Dark Age War and Conquest

After enjoying a couple of good games on Sunday Simon asked me to give him another game of War and Conquest, more a learning game than a match to the death, so I was quite happy with that. I went with two Romano-British forces both with Allies, the armies were a mirror of each other and were kept basic, no fancy stuff like elephants, chariots, cataphracts etc.

Parking at the club has now fallen foul of the modern equivalent of belt and braces, the building in whose grounds I have parked for what, over three years, maybe four now has girls staying in it, so in order to keep them safe bollards have been erected to stop cars parking, it seems strange that no one has mentioned that possible monsters on foot will have no problems but hey, what do I know.

Back to the good stuff. Simon lined up with some infantry way out on his right then nearer the centre his cavalry, Milites, Picts, Comitatus and Franks, I put my cavalry on my left then two units of Milites, Saxons, Welsh and Comitatus. It wasn't going to be a fancy game of maneuver, it was going to be a bloody slog, we both wanted to get the hill in the centre of the battlefield, to this end I threw in extra dice to gain the initiative and managed to get to the top before Simon's men. On my left I put my cavalry into skirmish so that they could deal with the archers and keep away from the large block of infantry while showering them with javelins. I was quite happy to have a stand up fight and if I could charge first then all the better.

 Everything went well, I held off the enemy right and my Saxons smashed the Picts, after this Simon threw two units in and although my Milites stood the Welsh ran. I now took on the Franks with my Comitatus, they were winning but slowly. With the crises approaching and things looking fairly even my Milites, which had been pushed back earlier, turned the tables on their opponents and in a superhuman effort broke them, this in turn caused the archers and the cavalry to run, a really bad morale throw for the mounted Milites. This pendulum swing brought the battle to an end and Simon offered his sword.

A good little game and as usual with a Dark Age battle could have gone either way, I think Simon's only mistake was not to put his cavalry on the wing and leaving them in the main battle line, they just cannot face infantry battle formations.

I have just ten minutes ago finished my British grenadiers, this is the second battalion in the army, I have now primed my second French battalion and will begin them this evening no doubt.

I have a Chain of Command weekend coming up with my son and have been getting all my bits and pieces ready, I had hoped to have the new figures for my Jump Off Points but they have not arrived, now over the two week mark, I shall test the waters at three weeks because I know Black Tree Design has been having problems. I have however managed to put together an Allied and a German set of dice complete with dice for command roles, considering I have 12 dice sets and odds and ends is mad, you don't have to tell me, just don't tell the missus.