FOG Digital League AAR archive . . .

[stockwellpete]

1) The screenshots in the following sequence are from the paired game final of the Eternal Empire themed event between ericdoman1 and Londo . . .

Starting positions in the scenario being used in the final . . .

[ericdoman1]

I am being outplayed in both games. Paul's deployment is better and use of terrain. So with numerous combats he has better factors and on the odd ocassion we are roughly equal he is winning more than me.

He will win with the Poles probably by a 40+ margin and his Teutons will be a very close game.

Hats off to Paul. Had a quick calculation and the Poles army = 1500 points whereas the Teutons are 960 pts!

Will take a few more turns but we are both playing pretty quickly.

Apologies for no screenshots but I am not so good with that.

The Teutonic army in the top army. 10 Avg Kn, 30 superior and 3 elite knights. The cav are lt spr, bw*, swd, prot and average. Foot are a mix of poor and average drilled hf/mf def spear/Xbow, bow

The Poles are 20 avg kn, 15 superior (green), 9 lh sup bow sword, not many foot and they are all poor. A lot of cavalry, 19 avg, prot, xbow and sword. 12 avg prot lt spr jls, 9 avg prot lts spr sword and 4 sup, arm, lt spr, sword

[stockwellpete]

Hats off to Paul. Had a quick calculation and the Poles army = 1500 points whereas the Teutons are 960 pts!

Points values are 1500 for Poles/Lithuanians and 1275 for Teutonic Knights - plus the Teutonics have defensive ditches.

[stockwellpete]

Eric has kindly done some screenshots of his two matches with Londo in the final of this event. In the first two Eric is playing as the Poles and Paul is the Teutonic Knights. This is the left flank of the Polish position . . .

[stockwellpete]

And this is the right flank of the Polish position in the same battle . . .

[stockwellpete]

And this is the mirror match with Eric playing as the Teutonic Knights. Here we have the left flank of the Teutonic position . . .

[ericdoman1]

Thanks Pete for help with the screenshots.

Army sizes are very big so it is nigh impossible to give a detailed account of the game but a summary is in order.

I think the intention from both of us was to outflank the Teutonics and shoot them up as much as possible. Londo did a much better job I felt with the Teutonics as he used the ditches far better than me but I think I have used the Poles a bit better just by shooting a lot more. Although on my turn I did make a number of very stupid charges whcih could be costly.

Take note of a number of disrupted cavalry. I thought they may be able to rout the fragmented knight but both disrupted

If you notice on the left flank, there are a lot of knights! In the smallish wood just to the right of the larger wood Paul had 4 mf, finally after about 5 or 6 turns 3 were routed one remains. I decided to send a lot of average knights into the wood to fight, rather than in the open to face the mass of superior knights. The centre area is where I made some very stupid charges but my right is looking good. I have to try and kill his mf as soon as possible and then I can sweep away the remaining Polish knights. As for the rest of the cav in the centre I have started pulling some of them back and repositiong them to shoot at the foot and or knights".

[stockwellpete]

Here we have the right flank of the Teutonic army in the "mirror match". Eric is playing as the Teutonics, Paul as the Poles/Lithuanians . . .

[ericdoman1]

The Teutonics, you have to be compact, deploy in a smaller area with reserves. If you notice my right flank of the Teutons has disappeared. These aren't troops routing off table, just absolute butchery. My left flank I have a number of scattered knight units who are trying to beat cavalry and trying to protect each others rear. If I can beat all those cavalry that again will be a big plus for me. However with the use of artillery and other missile troops I managed to punch my way through the centre. The downside is that there aren't any troops left to fight. The cavalry will just disappear into the distance and then Paul's left flank of cav and knights will clean up the rest of my army.

The overall game is in the balance. I think I have a 20 bp advantage at the moment but that may well be reduced to single figures over the next turn or 2. It all depends on the right flank of my poles and my left flank of the Teutons.

It is going to be close!

[ericdoman1]

A big swing around in me Poles vs Londo Teutons there are now only 2 bps in it. I think it is eric 66/104 vs Londo 68/89 and Londo 64/104 vs eric 66/89 .Londo has 5 rear charges in the Poles(londo) vs my Teutons and My Poles have numerous units (7 or in combat that are disrupted and outmatched.

That to me is game over, as well as the fact (Londo pointed it out) he will have the final moves and Londo has also the chance of winning in each game.

[Londo]

It is indeed game over, and congratulations to the winner of the Eternal Empire final, Eric!

As the Teutonic Order, I have lost by around 12 BP from memory, and I won't be able to pick that up in the reverse game, which is a turn or two now from the end.

Despite losing by that margin, I still think I was on to the right thing by going defensive as the Order. In fact, I wish I had been even more defensive. I put too many knights and missile troops into the forest on the right, leaving insufficient to cover the swampy ground on the left -- and it was there that Eric came through and destroyed me. I should have had an even smaller frontage, and a bigger reserve.

Eric played extremely well, as you would expect, and was deadly adept at manoeuvring cavalry to hit knights from behind. (Unchivalrous bastard!)

I'll post some thoughts on the Polish side once that game's completed, but for now thanks to Eric and all the other players for great games, and to stockwellpete for designing the scenarios and running the tournament. Great job, sir!

[Londo]

Well all over now! Congratulations again to Eric.

As the Polish, I only managed a draw, and Eric actually beat me in BPs. Across both games, he wins by 20+ (I'll leave him to post the exact scores).

What did I do wrong there? I think the answer is not retreating enough with the Lithuanian cavalry. I tried to fight Teutonic knights in forest in several places. That was a big mistake -- although the Lithuanians get +1 POA on impact, because of light spear, they are then -1 POA in melee due to armour. And that killed them.

I hoped I could pin the knights down on that flank and then work around behind them with other cavalry. But that never happened until the very end, by which time my centre had been smashed. Eric did a brilliant job of blocking and destroying the Lithuanians, using precisely enough troops for the task, not too many or too few!

On the other flank, the Polish left, an avalanche of Poles overran all before them, but Eric only had a few units there to slow me down, and he didn't lose many BP. If I had retreated the Lithuanians more, then the Polish left would have had more time to sweep round behind the Teutonic centre, and things would have got very interesting! Oh well.

See you guys in January! SP, can you give us any preliminary information on the next invitational. I think you mentioned Classical Antiquity? Which armies, and which scenarios in the final, if you've decided.

[ericdoman1]

What a game, both, well played Paul that was incredibly tough. Thanks to all of the players and to Pete for designing a scenario that gave both armies a chance of victory, also for running this competition.

Londo (Poles and Lithuanians) 104/104 vs eric (Teutonic Order) 93/89

Londo (Teutonic Order) 95/89 vs eric (Poles and Lithuanians) 82/104

As Paul/Londo pointed out I managed to keep a few knights back as a reserve/rear guard with the Teutonics. These were mainly drilled average knights, ha, lance and sword. Being drilled enabled them to manouver into better positions for charges but also protecting their rears from cav attacks. The main body of knights, a high proportion of superiors, just smashed through the centre with support from bow, xbow and artillery (have never used artillery so much in a game). My right flank managed to slow down a large proportion of Paul's cav and knights. Back to the rear guard/reserve. Some of the Polish/Lithuanian cavalry were just lt spr and jls. SO charging knights into them even though they were in a wood had to be done, as I had guessed that Paul had put them on stand. Impact he is up by a + (I can not use lances but he can use lt spr) but in combat I am ++, better armour and sword.

The Polish intention was to soften up the Teutonics with shooting and then charge in with some knights and attempt to envelop the flank. I think I charged in with the knights way too soon and could have had a few more turns of shooting. The left flank I had knights fighting in a wood and they all nearly died to a man. Whereas on the right flank I had cav and some more knights enveloping the flank and shooting as much as possible. Not much combat in the centre! I did manage to march a group of 7 knights from the left flank to the right it probably took them 4 or 5 turns to get there and that made a big big difference, in that they could take on Paul's knights but would enable my cav to rear charge.

If this was an actual campaign battle(s). The Teutonics would have been decimated as they had lost on average 55% casualties.

[stockwellpete]

Paul (Londo) has very kindly sent me some screenshots too. The first one shows Eric massing his cavalry to attack the left flank of the Teutonic Order . . .

[stockwellpete]

Here Eric's Teutonics are smashing through the centre of the Polish position . . .

[stockwellpete]

Paul's Polish troops are beginning to encircle the Teutonic knights on this part of the battlefield . . .

[stockwellpete]

And lastly, Paul's Polish position has been utterly destroyed by Eric's marauding Teutonics. I see Eric has even got his artillery up the other end as well . . .

[stockwellpete]

A fantastic final and congratulations to Eric on winning the first themed event of the FOG Digital League! Commiserations to Paul who pushed Eric very hard all the way. Thanks to both players for the screenshots and commentary which I hope has brought the battle to life for all of you following the final.

In the real battle of Grunwald the Teutonics drove off the Lithuanians but pursued them too far and when they returned to the battlefield the Poles had destroyed the other half of their army and had won the day.

Paul asked about the themed event next time. Without giving away all the details at this stage, I can confirm that it will be based on the Classical Antiquity army books and the group stages will cover the following themes - the Wars of Alexander the Great, the Peloponnesian War, the Great Balkan Migration, and lastly the wars of Pyrrhos. The later stages will include something around Brutus and Cassius and there will be two scenarios to play as well, one beginning with "H" and one beginning with "R". Also, we will be running two separate themed events so that players lower down in the ratings can also join in the fun.

So that's it for this time. Thanks to all the players who participated, I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

[stockwellpete]

2) This is a match from Season 1 Classical Antiquity "A" division between ericdoman1 and Sharkall. ericdoman1 needed to win the match to win the division and the Grand Slam while Sharkall needed to win the match to win the division.

[Sharkall]

Have started both games, turn 2 with Ian and turn 1 with Eric. Since I only need a couple draws to win, I went for the exact same army in both games hopefully that wasn't a bad decision. On the bright side, I rolled a 6 vs. Ian so I got a relatively good map with some hills and a patch of forest. Even more, Eric had only 1 initiative and he rolled a 1, so I managed to avoid having to fight on a flat map again. Just some tiny hills and a very small forest though, so it's not terribly advantageous. But while Ian has a 47p army, Eric has chosen a 35p one, and since I'm at 52p I might even go for a win depending on the army composition

Overall I'm very happy with getting the better initiative in both match-ups, since fighting cataphracts and those swordsmen+ machines on 100% flat ground without the sarmatian allies is kinda suicidal.