Slitherine

Welcome to the Decline and Fall tournament! Please read all rules below. We will be using the OLD FOG and NOT the NEW FOG(U).

Please also note that pools are divided in half for the purpose of more scheduled matches. I have done this, so if the new FOG replaces the old FOG, we will not lose as many matches.

Important dates:
- Jul 1: FIRST pool stage begins (3 weeks to complete 4 matches)
- Jul 22: FIRST pool stage ends (players who have not completed their matches subject to possible replacement by reserves)
- Jul 23: SECOND pool stage begins (5 weeks to complete 6 matches)
- Sep 6: SECOND pool stage ends
- Sep 7: quarter-finals begin
- Sep 22: semi-finals begin
- Oct 5: finals begin

Structure of tournament:
- There are 4 pools of 6 players each, or 8 sub-pools of 3 players each (or in some cases sub-pools of 2 players awaiting 1 player to join)
- Each pool is divided in half for the purpose of scheduling matches
- Each player will be assigned a random army from a select list of Immortal Fire armies
- You will eventually play each player in your pool once in a mirror match, one with your drawn army, one with your opponent's drawn army
- 3 pts awarded for win, 1 pt awarded for draw of any sort (e.g. if you win both games in your mirror match, you receive 6 pts)
- Top 2 players in each pool advance to quarter-finals
- Quarter-finals/semi-finals/finals all decided by mirror match where combined scores decide winner on percentage (e.g. if player A's combined BPs for both matches is 93/100 (93%) and player B's is 70/76 (92.1%), player B is victorious)
- Games not completed by deadlines are subject to adjudication

Arranging matches:
- Players will only arrange matches they are scheduled to play. This means each player will play 2 opponents in mirror matches in the first pool stage, and 3 opponents in mirror matches in the second pool stage.
- Players are responsible for arranging matches
- Post challenge in the arrange your matches here thread AND PM to ensure your opponent saw it

Rules of games:
- Armies will consist of 500 pts
- You may customize your army before each match
- Fog of war and double moves will be used
- Digital League rules on army size/composition do not apply
- Arab Conquest armies may not choose the troop type “Warriors” at all, units with bows and marked “M” in the DAG
- Dailaimi may not choose the troop type “Warriors” at all, units with bows and marked “M” in the DAG

Posting results:
- Winners of each individual match are responsible for posting result in this thread; I will periodically update the results table
- Please use this format:
Pool A result:
Khalid (Arabs) 30/45 defeats Vahan (Byzantines) 50/50

Ratings:
- This tournament will count towards ratings and rankings used by the Digital League
- This tournament is considered a B-level tournament.

The pool/army draw is as follows. Play everyone in your sub-pool in the first pool stage, and then the rest of your pool in the second pool stage.

Pool A
Londo: Late Visigothic later
Voskarp: Early South Slav later
Yuknoom: Christian Nubian early
Mchargmg: Avar
Allendeuce: Arab Conquest (may not choose the troop type “Warriors” at all, units with bows and marked “M” in the DAG)
Mcfcivo: Lombard early

Pool B
Jonathan4290: Lombard early
Stockwellpete: Western Turkish early Khazar
MikeMarchant: Maurikian Byzantine
Sirlancelot22: Sassanid Persian later
Majandro: Early Bulgar pre 680
Claytonengel: Arab Conquest (may not choose the troop type “Warriors” at all, units with bows and marked “M” in the DAG)

Pool C
Lord Nytram: Dailaimi Buyid (may not choose the troop type “Warriors” at all, units with bows and marked “M” in the DAG)
Cunningcairn: Nikephorian Byzantine early
Paulmcneil: Khurasian Dynasties Saffrid
Iandavidsmith: Ghaznavid
Tofman04: Early North African Dynasties Zirid
Asterix_von_TWC: Abbassid Arab later

Pool D
Batesmotel: Pecheneg
Rexhurley: Thematic Byzantine
PeterAbb: Abbassid Arab later
ZumHeuriger: Bedouin Dynasties Hamdanid
Emilianojimenez: Khurasanian Dynasties Saminid
Awaiting a third player

Pool D-1 games up for Batesmotel and Peterabb

Passwords Batesmotel = Bates, Peterabb = Peter

Cheers Rex

Mirror challenges posted for LordNytram and Paulmcneil. PW's are LordNytram and Paulmcneil.

Pool B-1

MikeMarchant's Byzantines (22/35) beat StockwellPete's Khazars (40/40)

Tough battle for the Khazars with nothing heavy enough to stop the Byzantine infantry. A very skilful swirling cavarly battle by the Khazars (that had my head swirling) to the flank, but just couldn't pin the Byzantine cavalry down to deliver enough damage to make up the difference.

Thanks for the game Pete, and bad luck.


Best Wishes

Mike

Pool B-1

stockwellpete (Maurikian Byzantines) 8/34 beat MikeMarchant (Khazars) 49/41

Two completely one sided battles between these two armies with one win each for me and Mike. The Khazars have no lancers at all, which is completely incorrect historically (same as with all the other horse archer armies) and until this basic error in the game is corrected this type of army will not have a chance against lancer or spear armies. Very poor entertainment, in my opinion.

Pool D-1
batesmotel (Thematic Byzantines) 28/37 beat rexhurley (Petchenegs) 39/37
batesmotel (Petchenegs) 27/35 beat rexhurley (Thematic Byzantine) 58/49

Thanks for two good games. And if Petchenegs can beat lancers with a little luck (or fanatical dice as Rex titled them), the Khazars should certainly able to. None the less, the middle period Khazars would probably have been a better list to include for the tournament.

Chris

Pool A-2 Results:
Allendeuce (Arab Conquest) 8/43 defeats Mchargmg (Avars) 41/36

Very tough matchup for the Avars.

batesmotel wrote: None the less, the middle period Khazars would probably have been a better list to include for the tournament.

Do you mean the Khazar list that allows up to 12 lancers? If so, this was my point really.

Edit: this link is very helpful . . .

http://warfare.uphero.com/Ancient/Dark_ ... lrymen.htm

mchargmg (Arab Conquest) 11/45 vs Allenduece (Avars) 32/31 very hard fight for the Avars against all the foot. Nowhere to run......

stockwellpete wrote:

batesmotel wrote: None the less, the middle period Khazars would probably have been a better list to include for the tournament.

Do you mean the Khazar list that allows up to 12 lancers? If so, this was my point really.

Edit: this link is very helpful . . .
er
http://warfare.uphero.com/Ancient/Dark_ ... lrymen.htm

The Western Turkish (Khazar) list is probably the strongest of the lists and the one I've used in FoG TT. Both that one and the Western Turkish (Later Khazar) list classify the Khazar Nobles as lancers rather than as horse archers. The date range on the earliest list is bogus and doesn't correspond to the FoG TT list where the Nobles as horse archers are only allowed in the early period. That said, even the Western Turkish (Khazar early) list is almost certianly much better than the Petchenegs .

Chris

C-1 Result

Lord Nytram Nike Byzantine 31/35 beats Cunningcairn Dailami 31/31

Just! tough game.

C-1 Result

Lord Nytram Dailami 25/36 beats Cunningcairn Nike Byzantine 39/37

Pool A-1

Londo (Visigoths) 30/55 def Voskarp (Slavs) 49/49
Londo (Slavs) 22/59 def Voskarp (Visigoths) 57/57

C-1 Result

Lord Nytram Dailami 17/36 beats paulmcneil Khurasanian Saffarids 33/32

Pool A-1

voskarp, Early South Slav later (31/49) won over Yuknoom, Christian Nubian early (55/54)

voskarp, Christian Nubian early (49/68) won over Yuknoom, Early South Slav later (49/44)

Pool D1

Rexhurley: Thematic Byzantine (22/49) bt PeterAbb: Abbassid Arab later (39/39)

Rexhurley: Abbassid Arab later (26/46) bt PeterAbb: Thematic Byzantine Abbassid Arab later (42/36)

Thanks for the games and being a gentleman to play Pete even when facing death in the face

C1 result

Paulmcneil Dailami Buyids 28/29

beat

Lord Nytram Saffarids 33/33

Pool B1

Jonathan4290 (Lombards) 11/41 defeats MikeMarchant (Byzantines) 38/35
Jonathan4290 (Byzantines) 38/39 defeats MikeMarchant (Lombards) 43/40
Jonathan4290 (Lombards) 2/46 defeats Stockwellpete (Khazar) 40/39
Jonathan4290 (Khazar) 40/45 defeats Stockwellpete (Lombards) 41/40

While one of the weaker armies in league play, the Lombards are highly effective against the weak DAF armies, both my wins against them coming down to luck at the right time in close games. In future, I'm going to choose armies for the tournament more on versatility and fun as opposed to historical timeline, the Khazar list I chose was not the most suitable. Lessons learned.

claytonengel Arab Conquest (7/43)

defeats

Majandro: Early Bulgar pre 680 (33/33)

Thanks for a great game!

Jonathan4290 wrote: In future, I'm going to choose armies for the tournament more on versatility and fun as opposed to historical timeline, the Khazar list I chose was not the most suitable. Lessons learned.

Jonathan, if you do just a little bit of historical research (even just reading a couple of Wikipedia pages) you can come up with some interesting ideas for match-ups. For example, for the Khazars, you could choose from the following real conflicts . . .

i) Gokturks v Avars (Volga region circa 550AD; two horse archer armies)
ii) Byzantium/Khazars v Sassanids (war between Byzantium and Persia 602-628AD; possibly stipulating that players choose maximum numbers of Khazar allied units and a Khazar field commander from the relevant Byzantine list so building a genuinely mixed army; two lancer armies).
iii) Khazars v Bulgars (western steppes, 2nd half of 7thC AD; two horse archer armies)
iv) Khazars v Umayyads (7thC AD; two lancer armies)
v) Khazars v Abbasids (8thC AD; two lancer armies)

All these match-ups would be quite good, I feel. Much better than unbalanced and ahistorical match-ups between Byzantines and Khazars (did they ever fight each other?) or Arab Conquest and Avars.