An excellent and very enjoyable weekend at High Wycombe in what whas

my second serious DBMM competition.  I took along a variant of my

Britcon Early Byzantine army.  This time two large commands (33ME and

24ME), the larger of 7CvS and 6Lhs plus the compulsory foot,

generalled by Belisarius himself.  The smaller comprised 12 Lhs and 4

Lh0 and a Cvs.  A small Hunnic allied command - all Lhs - of 6

elements, and the baggage command made up the army.

Game 1.  I faced Peter Haines with his LIR with Inert general.  It

looked looked like wall-to-wall Bd/Ax backed up with Psiloi and

various mounted including 4 Knx.  There were no easy opportunities for

breakthrough so I opted to concentrate on Peter's left flank - flank

marching the Huns on this flank too.  My superior mobility got me up

to Peter's left flank Auxilia very quickly with my large command,

followed by the smaller of the two.  The Lhs went into contact as soon

as possible and pinned his flank here without much other progress.

Then the huns turned up and were able to surprise three LhO who fled

away.  This allowed me to start to prise open the very end of his

line.  Meanwhile, Peter's centre and right hand commands had started a

grand if slow wheel about his left flank - the intention being to

block me in against his left flank command.  This manouevre left his

right flank without natural protection, so I decided to double back

with my smaller command (all Lh ) and start to nibble at this flank.

This I managed OK and started to make a little headway here as well.

At the time limit, I'd managed to break Peter's left command - he

ended up with 36% losses, me with 21% which gave me a 15-10 - very

pleasing since Peter went on to win the competition!

Game 2.  Game 2 had me facing Tony Dennis's Normans - mainly KnF with

some supporting spears and bows.  No terrain to talk of on my half of

the table, whilst Tony ended up with his right flank densely populated

with woods and sealed in with a river across the corner.  Tony

deployed his knights on his open left and opted to delay the arrival

of his foot (which eventually arrived between the woods), whilst

flanking marching a small Kn command on my right flank.  Against Knf

my preponderence of regular Lhs gave me a huge mobility advantage and

I was able to quickly come to grips with Tony's Knight commands.

Within 4 or 5 bounds I'd managed to break the larger by flanking and

in combination with the Cvs, followed quickly by the second breaking.

 Although Tony's flank march had by now arrived and his delayed

command was pushing some of my Lh back over the river, the game was

over.  I'd lost 10% MEs and gained a 23-2.  I should point out that

I've had plenty of practice against Knf (Italian Ostrogoths) with my

regular opponent, so I'm experienced in getting the better of them.

Sunday dawned optimistically for me after a pleasing evening with

Adrian C-H, Ian Austin and Steve Bowns.

Game 3 was against Tim Childs with Western Huns.  A fair amount of

terrain on the board, topped off with a river sectioning off Tim's

left corner - although this proved to be low so presented no obstacle

to the warband that came charging over it.  I was the defender and

deployed my LH command on the right - some across the river, the rest

in column on a lateral road ready to switch flanks quickly.  My large

command was postitioned centrally with the foot against the river,

followed by the Cvs then Lhs stretching out towards my left.  I opted

to flank march the huns on my left flank.

Tim deployed his smallest (lowest PIP) Hun command on his right

followed by his Kn command in the centre.  Behind the river were his

Wb command and largest Hun command.  I felt quite confident that I'd

be able to concentrate quickly on Tim's small right flank command with

 my larger groups of LH coupled with the flank marching huns.  I

reckoned that I could switch most of my right flank Lh over to my left

to reinforce this attack on Tims' right, whilst holding off his large

hunn command and Wb by defending the river line.  Great plan!  It

didn't work out that way.  Something went wrong with my PIP dice.  The

Huns never turned up, I couldn't switch the LH as quick as I wanted,

and Tim was able to quickly reinforce his right with a small body of

huns from the Wb command.  The Wb meanwhile made good progress across

the river straight towards my foot who never got the PIPs to retreat.

  Then his centre Knf came forward against my Cvs and it turned into

a blood-bath - byzantine blood that is!  The only saving grace was

that I managed to hold off his strong left flank command.  A clear

23-2 defeat for me and the mornings optimism receded yet further when

I learned my last game would be against Ian Austin's Ghaznavids!

Game 4.  Ian's army comprised two Cvs commands each with Lh support

and one with 2 El.  Also a foot command comprising Bw, Axs, and some

Lh.  I defended and set up with my Cvs command centrally and its Lh on

the left together with the Hun Ally command.  My main Lhs command on

the right.  Ian set up hunkered down with his left comprising the foot

command just at the rear edge of a large 2FE RF.  His main Cvs command

was positioned centrally with the remaining Cvs command covering his

right flank and angled back to the base-line to stop me brilliant

marching around it.  There was no way I could confront Ian's foot

command in rough going and its flank was well covered by other terrain

and his Lh, so I has no option but to attempt somehow to tackle his

CVs commands.  He had twice as many Cvs as me, plus the elephants, so

I had to exploit my Lhs in which I outnumbered him 2.5 to 1.  However

since there were no easy flanks to exploit, I decided to go straight

for his centre command with my Cvs supported by the Lhs command.  The

Huns swept around to his right flank to hopefully pin his right flank

guard command.

A stroke of good fortune managed to get me a flank contact on one of

Ian's centre command Cvs which I was able to exploit and the central

fight commenced.  Over two or three bounds and several 1-6 combat dice

on both sides, I was able to kill a couple of Cvs, and push through

and attack his CinC in the rear. At the same time I lost my right

flank command sub-general in the same melee.  The outcome of this was

that I broke Ian's centre command, and was poised to sweep down upon

his right flank command.  Unfortunately, the loss of my sub-general

effectively immobilised my right flank command (all Lh) which had

intended to retire from the advancing foot.  Since they couldn't, they

started to lose elements to his Bows and supporting Lh.  On the other

flank the huns had occupied the flankguard command but stupidly went

and lost its general which broke it (only 9 MEs all up).  Next turn my

right flank command succumbed to Ian's nibbling away and broke too.

So a clear defeat for me again although I was able to salvage some

honour by at least having broken one of Ian's commands, and killed his

CinC.  18-7 TO Ian.

At the end of the competition I ended up 6th out of 7 - and I never

fulfilled that early promise!!  Overall a thoroughly enjoyable

tournament - 4 games against very capable, gentlemanly opponents - and

a pleasant if properly studied atmosphere throughout.  I guess my only

gripe was that since there were 7 players, 4 had to have bye's.  Maybe

if I'd been one of them my position may have been higher since a bye

attracts the full 25 points.  Nevertheless on balance I'm glad I

actually played four games rather than sit one out.

Looking forward to the next competition - can I get my application in

to Warfare in time!