The list:
4XTC (Initiative of +0)
1 Longbowmen MF Protected Average Drilled Longbow - Swordmen Port Def. 6
2 Longbowmen MF Protected Average Drilled Longbow - Swordmen Port Def. 6
3 Irish Kerns MF Unprotected Average Undrilled Javelins Light spear - - 4
4 Irish Horse LH Unprotected Average Undrilled Javelins Light spear - - 4
5 Longbowmen MF Protected Average Drilled Longbow - Swordmen Port Def. 6
6 Gascon Brigans MF Protected Average Undrilled - - Swordmen - 4
7 Gascon Crossbowmen MF Protected Average Undrilled Crossbow - - - 4
8 English Billmen HF Armoured Superior Drilled - Heavy weapon Heavy weapon - 6
9 English Billmen HF Armoured Superior Drilled - Heavy weapon Heavy weapon - 6
10 Gascon Men-at-Arms HF Armoured Superior Undrilled - Heavy weapon Heavy weapon - 8
11 Longbowmen MF Protected Average Drilled Longbow - Swordmen Port Def. 6
12 Longbowmen MF Protected Average Drilled Longbow - Swordmen Port Def. 6
A couple of notes on the list:
On balance the initiative of zero is the right call I think, moving first is important, you want to maximize you chance of getting and using terrain, or just forcing the enemy to react. The army is so homogenous that there aren't any "surprises" to play in the last you want a pretty balanced deployment generally.
The biggest weakness of the army is against serious (Romanish) heavy foot. I didn't really feel anything you could reasonably do would balance against that, so I think you are best off just taking the chance that you won't fight the, you get lucky, they screw up somehow, or you lose. Doing things to help against Romans (taking Knights and heavily armored foot) weaken the army overall I feel against most other opponents and doesn't seem worth it. The other things that would be really horrible (say armoured medium foot - Dailami) aren't really abundant enough yet to be worth over-worrying.
The two little Gascon battlegroups (Crossbowmen and Brigans) are there for three reasons:
1- If nothing else they are admirably rear support for the longbowmen and generally add bulk to the army
2 - They are useful (especially Xbow) for chasing off skirmishers. The Xbow did that in every game in fact. Saves you from having to either ignore them or send "real" troops after them
3 - I have a theory that having a couple of BGs of small troops you don't need in the line but having them lurking about will give you more chances at flank attacks. You match the enemy line with billmen and longbows and circle around with Brigans and Xbows. Turns out I never did that...but I still think it is a sound theory.
A few thoughts on the army in general:
- It is hard to skirmish against...Longbows evaporate skirmishers (well any bow does, but longbows are much more fearless in the open, especially against things that might redeploy to go after them...). They are fast and put out a lot of shooting.
- It really likes terrain. Mud is your front
. The longbows are solid in terrain, the heavy weapons are ok. - It is very fast, especially for a foot army. The only weakness here are the Gascons who are undrilled so exercise care with where you put them. The longbows can be frighteningly fast with a general. Don't hesitate to run away from enemy with them if that looks like the good play.
- Don't be afraid to give up your camp. I lost or nearly lost my camp in 2 out of 3 games. Given that you like terrain and like to redeploy better to lose 2 attrition points with the camp than a BG trying to save it (and then the camp as well...).
- The billmen are very important, they tend to do a lot of the killing (or did for me at lesat). I was tempted to downgrade to average and whatnot before the comp and was very glad I didn't. Melee is often more decisive than shooting and you want the billmen smashing things up. Partly this is because people react so strongly to the longbows which can create opportunities for the billmen.
Game 1 - Italian Condotta
I lose initiative and we wind up in the farmlands with a battlefield full of Unevenand and RGo patches. Including a long line of them on my right, a single patch in the center and a big blob in the middle of my baseline.
I deploy my longbowmen strongly on my right and center (intending to use the terrain as a base for advance), with the Irish horse skirmishing on my left and the billmen holding the gap between the center terrain and the farmland on my baseline.
The enemy deploy obligingly with a host of LH on my right and pikes on my left. A few sword and bucklermen are aiming for the center terrain. Behind the Pike are a mass of Knights. Everything goes very well for the Englihs here, the longbows zip up and vaporize the varioush LH blocks who try and slow them, then a group of handgunners in the center terrain give up (meanwhile the sword and bucklermen vaporize a BG of longbows) but by then the Italians are in serious trouble and teh Irish poach a group of swiss crosbows to end the game.
The important lesson here, don't come near the longbows unless you intend to fight and keep the skirmishers 10" away at all times...
Game 2 - Med German (early so no Pikes, but lots of spear).
A mostly empty table as I lose initiative again, but a little patch of uneven group on my right a bit on the German side of the table, along with some more terrain on my right on my half.
Same plan again, rush up my right to the terrain, delay as much as possible on my left with the billmen in the open next to the longbows, some longbow are on my far left as I anticipated needing to hold off some German knights.
The Germans deplly a massive wall of spear: Armoured defensive next to the terrain, protected mediums in the terrain, protected offensive off to my left with some horse archers and mounted crossbows on my far left. Some Germans crossbows behind his line, but near the terrain and the German knights are on my far left, but choose to dismount.
Things are looking ok and going according to plan until I (mostly due to inexperience) get overly aggressive agains the protected medium foot. I have two BGs of longbows getting ready to go into shooting range and figure "i want to get as close as I can to shoot the cr@p out of these." Nope, that is a big mistake. I get one round of fire, then the spear charge. While this should be okish (he has a POA, but I have rear support shooting on impact, in melee I have two more dice for an overlap) he does the inevitable and disrupts on impact, fragments in melee and things are grim...
Meanwhile the dismounted German knights and crossbows are heading for teh terrain and suddenly my longbow are thinking "my there are a lot of Germans around looking unfriendly." This isn't irretrievably bad per se, but it slows down my advantage which means his spear are awfully close to get into combat. So we have to play boldly and take some risks.
I pull the longbow on my left across the back of my line to the decisive fight (for me at least) in the terrain and send the Gascons out to die. I set them up so basically all the offensive spear has to charge them while the Irish try to harass adn delay the German cavalry and light horse. I figure the Gascons are dead, but they might hold up 2-3 turns, plus the spear will have to chase them. Meanwhile, the English billmen get ready to charge teh armoured defensive spear and I figure that should be a winner - I have two generals supporting to his one and I am superior while he is average. Then the longbows have to make it happen in the RGo, before the German knights arrrive an dismember them....
The Gascons decide to fight like heroes and not only survive the entire game, but never lose a stand and break both blocks of spear facing them...The germans had a little 4 element BG of Halberdiers that added an overlap and probably should have just maneuvered that around for a flank attack. I think this is one of the tougher things to time in FoG - overlapping or taking two turns to set up the flank attack. Can be a tough call.
Meanwhile the Longbowmen have evaporated the medium spear (two turns of 10 dice of shooting followed by a flank intercept charge), turn on the German xbows. Meanwhile the Billmen chop up the armoured spear and just as the dismounted knights arrive and start making an impression the Germans decide to call it a day.
Lesson: Almost never worth it to get into effective range with the longbows against anyone that might even consider charging. If they want to charge they will move up for you, if the scamper off like cowards you can always follow them.
Lesson 2: In retrospect I thought it was a mistake to dismount the German knights, a BG of 6 superior knights would have done the job on the Gascons with much greater certainty than teh spear and would have freed up a lot of troops to cause havoc elsewhere. The threat alone of the knights is important as once this was knight free battlefield the English could play much less carefully.
Game 3 - Med Portugese (w/ Free Company allies)
Another lost initiative and another mud filled battlefield. Virtually then entire right third fo the battlefield was filled with Open and Enclosed fields. Both armies deploy pretty heavily on the right. The English plan the usual advance in the mud, which the option of turning on anyone in the open. The Portugese deply a largeish number of MF archers/xbows of their own as well as a BG of 6 superior billmen and two BGS of 4 knights looking to make a rush through the mud into the open. This causes the English to deploy VERY heavily on teh right virtually the entire army on the right third of the table.
The English start the usual advance with one BG of longbows out supporting the Irish horse in the open. The Portugese knights turn around and start crossing behind the Portugese line (I asked my opponent and he said this was his plan, he wanted as many English as possible on the far right and knew he needed a lot of troops over there to try and get me to overcommit).
An early action out in the open see the English longbow group destroyed by knights with a charge into their flank by LH, but this keeps those knights from delaying the rest of the line and pulls them out of position. The knights are force to pull into a single column to try and get back into the fight. When they do this the Gascon (who had turned around to face them) charge them as they are single deep and proceed to defeat them in the subsequent combats. A few turns later after another couple of charges (and a lost base and a lost general) the Gascons defeat the knights. So the main action and only important action would happen in the mud.
The English pull up into shooting range and it is 18 bases of MF archers on each side. Mine are all longbowmen, the Portugese have 6 longbowen, 6 regular archers adn 6 Xbows. I have generals in command range of all my BGs and 2 out of 3 have rear support. I figure I am happy to just shoot away. The English billmen are coming up along to the right with another BG of longbows getting ready to engage a second Portugese Xbow with my last Billment fronting off the Portugese Billmen.
The shooting is oddly ineffective. Neither side can really inflict enough casaulties (and you can't get many negatives with shooting) so that both sides just sort of sit there and plod away at each. Given the number of BGs on each side no one can effective mass fire. In retrospect, I should have moved into range fired off a couple of volleys and just charged. While I lose a bit on the charge (due ot support shooting) all of my BGs have swords and only 1 of 3 Portugese have swords, I have rear support and general and the Portugese can get may one one general into the fight.
But the archery duel does keep the Portugese troops buys while my Billmen plod forward and finally charge the Portugese archers. This is essentially decisive breaking the group charged and creating an overwhelming advantage for subesequent charges by the English. On the far right Enlighs longbows rout another group of Portugese Xbows and the billment ineffectively hack at each other in the mud.
The only other action of note is that the two remaining Portguse knigth groups repeatedly charge the only group of English longbows in the opening (the far end fo the archery duel line). Fortunately, I had deployed stakes well in advance and they hold off repeated charges by the two groups, eventually breaking one of the groups.
Lesson: Don't be afraid to charge in if you are better in hth than you are in shooting relatively speaking
So three enemy armies broken and enough points to win the tournament.
