Can you believe it? Well, personally I can't.
So, the 800AP's of Dublin Vikings stood ready to take on the might that is Sparta.
Now, the Spartans, being more cultured, classically educated, and beliving in the combined arms strategy thought they could pick on our weaknesses in having not much in the way of rough terrain troops. They selected 'Agricultural' and began to select all these 'open fields' and 'steep hills'. We less civilised types selected an 'open field', a 'gentle hill with a Plantation on top' and a 'bare gentle hill'.
Well, have we ever seen such a cluttered battlefield?
In their attempts to outsmart us, the Spartans ended up with practically nowhere to deploy. The Vikings ended up with a bit of rough ground on their left, and a nice gentle hill to stand on while we won the battle elsewhere.
Field deployment went something like this:
LH - Thracian LH
LF - Various Light Foot
Sp - Spartiates
La - Other lacedaemonians
It - Ithakrated Hoplites
Th - Thracians
Fr - Freemen
Hu - Huscarls
Ir - Irish
---------THIS IS SPARTA---------
LHLFSpLaSpSpSpLaItTh
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LF LF
. . . . . . . . . . . . .LF
FrHuFrFrFrHuHuIrIr
--------------DUBLIN----------------
Well, the battle got off to a slow start. The benefits of the terrain from the Viking perspective was that I was able to deploy in a way that I could react to his deployment and get as good a match up as possible. Additionally, I could 'stand on the hill' and know that he was either giong to attack at a disadvantage, or allow me to position my Huscarls in a way which would be disadvantageous to him.
After the first couple of turns I had a little bit of bad-luck with my Irish Warriors becoming disrupted from shooting and I had great difficulty getting them reordered, and an attempted charge by my Huscarls against Light Foot resulting in me only moving forward 1" instead of my hoped 4". Had I gotten the 4" I would have been in a situation where I could keep some Hoplites disordered. Sure, I would have been disordered too, but I think disordered Sup/Armoured/HW vs disordered Sup/Protected/OffSp would have been well and truly my advantage.
Eventually the Spartan main line moved up so that I could stand with 2 files remaining on the hill while the rest came down off the hill, but within 3" of the Spartans forcing a test not to charge.
Well, had the Spartiates failed and the lacedaemonians passed it would have been interesting, but as it happened, the lacedaemonians failed and the Spartans passed. So, into a double overlapped combat the lacedaemonians went. What made it worse was that his one BG of lacedaemonians attacked 2 BG's of Freemen, so I never had to test to charge his Spartans.
After the first turn the lacedaemonians went disrupted and my Irish were being hard pressed on the other flank by the outnumbering Hoplites and Thracians.
I had to press my advantage and so charged with my Huscarls into some other poor lacedaemonians and Spartiates. In this second combat the Spartiates gave a good account of themselves. Even outgunned they managed to kill 2 bases of Huscarls and while the Huscarls didn't disrupt they weren't looking too good. The poor lacedaemonians however... well, after one turn decided that they didn't like those bloody big axes and ran for the hills. My memory of the rest of the battle is a bit hazy, but I think the result from that rout was that Ithakrated Hoplites went disrupted and the Spartans scoffed.
Unfortunately we had to call it a day. The result was a marginal victory to the Vikings, but it honestly could have gone either way. I do think I was in the stronger position because where I was weak wouldn't lose me the battle, where the reverse was not true for the Spartans.
I could see my left and right flank going. The Spartan shooting on my left flank had reduced a BG of Freemen 1 base from Autobreaking, but they did their job in holding up the lights. My Irish were doing a remarkable job of sticking around and rolling good dice, but I could see the end of them just through attrition. Had that happened though, I would have still been moderately ok, as the Spartan Centre was starting to crumble with the BG of lacedaemonians being Disrupted while a BG of Spartiates going Fragged. The next turn would have been interesting, but I believe football was on that night and the Spartans never miss a game
.Well, that was a very disappointing game for the Vikings. That was their first game where an Enemy General hadn't fallen to the axes of the Raven Banner.
Ian
P.S. I am still yet to be convinced 6 bases of Huscarls with 3 bases of supporting archers ISN'T gold!
