Henry V at AginChallenge

[paulcummins]

Game 1 V Wayne Dare’s Bosporans
Not a good match up for the Bosporans – armoured lancers are not going to have much fun against a big wodge of longbowmen.
Most of the terrain fell on the English side of the table except a region of brush in the middle of the Bosporan side of the field. The English deployed in standard formation of a line of Bowmen supported by strategically placed columns of Men at Arms. The Bosporans weighted one side with three groups of armoured lancers, unarmoured bow cavalry and light horse, the other side covered by a group or two of light horse and one of lancers. A few skirmishers lurked in the central brush.
The Bosporan light horse launched themselves towards the English line, and fell back as they met a storm of arrows (a recurring theme for this army).
The English followed the retreating light horse and drove the skirmishers out of the central brush. The lancers tried to redeploy to the other side of the battlefield, and were mirrored by the longbowmen.
Eventually things came to blows with a group of longbowmen flanked by men at arms facing off 2 groups of light horse and 1 on lancers. The lancers managed to charge the men at arms and avoid the stakes of the longbowmen. Unfortunately they bounced and their supporting light horse were chased off the table edge by the men at arms. The men at arms were left a bit exposed by this manoeuvre and got themselves ridden down.
By this time 3 groups of longbowmen had stakes down and lancers in range. The + poa for shooting armoured cav in 2 ranks came into play and things started to look unpleasant. A valiant charge across the front of one group of bowmen led to a flank intercept charge and the down fall of the lancers.
On the other flank the remaining unarmoured cavalry and Light horse faced two groups of longbowmen. This mounted archery was no match for the longbowmen who shot them to fragmented, then charged them and the Bosporans broke.

Game 2 v Bruce Browns WOTR English
Hot longbow on longbow action.
Having played this exact same game earlier in the week and gotten absolutely buttered ( like creamed but goes on longer (C) Terry Pratchett) this looked bad. I should have put myself down as Wycombe as no one from MK plays FOG!
I knew I had an extra group of longbows, but was facing pike as well as men at arms.
I failed to make my extra missile troops tell and the army collapsed as the heavy foot got chopped to pieces.

Game 3 v Tony Robinsons Ptolemaic
The English with the initiative clutter the table with rough going that mainly falls on the Ptolemaic side of the field. Ptolemaic gentle hills fall handily on the English side of the table.
This squeezes the, frankly enormous, phalanx inbetween a gully and a large patch of brush. The patch of brush is covered by thuerophorai and thorakati. A group of poor pike stand between the gully and the Ptolemaic camp.
The English deploy in the now standard long line of bowmen with columns of men at arms behind.
The pikes advance past the gully and alongside the brush.
The longbowmen seeing opportunities race up on both flanks. Two longbow groups gang up on the thorakati who are nervous of leaving the brush for lurking men at arms. An arrow storm leaves them fraged, the follow up charge breaks them and opens the Theurophorai up to the same fate.
After a bit of demonstration the men at arms retreat to the gentle hills and wait for the pike phalanx.
A group of flanking longbowmen reach the gully and the flank of the pike block does a 90 turn to chase them off and are joined by the poor quality pikes moving through the gully. The bowmen decide that heavy foot who can’t move very quickly are the perfect target and start to machine gun the pikemen. Left with no real option they charge to contact the longbowmen while still in the rough and are given a rough time, breaking before the supporting pike can reach the flank of the longbowmen. The bowmen follow up into the Ptolemaic camp.
In the centre the phalanx prepares its final cast of the dice and charges the men at arms standing on the hill. The armour and polearms prove too much for them and the army breaks.

Game 4 v Dave Handley’s Santa whatsit Nuevo thingymebob
A longbow killing army if there ever was one. Sword and buckler men are lethal to them, as are almughavers.
My plan consisted of – fight where their medium foot isn’t.
I failed in that aim.
I put down lots of terrain as I had initiative and should be able to put my main thrust wherever those longbow killers were not.
Unfortunately the entire Spanish army went down in one place and I had to fight where they wanted to.
A fiendishly cunning running away with longbow and advancing and pinning with men at arms looked good until the painstakingly constructed cover for a the most volnurable longbow group proved to not be as good as I thoguth.
I had manourvered to allow a flank intercept on the Spanish MF if they charged the longbow, so now all I needed to do was get the rest of my army into the proctected spear core.
Then it all went wrong. A charge on one BG stepped forward into the flank intercept group, who could no longer intercept as they were the target of a charge, so the Spanish got to the bowmen.
To add insult to injury, the knights who I had considered to be prime targets up to this point then reminded me there was a good reason for keeping the heavies and the bow working together as they charged and smashed the men at arms.
A fragmented group of sword and buckler men hung on long enough to allow a second group of men at arms to get hit, and it was all over the Henry and the boys.

The last game was against Niks Selucids and was absolute carnage – see my earlier report.