I have this vision in my mind of the old silent movies where the
Keystone Kops are all piled into this overcrowded paddy wagon
chasing the bad guys around a corner, they are going too fast, miss
the corner and go careering off the road and end in a big pile up.
Taking Serbs to MOAB was full of these Keystone Kop moments!
Of the three times I deployed first I had the unpleasant experience
of not having any enemy in front of me bar the lone horde or lone
light horse.
In particular my last game against Chris I first deployed three
commands of Knights to be faced with nothing opposite them! His army
was cowering in a narrow stripe screened behind a craggy hill.
Trying to get into contact with the enemy was when the fun started.
The knights where required to move forward for two bounds to pass
the craggy hill, break thru the lone horde pickets and then make two
wheels to contact the enemy.
To make a wheel requires 3 pips. This wasn't always forthcoming at
the right time.
One command couldn't deal with the lone pickets, missed the turn
towards the enemy, went impetuously straight ahead, hit another
craggy hill then headed off to the enemy's baseline. Keystone Kops
really – don't know what they where supposed to be doing, but it
wasn't contacting the enemy!
Fortunately to make a game of it the command closest to the enemy
just got the pips to make a half wheel to get half of the command
into contact while the other half hit a craggy hill and then had
Keystone Kops moments of their own.
With the CinC's command I was lucky that I had deployed in a column
on a road and together with a couple of sixes I was able to redeploy
that command.
Against Doug's Sassanid's I also deployed first to be faced with
enemy requiring wheels to contact. The result also was similar with
pip starved commands hitting the enemy base-line. Doug let me get
back into the game by turning around and attacking me. If he had
simply redeployed the Keystone Kops would never have been able to
catch him.
All very amusing for my opponents whom I was happy to entertain
although not at my expense!
I'm not sure what the impetuous rules are intended to do. The result
seems to be a break down in group cohesion and willingness to
contact the enemy, a far cry from "not waiting for permission to
charge the enemy" more like "we are really stupid and we're going
over here while you aren't looking!"
My Issues from MOAB:
* Deployment rules and night attacks too one sided
* Magic tents and irregular PIPs are a problem
* Impetuous rules
* Vulnerability of LH to being outmanoeuvred by marching opponents
* PIP and grading rules are unreadable
* Rule book fell apart – never happened with WRG
* After two comps I now understand my bound/your bound – still think
its crap!
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