K-O Tournament, Semi-Final:Moldavians vs Nubians

[hidde]

So, I got the initiativ...much good that did me.



Usually with an army like the Moldavians I would spend as many turns as possible to harass the opposition and let my cavalry spread out in an effort to flank him.
This time none of those are viable alternatives. Davouthojos many troops makes outflanking impossible.

The fact that so many of them are medium bows would mean harassing attempts would also fail. Only one option left:
Damn the torpedoes...full speed ahead!



Oh yes, a lot of superior bows...



Basically just moving straight forward. The "plan" is to use the full force of my four! knights and ram straight into whatever they encounter.
The other cavalry will initially act as flank security My hope is that this first attack is a spectacular success.
If so, disorder might spread among the Nubians. I will then feed the others into the frey one by one at the appopriate moment.
Lot of holes in this plan...
First of all, it is the Nubians who might spread out and flank me. Maybe they don't want to leave the rough terrain but then the center will probably fall back
and I'm left to charge straight into a bag.
The chance that superior BG:s will suffer widespread cohesion drops is a bit slim...not to forget that there are also camels and lancer cavalry to take care of




The center falls back, all right. The Nubian skirmisher up front is too tempting not to take out. It turns out to be a potential mistake in more than one way. First...

8% casualties from charging a poor LF in the rear..ah, well. Second...
I thought my own lights should be safe after the Nubian one was gone.



My heavies plods on in the center. Don't like to have my two cavlary on the left so far away from the main opposition but feel forced to put them there.
Lets have look at my blunders in the center.



A-Should have put my leftmost skirmisher one hex forward. As it is the knight is open for fire from the right.
B-Wasn't as safe as I thought. Question is if he wants to put a BG in the necessary spot since I have a knight at charge distance.
C-Skirmisher set to never evade should also be a hex forward. Now I use it to catch the Nubian skirmisher IF it attacks. Cavalry never evade...not sure, the camel will hardly charge

[ericdoman1]

Hi There

Well Anders' AAR does look impressive.

My game against Chris is on the 2nd Turn.

Chris won initiative (pretty easy against the Catalans and he has an IC) and so the map is very open.

My first possible mistake as I didn't choose very crowded.

I have also gambled a bit here as all of my MF are unprotected off spear.

Chris has big screen of lf (21! in total) with a few lh and to the rear armoured lance cav and some cav bow.

I have a screen of 14 lf that are trying to protect my mf units.

He has some units in hiding but I am guessing they are either more lancers and or some armoured hf imp foot.

As I have mentioned playing a FOG-TT doubles comp this weekend and will be leaving shortly to catch the train so no turns for me until Monday.

Pete just wondering if we can arrange for final and 3rd/4th place matches on the 27th Feb. It seems to me that there will be a lot of time spent chasing down light troops and as there are some biggish time differences in both games, we may only be able to play 3 turns per 2 days. Just a guess.

Just in case the doubles comp is BADCON. You can go to the FOG Ancient and Medieval forum, go to tournaments and scroll down to see the armies being used.


Cheers


Eric

[stockwellpete]

Pete just wondering if we can arrange for final and 3rd/4th place matches on the 27th Feb. It seems to me that there will be a lot of time spent chasing down light troops and as there are some biggish time differences in both games, we may only be able to play 3 turns per 2 days. Just a guess.

Yes, that will be OK, Eric. I am not going to cut off semi-finals half-way through as long as everything is moving forward at a reasonable pace.

[davouthojo]

With Anders putting in the effort on screen capture, the least I can do is contribute some thoughts from my side. I understand where the confidence came for an AAR - he is beating me most games now……and he has won initiative! I find this makes a huge difference when players are closely matched. I would be feeling confident on a map with steep hills, even a few gentle hills would enable my archers to stand and face the cavalry....but as it is…not a hill in sight! On this map I am starting at a disadvantage. Two patches of rough for my MF to hide in, but widely at separate ends. I decide that the risk of splitting my force is too great and set up around the left patch of rough , with a centre of bows and the lancers behind.

His Army
I am most worried about his knights…I have nothing that can stand up to them….they will crash through anything I put in their way. They will even shred my lancers, so I have to keep them away from anarchy range. If only these Nubians had thought to train some pikes…..oh well, at least there are only 4 of them.
As for his cavalry, it will take out any MF I leave in the open, but my lancers can cause them some trouble. Thanks to my raft of superior archers, I need not worry about his bow capacity – the longer he trades fire from his 14 point cavalry with my 6 point bows the better!

The Plan
He has set up in a central block, no surprises in his army. His cheap MF and LF will enable him to fight to the last cavalry unit, and his cloud of LF will make it hard to shoot up his horse.

Attrition is my friend in this battle, the longer it lasts the more my missile power will weaken the Moldavians. So I want to slow it down. My archers will line the rough on the left, hopefully it will be a major missile pad while my other troops operate around it. When his knights come forward I send my lancers out to the left flank – they need to avoid combat until the missiles do their work. I pull the archers in the centre back – they cannot stand in the open, hopefully they can stay away from his cavalry.

Turn 3
He snaffles my skirmisher – I left him in anarchy range to encourage his knights forward, careless of me. I will find it hard to trap his lights without my own lights. He has left a couple of opportunities, but on balance, they are all traps – his knights will pound anything that gets engaged. I hold back, but wonder if I have been too forward.......

[hidde]

He lets the cavalry continue forward on my right flank. I think there was only one shot at my exposed knight. The result was about as bad as could be...8%.
That is about 15% of what is needed for the knights to auto-rout. Not to be trifled with.



As I want to get in contact as soon as possible I charge in even though it's not ideal. I decide the LS cavalry will surely evade and that I will end up in the tick-marked hexes.
I use my general rather than the knights to chase off the first cavalry because I think that's the best spot for him.



No automatic disruption for the rear charge on the lancer but the odds are still high enough that I'm disappointed it stays steady. Have to expose one BG to cover the rear
of the one that attacked. Not sure davouthojo will attack but if he manage to disrupt it and then charge...



I'm not strong on the flanks.




He continue pushing hard on my right. I think he wanted to avoid getting any more into the fighting I started. After having moved three or four cavalry forward one suffered anarchy and he then charged in with two more. I'm pleased there's no disruption. There is a lot of archers at top but I have no choice but ignore them for now. Luckily they are not close enough for immediate attack. So I charge with my knights...



If you (like some ) have missed this, pay close attention. First one hex, stop, and then charge. That way it's a rear charge with automatic disruption.
I took a tiny bit of gamble here as the knight could have anarchy the first move and quite possibly charged straight forward and forfeited any rear bonus.
It's a rout! The router disappear but if it hadn't I don't think my knight could have pursued due to movement restrictions.
Either way, my knight is now horribly open to bow fire!



I can't bother with the left side of the battlefield any more. His troops can do what they please, I move everything towards the right.



1,2...10-11 archers can pour their arrows at my lonely knight!

[batesmotel]

Up to turn 5 in my game against Eric. Other than two of his Almughavars in combat with my armoured light spear MF on his right there hasn't been any real combat. I've been holding my lancers back to let my skirmishers soften Eric up and he's been shifting his knights to keep themin position to counter my lancers. So far I have a few skirmishers around both his flanks so that should help to soften up the unprotected MF and also maybe will check to see what the Catalans have in their campses .

Chris

[ericdoman1]

My campses, has a "Trespassers will be prosecuted" sign outside. Although on 2nd look prosecuted has been rubbed out and "given lots of drinks" has replaced it.

I may be a little clsoer to Chris's Camp as well but his quick summary is spot on. He has routed one of my almughavars and will now be able to double team another one so I will probably lose that as well. I Have managed to catch 2 more lf and fragged them both (so they should rout on Chris' turn) and one of my knights has charged into one of his lancers BUT 2 of my almughavars will be charged by his lancers shortly. He may then have to throw in all of his lancers but I have 3 more knights moving up inc my cic. In other words theer will be a bit more fighting shortly.

I am ignoring his light troops behind me now (similar to Hidde) and concentrating on the ones to the front. In time should chase them off the board or maybe even catch some. He has 2 lancers and 2 cav bow trying to protect them and may well have to throw some or all of them into combat but I have 7 or 8 Almugavars and a knight in close proximity.

I am able to cover most of the map so he will be running out of room ( I hope) in time. Even though he has more lf, they are all poor and I have 9 avg (5 with lt spr). Again he may well ahve to stand with some.

Have a feeling though it will be a long game and nobody has a clear advantage.

[hidde]

I am ignoring his light troops behind me now (similar to Hidde)

Only that the troops I'm ignoring are sup MF!

[ericdoman1]

Well our game is now at a halfway point I reckon.

I have 9/38 losses and Chris has 21/38

However he has done a very good job of moving quite a lot of his cav and lf away from my advancing troops, even so through a bit of good fortune I have managed to rout the 2 lancer units and my lone knight has pursued into a lh that stood? As we all know that is a major bug in the game. Light troops standing even though they have space to evade and are probably on always evade mode.

I am also 1 move away from attacking his camp. He has 2 lf sitting in front of it and they have nowhere to go as the camp is in the corner of the map. I have 2 almughavar units ready to charge in and a lf unit who can also charge in or into the camp.

In the meantime my lower right flank has nearly crumbled away. 2 of my knights are fragged mainly through failing tests, 1 disrupted Almughavr unit facing a steady cav bow/sword and 2 or 3 other almughavar units who can be charged by lancers. One is nearly on auto rout. If we both roll equal dice here I reckon I will lose 7 or 8 bps to Chris' 1 or 2.

But I am hoping at the end of Chris' next turn I could well pick up 10 or more bps for only 1 or 2 losses.

Most of Chris' troops are on my right hand sice of the map from top to bottom. I need to hang on in there with the fewer units I ahve in the lower right of the map and bring up reserves (will take too long) to have him in all sorts of problems.

However he can still shoot up quite a few of my troops and will also be able to loot my camp. For me to win I will have to try and catch some of his light troops and his cav bow but I think it is going to be a bit difficult at the moment. I have the upper hand and yet the game can drag on. The longer it does the more shooting casualties I will receive and then who knows.

[davouthojo]

No plan survives contact with the enemy......2 of my lancers decided to anarchy charge at the Moldavian cavalry. Once in contact they are toast - the knights and other cavalry can hit them and manoevre on to their rears. Oh well. Now I wont have much of a strike force left.....I try to rain down the arrows, but it is slow going, even for superior archers. I think I should have brought more LF...would be great to lure his knights into the rough instead of having them demolish my lancers.....

[ericdoman1]

Wow this AAR thang is great.

Wouldn't it be amazing if Slitherine enables us players to save our games asa jpeg and then we could attch it (as a link) onto their website to view at our own leisure, pausing where necessary.

I know it has been suggested before but would love that.

I am fraid my tt weekend was not so much of a success finished 14/42 with the Later Dynastic Egyptians. Again stumbled in the final round. Where for a change we were completely outdiced. It was a 900pt doubles comp and 1st Early Carthaginian 66pts, Joint 2nd Early Ach Persian and Graeco Bactrian 65pts (we played both of these teams) and the 3th spot went to a Han or Qun army 64 pts (lots of mf, prot, hw, drilled, average, 2nd rank of mf xbow) and they can have portable obstacles/stakes. We ended up on 53pts.

My game vs Chris is coming to a close. I now have quite a big advantage and have managed to not lose so many lf so we now have prob equal amounts. I am on 9/38, Chris is on 28/38. I have 3 fragged units which should rout and a couple of disrupted mf which again could frag BUT I have a chance of looting the camp and again trapping quite a few lf and cav.

I have been fortunate as the lancers who charged into my Almughavars were beaten (OK I had some knights helping out) but it could have gone the other way and then our scores would be very similar.

Finally I only spotted this recently Steve/Pantherboy will prob not be running LOEG season 8 as he has what seems a promotion and or more work to do. Congratulations to Steve BUT is anybody interested in running it. My knowledge of exel is not good but I will help in other ways if needed.

Although an LOEG without Steve doesn't feel right?

Cheers


Eric

[stockwellpete]

Finally I only spotted this recently Steve/Pantherboy will prob not be running LOEG season 8 as he has what seems a promotion and or more work to do. Congratulations to Steve BUT is anybody interested in running it. My knowledge of exel is not good but I will help in other ways if needed.

Although an LOEG without Steve doesn't feel right?

I would certainly be prepared to help, Eric. As you know I already compile the ratings and I am happy to continue doing that. Unfortunately I do not know how to use Excel either but there will be some of us who do - Mike (Triarius) is one, maybe Morbio and zumHeuriger are others who do as well? It seems to me that most of the work involved is in getting a new season started - once the competition is underway then it more or less runs itself. Maybe the thing to do is for a small group of us to club together to run Season 8 on exactly the same basis as Season 7 - and then, by the end of Season 8, Steve will know exactly what his new job entails and how much time he has for FOG. He could then run Season 9 if he wanted to, or he could pass LOEG on permanently to the new group. If this sounds like a reasonable plan then maybe the start date for Season 8 could be April 1st? We could start recruitment mid-March.

[ericdoman1]

Think I have mentioned the various divisions I would include.

pre 1 BC (IF, ROR) 1 BC to 493 AD (IF, ROR, LT, DAF?), 494 AD to 1100AD (LT, DAF, SAS) and then a split between east and west medieval (DAF, SOA, SAS and ETE).

I already have an idea what armies will be included in these divisions.

Hopefully Steve may be able to play in one or two of these divisions for season 8.

Again I am not sure how to use Exel. I also know that Mike/Triarius is incredibly busy at the moment.

Maybe Steve could email the basic template of league table and explain in very dummy terms how to add to it (typing in players name and army) and then attach it to the site.

I am guessing there will only be a max of 10 players per division. So 5 of these blank templates would suffice

[hidde]

Bow fire take a couple of large chunks out of my cavalry in the lower right.
The knights however, are surprisingly lightly hurt. I think only one or two shots hit for more then 1-2%. It still adds up to about 15%...
The enemy continue to advance on my right and the cavalry is followed by half a dozen archers.
I wonder if that might be a mistake I can turn to my advantage
The battlefield is now about to split in two parts...



Upper part.
I manage to obliterate two of his lancers. My cavalry with a skull is down to 55%.
Two knights and four cavalry is all I have to face the opposition here. And...



Lower part.
...exactly the same to attack in the opposite direction. I need to somehow get his lancers to end up in a way that enables me to take them out with rear charges.
If not, I fear it will be too much in the end. My cavalry need to be in reasonable shape when fighting the archers.
The cavalry at the bottom with the skull is just below 75%

[davouthojo]

Poor execution has ripped my plan to shreds, and I am force to take on the Modavians in the open plain that advantages them. Hidde has taken out my lancers, leaving my archers without support to take on his cavalry. I am dancing to hidde's tune, but it is my own fault - I never needed to let the lancers enter anarchy range, I could have kept them well back.

The only bright spot is taking out his general, which should mean that he disrupts much more often under my bow fire...but not this turn....

[hidde]

Turn six opens with a terrible shock for the Moldavians...the General is killed!
And I did not see it coming...



After routing the Nubian lancer the General foolishly pursue and end up in the hex marked with a cross.
What's even more foolish is the fact that he is ordered "not evade"!
The archers fragment and the lancer finish him off. I'm pretty sure he wasn't "stucked" to the lancer
and would have evaded the archers if I had given him the chance...
The double-skulled cavalry is at 46%. They will never survive the battle. I give them one last order...
"Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die"
A last rear charge and they are gone. The archers are disrupted and lose the hefty sum of 3% in casualties.




A - A gap. He have a lancer somewhere behind the archers. I don't think he will use it there but who knows...
B - The knights with a skull will probably end up like their commander. Even if the archers in both cases might perish
that's a very bad trade-off for me.
Well, the progress of the battle should be no surprise. Eventually my lines gets thinner and it will be impossible to cover
all the angles. A bit angry with myself that it happens already

[hidde]

The Nubians are starting to tighten the noose. And a hero emerges to help out unfortunatly ...



In Chris turn they not only survives but inflict heavy casualties on my knights to the left.
When it's my turn I start with the upper knights(mind you, with even better odds)...but nothing happens.
Finally, the third melee give the result one should expect and the bugger routs.



The picture doesn't show but I rout the cavalry in the bottom right corner after it routed my MF.
We are now practically even in breakpoints but this will not last, I fear... one or two turns and my troops will crack under the pressure.

[hidde]

Here they come!



A closer look at the fields of imminent slaughter.
How many rear charges in the making?







No collapse yet. I mistake last turn not to secure the dissapperane of the routed lancer. Now he rally and have to be attacked again.
Bow fire doesn't do the trick so my medium have to do a second rear attack.

[hidde]

The pace of my downfall escalates. He catches several skirmishers.
The archers hits everything with devastating effect.
Those of my cavalry that are not fragmented by fire lose in both impact and melee...








I have almost nothing left to hit back with and the few I can use will most likely be rear charged the next turn.
Trying to scrape together what little points I can




Wouldn't have cried if I had lost one more point and the score ended there
Great battle. Had some hope for a couple of turns. The fate of my commander(he was practically 100% when he bit the dust) was a huge blow.
Chris didn't panicked when he had a couple of not so good turns. He was biding his time, enveloped my troops and then let the axe fall.

[hidde]