Austin report

[firefalluk]

Well, having gotten more or less settled in the brave new world, we ventured down to Dallas to participate in SKirmish'08, which included a small & very friendly FOG contingent. The umpire, Ian Buttridge, was kind enough to lend me an army, and my opponents very charitably supplied my dice in each game (I was still waiting the arrival of our shipment from England).

The comp was 15mm, 650 points, on 6x4 tables, with preset terrain. I chose Aragonese, with:
3x4 Kn Superior HvyArm Und
8 & 6 Almughavar - MI Impact foot, sword, Superior, Prot, Undrilled
8 MIlitia, HI Off Spear, Armoured, Poor, Drilled
4 Jinetes, LC JLS, Protectd, average, Undrilled
8 Crossbows, LI, Xbow, Unprot, average, undrilled.

Game 1 was Komnenan Byzantine, on a close table - woods on the left, impassable cliffs on the right, and a bunch of uneven ground at the foot of the cliffs, giving a choke point about 2.5 foot wide in the middle of the table.I aimed the almughavars & LC down the uneven ground, the knights at the gap, the LI into the woods, and the spear in reserve, near the woods. He deployed MI archers opposite the uneven ground, Skutatoi beside them, Elite Varangians next to them, Frankish knights (H/armoured), then Byzantine (armoured) knights, then opposite the woods more MI archers. He put 3 LH groups in front of Skutatoi, Frankish knights, and Byzantine knights.

We both pushed forwards as fast as we could, but in turn 2, he had a sudden rethink and decided the archers opposite my Almughavars might not like the matchup, and reversed them - they spent the rest of the game running back to the camp. Then, as my knights thrust forward, I charged my Jinetes at the LH opposite them, and he elected not to evade (because it would disorder the Skutatoi, but to stand. As I had POA in impulse and melee, I massacred them (altho without killing a stand), so they routed - through the Skutatoi, disordering them. He then detached his general from the Varangians to try to rally them, a fairly pivotal mistake.

On my left, his archers were (unsurprisingly) pushing my LI back briskly, and managed to rout them with shooting (some poor dice throwing didn't help that). The archers then turned inward to threaten the flank of my knights.

Meanwhile, the main lines clashed - On impulse, all was equal, except that the Varangians got disordered I had a general in the front rank there, so we were both effectively elite: they also lost the melee, but retained cohesion & dropped a stand, giving me an overlap. In the rest of the melees, our CinCs
met in the middle, both leading identical HArm Knights, and drew; and my knights defeated the lighter Byzantines, disordering them.

Of course, my victorious knights then got struck in the flank (disorder), then lost the impulse combat (not allowed to fight back as facing enemy to front), and became fragmented, then (of course) lost the melee and ran like girls. Our CinCs tied again, and the Varangians lost again, dropping another stand and fragmenting. I should add, the Byzantine general was now at the back of the table, having failed to rally his LH. Oh, yes, I forgot - I got overambitious with the Jinetes, and got stitched up by his 2 remaining LH
units.

In my turn, the Almughavars plowed into the Skutatoi, fragmented them, then routed them in melee, while the Poor spearmen charged the Byzantine archers - who of course had had to extrude beyond the woods to fight- and were compelled to also charge into the disordered Byzantine knights, due to the angle of charge.

This turned out to be a good idea, as the spearmen fragmented the archers on first impact, then routed them in melee: and fragmented the Byzantine knights in the melee. Our CinCs drew (again), and the Varangians lost again, but again didn't lose cohesion - however, the test for the Skutatoi routed them (at last!), and the cohesion test for that disordered his CinCs knights, while the routing archers caused the Byzantine knights to rout, which test in turn caused the CinC to fragment. With 5 routing units and a
fragmented Knight unit, that was the game, 18-7.

Game 2 was against Lance Gamble, who had Federate Romans - and his Patrician list was the worst possible, I think, for this sort of open comp. There was virtually no terrain, and game was a walkover - I deduced that the only matchup that might help him would be lancers against my MI Almughavars, so I ensured that didn't happen, and once deployed, he didn't seem to think of trying to redeploy (given that his mounted were all undrilled, probably just as well I suppose).

Anyway, from the left, I deployed LH, the small Almughavars, all my Knights, the big Almughavars, then the Poor spear. He deployed 1 unit of Hun Cav (Bow/Sword), 3 units of 4 Cav lancers & 1 of cataphracts opposite my Knights, then his 2 x10 Warband (O), then 2 6s of Auxilia.

I saw no need for finesse here & just rolled forward. The only change I made was to push the small Almughavars out to meet his Huns (where they spent the game staring at eachother ), and pulling the LH inside them to flank the lancer line. Essentially, just rolled forward, and POAs did for him all down
the line.

From the right, my Spears got into one of his auxilia palatine (the other being distracted by rossbowmen), and having armour and an overlap, massacred him. The big almughavars caught his Warband in 3 ranks, giving up an overlap and being Avge vs Superior, and got massacred just as quickly.

His other warband were only briefly a speedbump for the first of my knight units, while his combined cav - he rather mismanaged these, so that they were forced to charge while outside the cataphract charge reach - got equally slaughtered by Knights enjoying overlaps and POAs for armour & lances. All in all, in 2 turns I managed to rout 8 of his 11 units.

Game 3 was against the guy who'd defeated Monty (just), with Seleucids. I thought this could be ugly, with Pikes and 2 units of Elephants, none of which bring joy to the eye of the charging Knight, but, well, not so much.

The table had a fair amount of broken & rough ground on the right, but otherwise essentially open (a couple of irrelevant low hills). He deployed with his cavalry (Huns, sup Companions, elite Agema all in 4s on my left, then elephants, then pike (resting on the uneven ground), then 4 LH, 2 units of LI,
and an ambush of 6 Thracians.
I deployed all my knights on the left, then the Almughavars opposite the Pike, then Spear opposite the uneven ground, then LC & LI. Initially he pushed forward with the skirmishers & LH, and more slowly with Pike & Elephants & cav, while I pushed the end 2 knight units, held the third back somewhat, and angled left with the almughavars and spearmen.

He got a bit incautious with the LH, who got chased off by a charge of spearmen, then - to my amazement - when I charged my LH at his 2 6s of skirmishers (right at the join), he evaded. I'm fairly sure if he'd stood, the combination of shooting as I came & melee would have crunched me, but there you go. As it happens, I caught both units in the back when evading, and mullered them (drop 1 for hit in the back, lose the impulse - one broke then - then lose the melee - the other broke then). That relieved any anxiety
I had about the flank of my spearmen, so the foot slanted hard across the front of his army/

I couldn't quite get into charge reach of his elephants, but my big almughavar unit charged into the pike, hitting both units, while my spearmen hit the end element of the pike (not accidentally, I'd cribbed this idea from Ray) - led by a general, to negate the Poor. The spearmen lost the impulse, but passed cohesion, then expanded out to gain an overlap in melee, which they won. The big almughavar unit covered itself with glory, winning the impulse and the melee, winding up the pikes as fragmented.

In his turn, he charged one elephant unit into the small almughavar unit, and pushed the other towards my knights (not quite getting in charge reach), while his Skytian Cav and lancers pulled back in front of my knights, unsurprisingly. The elephants lost & disordered, then lost again, passed cohesion, but failed their death roll - that of course caused them to flee & expire, being 1 element strong, so the small almughavar unit pursued into the other elephant unit. Meanwhile the big almughavar unit broke their pike opponents, and the spearmen fragmented theirs. The fragmented pike then broke on testing for routing friends, which caused his LH beside them to disorder.

On my next turn, we did for the other elephant unit (hit in the flank, losing, and failing death roll so it expired), and my LH charged his disordered LH, beat them and they dropped 2 1s, to rout in the impulse phase - that meant 7 routed units of 11, for an easy win, 25/0: quite unexpected to me, as I"d worried about this clash a lot.