Slitherine

Looking to test out the MF shooting rules I took a Navarese army to the club to play Dave Ruddocks Scots Common.

The Navarese were:
3 BG's 4 Superior knights
2 BG's 8 Superior alumghavars
2 BG's 6 English longbowmen
2 BG's 6 Undrilled crossbowmen
1 BG 8 Light foot slingers
1 BG 6 Light foot javelins

The Scots were:
7 BG's 10 Average, Undrilled, Protected, Offensive spearmen
2 BG's 6 Average, Undrilled, Protected, Longbow, Swordsmen
1 BG 4 Average, Undrilled, Protected, Longbow, Swordsmen
1 BG 6 filler

The significant terrain was a small open field on my right stradling the centreline and a reasonable sized vineyard in the centre just my side of the centreline. There were a couple of tiny (4" diameter) round enclosed fields on my side of the table between the vineyard and the open field but these had little effect on the game. Some more open fields were on my left but had little impact.

Dave deployed with the two larger BG's of archers facing the vineyard and the small BG or archers on my far right. The rest of his army bar one BG of spear formed a solid wall across the whole field.

I had my longbow and crossbow in a line alternating bow and crossbow with the longbow on the far right and the left hand end of the crossbow a couple of bases to the right of the vineyard. One BG of alumghavars faced the vineyard, the other was in the open fields on my left. My slingers were ready to delay the attack on my left, my javelinmen covered my far right and the three BG's of knights were in the centre, one in reserve and the other two just to the left of the crossbow with the intention of them holding off the spearmen for long enough to let the spear be shot to pieces.

In the initial phase of the game my javelinmen squared off against the small BG of longbow and came off very much the worse for the experience rapidly dropping to fragmented. I brought one BG of longbow into the field and the javelinmen fell back after finally passing a CT when charged by the spearmen and were then bolstered by my IC. The two end BG of spearmen were now in effective range and the inital volley (24 dice!! against 2 BG's) caused one BG to lose a base and that was it. The next volley took a base from the other BG but again no cohesion loss.

My knights were trying to maneuver to cover the end of my line of crossbow but ended up charging the spear in a single element column. Nothing happened at impact and after expanding in the melee I lost a base and fell back. At this point my knights were fighting one BG but the next BG of 10 bases of spear were an overlap. As things stand I was able to shoot at the overlapping BG (there were after all 4 bases not doing anything) which seemed perfectly reasonable.

Dave now charged his spearmen into my archers in the field. Dave was dissordered but had overlaps. Essentially a pretty much even combat. At impact I disrupted him (which made little difference as he was dissordered anyway) but when I won the melee too and he went fragmented things could have been better for him. The central spear advanced and lost another base to shooting (they were now down to 8 bases). The Scots archers had pushed through the vineyard and one BG was pinging away at my knights while the other was picking on my slingers who were slowly falling back. I had by now moved both my alumghavar BG's to my left (after realising that Sp is not that good in a vineyard). The alumghavars that were initially in the centre were now providing rear support to my knights, the other ones were heading towards the center in column.

In the centre now I had two BG's of knights trying hard not to charge the lefthand BG of spearmen (out of three BG's attacking my right) , one of them decided to charge anyway and piled in. Over the two combats I lost a base but disrupted the spear.
My other knights expanded to fill the gap to my archers (I was behind the archers line but just outside their flank), another base was shot off the spearmen and the spearmen in the field broke in melee to my archers (protected MF swordsmen are not bad against protected spear in uneven ground). I advanced my victorious archers and my javelinmen to take on the BG of longbow on my far right and my 8 dice to his 4 (split beteween my BG's) quickly saw Dave's longobow break. Dave charged his central spear into my longbow. I intercepted with my knights and clipped the end of the formation but was unable to prevent the rest of the spear stepping forwards into my longbow. The rest of the knight BG strpped forwards into the other (now disrupted spear). In the impact Dave's spear lost a base but remained steady and in the melee I think the same happened. His BG was looking rather thin and another base would see it autobreak. The knights fighting the other spear went nowhere and Dave was able to bolster his spear. The knights fighting in support of the longbow broke off as they were fighting one steady and one disrupted base.

I had by now moved my spare crossbow BG to face off the archers in the vineyard and turned my left BG of alumghavars to face the other BG of archers. Dave started failing CMT's left right and centre and a fair bunch of his spearmen ended up standing doing nothing. In the next melee phase the archers drew again with the spearmen. My knights fighting the now steady lefthand spear held their ground and I think that nothing died on either side.

In my next turn I once again threw my knights into the fray, the only significant happening this time being that my leftmost knights suffered 7 hits from 8 dice and failed their death roll !! so dropped from 3 bases to 1 and autobroke I also charged my alumghavars into the left hand archers (I had wanted to do so the previous turn but the slingers were just too much in the way and I passed my shock troops CMT so didn't burst throught them ). As Dave had had a bit more time he had advanced a spear BG such that my alumghavars hit both the bow and the spear. The bow were angled back and the spear square on. The spear on spear fight went my way and Dave's BG went first disrupted then fragemented. I had also lined up a BG of knights to hit the exposed flank of the archers in my next bound. In Dave's bound the archers conformed to my spearmen (I think that is right) but in the process they turned so my flank attack could no longer make it in I have a photo of this one and will try to get it posted.

In the centre Dave's badly weakend spear BG autobroke when it lost a 5th base (2 from shooting, 3 in melee). The Longbow in the vinyeard had charged my crossbow and were gradually cutting them down and the remaining spear BG was lined up to charge my remaining knight BG who were standing in an enclosed field after breaking off.

In the last bound or two my crossbow broke and my knights were autobroken when they lost a third base. Dave's fragmented spear and the archers fighting my alumghavars broke (the archers went due to auto break) and Dave's reserve spear managed to get a charge in on another BG of crossbow and my central longbow BG which ended up with my crossbow fragmented. We had to stop there, probably one, two at most turns from Dave's army breaking.

MF shooting was reasonably effective but not dominating. I missed the opportunity to get 16 shooting dice on one of Dave's spear BG's at the end of the game (failed CMT's) but then that would have been most of the missile troops in my army shooting one target.

We had a couple of odd situations, the conforming archers that removed a flank threat by doing so and one at the end of the game where a BG that was out of charge range managed to hit a target by charging something nearer and stepping forwards.

Most of the issues we encoutered we adequately explained in the rules. From Dave's point of view I think the battle was a touch dull but when you have a highly one dimensional army it isn't that easy.

The significant terrain was a small open field on my right stradling the centreline and a reasonable sized vineyard in the centre just my side of the centreline. There were a couple of tiny (4" diameter) round enclosed fields on my side of the table between the vineyard and the open field but these had little effect on the game. Some more open fields were on my left but had little impact.

Yes. Five of the Six terrain pieces managed to find their way onto Hammys side of the tabe, which wasn't ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but we were protected spear and would have to cope!

Dave now charged his spearmen into my archers in the field. Dave was dissordered but had overlaps. Essentially a pretty much even combat. At impact I disrupted him (which made little difference as he was dissordered anyway) but when I won the melee too and he went fragmented things could have been better for him

This was mainly caused by me having 8 dice requiring a 4+ to hit (and re-rolling ones) and only getting two hits... This unfortunate situation left my left flank rather flapping in the air...

In my next turn I once again threw my knights into the fray, the only significant happening this time being that my leftmost knights suffered 7 hits from 8 dice and failed their death roll !! so dropped from 3 bases to 1 and autobroke

Of course that wasn't the whole story, there were three BGs of Navarrese (6 Longbowmen and two BG's of 3 knights) giving a total of 18 dice, most were needing 5's to hit, they managed a total of 14 hits, I managed (with 18 dice and re-rolling ones) to get a total of 10 hits when in the main I needed 3's or 4's. Of course it just transpired that 7 of those hits happened to be against one BG

And Hammy really didn't want to throw a one with that death roll

Dave's reserve spear managed to get a charge in on another BG of crossbow and my central longbow BG which ended up with my crossbow fragmented. We had to stop there, probably one, two at most turns from Dave's army breaking

It ended up 10-7 in attrition points. The longbow and the Crossbow that my fresh spearmen had charged were toast, which would have brought it back to 10-10. So it wasn't quite as cut and dried as Mr Hamilton makes out - mainly because I didn't have many BG's left that he could clobber!

From Dave's point of view I think the battle was a touch dull but when you have a highly one dimensional army it isn't that easy.

I like using spear - although I have always used them as a significant troop, rather than the only troop. I used them in this configuration as I think Spear walls wanted to be tested and I did learn a number of things.

Whilst a "thin red line" looks very good on table at the start, in practice you need to have support. I was taking a lot of fire from the Longbowmen, but with an IC nearby and a supporting BG behind my spearmen were only needing to roll a five to pass CT's. The 10 big BG's made a large difference as 4 hits were required, normally on a five wide frontage.

I think we proved that if reasonable quality (i.e. protected) Medium Bowmen are played correctly (i.e. either in rough going or shooting from the side) then they can hurt spearmen, but if they setup in the open and let the spear hit them (which they would) then they are dogmeat. I personally can't see any problems with this.

If (when) I play with the army again I would definitely have the French Knights (one BG of 4) just to provide something different to spearmen in the army. I enjoyed the game, but I think the scots would be much improved with, erm, 12 Horse Archers ...

dave_r wrote:

Dave now charged his spearmen into my archers in the field. Dave was dissordered but had overlaps. Essentially a pretty much even combat. At impact I disrupted him (which made little difference as he was dissordered anyway) but when I won the melee too and he went fragmented things could have been better for him

This was mainly caused by me having 8 dice requiring a 4+ to hit (and re-rolling ones) and only getting two hits... This unfortunate situation left my left flank rather flapping in the air...

Err, I am not sure you you remember 8 dice, you had 9 bases of disordered spearmen which by my reconning is 6 dice. You had a plus at impact but I had rear rank shooting which roughly cancels that. In melee it was 6 dice each at evens but you have a general. I got a bit lucky but it wasn't that outrageous a combat outcome

Edit: actually at impact you had 4 dice at + to my 9 dice at - The odds were I should win the impact (which I did) and then there was one pretty much even combat where we both had 6 dice. Selective memory failure Mr Ruddock

Dave's reserve spear managed to get a charge in on another BG of crossbow and my central longbow BG which ended up with my crossbow fragmented. We had to stop there, probably one, two at most turns from Dave's army breaking

It ended up 10-7 in attrition points. The longbow and the Crossbow that my fresh spearmen had charged were toast, which would have brought it back to 10-10. So it wasn't quite as cut and dried as Mr Hamilton makes out - mainly because I didn't have many BG's left that he could clobber!

And what pray Mr Ruddock was going to stop your dirupted spear from being charged in the flank by a BG of longbowmen in my next bound which would automatically fragment them and have a good chance of breaking them?

Whilst a "thin red line" looks very good on table at the start, in practice you need to have support. I was taking a lot of fire from the Longbowmen, but with an IC nearby and a supporting BG behind my spearmen were only needing to roll a five to pass CT's. The 10 big BG's made a large difference as 4 hits were required, normally on a five wide frontage.

The 10 base BG's with an IC wer very hard to hurt with missile fire. Once Dave sent his IC off on an errand to try to rally the forst spear BG to break things started to slide a bit. When the IC came back things improved again.

I think we proved that if reasonable quality (i.e. protected) Medium Bowmen are played correctly (i.e. either in rough going or shooting from the side) then they can hurt spearmen, but if they setup in the open and let the spear hit them (which they would) then they are dogmeat. I personally can't see any problems with this.

I agree. Without the sacrifice of my knights and my victory in the open field I would have had big problems.

If (when) I play with the army again I would definitely have the French Knights (one BG of 4) just to provide something different to spearmen in the army. I enjoyed the game, but I think the scots would be much improved with, erm, 12 Horse Archers ...

I think that rather than horse archers some foot bow, sling and javelinemen and possibly some decent medium foot like Thracians.... Oh, that would be a hopleite Greek army then wouldn't it

And what pray Mr Ruddock was going to stop your disrupted spear from being charged in the flank by a BG of longbowmen in my next bound which would automatically fragment them and have a good chance of breaking them?

Well actually, they would not have been disrupted. The IC would have rallied them! - they were not disrupted on my last turn - therefore I would only have needed to throw a six (I had rear support, to help against unsecure flank and disrupted) to Bolster them back to steady. Since it was the last turn I didn't bother

Agreed it would have been a temporary steadiness as the bowmen on the flank would have charged - but they were in a column so would only have had one element fighting and the two BG's in front were fragged and disrupted...

dave_r wrote:

And what pray Mr Ruddock was going to stop your disrupted spear from being charged in the flank by a BG of longbowmen in my next bound which would automatically fragment them and have a good chance of breaking them?

Well actually, they would not have been disrupted. The IC would have rallied them! - they were not disrupted on my last turn - therefore I would only have needed to throw a six (I had rear support, to help against unsecure flank and disrupted) to Bolster them back to steady. Since it was the last turn I didn't bother

Agreed it would have been a temporary steadiness as the bowmen on the flank would have charged - but they were in a column so would only have had one element fighting and the two BG's in front were fragged and disrupted...

I will give you that you could well have bolstered them but have to dissagree that the bowmen in front were disrupted. The crossbow were fragged but the English were IIRC steady. I am pretty confident that the flank charge would have hurt you and I also have a sneaky feeling that your spearmen in the enclosed field really wouldn't have liked being charged by my alumghavars either

I think we shall have to agree to differ but I was pretty confident I was going to take your army down in a bound or two.

Do you want the 10 minute argument or the full half hour?

Oh yes I would

Oh no you wouldn't

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