finally found the hotel after my sat nav, despite having foreign maps, failed to recognise the motorway in Glasgow....
a quick booking in to a very friendly hotel staff who printed directions to the venue for me.... great start to my plan to learn V2 by entering a tourney... it had worked with fog ren when I was made most welcome by foggers in the ren period... but with only 3 V2 games in and no FOG games for some years beforehand my experience was very low but hopes were high!
I took Late Ach Persians
IC
2 x TC
3 x 4 cav A A U Lt Sp Sw
1 x 4 cav P S U bw sw
2 x 4 LH lt sp jav
1 x 4 LH bw sw
1 x 2 ele
1 x 2 scythed chariots
1 x 6 HF P A D off sp
1 x 4 HF P E D 1/2 off sp 1/2 bw
1 x 6 lf bw
1 x 6 lf sling
1 x 4 MF U A def sp
2 x 2 cav E A D lancer sw
1 x 6MF P A Lt Sp
16 BG, 2 games played with them but full of hopes to learn the new rules and find a FOG enclave in the north east
Game 1 Guy Hunter - Early Successor... HF army...bugger ; (
Guy spread out on deployment and as I tried to wrap both flanks he began a generaly move across the table torwards my left flank... presssure was building on the left while my right was chasing the retreating pikes catching up with them just next to some rough going filled with a shooty cav and mob, well handled pike were preventing me finding the flank I needed.... eventually Guy generously failed to spot a cav unit lurking amongst my LH on an open flank of a pike unit... they charge in, supported frontally bysome infantry , the pike folded in short time opening his line up and my cav poured into more pike flanks and the mob .... with the elephants picking off his lancer unit his army broke and the persians hit a 25-0.. it was a good interesting game against a friendly and helpful opponent... Guys handling of the pike showed me what can be done with HF armies and his play impressed me with the options available... great start!
Game 2 Leslie Mitchell - Alexandrian...HF army.... bugger!
Worse still, Leslie admitted to being a Geordie, now thats a brave thing to do.... instant grudge match with me deploying my limited skills on behalf of my fellow mackems from the metropolis of Sunderland, while Leslie had the misfortune of playing out his dirty tricks while representing barcodes from under the dark damp cobbled streets of newcastle..... pre game chit chat brought up several shared gaming interests such as bkc and warmaster amogst others, Leslie had a wealth of experience of many tourneys and was kind enough to explain lots of rules from various systems to me... even name dropping that he plays regularly against someone called Hammy.... hah, I think he thought that would intimidate me.... it did
.under a barrage of rules explanations Leslie proceeded to demonstrate in an unsubtle manner how manouverable pike blocks are, and how to use them to squeeze the limited options out of my plan to wrap the flanks... my only chance came when my Elephants got behind his inf line and charged a LFunit protecting the rear of his spear..he passed the CMT to take the charge in the open with LF and my chance had gone... had they fled the rear of his spear would have received a good elephanting.... the only thing spinning more than the pike was my head and I offered my hand and my apologues to the better player as my brain exploded from information overload seconds before my army imploded under pike overload.......1-24 as I had visited the ladies in Leslie camp before game end.. (NB we did check about LF taking the charge in the open and realised we had made a mistake, nothing more than that)......I did agree to wear his Newcastle octopus as a hat as punishment for my poor contribution to the game
.So, a mixed bag on day 1, heading back to the hotel the temptation was there to give it a miss and head home as I felt horribly underprepared for the tourney and hadnt offered Leslie any game at all.... in my usual time based decision making way I delayed the decision till the morning....
which arrived with new motivation to stick with it and learn all I could, surely I couldnt play any worse than the second game.....
Game 3 Scott Mentiply - medieval germans... sp and knights (argh!)
What a gent! as friendly and relaxed a game as Ive ever had..... frontally the spear and knights were formidable opponents to my cav so I went for the flanks again...Scott refused his left (my right) which I skirmished against while pushing some kinsmen and supporting MF all the way to his base line... but the real action was on my left flank... up against the table edge I had a LH and the shooty cav... next to them chariots and ele with kinsmen in support... Scott had two units of shooty cav with firearms/xbow A and sword.... nasty..... next to them his knights... not a great line up... but I piled into the flank units the shooty cav and kinsmen outmatched and outdiced against the armoured sw of the shooters.. it was down to the chariots to take a knight unit down.. they crashed against the knight line.. or rather I think they just crashed, failing to do a thing... it was down to the elephants as I doubted I would be able to hold on for long disadvantaged and outdiced aginst his armoured shooters.... the elephants had one of the games you dream of when you put them in the lists.... taking down a general and the knights while the outmatched cv even took down their opponents... lucky dice had compensated for poor play and his flank was open.... the other knight unit now found itself outflanked and when it failed to control its charge was intercepted and hit in flank droppping it a level..impact took it down another level.. then we hit a rules query... do they turn to face the flank attack or not? conformind says something about MUST be in a normal unit ater conforming, but theres alsot something about not turning if it exposed a flank to another charge which this one did... we played they turned... they did and they went down.... on the other extremen flankthe kinsmen and MF def spear piled into some 'hold the line' poor xbow breaking them and taking the army down for a 24-1 to me.... I really enjoyed this game as it was relaxed and friendly with rules discussed.... Scott was a gent to play against and barring the bad luck at the key point in the line this game was going to go to the wire
Game 3, after a reshuffle of opponents due to previous results saw me playing Paul Johnston using Albanians cav and LH/LF I know Paul as a friend from previous years and knew I was in for a tough game, but with us languishing in mid table I was sure I would be picking some great tips up from an ex champ.
Got to the table and was warmly welcomed, with chit chat about results so far concluded we got down to it, after being told that he would not be taking it easy or letting me off with anything I found myself almost apologising for slow play before we even started after it was made clear to me that we MUST get a result... nearly recovering my senses I explained I had never slow played in my life and all my games I try to play for a conclusive result either way....
Deployment saw the Albanian long line of LF and LH with some mounted units at the back, more of which later, one unit was descrived as protect LT Sp..aha a target for my armoured Averag cav... but overall hardly an army to get a quick result I thought but NM
... I deployed with my foot oppossite the LF and cav opposite some LH... Ele and chariots in centre opposite the Albanian camp.a general advance along the line from both sides saw a concentration of shooting on the Elephants take them out.... repeated charges (which resulted in some discussion on directions as I hadnt marked the directions only described them) and evades from the LF was gradually pushing the Albanian centre back, while reinforcements onto my right flank was increasing the pressure there too... but it was on my left were the game was decided....Paul had two LH units on his extreme end of line, these I pressured with a LH and a Kinsman unit...while all the while I pushed my block of shooty cav and a supporting unit of armoured cav into the front of Pauls protected Ltspear cav... the Albanians had brought upthe other two units of mounted in support in 2x2 blocks... one of these charged into my shooty cav in not too bad I thought... surviving the lance at impact it was even in melee I thought and was startled to see Paul begin to expand the rear rnk forwards... dont need to do that I explained as theyre already contributing to the melee.....wait for it................. wait for it............no they not, because these are HA S knights!.......(now then, at the start we did describe units, I swear down I heard Paul say these were Protected Lt Sp and these armoured lance, Paul swears down he described them as Knights, what a misunderstanding! game changer if ever) aaaaarrrrghhhhhh! my heart sank, while I hadnt much experience I had enough to know what the knights were gonna do to my cav ..... sheeeeesh, the other two units werent armoured lancers, but heavy armored knights... and I had moved into them with 2x2 blocks of armoured average cav.... game over I thought... but I was determinded to give it a go.... lookng round I could see no hope...nothing to prevent my cav folding while my foot pursued LF across the table...
then I saw that kinsmen unit busy pressurising the LH... they were behind the knights' flank...but in the front 180degrees of the kinsmen.... a quick measure and yes! they were within charge distance.. .I declared the charge thinking I had a small glimmer of hope here.... only for it to be snuffed out when Paul told me you can only charge 45degrees either side of straight ahead, 90degrees in total charge arc..... arrrrrrghhhhhh! all hope gone... I saw no point in clarting around with skirmishers for hours while holding Paul off just to lurk in mid table so charged everything in... kinsmen againt the LH who stood and other cav against knights and LF against LH...despite killing a general (and putting enough pressure on for Paul to accidently move a LH unit positioned on the flank of my own LH before realising they werent behind the flank after a reform so shuffling them into position while moving another unit
)...it was a matter of time, the inevitable happened and my army collapsed in short order 
...... mishandled and presented with an impossible task, the persians let me know what they thought of my skills......fortunately this gave Paul the big win his army needed to climb out of mid table and secure glory into a highly respectable second place...huzzah!The game was decided as soon as the knights were found to be knights and not cav... what a shame, as while Im sure I was going to get beaten anyway Im sure I couldve learnt more and left the tourney on a high.
Overall, the tourney was great fun and there was a real friendly vibe around the hall, even with me being on my own I never felt out of things, always found wargamers a great bunch for that...however with real ups and downs and my big win/big loss/ big win/big loss results Im not sure what I actually learnt about the game!
apart from I must play a lot more games a lot more often than I am at the minute....
advert - opponents wanted in the Sunderland area.
