The next tournament I intend to play in is the last two books, so my upcoming games will likely all be from those periods. After I got to play with a whole lot of pike my opponent announced he would be hitting the table with Medieval Scots!
Errrr.... ummm... is this list illegal? The pike have to mediocre I believe. Going to assume the list is the year 1385 otherwise there are too many foot and mounted knights as well. Okay, so we have some well trained Medieval Scots.
Two mirror commands and they are hard. Foot knights and pike marry well together, longbow give you force projection and the heavy knight impetuous is kept back as a mobile reserve to fill any gaps. The Highlanders are some of those sexy medium sword bow (not 1/2 sword bow) and hold terrain like nothing else. 22 is smallish, but there is not a lot of weakness in the list.
The good guys. Here is the concept I am going for. ROCK hard command elite foot knights, elite mounted knights sexier medium sword longbow. 125 points in one command. There is nothing this command cannot handle. Next to my elite command of happiness is my somewhat less elite command. Six mediocre troops whose job is to die slowly while other things get done. I am generally not a fan of mediocre bow, mediocre longbow are slightly less useless than mediocre bow, but only slightly. The heavy knight impact is to give the command some small scarniess. Last commands job is to delay a flank if the opponent is bigger, or just be really annoying if not. Really the whole list is about Corps I getting involved as soon as possible before it all goes belly up.
As the terrain fell I realised that my force has NO WAY to contest terrain. In a pinch I suppose the elite foot knights could wander in, but not in terrain and downhill. At this point I would like to point out the field covered hill in the West. Perfect for the highlanders.
Elite foot knights! Lets not talk about the mediocre stuff further down the line. Not everyone is lucky enough to be born into the nobility.
After last games 'proxy' fest of minatures it was nice to be able to field fully representative dudes. Including light cavalry crossbow which I found in a box of stuffs purchased at random.
Crappy command uses all its pips to move the knight. Cool command advances. Compact command moves out East to see what happens.
Highlanders take the hill. Rest of the Scots kinda move forward, but kinda dont.
The French (me) Get a little confused about what to do. With absolutely no way to get the Highlanders off the hill they feel kinda paralysed. Don't want to advance into bow fire range, don't want to advance and give up flanks. I poured myself another beverage (double) and waited.
The Scots advance. The Scots take some light infantry fire to the face!
The French, seeing the disorder on the Scots, get their Cool command moving! With a little bit of the crappy command to bolster the line. The rest of Crappy stays out of boy range. In the East Compact command takes a hit. Not great when your whole command only has four hits total.
Firstly, how cool is that dice cup! (Is not a drinking vessel) . Has pike on it and everything. I am a fan of letting dice careen across the battlefield, shooting off table and watching the cat go nuts for a new toy.
Dice cups are so civilised.
In other news the Scots bring up some bow and rout half of Compact Commands command. First kill to the Scots and this flank is not looking good for our heroes.
The situation in the West is basically a stand off. The Highlanders don't want to come off the hill due to the impact knight. The Knight, mediocre longbow, mediocre heavy spear sure as bananas don't want to wander through bow fire to fight highlanders uphill in terrain. Who will blink first?
(blink) French need to protect their Western flank, so mediocre stuff walks into bow range. French charge in the centre. Cool Command gets stuck in... well half of them anyway. Light infantry starts doing work on the scot pike (shooting).
Bowfire takes it toll in the West. Centre fight is kinda even with both sides about to lose two units. The issue for the French is in the East. One light horse stands in the way of the flank falling.
French need to make magic happen, and happen quickly. That Eastern flank is going to go, not a question of if but of when. French knights charge and it is wonderful. Scot pike (previously disordered) is routed on contact! French foot knights cleave through two more pike and as quick as a community Bunnings Sausage through the lower intestine the Scots have no centre! They have two knights in reserve, but that is one hell of a hole to fill. In response the Scots rout a foot knight, but miracle of miracles the mediocre heavy sword is holding vs the Scot foot knight!
Bloody bowfire. French units in the West are starting to look somewhat of the families Erethizontidae. French mediocre heavy sword still does not die (medals all round boys). Impetuous Scot knights join the fray in the center, but combat all goes they way of the French.
French move some crappy troops out of the death zone of some other crappy troops. Bow fire kills them anyway. Scot foot knights finally finish off the crappy heavy sword. The highlighted French foot knights didn't want to conform so just moved two UD straight forward, this is less sudical than it sounds as pike can't turn and move. Next to that a Scot knight gets hard flanked and routed. All in all it's looking pretty good for the French...(glaces at Eastern flank) I mean if you discount whats about to happen there.
What's not being shown well in the West is the amount of rallying that is going on for the crappy heavy spear command under constant bow fire. Think the little blighter is on his seventh hit at this stage. Battle in the centre is just getting more French, but there is a ray of hope through the clouds. A Scot bow charges the light horse guarding the flank. The light horse has to hold. In desperation the light horse General decides to go down with his ship and join the fight!
And like an absolute rockstar puts two hits on the bow!
In one glorious stroke an umbrella has been put up and the Scots ray of sunshine is no longer the threat of sunburn it once was... that sentence got away from me but you get the point.
Could our plucky heroes turn the tide back?
Okay. This is going to take some explaining. Am going to do my best here. Two combats. Scot foot knights (SK) vs French medium sword (FS) and Scot bow (SB) vs French Light Horse (FH) with general attached.
SK routs FS
FS routs through FH (hit does not take effect until end of step)
FH routs SB
SB routs through Scot bow behind them, putting second hit on them.
Step ends
Scots roll to kill FH general, get the one
FH routs due to death of general.
I cry a little inside
Pour drink
And just like that the French Eastern flank collapses.
A valiant, nay, heroic effort by the Compact command was just not enough. There will be tales told of their sacrifice.
On the plus side French turns should be quicker as one whole command has been routed.
Mind you, the Scots center is looking less than fabulous. In the East the Scots rear charge and rout an French medium sword/loong bow. The West sees no combat as both sides are repositioning. Note the highlanders moving for the first time in about 50 years. Half of the highlanders anyway.
French knights slam hard in the East, and just like that the battle for the flank is over and the French win! Two flank attacks with impact elite knights made me smile, or possibly the alcohol buzz was kicking either way, I felt good.
In the South, well the South has the worlds crappiest camp marker about to be sacked by some Scot lights. There is nothing to be done about this. Or at least if I was going to do something about it it needed to be done two turns ago. There even seems to be some French lights 'hanging' around watching on the other side of the field.
Combat is joined in the West, even some light on light action!
Scots turn... they sack the longboat. Sad face, French have no way to get home now. However, while the French are close to breaking, the death of a light Scot infantry breaks the Scottish will and the French are VICTORIOUS!
The black cube of defeat. Placed near the black rum of forgetfulness. Near the crossed arms of defiance.
That was an odd game. The situation with the Highlanders and the hill is bugging me. Not sure if my opponent made the right or wrong choice keeping them on the hill. Actually, just did some maths. The Highlanders kept more than there points busy, routed and disordered the enemy and took no losses. He was darn right to keep them on the hill!
Otherwise the game went how I wanted it to. The Cool Command only lost one of their knights and there wasn't a mark on the other five. They chewed through their opposition. The Crap Command died slowly, sometimes really slowly, tick to them. Compact command got unlucky, then lucky, then SO unlucky. All in all am happy with how I played and I think I deserve a star! I am a tactical genius!
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Oh... the burning camp. The completely avoidable, could have sent two lights to see off his one light, burning camp. That camp.
Maybe I get like a smaller star, not gold, but an off brown.....
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