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Sub-Roman British vs Middle Angle-Saxons

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 8 months ago

Well, last night my Arthurian Sub-Roman British took on Dave's Middle Angle-Saxons.

My army was the same as last week's army, using the Britannia Prima version of the list.

Command 1 (23/6/8)

Brilliant General as Reg Kn (F)

2 Reg Kn (F)

1 Reg Kn (X)

1 Reg LH (O)

1 Irr LH (O)

4 Reg Bd (O)

2 Reg Ps (O)

4 Irr Sp (I)

2 Irr Bg (F)

Command 2 (26/7/9)

Ally as Irr Cv (O)

4 Irr Cv (O)

2 Irr LH (O)

18 Irr Sp (I)

6 Irr Ps (O)

2 Irr Bg (F)

Command 3 (26/7/9)

Ally as Irr Cv (O)

6 Irr Cv (O)

2 Irr LH (O)

18 Irr Sp (I)

2 Irr Ps (O)

2 Irr Bg (F)

Stratagems: Exaggerate Numbers, Change Deployment, Concealed Command (brilliant invader only)

Dave was the invader in spring, and selected a patch of rough flat terrain and a wood. I selected a couple of gentle hills and a paved road. The hill sat in Dave's rear centre, the wood was on the left table edge on the centre line, and the road crossed the table from side to side near Dave's base edge. The rough was back on my left. Only the wood played any part in the game. Weather and time of day played no part in the game.

I deployed first, putting Arthur in the centre with Command 2 on the left and Command 3 on the right. I used my Exaggerate Numbers stratagem to add a couple of Cv to Command 2, to try to make it look a little more impressive (but without going over the top). Dave deployed Welsh allies on his right, then a Saxon ally, Brilliant Penda in the centre, and a Saxon sub on his left. The Welsh were a mass of Wb (F) supported by some Ps (S) and Cv (O). The three Saxon commands were massed Sp (I) in three ranks, with one or two (the C-in-C's command) columns of Wb (S) in the middle, sort of like tungsten penetrators surrounded by Sp sabots. Dave then used a Brilliant Stroke to exchange the position of the Welsh and Saxon allied commands. This lined up the Welsh Wb against the Sp (I) of Command 2.

Command 2 was unreliable, and as Arthur had only 3 PIPs, he made no move, but instead saved those PIPs to attempt to activate my recalcitrant ally. On the right I sent the Cv and LH swarming forward, as I had 6 Cv and 2 LH to face Dave's 3 Cv and 2 Ps. I therefore had high hopes of getting the LH into Dave's baggage and some Cv into the flank of Dave's Sp. Dave's allies were both reliable, and he steadily moved his army forward, the Welsh taking the lead.

In my second bound, my unreliable ally became reliable, so I sent the Ps forward towards the wood, to a position where I could expect to wrap around the flank of Dave's Saxon ally command, which flank was covered only by a single Ps. I sent the two LH forward as well, hoping to do a little more mischief with them. I also moved Arthur and the Kn (F) to a position behind Command 2's Sp, ready to leap through them and massacre the Wb. On the right the Cv and LH continued their advance, while the infantry also started to move forward. Then everything went wrong.

The Welsh charged into Command 2's Sp, winning 4 of 5 combats and killing 8 Sp (I)! In my turn, the Sp then killed 4 Wb in return. Over the following bounds, this area of combat proved quite deadly to both sides. Command 2 became disheartened first, but then as the Sp started to die, Arthur and his mates got involved, and Welsh losses quickly mounted. The Welsh became disheartened, then eventually broke.

Meanwhile, on my extreme left, Dave hit the front of my Ps column with his lone Ps, killing the front element. I countered with first an overlap and then a flank wrap, and eventually killed the Saxon Ps. This, plus a couple of bounds of low PIPs for the Saxon ally, allowed Command 2's LH to attempt a couple of flank attacks on Dave's Sp, to no effect. Likewise, shortly after I got the Cv into combat with the Saxon ally, the disheartening of Command 2 reduced their effect. However, once the Welsh were broken, Arthur swung onto the inner flank of the Saxon ally, causing a few more casualties. Unfortunately, low PIPs for Command 2 hamstrung my efforts to put pressure on the Saxon ally, and poor combat dice also limited my efforts.

On my right, Dave bravely lined up his 3 Cv and 2 Ps to face my Cv and LH. I sent the LH out towards the baggage of Dave's left flank (sub-general) command, which was guarded by a lone Hd. I also detached the ally general and 1 Cv to move behind the infantry of the sub-general's command, still leaving 5 Cv to face the Saxon's British subject Cv and Ps. Dave took his chance in combat, and killed a Cv. I then hit his line in the flank with a Cv, but he died too. I was able to kill one of the Ps, but was again hamstrung by dismal PIPs for several bounds which prevented me from exploiting my superiority in numbers. In fact, it was only near the end of the game that I was able to move a LH out to threaten the Bg. The infantry in our two commands had a ding-dong struggle, with the Wb taking a little while to get rid of my Ps covering the Sp, before killing a couple of Sp. But the third rank of Sp held the Wb off, while the Sp (I) on each side gradually knocked

 each other over.

In the centre, however, things were quite different. The Ps-supported Bd faced the Wb, while other Bd and Sp (I) faced Dave's Sp (I). In short, my Bd killed no Sp, even with their QK, while the Wb QKed my Bd. I also had the Kn (X) in the front line, and it killed a couple of Sp, but generally I couldn't kill enough to make much of a difference. Then, when some Wb wrapped my Kn (X), allowing the Sp (I) to kill it, that broke my centre command, and the 2 ME extra losses on Command 2 was enough to break it too, breaking my army.

Dave had lost his Welsh, but although the Saxon ally and Saxon sub commands were both <0.5 ME from being disheartened, he wasn't really that close to losing. The score would probably have been about 18-7 to Dave (30% losses plus one command broken). Thanks to Dave for another highly entertaining game.

I suppose I made a couple of silly errors in this game. I should have used Command 2's Ps to screen my Sp against the Welsh, rather than getting carried away with grand plans of going around his flank. On my right, I should have moved the LH to threaten Dave's Bg much sooner than I did, as the loss of one Bg element would've had the same effect on his morale as the loss of 4 Irr Sp (I). But I also had some pretty pathetic combat dice, especially with the Bd (O) in the centre, and the Cv (O) on the right. My view is that in two games the Bd have actually grossly underperformed in comparison with the Sp, to the extent that I'm considering dropping the Bd and their Ps in exchange for more Sp (I). By contrast the Sp (I) v Sp (I) combat was thoroughly interesting and competitive. One thing about Sp only getting rear support in the enemy bound means that it's hard for you to exploit double overlaps in your bound, as the factors are still only 4 to 3. On the

 other hand, if things don't go well, your own double-overlapped Sp (I) are at factors of 2 to 5 in your bound, which is very scary.

Still, another great fun game, and further proof for me that Irr Sp (I) have a bright future in DBMM. I'd suggest people pull out their list books and look at what they can do with armies like Early Etruscan, Early Slav, Middle Frankish (Neustrian, Aquitanian or Provencal), Early Croatian or early Eastern Frankish (there are a few others as well). With a screen of Ps to protect from Wb, and a reserve of mounted, general and baggage to provide plenty of ME, Irr Sp (I) in large numbers can afford heavy losses while inflicting plenty of their own.

Oh yeah, and Penda only ever used the one Brilliant Stroke!

 

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