Field of Glory Wargaming at Oxford Doubles, 2009
Game 3 saw us facing .... a Later Ottoman Army who's list is available here
Pictures of Ottomans from my Ancients Photo Directory
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
You can rate the quality of the above figures by clicking on any of the pictures and then clicking on the 5-star voting buttons. Your ratings will be seen by hundreds of other gamers and will help them select the best figures for their armies!
Just to prove the point that his many postings on the FoG List about how Stepper Terrain was not a serious issue, our opponent Mr Boldly Scott managed to engineer an almost totally blank table out of Agricultural terrain selections (only one small patch of rough going in the middle). We decided therefore to try and turn the table 90 degrees and fight on a 4 foot frontage against an opponent with more and better LH than ours - in fact, their army was almost totally LH!
We aimed to swing round on our left this time, and form a line crossing the RGo and move forward from there. Even though this would see us advancing into the teeth of the sartorial maelstrom that was Richards sweater, it seemed a better option than trying to fill 6 feet of table with 4 feet of troops.
As our left hook progressed, the Ottomans evaporated (well, moved away in prefect formation) in front of us, allowing room and opportunity for our cavalry to swing behind our lines and join in the "hinge" where we were being ganged up on near the RGo.
Our LH on our right had advanced forwards to buy us time, allowing the infantry to re-organize painfully at the back of the table whilst the enemy cavalry failed to catch our LH.
The colourful Ottoman handgunners in their amusing comedy hats advanced into the RGo as our light horse fled in the face of large numbers of rather good cavalry. Would technology and millinery prevail over armour and training ?
But on our left our knights were already sinking deep into a morass of tedium and were clearly facing a nightmare of despair, as massed units of infinitely maneuverable LH darted back and forth, secure in the knowledge that they were un-catchable and their general would never struggle to direct them effectively as they executed repeated maneuvers which would have embarassed the Red Bull Air Display Stunt Team.
Some of the Ottoman Infantry had obviously spent so long on choosing and decorating their hats that they had left their houses that morning without remembering to flock or landscape their bases in any way at all!
Possibly due to the excessive overconfidence generated by their millinery, the Ottoman handgunners managed to get caught by some rashly charging knights. Admittedly it barely mattered as the Ottoman army was so vast, but if they routed in a spectacular way we might catch some real troops...
But the dice fell too short and with knights breathing down their noses, the Ottomans were instantly free to make their escape!
And the Ottomans had even more cavalry to bring in, so the threat of interception charges was now saving the Ottomans from any further damage.
Having seen the opportunity, it was then our turn to try and bring our own interceptors up as well. The Knights and the Ottomans facing them reformed and redeployed in each others body odor range ...
Whilst this was all mildly interesting, back on the left we may as well have been watching paint dry as the Polish knights and light horse chased shadows and failed to connect with anything at all as the Ottoman LH kept just out of reach at all times.
But the flank-threatened knights could hold on no longer, and let themselves be intercepted by the patiently waiting Ottomans like the muppets they clearly were!
As the knights fled back, waves of additional Poles stepped up to fight - even the rubbish infantry were juggling their formation to present 2 ranks of spearmen to the pursuing Ottomans.
Fight!!!!
With the Poles looking on in astonishment, the pirouetting Ottomans turned round their flanks and thought carefully about whether they dare charge in. Even this barely made this side of the table interesting?
Even more Ottoman cavalry were pouring into the beleaguered Polish line...
And on the open flank, something highly obscure happened which created the only possible set of circumstances in which our troops could leave the table - I forget what it was, but we didn't do that "turn and go along the edge" thing.
More stuff happened..... slowly, and painfully.
On the open flank, something happened again. But the clock ticked round, and we'd lost - fairly badly, but not decisively. At least the damn game was over!
Post Match Summary
This was awful. With no terrain of note due to the Ottoman choices and a bit of luck on placement, the Ottomans had billiard table on which their hundreds of uncatchable units could mill around on and not get caught. Our army even at 900 AP wasn't wide enough to contest the game seriously, and it was 3 and a half hours of pain and tedium until finally it was over.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
I'm
not sure what happened there, as I nodded off for a while.
Frankly this wasn't much of a battle, or a game, more a parade ground exercise as the Ottomans ran rings round the drifting bollards that were your army.
Luckily for your opponents, these rules seem to have no degradation of command and control for huge armies comprised of hundreds of units of LH that are stretched across the full width of the table.
I'm not looking forward to the next game.
NEXT!!!
The Ancient Army List Index
The Rise of Rome (280 BC to 25 BC) Mid Republican Roman ; Late Republican Roman ; Gallic ; Pyrrhic ; Later Carthaginian ; Ancient Spanish ; Later Macedonian ; Later Seleucid ; Later Ptolemaic ; Attalid Pergamene ; Numidian or early Moorish ; Pontic ; Early Armenian ; Parthian ; Later Jewish ; Illyrian ; Spartacus Slave Revolt ; Bosporan ;
Storm of Arrows - Western Europe in the Later Middle Ages (1300 AD to 1500 AD) Medieval French ; 100-yrs War English (Continental) ; 100-yrs War English (Britain) ; Later Medieval Scots ( Britain) ; Later Medieval Scots (Continental) ; Later Scots Isles & Highlands ; Medieval Welsh ; Later Anglo-Irish ; Medieval Irish ; Low Countries ; Later Medieval German ; Italian Condotta ; Swiss ; Free Company ; Medieval Burgundian ; Medieval Danish ; Medieval Swedish ; Medieval Castilian ; Medieval Crown of Aragon ; Medieval Portugese ; Later Granadine ; Navarrese ; Ordonnance French ; Wars of the Roses English ; Ordonnance Burgundian ; Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian
Immortal Fire - The Greek, Persian & Macedonian Wars (550 BC - 146 BC)
Classical Greek ;
Early Achaemenid Persian ;
Lydian ;
Thracian ;
Syracusan ;
Early Carthaginian ;
Skythian or Saka ;
Kyrenean Greek ;
Late Dynastic Egyptian ;
Alexandrian Macedonian ;
Later Achaemenid Persian ;
Classical Indian ;
Early Successor ;
Early Sarmatian ;
Galatian ;
Hellenistic Greek ;
Graeco-Bactrian ;
Graeco-Indian ;
Indo-Greek :
Legions Triumphant - Imperial Rome (25 BC to 493 AD) Dominate Roman ; Principate Roman ; Foederate Roman ; Later Sarmatian ; Early German ; Dacian or Carpi ; Ancient British ; Caledonian ; Early Alan ; Jewish Revolt ; Sassanid Persian ; Kushan or Indo-Skythian ; Palmyran ; Early Frankish, Alamanni, Burgundi, Limigantes, Rugian, Suevi or Turcilingi ; Western Hunnic ; Early Visigothic & Early Vandal ; Early Ostrogothic, Herul, Sciri or Taifali ; Early Anglo-Saxon, Bavarian, Frisian, Old Saxon or Thuringian ; Gepid or Early Lombard ; Early Scots Irish ; Early Pictish ; Hephthalite Hunnic ;
Swords & Scimitars - The Crusades (1096 AD to 1311 AD) Early Crusader ; Later Crusader ; Fatimid Egyptian ; Georgian ; Seljuk Turk ; Cuman ; Komnenan Byzantine ; Post Latin Conquest Byzantine ; Ilkhanid Mongol ; Mamluk Egyptian ; Cilician Armenian ; Syrian States ; Khwarazmian ; Ayyubid Egyptian ; Middle Serbian ; Middle Bulgarian ; Medieval Cypriot ; Latin Greece ; Pecheneg ;
Eternal Empire - Eastern Europe and the Rise of the Ottomans (1300 AD to 1500 AD) Early Ottoman Turkish ; Later Ottoman Turkish ; Tatar ; Later Russian ; Later Serbian Empire ; Later Bulgarian ; Later Lithuanian ; Later Polish ; Later Teutonic Knights ; Catalan Company ; Middle Hungarian ; Moldavian or Wallachian ; Albanian ; Timurid, White Sheep Turcoman or Black Sheep Turcoman ; Later Hungarian ; Hussite ;
Decline & Fall - Byzantium and Islam (493 AD to 1071 AD) Early Byzantine; Maurikian Byzantine ; Thematic Byzantine ; Nikephorian Byzantine ; Later Moorish ; Later Visigothic ; African Vandal ; Italian Ostrogothic ; Early South Slav ; Lombard ; Avar ; Arab Conquest ; Early Bulgar ; Ummayad Arab ; Abbasid Arab ; Early North African Dynasties ; Khurasanian Dynasties ; Bedouin Dynasties ; Dailami Dynasties ; Pecheneg ; Ghaznavid ; Western Turkish (includes Khazar);
Wolves From The Sea - The Hairy European Dark Ages Post Roman British ; Early Welsh ; Later Scots Irish ; Merovingian Frankish ; Later Pictish ; Early Slavic ; Middle Anglo Saxon ; Astur Leonese ; Andalusian ; Early Navarrese ; Carolingian Frankish ; Viking ; Magyar ; Great Moravian ; Early Scots ; Rus ; Norse Irish ; Early Medieval French ; Early Medieval German ; Norman ; Early Polish ; Anglo Danish ;
Swifter Than Eagles - The Biblical Book Nubian ; Early Libyan ; Later Sumerian or Akkadian ; Early Nomad Allies ; Old or Middle Kingdom Egyptian ; Hyksos ; Mitanni ; Syro-Canaanite ; New Kingdom Egyptian ; Later Minoan or Early Mycenaean ; Hittite Empire ; ; Middle or Early Neo-Assyrian ; Later Mycenaean or Trojan ; Sea Peoples ; Philistine ; Phoenician Allies ; Neo-Hittite And Aramaean ; Later Hebrew ; Mannaean Allies ; Libyan Egyptian ; Urartian ; Median ; Neo-Elamite ; Proto-Arab Allies ; Cimmerian or Early Skythian ; Neo-Assyrian Empire ; Phrygian Allies ; Kushite Egyptian ; Neo-Babylonian Empire ;
Oaf of Fealty - Early Medieval Europe Feudal Catalan and Early Crown Of Aragon ; Early Hungarian ; Taifa Andalusian ; Feudal Navarrese and Aragonese ; Feudal Castilian Leonese or Portuguese ; Fanatic Berber ; Italo-Norman ; Feudal French ; Imperial German ; Feudal German ; Communal Italian ; Papal Italian ; Early Scots Isles And Highlands ; Feudal Scots ; Early Russian ; Feudal Polish ; Anglo-Norman ; Later Welsh ; Early Lithuanian or Samogitian ; Wendish Prussian or Estonian ; Early Medieval Frisia and Other Free Cantons ; Post-Viking Scandinavian ; Early Plantagenet English ; Later Sicilian ; Early Medieval Irish ; Early Anglo-Irish ; Early Teutonic Knights ; Mongol Invasion ; Early Granadine ; Middle Plantagenet English ;
Empires of The Dragon - China, Korea and Japan Erlitou-Shang Chinese ; Early Northern Barbarian Allies ; Early Zhou Chinese ; Yayoi Japanese ; Early Horse Nomad ; Ko Choson Korean ; Warring States To Western Han Chinese ; Qiang And Di ; Three Kingdoms Korean ; Eastern Han Chinese? ; Three Kingdoms W Jin And S Dynasties Chinese ; Kofun Nara Japanese ; Northern Dynasties Chinese ; Later Hindu North Indian ; Later Hindu South Indian ; Central Asian City States ; Western Wei To Early Tang Chinese ; ; Later Horse Nomad ; Tibetan ; Nepalese Allies ; Parhae Korean ; Late Tang To Five Dynasties Chinese ; Khmer Or Champa ; Thai Allies ; Nanzhao ; Pyu Burmese Allies ; Koryo Korean ; Early Heian Japanese ; Pagan Burmese ; Liao ; Song Chinese ; Xi Xia ; Ghurid Afghan ; Jin ; Late Heian To Muromachi Japanese ; Japanese Warrior Monk Allies ; Mongol Conquest ; Moslem Indian Sultanates ; Medieval Indonesian Or Malay ; Yuan Chinese ; Medieval Burmese ; Ming Chinese ; Yi Korean
Blood and Gold - The Americas Olmec ; Teotihuacan ; West Mexican ; Zapotec or Mixtec ; Toltec ; Chinantec ; Aztec ; Tarascan ; Tlaxcalan Confederacy ; Mayan ; Mochica ; Chanca ; Chimu ; Hatun-Colla ; Canari ; Inca ; Mapuche or Araucanian ; Amazonian Forest Tribes ; Tupi ; Chichimec ; Pueblo Culture ; Mound-Builder Culture ; South-Eastern Woodland Culture ; Timucuan ; Eastern Woodland Culture ; Plains Culture ; Pacific North-West Culture
View My Stats for My FoG Pages
