Field of Glory Wargaming at Roll Call 2009
Two games down, two wins - magic! Of course, it all had to go wrong ... and Dave LH faff about-er Repellant Ruddock looked set to do that. But he didn't know how confident my army was after its routing of the Ottoman LH horse in the previous game.. and he was using Sanat Hooey Doodah - which in theory might even be forced to have some foot... would he know how to use troops who actually had to stand and fight?
Pictures of Medieval Knights from my Ancients Photo Directory
The terrain was of course pretty light, which probably favored me as much as Dave who's unsurprisingly stuffed full of light horse repellent SHNC list is available here. This time nothing sat in the middle - it was a sea of empty space (well, maybe the white balance was off on my camera making it look like the sea, but you get the picture).
John Hawkwood can sneeze with his eyes open |
Immediately the game started the two armies lined up in a fairly linear way, but this time the odious SHNC had concentrated their actual proper fighting troops all on one side of the table leaving next to nothing (well, LH) elsewhere.
... but at least by spreading themselves thinly they were unable to move quite as fast as they might have liked, allowing the men at arms to race forwards, helped by the threat of a knightly charge, to peg back the SHNC into their own half of the table.
On the right, some of my knights realised they were facing such paltry opposition that they probably were not even needed and started to peel off towards the middle where serious action might take place. The rest of the men at arms advanced with some impunity
John Hawkwood can lead a horse to water AND make it drink. |
Taking advantage of the one bit of patchy terrain on table, archers and longbowmen intimidated the disgusting SHNC light foot skirmishers with a volume of firepower as they pushed forward into the strangely undefended end of the SHNC line.
The SHNC light horse were finding it increasingly difficult to work out what to do as the invulnerable infantry advanced towards then in waves - their superior armour allowing them to absorb huge amounts of fire at will.
But one set of Free Company knights (in the middle of the picture) had taken some fire, and against their better judgment decided to charge uncontrollably at the irritating light horsemen .... taking them rather dangerously close to the flank of the heinous SHNC spear block - who dithered about turning to take advantage of the offered flank but thought better of it when they saw the Free Company cavalry waiting to their front.
John Hawkwood once challenged Machiavelli to a "Who has more testicles?" contest. John Hawkwood won by 5. |
The knights charged forward, but of course the light horse - only just - managed to get away!
This left a surreal faceoff as my Crap Cavalry looked threateningly at the lousy SHNC spearmen - they were defensive spearmen, and so would get no +'s if they charged - yet the lancers would surely die if they decided to charge in, so their general tried hard to keep them from attacking.
But, with their flanks secured by the lancer cavalry, the Free Company knights sorted out their disorder and charged onwards watched by aghast light foot shooters. They had managed to hit a line of knights whilst still in a 2x2 block, but this might not matter as they were on the end of the enemy knights line, so could expand out fairly easily after impact.
John Hawkwood does not get frostbite. John Hawkwood bites frost |
This excitement had distracted the execrable SHNC general, and he had not noticed - or, more accurately, had no spare units with which to respond - as the mercenary English longbowmen maneuvered into a position where they could comprehensively threaten the flank of the repulsive SHNC spear line - and then peppered them with highly effective shooting to add indult (and casualties) to injury.
But despite being pretty evenly matched up, the main Free Company knight attack went disastrously wrong, losing 2 bases in the first 2 rounds of combat! The onlooking nauseating light infantry handgunners had inadvertently played their part, as simply by blocking the expansion of the Free Company knights they had allowed their own knights to maintain a decisive overlap throughout the entire combat.
There is no chin behind John Hawkwood's beard. There is only another fist. |
Elsewhere the distasteful SHNC light horse were scooting out of the way of the slowly advancing wall of steel...
The Crap Lancers finally pulled the trigger - they knew they were probably onto a loser, but the chance of pinning the SHNC spearmen in place whilst the Free Company longbowmen rolled up their flanks seemed worth the risk - meanwhile more irritating 4-strong evil SHNC handgunners moved up t block off any possible breakoff by the cavalry.
The poor spearmen defending the end of the line were by now shot to pieces and in no state to absorb a flank charge.
When the Bogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for John Hawkwood |
The spearmen broke as the longbowmen lurched towards them and routed through the entire engaged line of repulsive SHNC spearmen in a cheating super long interpenetration sort of way, giving heart to the already rather battered Crap Cavalry!
The spearmen then routed back towards their own lines, making yet another cheezy interpenetration of their own knights, who had by now broken and utterly destroyed the initial Free Company knightly charge...
As other noisome SHNC knights piled forward, Free Company Men at Arms braced themselves for the impact.
John Hawkwood's hand is the only hand that can beat a Royal Flush. |
The Crap Cavalry theory now started to look good, as the gross SHNC spearmen were pinned in combat whilst the longbows and more Men at Arms closed in on their far flank, and a 2nd unit of Free Company knights piled towards them on the near side !
The abominable SHNC infantry found themselves at the center of a wheeling melee, as knights clashed with knights on their left, and Free Company Men at Arms piled into them from the front. They had thinned out in an attempt to get more men fighting the by-now destroyed Crap Cavalry and were now vulnerable to the men at arms.
But even as their comrades were struggling, the magically lucky SHNC knights were battering yet another unit of Free Company knights - this time without the benefit of overlaps they were killing 2 bases for no losses, leaving the Free Company Strike Force in tatters
The table finally turned for the Spearmen as the longbows charged in again.
John Hawkwood doesn’t have a sundial, HE decides what time it is. |
The spearmen were now broken, triggering a rout amongst an already battered crossbow unit who had been burt through several times before. At last, the entire left flank of the heinous SHNC army was in rout - however this was only 2 units out of the 428 in the cursed SHNC army once you counted the un-catchable skirmishers.
Bizarrely, the on-the-brink-of-defeat Free Company knights had recovered to destroy the knights who had been battering them so recently, and despite the presence of another unit of knights who had joined the fray as an overlap, both sides now charged past each other as their opponents evaporated!
With the beastly SHNC spearmen being pursued by 2 units, they were soon totally eliminated leaving a huge gap in the loathsome SHNC army - both spear units and one knight unit were no gone for the ignoble SHNC leaving almost no decent troops at all and and allowing the jubilant Free Company to reform and start to close in on the tricky skirmisher-dense heart of the abject SHNC battle line.
In middle ages John Hawkwood invented Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear.. |
The Free Company pushed out from their salient to press the craven SHNC - but crucially the Free Company knights had failed to turn after their battle and the flanking SHNC knights.
Soon resulting in another 2nd broken knight unit .....
In the big empty spaces of the table, skirmishers were at last finding the game to their liking and were starting to stand up to formed Free Company foot - and, given hundreds of opportunities to rally them as they were slowed down by routing through a wood, the dastardly SHNC had managed to rescue the routing spear unit !
By now the game had become a ridiculous farce as a few small units of heavy foot tried to catch a huge number of units of dishonorable light horse who were staying on the field despite nearly all their line of battle troops being destroyed or routed.
At least the SHNC baggage was being munched upon..
Tellingly, the game was finally decided by 2 small units of skirmishers, as a unit of 4 Bidets was shot down by 2 plebeian SHNC bowmen, and added to 2 units of knights, some baggage, the Crap Cavalry and a couple of other bits saw the Free Company go down to a crushing 19-6 defeat.
John Hawkwood is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like John Hawkwood. |
Post Match Summary
How grim is that. I batter the enemy's main troops, perform possibly the most brilliant flanking maneuver ever seen, roll up an entire line of enemy spearmen like a ropey old carpet, beat half their knights into the ground, pillage their baggage and leave almost nothing of note left alive, yet still I mange to lose. What the hell happened there?
The evil Spaniards were so incompetent they allowed me to simply line up and flank their line - but they knew that they had about 7,000 units and so any one or even two of them mattered not. These ridiculous flippery-flammery light horse jockeys were just laughing at me whilst battered their nobility and fine upstanding burgomasters - its like rampant socialism had come to Medieval Spain in the guise of a period of history where they in fact had made up some bizarre religious conspiracy simply to maintain an iron grip on power for the primacy of the Crown even over the lesser nobility - I really don't get it.
It would have been perhaps interesting in my first set of knights hadn't charged, and then hadn't charged "super-long" in the early phase of the game, as if I had the chance to co-ordinate both units of knights rather than accidentally committing them piecemeal it could have been a different game.
Anyways, time for lunch, and only one more game and the Caesar bloke may well be back in the saddle. I bet you can't wait?
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Idiot. Your failing here was a pretty basic one.
It wasn't even military.
You failed on the aspect of "counting".
Counting how many units the enemy had, and working out how many you needed to kill to win the game.
Admittedly, once you had undertaken that exercise you may well have realised that you stood practically no chance, but at least then you could have had some personal satisfaction from setting your stall out with the limited objective to try and beat the enemies capital troops before their thousands of skirmishers ground you down. In this situation you would have been achieving a moral victory if not a real one.
I also think you messed up badly by deploying the knights in the wrong place, and in having nothing other than your own knights with which to take on enemy knights. This meant that you were inevitably going to struggle to co-ordinate both units - they are hardly the fastest and most maneuverable troops in the world - and your best bet was a 50-50 luck-fest (given that no idiot everturns up with the only other 2 varieties of knights in FoG, Ordinary or Armoured).
The end result is a game that you mistakenly thought you might be winning, but which your opponent was never in danger of losing. As I said before, the composition of your army is inherently flawed, and you didn't get away with it this time.
Only one more game to endure.
Lets see how the next game goes.
View My Stats for My FoG Pages