IC
FC
TC
2x4 Cavalry, Superior, Undrilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
7*4 Light Horse, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Ally General (TC) (Greeks)
3*8 Heavy Foot, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Offensive Spearmen
1*6 Light Foot, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelin, Light Spear
The army was designed to flank march with the FC with a single BG of Light Horse. Having had a couple of practice games against shooty Cav armies (as most of the armies in the comp were). What I found was that the army worked best when the flank march came on with the Light Horse with the Cav in support with the spearmen protecting the flank with the other cav in support. The camp often had to fend for itself ...
Game One v Gary Waterworth (Portly Geezers)
Can't remember exactly what was in Gary's army, but it was small. I think there were 2x6 BG's of knights and 1x4 BG of knights. Some crossbowmen, Longbowmen and Light Horse. There were probably some ubiquitous peasant bowmen and the like to pad the army out.
I had pre-battle initiative and chose steppes. The fairly standard terrain I use is the compulsory open ground, a small gully, a small rough hill and a small lump of brushy going. This leaves my opponent with nothing but broken ground and open ground. This very often leaves a very open table, as was the case here, I flank marched on my left flank.
Gary deployed his skirmishers first, but these are absolutely no problem to the mighty steppe light horse and I deployed a mass of horse archers on the left hand side. Gary followed suit (which was my plan as I was flanking on that side) and had columns of knights in the middle. These ended up opposite my spearmen. The longbowmen and crossbowmen were deployed in a lump on the middle left.
Can't remember a lot about the game, but I do remember that my light horse rode down some pesky light foot early doors, combined with a general Skythian advance. My spearmen eventually got into contact with the Crossbowmen and Knights. The knights were repulsed (as expected) by my spearmen.
On the left the flank march arrived and it began to look increasingly grim for Gary, some particularly nasty combinations of cavalry and light horse charges meant some of the skirmishers got caught in the rear by my light horse and that was curtains. By then, some of the Knights were then broken and because of the smallish size of the portly geezers, the game was over, I had taken 3 Attrition Points and had won 23-2.
Conclusion
This was a really good matchup for me. Facing an enemy with Light Horse worse than mine and also significantly smaller, which enabled me to "gang up" on battle groups to give them a significantly bad day.
Game Two v Nik Gaukroger (Seljuk Turks)
This army can be practically anything, but I know it is going to have a lot of shooty cav. And so it proved.
Nik having published his first battle report, makes his army list easy to remember
Foot Archers, 8 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow
Foot Javelinmen, 6 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Foot Javelinmen, 6 LF, Poor, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelins, Light Spear
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, Swordsmen
Bedouin Cavalry, 6 LH, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Lancers, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 Cv, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Bow, Swordsmen
Turcomans, 4 Cv, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
Ghilman, 4 Cv, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen
I invaded and there was a lump of rough on the left and a lump of rough on the right (both on my side) with a largely open table everywhere else. I had the spearmen on the right and single ranked to cover the open middle. Most of My Light Horse started initially on the right with the intention of moving to the left to cover the gaps, the rest were on the left. I had a BG of cavalry on each wing and I flank marched on the right.
Nik deployed with light horse on the left interspersed with cavalry and then Ghulams in the middle with yet more light horse on the right with a further Ghulam regiment on the far right.
Unfortunately Nik moved first and 14" is a long way. I attempted to extricate my desperately outnumbered and out qualitied left wing as the spearmen advanced, unfortunately because of the light horse desperately trying to re-deploy to even the numbers the spearmen couldn't move very far... On the right where I had an advantage I pushed forward quite hard, with the spearmen running forward (well, at 4" a go, ploughing...).
Because of the manoeverability my left very quickly got very desperate, but with some clever positioning I just about left my self space to get out. Unfortunately protected spearmen in single rank do not fare well to lots of dice (superior) coming at them and began to suffer. On the right my identical Cavalry shot at Niks Ghilman. Nik's cav was unharmed, but I went disrupted and lost a base. Nik then promptly charged and broke me in the impact phase!!!
With my cavalry gone, the right wing suddenly looked very weak. My flank march then arrived, which only served to give the Turks more targets.
There then followed 2 hours of Skythians desperately hiding, running away, evading and leaving the wounded and camp to their fate. Unfortunately I couldn't squirm quite well enough and the army collapsed about two seconds before Hammy called last bound (which would have changed the score from 24-1 to 17-4 I think)
The only success I had was where some cavalry had attempted to chase me in single rank and in three shooting bounds I broke the BG
. 24-1 to Nik.Conclusion
My plan would have worked against foot, but not against a massed cavalry and light horse army! Nik's plan was better than mine and it was only because of a lack of knowledge of certain parts of the restricted zone rules that saved me from being wiped out earlier. Having said that, the protected spearmen are not good enough against shooting to stand in single rank and my army struggles to deal with cavalry, so it was always going to be a hard fight for me.