Slitherine

Our group of players are heading for Plymouth en masse at the end of the month and so decided to get some test games in to finalise army lists. We had 3 games going on and the lesson for the night came from the 25mm, 650AP Carthage vs Ancient British game. Hannibal had decided he didn't need no stinking sub-ordinates and led the troop by himself... from the front... in fact the very front... of a BG of elephants... who lost a base. Cue much merriment and laughter as Hannibal got run down by a Lt Chariot.

The player's original idea was that he never had any luck with rallying so why bother and instead get extra BGs. We could see a certain logic to the plan but that fell apart when he stuck Hannibal in the front rank of combat. So he'll not be doing that again.

It was the only bright spot of the evening as my Late Seleucids got shot to bits by Medieval French. He caused tests every time, I failed CTs every time and in short order the army collapse when his mean nasty knights destroyed my Companions.

Steve P

It is a basic rule of the statistics of FoG that when an IC fights in the front rank he always dies (or always seems to die). Much like if an allied general fights he is 10 times more likely to die if there are more than one BG he might need to be with. Last night I had a BG of Dailami infantry charged in the open by 4 average lancers, I had supporting light foot so the combat was 4 average dice on + vs 5 superior dice on - I decided to risk my ally general to make me up to elite, I lost, my opponent rolled a 12 and I failed the death roll but passed both CTs. In the melee 4 dice each at evens I lost again, lost another base but passed my CT.

It is a strange game at times but that is what makes it fun.

The highlight of the game was a fragmented BG of 3 ghilmen beating a steady BG of superior armoured lancers and disrupting them while not losing the combat itself then getting bolstered just as the elephants hit the overlapping lancer BG

stenic wrote:Our group of players are heading for Plymouth en masse at the end of the month

It's OK, I alerted the local brewers last week!

We're looking forward to seeing you, and the nice armies you always bring.

It will be interesting to see whether we get on better with this year's new set of rules than we did with last year's...

johno