How did that pic get in here? Wait... is that a FIRST PLACE TROPHY, for me?
Two day hard fought competition with an epic game to finish of the tournament against one of the best players in Australia.
Celebrated with many beers and telling people how great I am. Also learnt that "Hey babe, I just won an ADLG tourney, wanna come back to my place and see my trophy?" is not the success story of a pick up line that I hoped it would be. I live, I learn.
What follows wasn't played on the the day, but a friendly.
Medium artillery, two of. You really don't see a lot of artillery in ADLG. Two of them with a light allows every shot to be +2 up (you are always 0 vs artillery, exception: lights). That is kinda scary, however I have always found they just don't do enough damage before something comes and chops them up. Pike are always good.
Medium swordsmen longbow. I LOVE this unit. It sings, it dances, it romances. Doesn't love a knight, but is the same speed so as long as there is some terrain around you have a safe home base. Heavy cavalry impact gives the command some punch.
Foot Knights and Crossboss oh and a longbow in there as well. Pavise means you get to win a bow off. Foot knights are just plain tough.
So... I have a weird relationship with war wagons. I want to love them, I want them to love me, but much like highschool I cannot get any sort of healthy thing going on. Lets come back to them in a touch. Rest of the force is solid. Four impact heavy knights, pole arm heavies are the new black with the recent (ish) upgrade. The micro command is highly manoeuvrable and annoying as hell.
Warwagons. The good
Protection 2
4 cohesion
Need two bad guys to really take them on
Make four legged things reconsider their life choices.
The bad
No ZoC
Flipping slower than treacle when it comes to manoeuvring.
Can't contact the enemy this INCLUDES moving into support (they can provide support if the enemy charges an adjacent friend).
Don't get the +1 for shooting mounted (only your LMI get that)
So those last two were a mid game surprise from my opponent who has more warwagon experience.
Okay, so here is the tactic. Army is only 22 big, with a fighting line of 14 units (I don't count lights of the mediocre medium foot. The medium foots job is to fill a hole or maybe hunt a flank). BUT the four warwagons means the line is actually 18 wide. So the war wagons protect the flanks, extend the line and throw sharp pointy things down range.
The baddies preparing to move forward and pepper the enemy before making way for the foot knights to do the chopping.
Hussite won the initiative and elect to defend, why you ask. To get rid of any longbow safe zones. The Hussite have no ability to clear terrain. What they have is a high initiative and a strategist, don't need to clear terrain if you clear the board of terrain! Works a treat and the centre of the board looks nice and open.
Then at deployment the wheels start to come off (thats a war wagon joke) as I deploy in such a way that a war wagon back end is in the forest. My opponent very kindly pointed out that warwagons have a speed of 0 in difficult and if I deployed there... well my warwagon would become a war hut. So instead its a this weird angle and not part of a group.
BO comes forward, but lacks the pips for everyone to get their march on.
First moral hit! I am winning. We should call it here and move back to the bar
Hussites advance. The BO are tiny as far as armies go, and the Knights in the West should be able to rip though the medium sword longbow. Wargaons and heavy swordsmen pole arm can tie up two knights in the centre, and will just hang on in the East. Game is in bag. Warwagon moves to have a shot at the light horse... you don't get the + 1 for shooting at mounted with a warwagon (third war wagon rule wrong)
Wait, what? BO impact horse skitters past ZoCless warwagon (yup, thats two warwagon rules in two turns I have forgotten) and is now behind the front line. Little baftard has impact/furious charge, or even if he doesn't charge the ZoC he projects can freeze units. Sad face.
In the West the knights bare down on the medium sword longbow. I have a light cavalry that can play ZoC the heavy cavalry all day and all night. The issue is the billmen had to turn around to deal with the BO light horse in the centre. All of a sudden the BO impact knights are feeling a lot freer. One wargan is just not that scary. In the East Hussites advance.
This looks bad for the bow, but heavy sword/foot knights can interpenetrate bow. So the bow armed squishy are about to become second rank to some of the hardest units in the game.
In the West the BO medium sword turn and make a run for the brush, pretty sure they are one turn to late. However, BO knight support is fast approaching! In the centre BO artillery keeps crashing through the roof of the warwagon. In the East a group of knights steps THROUGH the bow in front of them and prepares to engage.
OVer in the West a Hussite light horse ZoCs the BO heavy cavalry. They will spend the rest of the game in this dance. (ZoC, charge, evade... repeat). In the Centre a Hussite light horse blocks the BO evade move and the light horse gets crunched by polearm foot. See this seems like a win for the Hussites, but they have expended an inordinate of resources to kill a seven point unit. This has allowed the BO knights to run around unchecked and the heavy foot is so far from the war that they might as well leave the battlefield early and beat the traffic home. Best seven points the BO could have spent.
In the East, well in the East I took a risk. I am in trouble. I am relying on a mediocre heavy spear (two or three turns work for the approaching knight) and a mediocre medium sword who is facing down AN ELITE KNIGHT GENERAL. I have renamed him speedbump. My center is too far away, or being bombarded with artillery. And I forgot that warwagons can't move into support (fourth warwagon rule wrong). So I decide to not advance the pole arm and just send in the knights
Technically one knight, with simple support. So here is my plan. Put the General in and be +2 on the die with furious charge! I should have also charged with the polearm, they would be beaten by the knights eventually, but would have made the knights +3 on the die and I needed this break though NOW!
Can you see that 'one', that is my one. Good news, having the pole arm charge would not have affected the outcome. Bad news is my knight takes two hits and is pummeled by the foot knights. My breakthrough is not going well.
.....and I missed a photo. Only thing excting thing to happen on the BO turn is that the Foot knight killed the Hussite knight, but the general escaped.
The Hussite strategist rolls pips and so much happens. In the West knight crash into medium sword bow. Knights are +3 up with furious charge and it is a beautiful as it is brief. The centre sees a Hussite mediocre heavy spear engage the artillery for a draw, but with the arty engaged, or supporting it is no longer shooting! Win. In the East the Hussite knight conforms to the foot knight.
Okay, okay, this is good. There is still a lot to get done, but we have made some progress.
BO turn. in the West the BO knights slam into the Husstie foot. The best the mediocre medium foot can roll is a five. The worst the BO knight can roll is a .... well five. So there is a one in 36 chance of a draw and it all goes down hil from there. In the center the Hussite heavy spear kills the arty! The BO pike kill the warwagon.
This was a risk. The knight is up +1 but needs to do two hits to kill the heavy spear. If it does, the knight can then flank charge the white Hussite knight. If it doesn't then it gets flank charged.
Why am I taking this risk? Cause this whole war is going terribly!
My risk pays off and the Heavy spear holds....just
The break off rule, you are mounted vs foot, you can break off and catch your breath. This flank is basically lost so I now need to die slowly here and win somewhere else.
The two big events of the turn got described above. The other thing to note is the my strategist command is now in six bits and the general is not attached to any of it. Note that I am sacrificing this game to show you how to NOT run a command.
A knight has moved up in the West to protect the flank of the Hussite heavy spear.
Why did he do that? The spear was doomed anyway. The heavy spear breaks and routs through the knight, who also takes a hit from bow fire (sigh). In the East the BOs hold. They are bringing up their boy to start peppering the knight of the far East. They are winning this war and are in no rush to take risks.
Wait! The winning BO knight steps FORWARD into the space left by the routing heavy spear! Allowing the Hussite impact knight to rear charge the BO knight general with support and attached General!
I was so excited if I had stood up I would have risked poking my opponents eye out!
With a crash the knight General is routed on the spot! Could this war be turning?
No would be the answer to that question. West saw bow fire take out a hussite knight. In the East bow fire took out a Hussite light foot. In the Centre the pole arm heavy foot has ALMOST made it to the war. A quick count has the Hussites two from breaking... but wait, what is that in the bottom corner? How did a spear get there? Oh, its a casualty not in the casualty pile... let me add two to that demolition total. ROUT! BO wins! Evil rules the land! Hussite run home tail between there war wagons!
Okay, apart from the four, count them FOUR, rules errors with the warwagons what went wrong. I can actually point to it. That bloody light horse that got through my lines turn 2. Am not sure if I would have handled it differently. I mean apart from not letting the bloody thing through in the first place. I couldn't let it stay there. I need the medium foot in case the light horse risked the forest. No am okay with how I handled it, even though it cost me the game. The lesson is not leaving your front door unlocked, wide open with a sign saying "come take my stuff!".
The other big mistake was not attacking with the pole arm when the knight went in. Yes I rolled a one and it made not difference, but I didn't know that in advance. I needed to maximise the odds of a break through. Had the dice been reversed the foot knight would be no more. I would almost like to play it again from that point. Two knights free and just a damaged light and some bow to protect the foot knights flank. Think I could have made something of that.
but, is a poor battle plan that needs a single die roll to come off. It was going badly early so I needed to take risks.
Warwagons... did they do anything? I suppose one of the four made the foot knights think twice about charging the polearm. Overall I used them poorly, I cant even really understand what I was trying to do with them?
The BO player didn't make many mistakes, though allowing his included knight general to get rear charged was a whopper, and made my loss somewhat bearable.
Right, lessons learnt.
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