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Saxons
Slaughtered
Had
a great game last night - Arthurian Britons vs Saxons.
It
all started so well - the Saxons surged forward and got a break through
in the centre and on the extreme right. Unfortunately the victorious
units then spent the rest of the game chasing skirmishers and never
managed to exploit their successes.
Meanwhile,
Arthur led his cavalry in a charge that led to a swathe of destruction
across the field as unit after unit of Saxons was trampled into the
dirt. Arthur was wounded in the course of this (3 points) but who needs
command points in this sort of situation?
Great
fun and certainly the best Dark Ages game I have ever played under any
set of rules.
John
Normans
beat Nippon
Well,
last Thursday Mike and I had another VB game. It was about 660pts of
Samurai vs. Normans.
The Normans were almost solely HC and three SO archer screens. The Samurai
were their normal mix of very good and crappy. After seeing the
opponent, the Daimyo set up on a hill.
The Normans came on vs. the Samurai right flank in blocks of 4 deep, with
a diversionary move towards the center. Hasty redeployments put good units
in the front in time to be slammed uphill from the Normans.
Considering the hill and with even numbers, the Samurai did well. But the
two huge battering rams of the Norman left finally pushed through the
Samurai to gain the top of the hill.
It was "downhill" for the Samurai from there...:-)
After
a few more rounds and some amazingly unlucky morale rolls, the Samurai
were finished.
Mike ended up with about 3 units at around 2/3 strength, one with 1/3
strength, and one with 1 point (bastard rallied just before going off
table).
I ended up with one nearly full samurai backed by a nearly full Ashigaru,
but about to be hit in the flank. The remainder was 3 less than 1/2
strength pigs who broke on really crappy morale rolls in the last
fight...sigh.
Overall a GOOD battle. Mike came up with something new (for me at least).
I'll have to kill him later in return.
Jason
Mike
comments: "Actually the key was the central command which
danced around looking stupid and getting shot. It distracted Jason just
long enough from
the deep mass of knights about to smack into his right flank. When you're
facing 52 points of Elite HC in a melee, it doesn't matter how big a hill
is, you're going to die on it.
Basically the milites managed to break the right flank faster than Jason
could reinforce it and then turned and charged downhill.
Even so it was a close run thing with a couple of unlucky morale rolls
breaking Jason's line."
Ottomans
vs Mamelukes
Over
a thousand points of Ottomans invaded Egypt last night with a monster game
run by Jason.
It was tense and exciting given that it could have gone either way.
On the Ottoman left the levies hidden in the wood managed to keep the
Egyptian foot levies out of the battle long enough to neutralise them.
On the right, Richard's alarming and rapid advance scared the living
daylights out of his fellow Ottoman commanders but this turned to glee
when we saw the Mamluks falling back before his deep wave attacks.
In the centre, the Royal Mamluks did, as happened historically, advance
into the meat grinder of the Janissary bow and artillery mix and suffered
similar casualties falling back and leaving the field.
An Ottoman victory but it could so easily have gone differently if the
Mamluks had wheeled left and smashed the Ottoman right flank as it emerged
victorious from its initial charge or deployed their scum infantry in
front in the centre to soak up the missile fire or the Ottoman right had
not performed in such an unexpectedly dashing form.
Kudos to Jason for organising an excellent and tense battle. As
Sultan Selim I was convinced for most of the battle that I'd lost so a
victory was most welcome.
Thurlac
Perdu Deux Fois!
First battle was a 400 point Outremar
verses C14 French . This was Tim’s first VB battle so was very
much a learning experience but it was a good fight leading to a
major Crusader victory. However
Tim enjoyed the game and made all sorts of nice noises about how
well the system played etc (another convert I think).
Last night battle was a much larger affair 950 points per side with
Medieval French vs English. Both armies were about 4-5 bases of knights,
6-8 bases of other heavy or medium cavalry and around 16 bases of
foot ( French 2/3rds Crossbows, the English half longbows half other)
The table was set up with a long ride running diagonally across the
table with a village behind it on the English side and a few other
hills that played no part in the battle. The French set up in a balanced
army formation with most of their knight on their left flank while
the English stacked all their forces in the extreme left of their
side leading to a natural pinwheel battle.
As the battle progressed the English threw everything they had at the
French right flank driving it back off the ridge while 4 bases of
Border Staves gave ground in front of the elite French knights
delaying their arrival in the battle. After a bloody fight for
the ridge in which 3 of the 4 English knight bases were reduced
to less than 5 strength the French flank was beaten. At
this point the as yet uncommitted elite French knights started to
arrive. A huge melee followed at which point the landlord called
time.
All in all it was probably a minor English victory though given the
losses to the English veteran and elite units probably a Pyrric one.
Cynewulf44
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