Slitherine

A title to grab your attention!!
Up until a week ago, Nigel Phillips & I were happily planning to DBM Usk, but Richard needed another AoW pair so asked if we'd like to switch. On the basis that I'd played one exploratory game and Nigel hadn't received his rules at that point we thought "yeah, we're up for it".
Our objective for the weekend was to learn the rules and see if we liked them. We were able to try out some combat situations to see if the rules reflected what we'd expect to happen based on our understanding of history.
How would warband (sorry average undrilled impact foot!!) fare against elephants - a fight we'd expect to lose and we did.
What's it like facing off against bow armed armoured cavalry. Yes they shot us up, disordered us and charged in to finish us off. Great, now can use the historic Sassanid tactic of Clibinarii softening up the target with bowfire for the cataphracts to charge in and finish them off. This does beg the question though as to why the Sassanids felt the need to have cataphracts for this role? Under AoW Tom BS' Ghaznavid mounted bow armed HC were happy to charge in themselves and finish the job - are the rules not reflecting a wariness of bow armed cavalry to charge home, even into disorganised foot?
How would warband fare charging pikes frontally - we'd expect to lose and we did.
Can warband stand up to longbow - yes and can beat them once they've got into hand-to-hand.
In three battles my warband destroyed three battle lines of spearmen - disorder them in the impact phase and then with superior numbers in the melee phase, chop them into little pieces. Very satisfying, but I did wonder if these victories were too easy (Terry you know what I mean)!! I certainly would be wary about fielding Sp. I believe that impact foot should usually defeat spear but the combats ought to last longer.
How would superior protected lance armed cavalry fare against knights? We were crushed and our general killed!
How would warband fare against knights - honours even, we lost a BG but (helped by favourable dice) we destroyed a chivalric BG.
I do like the double rout moves if a pursuing BG remains in contact even if it meant Ghaznavid elephants smashing into my lancers (yes ouch). This surging hole in your line when things go wrong is also a feature of Fire & Fury and feels right historically.
I was impressed by the speed of movement and the frequency & intensity of combat in all four games. I generally roll respectable combat dice but specialise in crap PiP rolls. It was good not to have the frustration of wanting to carry out a plan but not having the PiPs to do so.
None of our four games disuaded me from the view that light bow armed foot are a bit too good, especially at bullying light horse.
I still believe that there should be a class of general heading up loyal troops (companions/huscarls) eg Alexander, Belisarius etc who should only move in the movement phase but should have extra combat dice to represent the elan of these picked trained troops.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed playing the rules and had excellent fun - I'm a convert and will be happy to proselytise AoW especially among the Warhammer players that Peterbourough is infested with.
On behalf of Nigel & I many thanks to the writers and Slitherine - it's so much better when learning the rules to have experts to hand to ask questions (apologies Richard for all the damn fool ones from me!)

I am sure I speak for all when saying

'twas a pleasure.

Keep the feedback coming. All points noted. We are going to gather all of it together and work through it over the next week or so.

I suspect Spears do much better than you experienced on average. Its hard to DISR them all at impact - only about a 35% chance each time IIRC. On balance I would prefer to be IF, Sw but not by much, and not if I meet any enemy lancers. \And Matt enjoyed taking the figures off, and is still blaming Terry!!!

All the best and here's to the next time.

Si

shall wrote:Its hard to DISR them all at impact - only about a 35% chance each time IIRC.

More like 47% since we put back the -1 for losing vs impact foot. But still less than 50%.

Ah yes you are correct Richard. But nevetheless difficult to DISR 3 out of 3 - about 1 in 8. And that's after you've beaten them which is no certainty on a net +.

Si

I would also like to add my piece about the weekend.

Firstly I would like to say I had a really great weekend. The contrast to last year's final couple of DBM tournaments was huge. I enjoyed every game (even if I got a little narked at my dice in the last game). The spirit of the games were excellent all round and there was a genuine buzz about the games, participants and spectators. It was good to see some familar faces and even better to see and play some new ones.

Although there were many rules queries (especially in my second game with Don and Steve) I was pleasantly surprised at how well the games went. The rules are certainly ready for club play, and it really shows how valuable a beta-test tournament can be in ironing out the issues.

I was not surprised that Superior/Bow cavalry armies did so well, but it was nice to see Romans up there as well. With more games and players I am sure we will see a whole range of different armies doing well. I don't think all armies are playable at tournament level, but I would say over 50% of the army lists we've seen are good enough, and the other 50% probably just need some tweaking and game balance to make them competive.

My highlights of the weekend were:
- Attacking baggage with elephants and then losing them to a 4 man BG of average medium foot light spear.
- Charging a disrupted pike BG in the rear with a light horse BG and routing it at impact.
- Seeing my club mates Stephen and Phil get a win against Terry and JD - long may it last
- Talking about the competition, AoW and what we wanted to play next all the way back in the car.
- Meeting Richard for the second time in 14 years.

A big thank you to Richard for organising the competition - the venue is excellent, the organisation was without incident and I'm just regretting never going to Usk before. A big thank you to JD for all the hard work, prizes and listening to everyone's thoughts and comments. A big thank you to Terry and Simon for having the patience to rule on all those niggly queries, taking all the critisms in good spirit and still finding time to play a game or two. And finally a big thank you to everyone who took part - I thought the whole weekend was worth it.

And here is the other virgin to complete our response! I had had no games whatsover of AoW before Usk and finished reading them the night before in the hotel - so I was well prepared.
After four games I felt comfortable using them. Actually, I felt comfortable using them after two games. Although they were a daunting stack of paper, even when printed in duplex, they were readable and not hard to understand. After the first game we rarely looked at the main text and stuck to the reference sheets.
Comments to consider:
A tendency for us to jump out of sequence in parts of the battle, especially with routs. There is an urge to do a rout move right away after the break. No need to change rules I think, but perhaps some emphasis.
I'm not sure I agree with Clive about the light infantry. The light horse battle groups we bullied tended to be smaller than our light infantry battle groups - the almost traditional whizzy groups of horse archers trying to get in the way and be a nuiscance. Is it unreasonable that a large band of archer skirmishers would be able to upset a group of horse archers of less than half their size. When I became very daring and tried it against English longbowmen life became much more painful. I'd like to play more games with light infantry to come to a conclusion on that one.
There was some discussion on Saturday about whether games were finishing during a normal competition time period. Three of our four games finished well within the limits. The fourth game was a bloodbath with a huge amount of action before ending in a 'decisive draw'. For us at least timing was not a problem, though we both tend to be players who do not spend ages contemplating the battlefield before reaching a decision. Perhaps thats one reason why we are not ever so successful.......
A big plus for us is that our warband army was able to reach and engage the enemy and have a good fight. Something that has seemed to be quite rare under a previous dispensation where for me at least actually having a warband fight seemed to be a major cause for celebration, and to hit an 'unkinked' line almost unheard of. In other words the pleasure of the game was greatly increased. I haven't had so much fun at a weekend with my clothes on for a long time!
ps - Those Sassanid Cataphracts - Parthian nobles with nostalgia I reckon rather than an army composition choice!

Guys

Thank you very much indeed. If any of you have an urge to post your comments regarding the week end to other forums, it might be nice to see how they are received.

There is nothing contained in your reports that would infringe your NDAs. and to be honest maybe we should now be starting to give out some information. If you are in any doubt about what you should not say then drop me a line

Any rules that let me help Terry get his but kicked must be worth it !!

Best Regards
JDM