Alp Arslan in Helsinki - part 6, the end and reflections
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:18 pm
As Neil has already covered this - with the addition of photos - at: viewtopic.php?t=7116 there seems little point in me repeating what he said. Instead I'll just post a couple of reflections on the game from my point of view and some thoughts on the Seljuq Turks as an army.
As I mentioned in Neil thread the game was, from my side, dominated by the need not to lose as by doing so I was guaranteed the overall competition win. I'm glad Neil still found the game enjoyable but I must confess that I think it would have been even more so if I'd have had to go for it a bit more as we'd have had more combats that could have affected the overall outcome.
One interesting thing I noticed about my play in this game was that as I was now playing in a different mind set and style I actually made far more mistakes than I had in any of the other games and, ironically, despite pretty much wanting to avoid combat I found myself in more, and less favourable, combats than I probably would have otherwise
I think the lesson there is play your natural game as it will be your best chance whatever the circumstances - unless, that is, you are more strong minded about your game than I am.
So what about the army. Overall I found it really suits my gaming style and it is a very effective army. The initiative modifier of +4 helps as it usually means you are on the steppe with enough open space to operate the fluid horse archer tactics - and if anything beats you on initiative it usually means it is the sort of army that will also want reasonable amounts of open space so all is not lost there. Of course occasionally you'll end up in the wrong sort of terrain, however, the Seljuq is still pretty hard to beat unless it is very very crowded indeed.
However, despite the success I've now tried the version Terry used - Sultanate of Rum with the 4 base knight BG to give the army a bit of punch and something to keep things like legionarii honest. To get these I dropped a TC, cut the LF down to 2 BGs - and 8 of Bow and an 8 of Javelin, Light Spear - and dropped the Bedouin LH, all of which allowed me the points to get the knights as 4 Kn, Superior, Undrilled, Heavily Armoured, Lancers Swordsmen.
This army, which is of course led by Kilij Arslan II and dated 1176AD so as to be for the battle of Myriokephalon as opposed to Manzikert ( and is another Roman defeat
), has now had a run out at Rampage and pleasingly won that competition 
It did this by beating Latin Greek and Wars of the Roses armies, getting the better of a Crown of Aragon army and drawing against a second Crown of Aragon army.
Of course with all this success for the Seljuqs it is now time to look for a different army
As I mentioned in Neil thread the game was, from my side, dominated by the need not to lose as by doing so I was guaranteed the overall competition win. I'm glad Neil still found the game enjoyable but I must confess that I think it would have been even more so if I'd have had to go for it a bit more as we'd have had more combats that could have affected the overall outcome.
One interesting thing I noticed about my play in this game was that as I was now playing in a different mind set and style I actually made far more mistakes than I had in any of the other games and, ironically, despite pretty much wanting to avoid combat I found myself in more, and less favourable, combats than I probably would have otherwise
I think the lesson there is play your natural game as it will be your best chance whatever the circumstances - unless, that is, you are more strong minded about your game than I am.
So what about the army. Overall I found it really suits my gaming style and it is a very effective army. The initiative modifier of +4 helps as it usually means you are on the steppe with enough open space to operate the fluid horse archer tactics - and if anything beats you on initiative it usually means it is the sort of army that will also want reasonable amounts of open space so all is not lost there. Of course occasionally you'll end up in the wrong sort of terrain, however, the Seljuq is still pretty hard to beat unless it is very very crowded indeed.
However, despite the success I've now tried the version Terry used - Sultanate of Rum with the 4 base knight BG to give the army a bit of punch and something to keep things like legionarii honest. To get these I dropped a TC, cut the LF down to 2 BGs - and 8 of Bow and an 8 of Javelin, Light Spear - and dropped the Bedouin LH, all of which allowed me the points to get the knights as 4 Kn, Superior, Undrilled, Heavily Armoured, Lancers Swordsmen.
This army, which is of course led by Kilij Arslan II and dated 1176AD so as to be for the battle of Myriokephalon as opposed to Manzikert ( and is another Roman defeat
), has now had a run out at Rampage and pleasingly won that competition It did this by beating Latin Greek and Wars of the Roses armies, getting the better of a Crown of Aragon army and drawing against a second Crown of Aragon army.Of course with all this success for the Seljuqs it is now time to look for a different army
