Convert?

The nights are fair drawing in as we Scots say, it's getting colder and it is darkish now when I arrive at the club. Last night was an introductory game for Ryan, a newcomer, to the world of War and Conquest and a Dark Age set to with Romano-British versus Saxon Heptarchy, I had the British.

Because of a lack of armour I took advantage of my army list and gave all the foot large shields, a leftover from their Roman masters, the only armour on the field was my Comitatus with the Dux and my mounted Milites. I took four infantry blocks, one cavalry and a couple of skirmishers, Ryan had two Gedriht units, one on foot and one mounted, I would have to look out for these and then three standard warbands with again a couple of skirmish units.

I set up in typical Dark Age style and put the cavalry on my left along with the archers, I hoped to cut down the mounted Gedriht with archery and then hit them with more mounted men as my unit was larger. I should have taken a note of this plan. Both sides marched towards each other and I lost some time going into shieldwall, something I usually disdain but have learned my lesson, I also needed it to give whoever fought the Gedriht a chance.

Throughout all these command tests I was throwing in my advantage points and then found I had none to try and help get the initiative before starting the next round, this was a real bind as I wasn't doing too well gaining initiative. I advanced my line and saw right away my left was wide open, I had delayed pushing my cavalry up in order to shoot at the Saxon cavalry, this was a bad idea. Ryan managed to charge into the flank of my Pedyts, although beat they held, it was a big unit, they had a Decurio with them and I threw in a SIP to keep them in place. Next turn Saxon infantry also hit the Pedyts, but I had at last thrown my cavalry in and hit the Saxon horsemen in the flank, the fight was escalating, this time I won. The rest of the line now clashed apart from my Comitatus which I should have thrown in but didn't, again content to let my slingers grind down the Saxons opposite them.

Having held and won the fight on the left I expected victory to follow, but a disastrous round saw my men fall like chaff before the wind and none of the enemy eating dirt! My boys fled only to be run down, I wasn't doing too well in the other fights either, I was now engaged all along the front and had enraged Saxons to my rear. I did the decent thing and called it a day, time was up and the last turn would just have seen more hurt inflicted on my men.

There you have it, a good game and a good introduction for Ryan who seemed very pleased with the rules, as he would be, I believe he is looking to buy them and also look at some figures, he likes the Hoplite period and this would give my Romans an enemy close at hand.

Elsewhere at the club there were several board games being played, a Bloodbowl match and a Bolt Action game which looked rather good, British Para's against Germans, I would have liked to have seen more of this but I was locked in a struggle to the death with the Saxons. 

I am not doing a lot at the moment despite having those models from Rubicon on the back burner, I have started on some walls for my WWII terrain, I don't see them taking up a lot of hours, it will be the Henry Cooper school of painting with those, splash it all over. I think I will then move on the Hanomag before the M3 as I will more than likely be playing Germans before British.