BHGS Challenge 2008  Game 3 – Greg Mann's Later Polish

For round 3 I was matched against Greg Mann and his Later Polish army.

 Greg and I were both looking a bit tired by now – 3 games in a day

can be quite tough. For Greg, this tournament was a learning

experience.  A good DBM player, this was his first DBMM event.  He had

lost both the first two games, much to my surprise.

Urien invaded Poland, also to my surprise.  The terrain scattered

along both baselines.  My position was framed with a centre-left wood

and a centre-right marsh, both with space to operate outside, and

another wood set back in the middle.  Luckily, I had room to deploy in

front of that central forest.  The Poles had a virtual mirror image,

with the addition of a gentle hill on their rear left baseline.

Despite invading, we deployed first.  Urien was on the left, his

mounted aiming to sweep around into the space there, his foot in the

wood.  Bryneich and Elmet deployed their spearmen in the central area.

 There weren't enough to completely fill the space, so we closed up to

the right-hand marsh and hoped to be able to delay any advance on the

left.  The Strathclyders were on the right, their infantry in column

in the Marsh, their horse out wide outside.

Greg had four commands.  On the left, a small Lithuanian command of

Irr LH(O) occupied the gentle hill.  This was supported by a Polish

command of Irr Cv(O) and LH(F/O), who also included 5 bases Reg

Bw(X/O) which in turn supported the main strike commands which faced

the spearwall.  These consisted of Cv(O) and Irr Kn(O) with some mixed

LH out wide on the right to cover the flank.

With both players suffering from fatigue, the strategy was a simple

advance into contact in the centre, and see what we could add on the

wings.  Out wide on the left, Urien was short on PIPs and loath to get

too involved with the overall superior numbers of enemy on his wing.

The Lithuanian LH(O) had a nasty trick of dismounting as bowmen (Greg

has dubbed them the "Lithuanian mounted rifles"), which deterred any

over-ambitious commitment by Urien's cavalry.  The centres got stuck

in and Greg's Bw(X) swiftly proved themselves to be loaded for bear,

the Bryneich spearmen simply having no answer to them.  In DBM I'd

have charged them and hoped that at 5(I):4 I'd have had the advantage

- it would also have stopped the shooting.  At the one point that we

did get into combat we immediately found that we were outclassed in

close combat as well as in shooting (they count as Reg Sp(O) in

combat, we were of course (I).  We simply had no answer to these boys.

 Having scared off the spearmen, they also turned and gunned down some

of Urien's Ps(O) infiltrating the gaps.

With his mounted's flank secured by these ubertroops, Greg charged

into the Sp(I) with his Cv(O) and Kn(O).  An early cavalry casualty

(spent on a 6-1 result) could have spelt disaster for Greg, had it not

been for Gwallawc's failure to spot the opportunity to turn the

internal flank (1 on PIPs).  Greg lost a few knights, but only in

places where he had reserves.  His forces on the right of the line

were in much more difficulty.  Early success had caused its own

problems, one knight for example carving right through and then being

caught in the rear.  He was also suffering from being outflanked as

the Strathclyde Wb(F) made its way through the marsh and into the side

of the Polish chivalry.  One valiant Polish Kn(O) avoided sudden death

despite being surrounded and hard-flanked for 3 bounds in a row,

saving the CinC's command and buying enough time for the rest of the

British spearline to be broken, and with them the army.

22-3 to Greg, with his CinC's command disheartened but not broken.  If

that heroic knight had not survived, things might have been different.

 But maybe not much.  I'd have gained another 4 VP, of course, but I

suspect that we'd still have broken as both central commands were

badly damaged and once one went, the other went with it.