Kingdom of Sicily Vs Granadine

The badies! Lights do not seem very Italian looking, but who am I to judge.

I forgot to grab a copy of the list. The unit count is correct. I think there are some elite lights in there.

Nothing clever about this list. 14 impactful knights! I have a hammer and I am going to throw it at your head. I like this list. The only downside, and it could be a dozy, you have no terrain capability at all. You can't voluntarily dismount, so even a field is a problem. Also the army is small, so unforgiving of mistakes. Not necessarily a downside, just need to be aware of.

I struggled a little in the game keeping track of which knights were impetuous/elite and which were the impact.

Now my list is legal! With the points saved from heavy knights becoming medium knights we added in a medium cavalry to one of the light horse commands. Otherwise, same a last report. Big tough centre, highly maneuverable wings.

Due to upgrade from light to medium this included general gets to have a real flag, not one made from paper and spit....

...so I forgot to take one or two pics. Was caught up in the whole "Oh feck, oh feck, 14 fecking knights on a billiard table OH FECK" moment. Which is a shame. The hill is gentle in case you were wondering. The brown splotch is a march, the grey a road. Top right a plantation.

Sicily wins the initiative (grumble I am +2 up on the die....) and attacks in the planes. Neither one of us wants terrain, except had I known it was 14 knights I would have made more of an effort to get something rough down. Light horse can still romp through it and would have given my crossbows somewhere to hide.

Sicily hid a full command in the plantation, ambushing on the first turn why? Allowed them to extend their deployment zone to the edge of the board (you can abush in the flanks you can't normally deploy in). This allowed him to the edge of the board and no way for the light horse on the Grans side to skitter past and be annoying.

So what's the Grens (my) plan. I want to rotate the board 90 degrees. Using the lights to slow down the Scilly East Flank while I rotate and walk down West to East

Two tuns on. Grans turn. (from here on will take photos). Whats the old adage "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy?" or is it "Meebee I am not as clever as I think I am....". Sicily has come in hard and fast. Grans are too scared of getting their light horse trapped in a metal vice, or getting ZoC'd by the Sicily light horse and having nowhere to go but run off table. Whats the line from Aliens... "DRAKE, WE ARE LEAVING".

Further complications have been made by Sicily venturing up the hill. Which I didn't expect. Heavy spear, are going to get to the top of the hill first and that's not a great war for knights. However, the Grens elite but impetuous knights have been triggered by the approaching Sicily knights and the Grans can't spare the pips to hold them. So... CHARGE. Combat goes well (+3 up and evens). Way up North a Grans light horse has been dispatched to go camp sacking. Best job eva!

The battle for the hill begins. Hill, General and an assist! Putting a Brilliant General in combat is generally a no-no, but with an Elite troop type the lowest possible result is a five. So like a one in thirty six change of losing the conflict.

As an aside my wargaming club has a toast, generally first drink of the occasion. Everyone raises their glass and one will cry out "One in thirty six!" As the glasses clink together the rest, in unison roar "UNLESS ITS IMPORTANT!" This is in reference to every wargamer having a tale of how the lost X through Y on some utterly improbable (but not impossible) dice roll at the most important part of the game.

(Shout out to the Monday Knights, I love you guys)

The Sicily General has realised my plan and dispatches a force of knights to the North West to shore up that flank. The battle for the hill sees the first casualty, am so excited that I use a blue splat marker! Lots of measuring 4 UD going on to maximise double moves.

Grans general gets to pop out at the end of combat and get back to Generalling. Given his command is in six bits, he has a lot of Generalling to do!

Grans turn and it is a big one. The Scilly camp is sacked and three Sicily knights on the hill are routed! The battle for the Hill is WON! Lets all go home.

Piles of skulls everywhere. Makes the heart feel good. Or at least for one side of the map anyway. All the troops, bar one light foot in the far right of the shot, are Grans.

"We have captured their camp...errr... elephant statue?..how the hell are we getting this back to Gibraltar... It would look great in the front yard though, really show off the new decking."

However, is not all chocolats and elephant statues. The Scilly force charges in East of the hill and beats the snot out of the Grans knights. I should have photo the dice the rolls must have been terrible. First fight was even, Grans knight lost two cohesion, second fight Sicily was one up (got friend) and the Grans knight routed on contact! Adding insult to injury he routs through two of the light horse disrupting both of them!

Caring muchly for his own skin the Grans light horse commander orders the disordered light horse to block the Sicily Knights ZoC. The rest of the commands scapers down the road. The Brilliant commander on the hill just doesn't have the pips to get everything moving his command is in seven bits (nine if you count the lights). He needs to from a line, and he needs it soon.

At the time I was grumpy with this. The Sicily knight wasn't dead, but the factors are not that great. The Sicily knight is 0 (hard flanked, disordered, support) and the Grans knight is +2 (disordered, but got hard flanking mate). +2 is great, but not a guaranteed kill. think I was just narky about the Grans knights getting clobbered in the turn before and the dice "owed me".. cause thats how dice work...

Sicily turn. They are rapidly forming an North/South line (ish), In the centre South a Sicily knight charges the Grans light horse and it holds..... you are probably wondering why? If it doesn't, the Grans knight to the West will be hard flanked by the Sicily knight that didn't charge, and with only one life left, that would be all she wrote. So the light horse made the ultimate sacrifice. Light horse is -1 (0 -1 disordered) to the knights +4 (+2 vs cav, impact, friend). That +5 up and the knight is elite. The worst it can do is a seven....

Stoopid impetuous knights. Both Grans knights are triggered, both get sent in. Would have liked another turn to get into position. The heavy spear also gets involved, with the help of a handy light horse flanking the Sicily knight. Doesn't drop the knight, but does remove its impact and furious charge.

In the Centre South Grens knight rear charges a Sicily knight. I have been starting at this pic for 4 minutes now, and I cannot understand why I charged the rear, allowing the other Sicily knight to rear charge next turn, when I could have hit the flank and NOT have that happen. it just seems so monumentally stoopid, generally I would blame the beer, and I would here. Except am 100% sober (yeah, on a smidge of a health kick for a week or two), so is just a glitch.

This does not go well. Losing both knight fights, and drawing vs the spear/knight fight. Am up +1 in that fight, but the knight is elite and armoured. So winning here is not a sure thing.

Sicily turn, and oh look that completely preventable rear charge happened. Am shocked!

I lose every fight this round. I would bitch more but was down in almost all of them. Is Sicily staging a come back?

No longer having to worry about pesky impetuous troops the Grans brilliant general is able to get a line on the hill going (remember that those are heavy cavalry not knights). The crossbows have a safe firing platform and with the aid of some light horse begin the process of shooting down some knights. Light horse in the far North preparing to skitter round, they have checked they can't be ZoC'd you can see the measuy thing. So am safe. Yup I am.

Sicily knight slides and moves 3UD bringing him into ZoCing range of light horse.... fine whatever geometry sucks. The battlefield has been turned 90 degrees. Most f the battles go the way of the nasty Sicily knights, only one combat in the South sees a victory for the Grans.

At the Southern most point a Sicily knight charges some light horse. The Light horse can keep this up all day. and have acres of room to evade in.

Grans open fire! Bet you'd forgotten you can shoot in this game. Crossbows hit light foot and a mess of bolts and javelin hit a Sicily knight. Up North its just a mess of pointy sticks, but another hit occurs. On the hill a heavy cavalry withdraws and the undamaged one steps in. There is one interesting fight.

So we have the good guys.

• One medium cavalry javelin, with included general (yellow flag)

• One light horse javelin

The bad guy

• Medium knight impetuous (being played by a pile of skulls)

The situation.

• Light cavalry javelin charges and hard flanks knight Cancelling knights impact ability

• Medium cavalry javelin charges frontly

• Knight does not drop a cohesion due to it only being light troop on flank.

• Medium cavalry DOES get ist javelin ......feck no it doesn't. Medium cavalry doesn't ever get a javelin bonus. Dammit.

So is a far less interesting fight. I thought by cancelling the Knights impact with the light, my medium cavalry would get the jav bonus, but it never gets a jav bonus.

So factor should have been Knight +2 vs cavalry against medium cavalry +1, general + 1, supported +1 for a net of +1 up for our heroes, not +2 as was played. Given the knight had armour am pretty sure that +1 extra made a difference in the knight getting routed in one round. And with that cheating manoeuvre the Grans take the field! Go me and my fecking up the rules! Victory!

So my plan worked, kinda. I miscalculated how quickly the knights would close, and the bursting out of the plantation on the first turn threw my hunt the Eastern flanks plan out the window. I also didn't expect the Sicily army to contest the hill, though arguably it cost them. The real error was asking so much from my brilliant general who from turn one had four groups to command, one of whom was impetuous. So every turn I needed a 3+ on generals pips dice just to do the basics. I was probably too concern with not having my crossbowmen caught in the open as well. They should have been on the end of the Western spear line. They could have always fallen back. Instead they got to shoot twice all game and spend some quality time in a swamp....