Not having any armies with much in the way of S mounted or Bw(X) I decided to take the Scots Irish to Britcon. This choice was primarily motivated by a desire to use my very nice-looking sea terrain, which has not been out much since the waterway rules changed in DBM 3.1 (?). I have used the army before, at the Munster Open, where it did not do well, but I learned a few lessons, made some adjustments to the list and now thought it could be quite effective.

My list was:

Ally Gen Cv(O) chariot, 2 Cv(O) chariot, 8 Ax(O), 2 Ps(I), 4 Bts(I), 2 Bg(O)

CinC Cv(O) chariot, 4 Cv(O) chariot, 4 Ax(O), 8 Wb(S), 6 Ps(I), 2 Ps(O)

Ally Cv(O) chariot, 5 Cv(O) chariot, 16 Ax(O), 6 Ps(I), 2 Bg(F)

Brilliant Sub Cv(O) chariot (Cu Chulainn), 7 Cv(O) chariot, 9 Ax(O), 2 Wb(F), 3 Ps(I)

Army Baggage 4 Bg(I)

Strategems: Ambush, scouts.

The general concept when invader (with aggression 3 it is quite likely) was to put down the sea to open up one enemy flank and use the brilliant sub on a flank march to open up the opposite flank. This would lead to a double envelopment and certain victory. In defence a river and a liberal scattering of rough going should neutralise any mounted enemy and allow avenues for my boats and plentiful auxilia to envelop on at least one flank, possibly coupled with a flank march and ambushes. I had learned previously that rough flat goes down last and is easily blocked by an opponent's gentle hills, so I brought rough hills (which go down early) this time, including a huge size 2 one.

Game 1 vs David Thompson, Burgundian Ordonnance.

I defended on a misty summer morning. The river ended up flowing towards me in my left flank sector. A small patch of scrub fell close to the river on the in-board side, at the front of my deployment zone. There was a marsh approximately at the centre front of my deployment zone and several more patches of scrub proved irrelevant.

I deployed first, and lulled into a false sense of security by the enemy CinC's inertness, I deployed well forward near the river, expecting my opponent to keep away from it for fear of the boats getting behind his flank. The bulk of my chariots were in reserve. The marsh was garrisoned by auxilia and a few chariots were to the right of it with a view to a right-flanking move. Cu Chulainn flank marched on the side opposite the river.

David deployed a long line of BwX/BwS next to the river with a couple of Ps(S) handgunners, extended by an English ally with BwS and BdS. Two commands of knights were behind the bowmen and a train command of ArtI was at the very back. At this point I remembered that BwX/BwS would have a 25% chance of killing my auxilia with every shot and would be at factor 5 vs my 3 in close combat if I charged. While my warband would have some chance against the bowmen, I would have to come out of the rough going and therefore be vulnerable to the knights.

My Boat ally proved unreliable, but I advanced the boats up the river as the first march for naval is zero PIPs  and the mist meant that they were unaware of the enemy within 800p. I pushed up against the other flank and the flank march arrived with a brilliant stroke. The Burgundians came forward, leaving the unreliable English behind. One command of knights headed off to oppose my flank march, sending out one element ahead to stop me marching. Both sides spent PIPs trying to bring their allies on-side.

The mist cleared and the Burgundian machine-gunners, I mean bowmen, wiped out 4 elements of unreliable allied auxilia in their first volley, and thus persuaded the English to commit. Before long two of the boats were sent to the bottom by handgunners (you can't simply mow down waders like in DBM). The warband decided to charge and face the knights rather than stand still and get shot and it was not long before I had two broken commands and enough other casualties to break the army. My flank attack had managed to dishearten the knight command, so I got one point out of the game.

Lessons learned: Deploy further back (I already knew that. D'oh!) and don't expect inferior boats to achieve anything on a river if opposed.

Game 2: Tony Dennis, Eastern Franks.

I defended and with up to 48 knights (O) available in my opponent's army list I selected the maximum amount of rough terrain that I could and didn't bother with the river. The result was a huge scrubby hill in the centre of the table, a small scrubby flat half way down my right edge, a scrubby ridge from my opponent's base edge near and parallel to the same flank edge and a marsh on his base edge between the two hills.

Tony deployed first and put psiloi on the large hill with knights behind, knights dismounted as Bd(O) in front of the marsh and some cavalry in reserve next to the marsh. I deployed auxilia on the large hill, warband and chariots opposite the marsh and the boat ally's auxilia ready to move into the small patch of scrub on the flank.

On the first turn the Frankish knights formed column and headed towards the open space in front of the marsh. As inept irregulars in a kinked column, it was costing them 2 PIPs a move and I was able to get toops close enough to interfere before they could intervene meaningfully. I rushed the warband forward into the blades, and with chariot support they were eventually able to break that command. Meanwhile the Frankish flank march had been chased on by mine. It came on with 1 PIP, moved 12 knights on in the small space between the scrubby flat and the ridge, and lost 4 elements of Ps that were unable to move on. The knights soon succumbed to attacks from behind and from the rough going on each side, breaking the army. I had lost 10% of my army, so 23-2.

Game 3: Jeavon Hood with Neo Assyrian.

I had a slight advantage in this game in that I had played Jeavon's army a couple of weeks before at the Guildford 1-day comp. I had been using a totally different army so he had no intelligence on mine.

I invaded but Assyria is not by the seaside so I placed two scrubby hills, which fell a little way in from the two flank edges, just on my side of the centreline. Other terrain played no part.

I assessed that I could control the two hills with my superior numbers of auxilia and by deploying well back in the centre hoped to suck the Assyrians into the "Valley of Death". A chariot ambush poised to go left-flanking would add to his problems. Jeavon advanced cautiously, using single elements of auxilia to stop me marching round his flanks and pushing Kn(S) and Ax(S) with supporting Ps forward in the centre. In a slow game I was gradually building the pressure on the flanks and a gap that developed in the centre while he was spending more and more PIPs covering flanks and rears. Eventually a multidirectional melee developed on one flank but the game timed out with less than 10% damage to both sides. I was invader so came out with 13 points.

Game 4: Donal Coghlan with Thematic Byzantines.

This time I was at a slight intelligence disadvantage because Donal had seen my army at Cork and read my AAR on the DBMM forum. Again I defended. I ended up with a huge scrubby hill on the right, slightly in my opponent's half of the table, with a small gap to the table side edge. On the left was the marsh, against the side edge and also straddling the centreline. The weather dice meant I would be dazzled for my first three bounds. Donal used his "all mounted" adjustment on the deployment dice to ensure that he deployed first, enabling him to deploy further forward and move first. He deployed a large amount of Cv(S) and LH(S) in the central open area and a long line of psiloi on the hill. Behind the hill were some double based Cv(O) and some mounted pikemen that played no part in the game. I deployed well back in the centre, with the bulk of the troops behind the terrain. I figured that once the dazzle had passed I could beat the psiloi, even uphill, with my auxilia to take that flank (with hindsight I think I would not have been dazzled there anyway as I was on the shaded side of the hill) and I was unopposed in the marsh, which Cu Chulainn's brilliance should allow me to exploit.

Donal came forward into the open centre and swung the two commands left and right to face my flanking forces. I had left a gap in the very centre and Donal exploited this to do me a lot of damage. Meanwhile I was fighting back with everything I could muster and the double based cavalry was coming through the small gap between the rough hill and the table edge. I was gradually beating the psiloi, but not without loss and they were really a side issue: I would have to beat the two S mounted commands to stop them from winning the game.

When last bound was called I was prevailing on the left and had mopped up most of the enemy psiloi on the right. However, my CinC's command had taken heavy losses and he was about to be front-and-rear-ended by two Cv(S) elements, and the double based cavalry was crunching into my right flank. I was ahead 14-11 on penalty points, but Donal could easily have turned it around given more time.

Game 5: Stephen Brittain with Merv Seljuks

I defended again. The terrain was a marsh on my left, the large rough hill in the centre and a smaller rough hill on the right, all three along the centreline. Not sure where the enemy would be, I spread my army across the whole table and ambushed some chariots behind the right hand hill ready to move out and around the right flank. My opponent again used the "all mounted" adjustment to give himself first move and his scouts detected my ambush. He deployed his army to the left, away from the ambush: one command of Reg Cv(S) and mounted Ax(S) opposite the marsh, one of Irr LH(S) turkomans opposite the valley of death and one of LH(S) and Cv(S) opposite the large hill. I put the small ally positioned to move into the marsh, the other ally on the large hill with chariots tot he left, the CinC in the gap to the right of the hill and the sub on the far right.

The Turks attacked immediately into the marsh with the Dailami and the Turkoman command advanced, with the other command covering the flank and sending out one Cv(S) to stop my CinC and Sub's troops from marching. I thought better of trying to fight 6 Reg Ax(S) with a high regular pip dice in the marsh with 8 Ax(O) and an ally's PIP dice so left a couple of elements to delay and retreated with the rest. However, it was a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire of a Turkish flank march of 6 LH(S), which came on, pinned the retiring column and sacked the baggage. The additional losses caused by the Dailami disheartened the command, but high PIPs enabled me to stick the general into combat with one of the flank marchers with an auxilia flank-locking it. This combat was a draw, but in the next bound the LH(S) died and the general pursued putting her front edge behind the enemy general's rear. By this time my command was demoralised, but the general could still move and she rear-ended the Turkoman general, resulting in his untimely demise and breaking that command.

Meanwhile, low PIPs had caused the flank-guarding Turkomans to go sponno and attack up the rough hill. Unfortunately I was not able to convert many of the opportunities into kills and actually lost some auxilia. However, Cu Chulainn had finally got a PIP score high enough to be worth doubling and his chariots were now in a position to enter the fray. Another chariot from the CinC's command was threatening the rear of some light horse. Stephen noticed that he could get a Cv(S) into the rear of that chariot, but this would in turn expose the cavalry's rear to counter attack. He inspected the chariot: "Is that your CinC?" he asked.

"No," I replied, "my CinC is over here, safe behind this line of more chariots."  Then I looked more carefully and found that it was the CinC after all. One combat later and my CinC's command was disheartened and missing its general. Shortly after that the command broke and with it the army. At least the damage I had done got me 4 points.

Lessons learned: Don't forget which element is the CinC.

Game 6: Tom Worden with Ghaznavid.

Tom had 25-nilled my army with Huns in the last round at the Munster Open, so this was my chance for revenge.

Yet again I defended. This time the terrain was the huge rough hill in the centre of his side of the table, the marsh in the centre of mine, a small scrubby flat half way down the left table edge, a rough hill in my right deployment area and the rest of the terrain irrelevant. I decided to deploy in the left hand half of the table and flank march on the same side as this is where the most likely attack would come.

Tom deployed a command of Irr LH(S) on the left, then two commands of Cv(S) and elephants, one commanded by the brilliant Mahmoud of Ghazni. I deployed the boat ally on the left, intending to move her auxilia into the rough. The CinC was in the centre, well back and the other ally had his chariots in the centre, a group of auxilia in the marsh and a column to the right of the marsh, intending to move onto the rough hill.

The LH(S) command came forward almost past the rough and the cavalry columns advanced and swerved to the side to allow the elephants to come forward, presumably with the ultimate aim of advancing them into the warband. In my bound I was able to get some auxilia into the left flank rough as the LH could not stop me marching. The tail of the column was in the open, though.  On the other flank high PIPs enabled me to get the column of auxilia onto the rough hill.

Early on, Tom's delayed baggage command arrived and he decided to bring it on behind the rest of his army, rather than on the far right hand side of the table, where I had no troops. My flank march also arrived early and soon had warband and auxilia threatening the baggage. With a brilliant stroke of 10 PIPs Mahmoud gathered cavalry and elephants and pointed them at the flank march, while the sheep herds tried to escape my raiders. However, this left the light horse command, which had been fighting my auxilia, exposed to flank attacks and they started losing elements, while my column on the hill had turned into a line behind the enemy left flank.

Another brilliant stroke of 12 PIPs and some PIPs from other commands brought elephants and Cv(S) including a general into combat with my flank marching chariots, but they had no luck on the combat dice and the general of the light horse command died to a 6-1.  With the Ghaznavid army almost completely surrounded, Cu Chulainn doubled his 1 PIP to front-and-flank another general and the rest of the army put in as many flank and rear attacks as they could manage. Actually not many of them worked (Cv(S) are hard to kill), but the sheep-rustlers caught their third element of baggage, which broke the train command and the LH(S) command also broke. The CinC had lost 2 Cv(S) but the loss of the baggage was worth another 3 ME off the command, plus the temporary penalty of 1 ME for the baggage breaking and 2 ME for the other command breaking pushed him  over his break point too, taking the army. 25-0 to the Irish.

Conclusions:

This army is a lot of fun. It is also pretty effective, despite the lack of killer troop types. The only disasters were the result of silly mistakes by me, not the intrinsic quality of the army. Even with those, I still finished above half way. Unfortunately I never got to show off my sea, but there is always next time.