly switch both of our armies onto the remaining one with a big flank attack sweeping in from where our first enemy had been smashed.

So before this tournament we agreed a strategy that I would donate the best 25% of my army to Rob, to give overwhelming superiority to his side of the battle. And I would then act as a speed bump to the army I was facing to stop it supporting Rob’s opponent. I would further reduce my punch by holding a tactical reserve ready to respond to any cunning plan that the enemy came up with.

To allow this to work we chose a knight heavy Teutonic army for Rob supported by light cavalry Lithuanian allies for me.

We also had a playbook that defined in more detail how we would operate together and individually, with critical timings as to what we each had to achieve by when.

For example, Rob couldn’t sit back with his significantly boosted army and play a typical advance with confidence. Instead he needed to aggressively pin the enemy from the front whilst rapidly outflanking the rest and smashing into its side with repeated flank and Lance bonuses. All this to pulverise that army by the end of turn 3! This was critical becasue he then needed to sweep across his half of the battlefield and smash into the flank of the enemy that I was holding up. Anything later and we wouldn’t have time to blitz both armies in the limited time.

So that was the plan.

Our first opponents were a tough Roman Principate army with very resilient ( and beautifully painted) legionaries, auxilia and veteran cavalry. Plus a Palmyran allies army with scary cataphracts, lance cavalry, hordes of light cavalry with bow and heavily defended camps which we would never be able to take.

I volunteered to dance around the Romans whilst Rob took my veteran knights to outnumber the Palmyran cataphracts and chase away the hordes, and then swing in on the flank of what was left.

Given the Romans lack of missiles my light cavalry could get right up close to the heavy infantry and pepper them with an annoying drizzle of arrows. But the Romans are super resilient with their big shields and this only caused minor damage that was quickly rallied off. But it did slow them down. The speed bump was working! Only half of my army was holding up the entire Roman force!

Meanwhile on Rob’s half of the battlefield my veteran knights, backed up with light cavalry shooting overhead, successfully took on a unit of cataphracts. Rob pinned the other cataphracts with his Polish knights whilst getting his veteran Teutonic knights around the flank ready to flank charge the rest of the Palmyrans.

The plan seemed to be working. But then two of the Palmyran light cavalry cunningly worked their way through the wood on the far edge of the battlefield weaving past a unit of spear armed brudders and light cavalry and threatening the unfortified double camp that had only one raw light infantry unit to defend it.

Oh no! That was potentially seven victory points at risk and the whole plan could go wrong!

Thank goodness for our uncommitted reserve on my side of the battlefield! It consisted of three light cavalry with a general so was as mobile as you could possibly want. So I moved each in turn and then double moved whichever unit had the lowest card. The first unit drew a 10, that wasn’t going to work! The next drew a 2, and the third one drew a 4 so I then moved the 2 again but it drew a 9 - clearly they had blown their horses too early! So I had to leave that unit behind and I then refocuussed on the unit that had drawn a 4. I drew a 5, then a 9! By now I had marched across 9 boxes but still needed another box to ZOC (zone of control) the Palmyran lights to stop them taking the camp. I still had my general redraw ability. I could do it! So I then drew an ace! No problem. I had my general redraw! Can I do it? And I drew another ace! Oh no how frustrating! Still I had covered a lot of ground so just be thankful for the previous cards I had drawn!

However because we had won the scouting (the Lithuanians alone brought ten scouting points!) we chose the first command to move, and so instead of Rob going first, which was our playbook norm to allow him to get his knights in first each round, we agreed that my reserve Command went first. My light cavalry charged into the flank of the enemy light cavalry still stuck in the wood so at a big disadvantage! They tried but failed to evade! But then I drew more aces and caused no damage! But atleast I had ZOC’d the blighters and saved any risk to the camp!

Meanwhile, my veteran knights supported by light cavalry bows behind, beat the cataphracts and eventually, despite some bad cards, Rob’s veteran knights smashed into the flank of the Palmyrans and swept the rest of the army away.

However this had taken four turns not three, which meant we were a whole turn behind schedule!

Fortunately back on my side of the battlefield a combination of sustained shooting from my dancing light cavalry and a couple of flank attacks (each delivering three cards!) had killed one unit and a general.

As soon as the Teutons turned up on the flank, and the Romans turned to face them my annoying lights turned into killers that charged into their flanks with their lances wounding them so that the Teutons simply rode down what was left to take the final victory medals and secure the double victory we had sought! All achieved without losing a single victory medal!

Thanks to Nate’s tournament design - strategy, tactics, teamwork and even reserves had all played their part!

We had had a mix of good and bad lack, as you always do, but overall the plan had worked. So next, on to our second battle - where it didn’t!

I hope these insights encourage YOU to attend this superb event next year!

TTS AAR: Warfare 24: Game Four: Venetians versus Pechenegs

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My final game at Warfare this year was a match against the Pechenegs: an army comprising many units of light cavalry, most grouped into “massed lights” units, and a unit of noble lancers.

Unsurprisingly, the Pechenegs won the scouting, and I soon found myself staring at a line of bow-armed light cavalry advancing swiftly towards the Gondoliers.

Fighting light cavalry with non-missile-armed troops is like fighting water!

Take, for example, the initial clash on my right flank. The Pechenegs advance four units: three massed lights and their single unit of lancers. My Knights advance and charge the pesky blighters, who promptly evade away unscathed.

Massed bow fire causes a disorder on one unit of knights, who are then promptly charged by the lancers and sent flying from the table. Admittedly my Knights were wearing their cardboard armour rather than the proper steel stuff, but come on…!

This pattern continued in the centre, where my pikes had to combine with the knights retreating from the right flank in order to KO a unit of lights, the schioppettiere showing no interest in getting involved even when presented with the opportunity to rear-charge the horsemen.

Only on the left was there any real success, where the Knights, with help from some mounted handgunners, did what they were supposed to do and drove back the Pechenegs without taking any casualties from bow fire.

At this point I realised I was going about things all wrong: in that rather than trying to engage with the Pechenegs wherever I found them, allowing them to dance around my troops and find gaps to exploit, what I actually needed to do was to form a long line and just push them off the table!

So that’s what I did: a bit of consolidation in the centre and on the right to form a line, and then a steady advance.

Meanwhile, over on the left, although I’d had great initial success, I needed to consolidate in the same way to prevent my victorious units from being individually overwhelmed.

This was all working very nicely, and it wouldn’t have been long before the Pechenegs were pinned up against their base line and then either destroyed or driven off the table, but unfortunately all the shilly-shallying around at the beginning of the game meant that I was out of the time needed to being my cunning plan to fruition: you don’t get a lot of time for each game in a one-day-four-games tournament, so need to really get your shift on in each encounter.

The end of this, final round was called and, totting up the points, I found that I had lost seven coins to eight!

One more turn and the advantage would have been to me but, like Napoleon at Waterloo, I was out of time!

A great game, even considering the end result. All I wanted to do was re-fight the battle and, this time, just smartly advance in line and drive the pesky Pechenegs off table!

It had been an excellent Warfare tournament, even if I ended up twelth out of sixteen. Recommended as both a show to go to and an event to play in: see you all there next year.

TTS AAR: Warfare 24: Game Three: Venetians vs Parthians

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With one utter thrashing and one complete victory under my belt, my third game at this year’s To The Strongest competition at Warfare was against Howard “I borrowed these from Sid’s” Parthians.

I decided to change my initial deployment: choosing to weight all my Knights onto one flank in order to counter the threat of the Parthian cataphracts.

This meant that as the game began, the Parthians, with nothing to stop them, quickly outflanked my infantry line and camp with light horse, but I wasn’t too worried about this and quickly moved to counter their advance.

It was a bit annoying to have the Alabardiers almost immediately disordered from rear charges, but hopefully I’d be able to rally them and move on: the important thing being that the flank was safe for the moment.

Unfortunately, Lady Luck had once again chosen to desert me, and the Alabardiers were quickly disposed of by the enemy!

Meanwhile, back on the other side of the table, my Knights and the Parthian cataphracts had advanced into contact.

I had managed to achieve a tactical advantage for the first clash: getting not only the first-charge advantage but also achieving a two-to-one in a couple of instances, but shockingly bad cards meant that I effectively lost all five of the knights-vs-Parthian-cavalry first encounters.

Here’s the table just after the initial clashes: you can see that I only have two units of Knights left out of five and haven’t destroyed a single unit of Parthians!

The battle then took a turn for the decidedly weird. First up, I had a series of Aces that, I thought, would effectively seal the fate of my poor Venetians: effectively leaving me unable to do anything at all:

But, suddenly, the tide turned, and my last two remaining units of Knights suddenly remembered what they were here for, and started chewing through Parthians troops like there was no tomorrow:

Perhaps I could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

Er, no.

Although somewhat rocked by the Venetian’s renaissance (technically I think that’s also a pun!), the villainous Parthians re-turned their attention to my right flank and managed to defeat the unit of militia guarding it (yes, the chef’s unit was knocked off the table, although I’m sure he survived) and take one of my camps: four medals lost and game over!

At least I had managed to win back some medals, turning a potential utter disaster into only a heavy 8-13 defeat.

I had been appallingly unlucky right from the initial knight/cataphract clash through to the run of Aces in the endgame (even Howard agreed!) but was very pleased to have been able to gain some measure of respect from the fight-back! Roll on game four…

Howard writes:

Great game Rob - and you really were very very unlucky - ridiculously so when it came to the knights melting in the face of the mighty Parthian Cataphracts! Speaking of which it was actually your lowly (but deadeye!) LI and LC shooters that did most of the damage - taking down a Cataphract unit, 2 LI and a LC! Typical of the Lordly Knights to gloss over that in their report of the battle to the Doge....! :-)
I can tell you that the Chef did survive the battle - he's currently on permanent sabbatical in the kitchens of the Parthian King of Kings in Ctesiphon! 

TTS AAR: Warfare 24, Game Two: Venetians vs Komnenon Byzantines

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My second game at this year’s To The Strongest tournament at Warfare was against Nigel’s Komnenon Byzantines: a tough nut to crack with their combination of Kavallariori lance-armed horse and Varangian Guard veteran shieldwall infantry.

I lost the scouting again, and quickly saw the Byzantines advancing towards me at a rapid rate of knots.

I advanced my left flank out to meet him, getting an advantage as I was able to charge a unit of my Later Knights in against some of his veteran cavalry. Nigel attempted to evade but failed, which meant i would enjoy three strikes (attack, lance and bonus rear) against his hapless horsemen, with my army standard providing me with a back-up should I fail the first one.

Unbelievably, every single one of my attacks failed to hit, something my rudimentary stats skills tell me should only happen approximately 6% of the time.

This was not good, and I soon found myself victim to a general assault across my line. Particularly worrying was the big hole facing the elite Varangian Guard: the only thing between them and my camp were a couple of raw schioppettiere hand gunners, almost as afraid of the weapons they held as the mad vikings’ approach!

Fortunately - very fortunately - my other command of knights on the right flank was doing what they were supposed to do, and had forced back the Byzantine horse, both light and heavy.

This gave them the chance to manouevre onto the flank of the advancing Varangians: something that, much to my surprise, caused a crisis of confidence in the enemy centre, which promptly withdrew back away from my troops.

This was very strange, but also very welcome…the only problem being that we were now almost out of time, which seemed like a very quick game to me, but I wasn’t manning the stop-watch!

I was winning, just, but needed a big win to make up for my huge defeat in game one, but the only way I was going to win this was my either destroying a 3-coin unit such as one of the Varangian Guard, or by taking the Byzantine camp, currently unguarded.

The camp it was then, but it would need three activations for the knights on the far side of the table to reach it. Fortune, however, had decided to compensate me for the failure to hit the enemy horse and, with a triumphant clatter of hooves, the knights rode down the Byzantine camp followers taking the camp and Nigel’s last three coins for an 11-0 victory.

So a bit of a narrow escape: I think I would have been in deep trouble if those Varangians had ignored the knights on their flank and headed straight forward!

But as great game against a fun opponent, so onto game 3 with one loss and one win under the belt.

TTS AAR: Warfare 24, Game One: Venetians versus Timurids

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My first game at the To The Strongest tournament at this year’s Warfare show was against Peter and his Timurids. As Peter is acknowledged as the most successful TTS competition gamer in the UK, this was going to be quite a difficult start to the day!

Those of you who have played Peter before know that his favourite tactics is to have an army that outscouts the opposition, then deploys in a way that gives him the advantage by taking a portion of the enemy army out of contention. After that, he advances quickly to get around the flank of his opponent’s remaining (and now outnumbered) troops and roll up them up smartly before turning the full might of his still-intact army on the remnants of that of the enemy.

And that is exactly what he did to me, despite the fact that I knew it was coming!

On his first turn, Peter did have a bit of luck with the cards, but a clever tactic to allow a second march move meant that his troops were quickly behind my line.

As predicted, my main strike force of later knights were left facing nothing except a couple of Timurid cattle-herders bunking off work to take a picnic far from the madding crowd!!!

But they began rushing over to the centre as soon as possible. Perhaps I could pull this back from the brink…

Er, no: of course I couldn’t. Once Peter has his teeth in you, you have no hope or Bob Hope chance of surviving, and Bob Hope’s dead.

His flank attack disposed of my knights on the right and moved in to begin rolling up my line.

And after that it was only a matter of time before my camp fell and with it the battle. A devastating 0-13 loss to start the day!

Somewhat annoying, to say the least, especially as I knew what was coming but couldn’t seem to do anything about it…but there was still plenty of time to do better in the next game…for which I now had plenty of time to prepare!

Congratulations to Peter on a masterclass of destruction: surgically dismembering the poor Venetians despite their best efforts. But I have beaten Peter before, and will beat him again, with the victory tasting even sweeter when I do!

TTS AAR: Double Debut - Hittites vs Siamese

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Regular visitors to the site will know that I have been building a 15mm Hittite army using Red Copper scultpts printed by Baueda. At the same time as I have been doing that, friend Rob has been building a 15mm Siamese (Thai) army using Khurasan figures (Rob reports that these are excellent, but that the spears are a bit flimsy and easily bend out of shape).

With both armies now 90% finished, it was time to get them onto the tabletop. Two newly-painted armies each making their debut? Given popular superstition, what could possibly go wrong!

As we both wanted to get as many of our figures onto the table as possible, we would play the game large at 160 points per side. This meant that I had to proxy in some Assyrians and Sumerians to face Rob’s Thai hordes!

The Siamese army could have been designed to fight Hittites. Elephants would disrupt my main chariot strike force, with their supporting spearmen proving equally tricky to beat when defending. Fortunately I won the scouting (thank you to the ally-Syrian light chariots, only varnished that morning!) so would be able see some of Rob’s units deploy before I had to set up myself.

Historically, Hittites fought with their chariots in front, infantry behind, but (given the above) that wouldn’t work here. I therefore determined to deploy in what I would call a more traditional manner atypical to the Hittites: infantry in the centre, chariots on the wings.

With Rob deploying all his cavalry on his right flank, a plan began to form: send one brigade of chariots forward to crush his cavalry (my lances should give me the advantage); then use the centre infantry and right chariots to pin the rest of his line whilst the ally-Syrians looped around the Thai far-left flank using their bows to take out the elephants there without actually making contact. Genius!

As the battle began, both sides advanced forward smartly, although the Siamese were plagued by a couple of Aces in their initial group moves. Here’s a picture of the action just before we closed. Hopefully you can see that my plan is beginning to get underway!

The battle then divided into three parts: the left, the centre and the right.

On the right hand side of the field, the ally-Syrian light chariots and half my heavy chariots tried to keep his elephants and infantry occupied without actually closing to what would surely be an unfortunate combat.

This they largely achieved: the lights evading away from pachyderm charges, even sometimes being knocked temporarily off table; the heavies by dint of refusing to charge and even edging backwards as the nellies came forward. I was happy to be charged by spearmen, but wouldn’t initiate any charges into a set line of men carrying nasty, pointy sticks!

In the centre, things did not go so well. Hordes of enemy spearmen, with archers behind, came forward and routed my line infantry. By the final stages of the battle, only one unit of line infantry remained standing, and I was forced to re-deploy some of the heavy chariots as a reserve.

I was a bit surprised that the victorious Siamese infantry didn’t rush forward in an attempt to sack my two camps, defended only by some petty scummy light troops, but Rob said afterwards that he felt at that stage that the infantry needed to turn back and help out the flanks.

Whatever he chose to do, it was very unnerving to see six enemy units (half spearmen, half bow) with nothing in front of them except my regret that my infantry hadn’t stopped them!

Which meant that the battle would, as planned, need to be won on my left.

There, my chariots charged the Siamese cavalry as soon as they could, with fairly disappointing results. Rather than smash them from the field, the chariots got locked into a bitter combat in which neither side had the advantage.

This meant I had to divert the archers and Royal Guard from the centre onto this wing - part of the reason why the centre collapsed! The bowmen moved up to support the chariot runners who had engaged the enemy elephants, keeping them from interfering with the chariots vs cavalry combat. The Royal Guard also charged the elephants, promptly becoming disordered!

Fortunately my overall commander was on hand to rally them, as I was going to need them as although one unit of chariots had broken through, they had become disordered in the process, and another unit of enemy horse was moving up to engage them. My other chariots were still locked into a mutually-disordering combat with the cavalry.

I needed something special to swing things my way and, with Lady Luck supporting me for a change, the Royal Guard showed what they could do.

The enemy elephants were disposed of and then the Guard turned left and rolled up not one but both cavalry units: in the picture below you can see that their last two activation cards were a couple of 10’s. In effect, in one activation, they had dealt with the elephants and two units of Siamese horse: definitely a battle honour coming their way!

The Siamese weren’t broken yet though, and their centre was swinging round towards my left flank.

The Royal Guard neatly reversed direction and headed back into the fray. I even had a reserve chariot unit, headed by a General, that could jump in as well.

This was a good thing, particularly as my right was now coming under considerable pressure (the first picture in the gallery, below).

With his centre’s expansion contained, a unti of chariot runners were able to take an enemy camp, and a unit of chariots postion themselves to charge the rear of the main Siamese line.

This, however, proved unnecessary as, again, the Royal Guard charegd forward and smashed a unit of enemy spearmen from the table (they’d been softened up by the archers). That cost the Siamese their last two coins, and the victory was mine.

I had definitely been lucky to survive that one!

Things were looking extremely dicey before the Royal Guard went turbo and mullered three units in one turn. I was also lucky with the cards when I needed my left flank to about face and head into the centre/the enemy’s rear.

A great game, played in excellent spirit, and nice to finally get the Hittites (and the Siamese) onto the table.

TTS AAR: Crusades Game 3: Venetians Abroad vs Early Feudal Spanish

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My third and final game at the recent Crusades event at the Games Bunker in Weston Super Mere was against Sid and his Early Feudal Spanish: the El Cid lot!

Rather than risk boring you with my usual report, I actually have a report from the other side of the table: Sid posted the following on his Facebook page. As you would expect, it is full of “fake news”, lies and propaganda, but it saves me the trouble of writing a report of my own!

Sid says: “My third and final game at The Bunker for the TTS Crusades Competition was against Robert Avery’s Venetians.

The armies line up. The open left flank beckons me.

“Rob and his army are hardened veterans and winners of this year’s TTS at BRITCON. The Venetians are an interesting combination of Spear or Bill and Light infantry. The main striking force are Knights supported by unusual Light Cavalry who have crossbow for that three-box range or lance to be an offensive Lights unit. He had two camps which are fortified.

“Robert Avery and I have played a few times over the last couple of years and I seem to be his personal kryptonite: when we play my cards are average but his are invariably ‘pants’. I was hoping this would play on his mind. I know, it’s a terrible thing to do to a lovely chap like Robert Avery.

“As with every game that day, I won the scouting, so I could match my commands where they would be most effective.

“Rob deployed his two infantry commands in the centre and split the cavalry equally on the wings. His left looked more exposed, so I concentrated two commands against that flank. My right flank only had one cavalry command but it was my veteran cavalry so I thought I had a chance to take him on frontally. My infantry might be raw but had extra bow so could impact him without getting too close. I also had a horde of raw Light Infantry to clog up the works.

The filthy raw peones look across at the heavily armoured Venetian infantry. At least there are plenty of monks in the camp to administer the last rites.

“My activations started well, I managed to rush my mounted troops right into Rob’s grill. The kryptonite was working and Robs right wing activated one unit before stopping.

“The Venetian infantry then ground forward, and I was in no position to stop them but did delay them and pushed back the mounted wings.

The right wing, not so open but still opportunities. I rushed forward to close down the opposing knights. You can see that the Venetians are down to a single unit of knights, but with LIGHT CAVALRY support which was whittled down. The Venetian infantry assault can be seen to the left.

“On my left I took down Rob’s Light Cavalry and the Knight unit closest to the centre.The loss of that Knight let me push cavalry through to hit his exposed Crossbow unit who were very unhappy at tangling with lance-armed cavalry. This exposed the Spear next to the Crossbow who were flanked and destroyed leaving a gap in the line.

“The only good thing for Rob was the survival of his far right Knight unit, although it was disordered so reluctant to get involved. In the end, Rob had a f*** it moment and charged them forward anyway. Unusually for Rob it worked, and they destroyed the Caballeros Villanos matched against them.

The success of my main effort on the left. I managed to make ground as Rob failed activation after activation.

You can see the surrounded Venetian knights, which oddly survived and fell back. The Venetian knights not surrounded, were the ones who fell to the two Spanish cavalry units who double teamed them.

At the back can be seen a crossbow unit, which were screaming to be ridden down. Just to the top right can be seen the only raw unit in the Venetian army. Identified by the fat cook in the front rank. They drew me like moths to a fame.

The final knight unit injured and fending off repeated attacks.

My cavalry with the red standard are occupying the ground formerly held by the now deceased Venetian crossbows. The now disordered Venetian raw spear have drawn the attention of my cavalry. I’m still loving that fat chef in the front rank. The camp is beckoning.

“In the centre, Rob’s infantry were pushing my raw Shieldwall back and I was pulling them back just to keep them in the game. But the success of this meant that they became isolated and exposed to my hordes of raw Light Infantry. Meanwhile my cavalry who had taken out his Spear, went through the gap and took one of the camps.

The camp is seized and my cavalry have the option to turn to drive the LI out.

“On my right, my elite Cabaleros Hidalgos rushed Rob’s Knight command and were outrageously lucky, taking down one unit of Knights and disordering the other. I followed up and had his Knights pinned against the table edge with another Light Cavalry pinned next to them. This unit just held on, which as it had the Army Standard kept Rob in the game. I could have pushed the Light Cavalry off the table but held on until he would be down to his last coin. On the same flank I had supporting Light Cavalry ready to hit some Light Infantry on a hill in the flank.

Meanwhile on the other side of the table.

My far right cavalry have pinned their opponents and throwing javelins at the trapped knights. My left shieldwall are driven back, but raw LI are flanking their opponents. The right side peones are disordered By the unit of billmen.

More detail of the centre

“After I cleared out another unit, I pushed the Light Cavalry off table for the win.

The far right. You can see how my right side cavalry are simply holding place ready to drive the LC off table.

The Venetian knights with army standard are disordered, the Spanish cavalry with army standard are also DISORDERED SO a stand-off but I am throwing the odd javelin. My LC are facing into,the centre ready to flank charge some LI on a hill just out of shot.

The knights break out of the trap, but are flanked by LIGHT CAVALRY.

There are also crossbows to the left peppering the knights.

Just after this, I drove the Venetian LC off the table for the win.

“As always with Rob, a great game, full of chat and banter. Yet his cards hated him and I’m not joking when I say that. Maybe he was distracted as I spent the entire day trying to nag him into going for an Ancient Spanish army for his next project.”

An excellent report from Sid, sadly accurate in that I lost the game 5-13, which meant that I finished the event in 5th position.

What Sid doesn’t mention is that in my last turn before he won the game, I had an excellent opportunity to rout two of his Shieldwall units with my infantry, which would have meant the game finished something like 9-13 or the like, which meant I would have placed higher overall…but I drew an Ace for my first actuvation and that was that!

Sid’s pictures are interspersed with his report, here are mine in a picture-only gallery:

So a great game but a disappointing end to the day. The event had been most enjoyable overall, and my thanks to Don and team at the Games Bunker, and my opponents, for a great day’s gaming.

TTS AAR: Crusades Game 2: Venice Abroad vs Anglo-Normans

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Following my successful game against Don’s Mameluke Egyptians, my second game at the recent Crusades event at the Games Bunker in Weston Super Mere was against Matt’s Anglo-Normans.

The Anglo-Normans looked like quite a tough nut to crack: Knights to face my Knights, then either Spearmen to drive my cavalry back, or deep warband to swallow them up!

Matt won the scouting and, as the game opened, sent a unit of Knights forward straight into my left flank, presumably seeking to gain the initiative and get me reacting to his movements rather than vice versa.

Unfortunately for the Anglo-Normans, this backfired spectacularly, as his Knights crashed into mine and just evaporated from the table! Not a scratch on my men, an enemy general left alone in front of them.

Undeterred, however, the Anglo-Normans continued their advance, just trying to get in contact with my men as soon as possible.

I could see me doing well on the left, but was a little nervous about my right: five enemy foot units against a couple of units of Knights supported by Crossbowmen.

On the left, things seemed to be going well, but a series of sudden, card-induced reverses saw my glorious charges come to nothing, with the survivors driven back right as far as the table’s edge. Not good, not good at all!

Back to the rest of the table.

In the centre, my infantry (seeking to take some of the pressure off my right flank) had advanced strongly: the Alabardiers even forcing some of the Anglo-Norman cavalry to retreat in order to cover their camp. Unfortunately, all this fighting had disordered two of my three foot units, so what might have looked good at a distance was pretty shakey when you got up close!

And on the right I was still horribly outnumbered, with my remaining Knights threatening to be overwhelmed by waves of enemy infantry.

One unit of Knights did indeed rout from the table, but the other managed to rally and drive forward as, meanwhile, my one still—undisordered infantry unit in the centre also turned to help.

Sudden Death!

Both sides were now down to their last few victory medals: it was now a case of sudden death in that whoever lost their next unit would also lose the game.

Although I was in quite a good tactical position, it was Matt’s turn to go, and I had plenty of already-disordered units for him to attack, defeat, and thus win victory. I resigned myself to the loss and sat back as Matt pondered where to strike first.

The obvious place was my left flank, where my disordered Knights were faced with fresh Anglo-Norman Knights headed by a general. This was going to be painful as that meant I could expect to face two-three charges, all at a disadvantage.

The first Anglo-Norman charge went in - I survived.

The second Anglo-Norman charge went in - I survived.

The third Anglo-Norman charge went in - I not only survived but managed to disorder the enemy Knights as well…the cards conveniently throwing up a series of 9’s and 10’s,

But it wasn’t over yet: on to the next weak point.

My already-disordered infantry unit nearest the Anglo-Norman camp was attacked by both light infantry from the flank, and more Knights from the front, again with an attached General just about guaranteeing multiple charges.

Unbelievably, again I survived: a combination of poor attack cards from Matt versus decent defence cards from me.

To say Matt was a little frustrated at this point was a bit of an understatement! Worse, his attacks on my Crossbowmen and other Spearman unit failed to do any damage either. I had survived the turn, saving at least six (and I think I remember the number actually being eight) “match points”!

My turn now and, with so many of my men disordered, I only tw0 opportunities that I could take. The first was for my Knights on the far right flank to charge into the rear of the disordered Anglo-Norman Shieldwall just to their left. I had a General with the Knights, so could expect at least a couple of charges to go in.

Nope! I was hit by a couple of appallingly low activation cards and my cavalry stayed where they were, horses happily snacking on the grass!

No problem: my fresh Spearmen in the centre of the field could attack some disordered Anglo-Norman Shieldwall and…I got nowhere, my spears failing to penetrate the enemy formation!

This meant that unless I could think of another battle-winning move, the initiative would pass to Matt and I’d have to run the gauntlet of all those sudden death attacks again…and I was under no illusions that all those 10’s would come again.

By this time we had quite a little crowd around the table as I hummed and hawed about what to do next. I could charge the disordered enemy Knights on the left with my disordered Knights…risky but, I decided, worth a punt. Nope: another Ace meant that the flower of mercenary nobility weren’t interested in moving. I was fast running out of ideas!

My Crossbowmen had one ammunition marker left, and the Shieldwall in front of them were, as I said, disordered. That meant that I couldn’t kill them (as it takes three hits to kill a deep Shieldwall unit) but maybe if I knocked them down one more disorder I could, I don’t know, drop my crossbows and attack.

“Twang” went the crossbows, and it was a hit. Unfortunately the enemy Shieldwall saved so no damage done. Matt then checked to see if the General with the unit was hit: and he was! Another card was turned to see what happened: he died, and the game was mine!

That was an extraordinary end to a game that I had thought lost for some time. As it was, I achieved a 13-11 victory, showing what a grind it had been for both sides.

My thanks to Matt for such a memorable encounter, although it was one that would cost both of us dear as the points were totted up after the final game…