Wargame Weekend Game 1

My son hasn't been able to wargame since we last went to the War and Conquest gaming weekend, so this weekend he was free so we decided to do two games, we probably might have made it two on the Saturday but we also had the grand kids and if you have any you know how much attention they require, at least until they become teens.

Stewart brought his Carolingians to the field and this time changed his composition to only one cavalry and five infantry units, the infantry had three elite formations which always give me a headache. I too had decided to change things around, I took Saxon Heptarchy which have won at least two of the last three games against Stewart's guys, I only took one bodyguard unit, two average cavalry and some fairly uninspiring infantry along with those damn Franks. My idea was that the long spear armed Ceorls would hold the enemy up due to their numbers and the extra ranks allowed by the spear, long enough for my Gedriht, Franks and cavalry to smash a flank and win the game.

We do not bother with he objective cards and mainly fight a simple pitched battle, which is what we have with both our armies only turning up once in a blue moon they are not going to be happy with a mere run off the table to win, they want a fight. The Carolingians had an infantry line with their cavalry in reserve, I was hindered by a wood to my front so put my PBI on the left and my winning forces on the right and behind the wood. In WAC you have different set up zones, I have them on cards and we chose the Winter Deployment, so the wood became a real problem for me and I had to squeeze four units around it. The single tree's are only for the visuals.

Carolingians on the left, Saxons on the right.

Carolingians.

Saxons.

Saxon traffic jam.

Off we went and the Carolingians went straight for my infantry, I started to open up my right but it was slow going waiting for the Franks to come around, the cavalry sped off and approached the enemy flank. Stewart held this flank back but made some room for his cavalry to come out, however I had a unit on a nearby hill waiting for him, if he charged the skirmishing cavalry he would expose his flank, not a great move on my part as one of his units held up two of mine.

Opening moves.

It was taking forever to get my right into action, meanwhile the Carolingians hit my left, both my engaged units lost the first round but their morale held, they also held in the second but my centre unit broke in the third. It was now that disaster struck, my second Ceorl unit holding the extreme left and opposite a bunch of Franks they should beat if they got into combat, ran for the hills despite the efforts of a nearby Thegn to rally them.

Saxon left fails.

The end is nigh.

I thought I could still pull it out of the bag if I could destroy his left, this would leave me with four units vs three but I had to be quick and deadly. I needed the initiative to pull this off but as I had used all my initiative points to try and hold my infantry in place it was going to be dodgy, Stewart threw in one of his points and won the roll off, he attacked me, I lost the badly needed impetus. My household troops were fine, they cut the Liberi opposite them up for, well, toilet paper. The Franks you shout, what about the Franks, well they reverted to type and once again let me down, I know they were up against elite Stipendari but that's no excuse, not in my book, they fled.

Franks leg it, sigh.

That was it, there was no way now to turn the tide, even if they had simply held for a couple of turns I had two units to throw on the flanks of the Stipendari, but no, as my Cyning looked around him he knew it was time to leave with what troops he had left.

The wargame, if I say I threw twenty-two dice and got a result with five what would you think, grounds for a major moan I should say, and you would be right, at the time I was most dischuffed that my line was destroyed and especially at the unit which had ran without a scratch. Stewart did point out that the Ceorl unit that stood dished out some major casualties and held for three rounds, which on reflection was fair enough against an elite formation. Stewart deployed first and perhaps I should  have put my good guys opposite his but I didn't, I also waited too long to get my right into action, I could have pushed the Gedriht with cavalry support while waiting for the Franks but again I didn't, so well done to Stewart for pulling off a good win and doing nothing wrong, except that move where his archers charged my slingers and got wiped out.

I have some issues with the Carolingian army and the others of the same type i.e. Normans and Bretons in WAC, they have far too many superior troops to choose from and almost no rubbish, in fact you can have an army full of elites, in the Norman case it is supposed to be the 1066 army, so there is possibly a thin argument for this but not any of the others. Normans in wargaming are a bit like the Imperial Guard or Waffen SS, they just have to be brilliant, all this despite the fact they only just won Hastings against an English army which was not at full strength and had just recently carried out a forced march.