Missed Out

While away on holiday I missed another War and Conquest gaming weekend in Newark, I actually thought I would motor down yesterday for the day but after 1,000 miles in the Highlands I decided another six hour round trip was a trip too far.

I have seen scores of pictures of the event and, despite the small numbers it was another successful two days of gaming. Also at the moment it would seem there will indeed be another weekend in November for which I have already cleared my calender. Looking at the pictures I see that over the last wee while some players have started using massed archery, if on target this can be quite devastating, if on the other hand you fall out with the dice gods or the unit has to move it is less so. It would seem though that I now need more archers to always have that choice with three of my armies, it never ends.

I am travelling again this weekend down to Jenny's in Somerset for my own WAC weekend, Phil is organising the games. The Twelfth hopefully will be enforcing civilisation on the Celts and Germans while the next day the Patricians will be trying to maintain the Empire in the West.

So, without more ado here are some pictures from the two days battling.

Carolingians vs Vikings (Stewart and Jenny)

Republican Romans (Gary)

Romano-British civil war (Michael and Dave)

Saxons vs Vikings (Trevor and Jenny)

Some of 1st Corps Romano-British/Late Roman cavalry (Michael)

12th C English vs Carolingians (Michael and Stewart)

Carolingians vs Late Roman (Stewart and Gary)

Not looking good for the Black Horse.

Sharp Practice 2

As you know this is not my cup of tea, although I would probably play it to fight over some nice terrain with beautiful figures, also, if you want someone to play your game you have to play theirs, it's a given, and good manners.

The missus was leaving yesterday for a three week stint babysitting down south and the weather was beautiful, I decided therefore to go for a drive and pop in on the lads at the Keg and Kitchen in Grange-Over-Sands. I got the lid down on the Batmobile and cruised over at a leisurely pace, Grange is a one of those towns around here that just attracts people, like Kirkby Lonsdale, once in the car park I realised I didn't have enough loose change. It must take cards surely, yes it did, but it took me a good five minutes to work out how, it had been the same at the Spar petrol station earlier, I stood around waiting for the attendant to hit the button and found after investigation I had to press buttons on the pump first, easier life no doubt, but not the first time you come across it. I should have paid by card at the pump as the assistant was 'well slow'.

Once I got to Grange I walked in to an empty pub, I eventually found a kind lady and asked her where the toy soldiers was happening and was directed, rather furtively, to the corner, down the stairs and to the left. By the sounds coming from the room I expected something along the lines of Salute, but once in the room I found about a dozen people. It was a bit dark but there were four tables and three games going on around which everyone seemed to be having a blast. There was a 15mm game, a Napoleonic Peninsular bash and Richard Clarke himself, running what looked like AWI or around that era, the two latter tables looked very nice indeed while the 15mm was fairly normal for a club game. There was one more nice table set up for an ACW game later in the day but empty when I appeared.

I had a nice chat with the club guys running the event and also managed to throw some decent dice for Julian at one point. I also met Adam, who runs a GW store, in Kendal, I think and I enjoyed chatting to him for a wee while, he also managed to inform me where to get hold of the old GW paint and one of my favourites "Snakebite Leather" so a result there. There was also talk of a venue in Kendal at some point in the future for wargamers, I mentioned I would like to support that if and when it happens as I am only thirty minutes away.

I was invited to take part in the next game with the rules author but I was only out for a flying visit, so I said my goodbye's and wished the guys luck for the rest of the day. They had done a great job and well done for Two Fat Lardies for supporting them.

Slaughter in Snaith

My journey to Snaith in Yorkshire yesterday was dismal, motorway most of the way and constant rain and murk, surprisingly when I actually got to Snaith it was fairly mild, but of course wet. Snaith itself looks nice and it still has five pubs which is refreshing these days.

The small get together was being hosted by Michael and Simon of 1st Corps and Curteys Figures who, like the rest of this small band of brothers enjoy War and Conquest and are happy to supply prizes for our gaming weekends.

Due to the numbers it was decided to stick to the Dark Ages, Simon borrowed my Saxons, Michael had Romano-British, Trevor and Jenny had Vikings and Phil brought late Saxons, I had dithered about which army to bring but eventually settled on the Patrician Romans. I had made up two lists, one contained the fearsome(?) bolt shooters and the other more command, I went for the command in the end as I thought my Auxilia Legion would need some help for morale tests.

My first battle was against Simon, he had decided to use the Early Saxons which are pretty much a one shot army, they get good benefits in the first round of combat but will generally lose a long slog. Once deployment was complete I looked across the table and immediately thought my cavalry were in for a tough time as they were opposed by slingers and archers who outnumbered the Huns, it looked like Plan A was out of the window. I decided to lead with the Goths, hold the centre and see what transpired on my right.

Saxons left, Patricians right.

Saxon left about to take some hurt, Goths slowly advancing.

 Very shortly Simons shooting had sent my left flank skirmishers to the rear and he had broken my second unit of archers on my right by charging them, however they ran, rallied and in melee began eventually to beat the javelinmen, this was guaranteed when the second unit of archers joined the fray. Meanwhile the Goths were making heavy going of the broken ground to their front while also suffering from missiles, so much that the General himself fell riddled by shafts, my Magister Militum also took several wounds. The Huns however managed to save most of their hits and began at last to make an impact on the slingers, my Bucellarii charged the annoying archers and ran them down, this caused the Saxon cavalry which had formed into skirmish to test and they too ran to be run down in their turn, Simon's left had disappeared, could my infantry hold until the return of the Bucellarii.

Forget the casualties in the bottom corner, the end for the Saxons.

The Goths cleared the terrain and smashed into their opposite numbers and quickly began to win the melee, now the rest of the Saxon infantry charged in. One Legion crumbled but the other two held firm and turned the tide on the enemy, within a turn only one Saxon unit was left untouched and the second was just about to be routed by the Goths, it was game over. Simon is an ancients player and he was unused to the way the Saxons fought and of all the Saxon choices the Early army is in my opinion the weakest.

My second game of the day was against Michael and his lovely Romano-British army. This time neither of the flanks looked like a good bet for my Bucellarii so I put them on the right and the Huns on the left, once again the infantry were to hold the centre, when the time was right I would throw the Goths in against the formidable battle line opposite me. My opening move was to send the Bucellarii to the left as Michael had Comitatus cavalry there and the Huns would not stand up to them. Within a short space I had destroyed all the British skirmish formations which meant on my right I could shoot with impunity into the enemy line and on my left I had two units unloading death on the Comitatus. Michael put his infantry into shieldwall, so I knew I had plenty of time to send the heavy cavalry to the left and if my archery did not finish the Comitatus my cavalry would.

The Bucellarii change course while the infantry lines look on.

Sure enough the Comitatus cavalry were dispersed, Michael now had no option but to come forward before my cavalry got behind him or on his flank, he did not fancy taking on the Goths but sent four other units into my Roman line. In War and Conquest because all these units overlapped it became one huge melee, the first time I have ever seen this on the table, the British failed to cause one casualty on my shieldwall while my boys dealt out ten. Michael needed snake eyes to stay in the fight, but they didn't turn up and most of his army turned and fled, once again it was game over.

Rome victorious.

With the loss of his skirmishers so early in the game Michael was on the back foot, especially where his cavalry was concerned, I was very careful to use the range of the bow to keep out of possible charge reach and even if he did I had enough room to get away, while the Bucellarii were riding to the rescue. To have almost forty attacks and not gain a single casualty was a cruel blow, I had lost three casualties during the whole battle.

Vikings vs Vikings.

Romano-British vs Late Saxons

Same.

Down to the wire game Vikings vs Late Saxons.

 And there you have it, another great day for the Patricians, I love this army, it is an army for all seasons, and I will add one more Legion and Roman cavalry unit when I finish my other jobs. It was also a good day of fun and wargame chat, Michael and Simon were excellent hosts, we all got some speciality figures when we turned up, I got a Romano-British general and his standard bearer and at the end of the day I was given a large unit pack of their new Picts for winning my two games. We even managed a couple of pints at the pub a short distance away, I think a beer and a chat is a perfect end to a day's wargaming.

5th War and Conquest Gaming Weekend P2

We had our usual meet at the bar on Saturday night and there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, you would have thought nobody had won their games as we all vied for the sympathy vote, a long interesting conversation on all aspects of wargaming with WAC followed, along with many tall tales. I was first to rout as it had been a long day and I wanted to be fresh for the challenge the next day. In the morning I fuelled up on bubble n squeak and hash browns and set off into the miserable weather, I arrived first but soon the rest of the troops turned up and to our delight someone had been in the hall before us and put the heating on, or maybe it was just me glad to be out of the cold and damp.

Tea's were made, armies reorganised and tables claimed. I was fighting Jenny who was using Phil's Western Patrician Romans, as I said I don't have a good record with either of them, I was expecting some heavy cavalry but Phil's set up was vastly different from Andy Hawes' army at Peterborough, this one was all infantry. It was in two parts, very large Roman units along with a large wing of Germans in not so large units. The Roman troops carry everything except the kitchen sink, large shields, armour, thrusting spears and darts if I remember correctly and they looked fierce, I took some advice and aimed to put pressure on the Germans, so that's where my best troops went. Jenny was going to try and outflank my left, she had one more battle formation than me so I needed to kill the Germans quickly while trying to slow her down with skirmishers.

Jenny on the left, me on the right.

Germans ahead.

My right with the Saxons bounded forward, I held the Comitatus back for a couple of moves as my slingers were doing a lot of damage to the German nobles and I wanted to give the Comitatus as much help as possible before they went in. Sure enough Jenny brought her extra unit around the small wood, I chased her skirmish line off and began to pelt them with arrows and slingshot as they approached. I had had no choice but to send my line forward to hold the Romans in place, however my cavalry now had a flank to their front, a charge would probably not stop the infantry but it would delay them, maybe long enough for me to save my Milites holding the left. My cavalry refused three times to form up and I lost the opportunity, the Milites were now facing elite Roman troops to their front commanded by their general and another lot had charged their flank, to my amazement and everyone else around the table my boys held.

On the other flank just before this we had cleared out the Germans, albeit one had routed my Geoguth but they came back, for a time at least before running again, but my Gedriht having seen off their opponents and been hit in the flank also stood their ground around their general. My Comitatus had destroyed the German nobles to their front and were now about to join another group to double up on Jenny's centre. I won the last advantage and called it a day, I was supposed to again capture the enemy general but that was a long shot even with my brave lads standing firm. The baying crowd ooh'd and aah'd and sucked in their breath (in good humour I must add) but I stalwartly defended my troops and as I surveyed the battlefield it looked like a win for Vortigern, sure enough the points swung my way with 24 to 14. My troops enjoyed a sumptuous lunch, with scraps for the cavalry.

After the break it was a return match with Michael Curtis, I had let myself down badly in our last game and he had fought well and took advantage of my dubious deployment, I duly remembered to do better this time. My luck had changed and I again won the dice down for deployment so Michael again set out his army, this time I had to knock out his two most expensive units. Now at times you are never quite sure which troops these are in an enemy line up but as his army was Romano-British and I have Romano-British I knew it was the two Communipulares or Comitatus units, one on horses and the other on foot, Michael put both of these on his right. I decided to go for it this time, I put a horde of skirmishers on my left to shoot his cavalry and then put my Gedriht against a unit beside his foot bodyguard and lined my Comitatus up opposite his, the rest of the army would hold and stay out of the fight as long as possible, but near enough to be a constant threat.

Me on the left, Michael on the right.

Michael saw the trap and his cavalry moved behind the line to his left, I feinted with my cavalry but decided against it and pulled them back behind a shieldwall out of harms way, by now I didn't trust them but they did manage to form up. The two lines crashed together exactly where I wanted them and the enemy heavy cavalry now turned around seeing the danger and began to head back, my Gedriht smashed their opponents and routed them. Sadly, my Comitatus having won the first clash with everything on their side, general, two push backs and more men in the front rank, got beat (I threw 21 dice and killed no one!), they also could not run fast enough, were caught and dispersed. Bad as that was for me things got much worse for Michael, he began to throw dreadful scores for his morale and this set most of his units running for the table edge as the fear spread. It was now he charged downhill into the victorious Gedriht, I expected to get beat here but once again the mercenaries came through and the cavalry were first halted then destroyed. I was overjoyed of course, Michael less so.

With the demise of the cavalry that was one expensive unit gone, however the last one was way behind my lines on its own where I could not get at it for the last move and so I missed my objective but as this was the only viable enemy unit on the table I had won my battle and won it resoundingly. All was not over, Michael belatedly checked his objective and we found that he had inadvertently managed it as my Gedriht were a gnats hair on the wrong side of his deployment zone so instead of 32/12 it ended 34/32. For me my men had picked themselves up and delivered two good wins under my much improved generalship.

Michael's last unit surrounded.

On day one I had despaired of the Army of Vortigern, I had had my doubts before choosing it but wanted nonetheless to try something different, the first two battles seemed to confirm my prejudices. Now that the dust has settled and in the light of the second two battles overall the army held up well, despite my mistakes on day one. You have to do a bit of dancing with it and give your initial plan a bit more thought so that the mercenaries and the British core troops complement each other but it is definitely exciting to use.

Dave Howes won overall and Gary Stark again won the best painted army with his beautiful Pyrrhic force, there were a lot of lovely armies, Gary just happened to be the best of an excellent bunch and well deserved. Young Tom Poole picked up the Award for Outstanding Generalship, which of course is for the very opposite, he brought an overly large unit of archers to the field and shot an enemy general to death remembering at the last moment he had to capture the man not kill him. I finished in tenth place but for me it was two defeats and two wins and once again a great weekends wargaming, you can't beat it, next one is in May, I cannot recommend this event highly enough if you like good fun and fighting battles.

Saxons vs Normans.

Pyrrhic vs Selucid.

Western Patrician Romans vs Romano-British.

Gary's Pyrrhic army.

Saxons vs Saxons.

5th War and Conquest Gaming Weekend P1

I left the house at Noon on Friday thinking I would manage to get to the hotel at Lincoln in daylight by half three and get a little snooze before everyone turned up, I duly arrived in Lincoln at said time but didn't arrive at my hotel until 1700 hrs, a tale of woe for the View. I didn't manage my forty winks so ended up in the bar with a small select group who braved the Friday traffic, the rest of the players would be turning up on the morrow. After dinner we caught up with the football much to my chagrin where Scotland were embarrassing themselves playing rubbish and playing in pink, I retired gracefully suffering the slings and arrows etc. as I made for the door.

The troops muster.

Fortified by a full English, I do love hotel breakfasts, I arrived at Coddington Hall ready for a days wargaming, first up my Army of Vortigern was against Dave Howes' Romano-British, Dave is a tournament player and has beaten me twice, my story is that the second game went south due to a combination of some bad morale dice and Dave's tactics, he excels with small units. I wanted to do much better this time, Dave once again had a number of small units and two cavalry commands, we were both hemmed in by the deployment area and once the game started he pushed his left flank forward, I slowly moved to meet it. I wanted to launch my Saxon mercenaries at his line to punch a hole through, however we both took time to shake the lines out until he saw an opportunity to flank my battle line on my right, it became my opportunity as I swung my cavalry through a wood and got on his flank, a good charge here would sweep away a cavalry unit and possibly one of his skirmish units. I needed the strategic advantage to make the attack, I did not get it, his cavalry escaped, which now put mine in danger as his heavy cavalry were now coming for me.

Vortigern and his boys.

Dave's Romano-British

Both lines advance.

Dave retreats and menaces my flank.

The infantry lines clashed, well the Saxons did, Dave could see his right was up against it as my larger units bore down on him and retired in front of me, this was very frustrating. The Saxon Gedriht did their job and smashed their opponents but his Welsh managed to hold the Geoguth and eventually rout them. A confused battle followed as I lost my right flank while Dave lost a couple of infantry units and no one could strike a killer blow, we fought to the last turn which took a while without any real change in the situation. Neither of us took our objectives but in the end Dave had a higher body count than me and the score was 17 to 28 in his favour, I cannot remember which objective I had been given but I knew it was never going to happen. Despite the objectives I fight a battle to defeat the enemy army, if I do that then sometimes this brings along the objective or on the other hand it will stop the enemy getting theirs, what I want is a good fight and I got it with this battle. I noticed a couple of things, I had not picked up on the fact that elite British cavalry can have heavy armour, that makes them very dangerous indeed for infantry as well as cavalry, I was also beginning to realise that although my Saxons could deal out a lot of punishment they were not great at saving themselves from the same which kind of negated their potential, especially the Geoguth. One thing that was noticeable in this clash was that Dave's shooting was lethal throughout while none of my people could hit a barn door.


Dave is also a bit of a comedian and had a herd of sheep accompanying his Welsh troops and an actual smoking dung heap near his watchtower.

My second game of the afternoon was against Michael Curtis who also had a Romano-British army, it had a couple of really big Pedyt units and some of the excellent cavalry along with quite a few skirmishers. I started well and won the dice off for deployment so Michael had to set out his army first, this was a great opportunity for me as I usually never win this dice off, it also showed as I made a mess of it, I really should have given it more thought. My objective was to capture the enemy general but Michael's was running free behind the line so I decided to launch my main attack against his right and see what happened, my right however now looked dangerously weak.

Me on the right, Michael on the left.

All was not lost however, I managed to get my own cavalry into a position to hit his small extreme left unit and even better I had managed to extend my ranks, I couldn't lose could I, this would mean that he would have to pull off his good cavalry as he couldn't take the chance of my guys wreaking havoc in his rear. Once again my cavalry let me down, shouting "we should have been in reserve" as they fled the field. I ended up with one infantry block defending my whole right flank, they bravely tried to resist but with only some skirmishers in support were overwhelmed by the enemy, they fled shouting something which sounded like "prat". My left got into a position to hopefully smash Michael's right but it was too little too late, I could not recover from the right flank disaster as my centre also went. Michael managed his objective and I was left with a poor score of 12/41.

Disaster on the right and centre.

Too little, too late.

I was pleased with my performance against Dave and the game went the full term and was on a knife edge right up to the last blows, his retiring from my battle line on the left won it for him, most of us would no doubt have simply stood or attacked but he did the right thing and I was left on the back foot. Michael played a good game helped by my disastrous deployment and slow advance on the left, I had not played well in that game.

How much of the blame could I put on Lady Luck, well probably quite a bit as usual, my shooting in both games was undeniably abysmal and therefore enemy skirmishers were more of a problem than they should have been. My generals also suffered from a tendency to attract wounds, I lost my Saxon leader in the first game and not many limped off the field without a dirty rag clutched to a sword cut. I also suffered from not getting the initiative at times when I needed it despite throwing in Strategic Initiative Points to get it, these were valuable resources of which I only had four, not my usual five and it did make a difference as I generally needed them to keep troops in the front line, so they were not available for the dice off. My Saxon Gedriht had done fairly well but their mates, the Geoguth, as I said above were too brittle, both units have bucklers which do not fend off shooting attacks but do have the chance of being lethal in the first round of combat due to a re-roll of hits, however once this is over they do not have a great chance of fending off blows so the enemy can quickly recover, so they have to be handled with care. My Romano-British elites once again proved less than keen, I can never trust them to do what I want.

So there you have it for the first day, two defeats, I think I was second bottom on the leader board, this is not something I worry about and it is there for a bit of fun, but still, as I said above I am there for four battles but nonetheless had started badly. The next day I was fighting Jenny who was commanding Western Patrician Romans, Jenny has beaten me twice and I fell to the Romans at Peterborough a few months ago, not good omens, in the afternoon it was victorious Michael again, oh dear.

Ancient Spanish

Seluicids

Western Patrician Romans vs Romano-British

Romano-British vs Romano-British

Pyrrhic elephants.

War and Conquest Gaming Weekend

Right, it is that time of the year again, the hall is booked and fourteen or sixteen of us are girding our loins for battle, the finishing touches are being put to several armies for the big day, Phil Turner is busy organising our battles and trying to ensure armies fight like for like while Jenny no doubt is ensuring Phil provides a lunch which ticks all the boxes, any special dietary needs etc.

From the information I received last night we have three periods, Age of Warlords, Dark Ages and Classical, I am in the Age of Warlords section although we are always fully adaptable if things do not go to plan on the day. I am taking The Army of Vortigern, historically he is supposed to have been around in the 5th century and may possibly have been the Bretwalda or high king of Britain, as usual no one is quite sure, he may also never have existed. He is infamous for allegedly bringing the Saxons to England in the form of Hengist and Horsa the famous brothers, the Saxons then of course took over slaughtering everyone in their path. This is the old fashioned view and now as I said his very existence along with that of the two brothers is being questioned, and although there was indeed many battles the Saxon 'conquest' of England may have been more of an assimilation.

My army of course goes along with the old fashioned view as it makes it more interesting. I shall have one British leader, Vortigern and one Allied general to command the unruly Saxon mercenaries, I may find this a disadvantage as I would also like a lesser officer to give some backbone to my levies. The British will have one bodyguard unit backed by Milites and Pedyts with a couple of skirmish units, probably slings, I don't agree with how these are played in WAC but at the same time I don't want to be disadvantaged for my beliefs in a competition, no matter how friendly, it wouldn't be fair to my boys. The Saxon noble will also have a hearthguard along with at least one more unit of warriors, these will be a strike force as the Gedriht are exceptional troops, the others are slightly dodgy in that they have bucklers, these are good in close combat but no use against archers etc. my mercenaries will either do very well or do nothing. I will have at least one cavalry unit, but I will use it as a reserve not as a shock unit, I may regret taking only one. I still have a week left so will no doubt go back to this list several times but it won't change much from the above if at all.

I could have gone for a complete Romano-British or Saxon army but Vortigern has fought once and won once also no point in being boring and it's the playing wot counts. The initial line up came through last night and at the moment I am up against three Romano-British armies and one Western Roman Patrician, the latter destroyed my Saxons at Peterborough a few months ago under Andy Hawes so I am seeking revenge on these effeminate Romans with their lap dog allies albeit
this time they are under Jenny's control.

Age of Warlords Event

I set off Sunday morning to Peterborough from leafy Chorleywood, I hit the road at 07 double oh, giving me half an hour to chat and meet up before the mayhem, no, the M1 was closed for two junctions and I was diverted off into darkest Buckinghamshire, after much cursing and swearing and wondering why in the south of England they need a roundabout every two miles I arrived at the venue suffering from vertigo.

The usual suspects were there, Stewart, Phil, Jenny, Mike and Rob along with George and Steve who were both completely new to War and Conquest, Steve never having played a game before, brave man. Andy Hawes had organised the event but lost out as one of his club members was sick and had to return home, Andy volunteered to sit out a couple of games, Andy had put the army lists together for WAC and was happy to talk about them in between charges, routs and dark murmurings on the tables.

Merovingians vs Saxon Heptarchy

 

My first game was against Mike Nursey, Mike and I had crossed swords before when the Twelfth had cut his Dacians to pieces, this time he had Romano-British and I had Saxon Heptarchy. The deployment was fairly typical of a Dark Age battle, we both had a strong infantry centre and I had cavalry on both flanks, Mikes right had two skirmish units and a large bow unit, so my cavalry on that side was going to have to be careful, his elite cavalry were on his left and I wanted to wear them down with skirmishers and possibly fling an infantry unit into them if possible.

Romano-British vs Heptarchy Saxons

My game against Mike

I pushed my infantry forward with the elite Gedriht leading, these were the best troops in the army, the rest of the it were in big units but their quality was not good and even if it was all they had for defence was a shield, a big handicap in this game, which will become obvious later. I brushed aside nearly all of Mikes skirmishers and my slingers, shooting from a wood managed to decimate his Sagittari unit, the Brits quickly lost an infantry unit which caused another to run in sympathy while the Companion cavalry could not catch my mounted skirmishers and suffered from my bowmen. Mike looked to his gods to save him but it was no use, my men could not be stopped and swept on to victory, even the Romano-British general fell to my wolves. A great start, 25 points in the bag. I did feel sorry for Mike, his die rolling was not great while mine was certainly better than average, just like the last time, he did nothing wrong as a general he simply had no luck at all.

Mike's Romano-British winning his second game I think.

After a quick bite at a nearby Subway my second game was against Rob Broom, the author of the rules if you have not picked up on that before, I have beaten Rob twice now and this, allied to his die rolling reputation, gave me a little confidence boost. Rob's army was Patrician Roman and looked fairly weak against my burly Saxons, Rob had quite a few infantry units but they were small, his only cavalry if I recall were the Bucellarii, hard as nails professionals. I decided once again to go straight in with my Gedriht and because of the deployment for this game I either had all my skirmishers on the left or sent them there to destroy the Bucellari as my cavalry would not stand up to them in a fair fight. In the first clashes I sent two German mercenary units to meet their makers, and had not even engaged my elites at that time, Rob frowned, like a fool I cheered him up and said it was early days. I had a dilemma at this point, I could hit a unit with two of mine or leave it to the Gedriht, I chose the latter and this was a turning point, this meant I had a unit hanging and then next turn I forgot to move it. Not moving them meant that one of my previously victorious units had had to take on a bunch of Romans who outclassed them and were now hit in the flank because I hadn't moved their mates. The Gedriht then failed to smash their opponents, things began to look dodgy, I did manage to almost wipe out the Bucellarii but Rob managed to keep them in the fight by the skin of their teeth and my boys failed their morale, Rob had also managed right at the end to grab the Strategic Advantage from me in a turn which was critical. It was all over, I even managed to move a unit away from the centre to hand Rob 20 points for getting the objective. A very hard fight for my boys and both of us had large dead piles to show this but a well deserved victory for the Romans.

My third game and Andy Hawes stepped up, his only game of the day and he had brought, Patrician Romans! But a very different army from Robs, this one three cavalry units with a very large Bucellarii command of fourteen cavalry, not something you see often in WAC, if at all. He only had two infantry units, albeit it one was pretty large, easy meat I thought, keep my cavalry out of harms way as long as possible and let the infantry win the battle. Hold on, it was roll to see who deployed first and as usual I got a one, so Andy got a pretty good head start on me, I had to spread my army out as I knew he could easily win a flank battle and I was unsure which one he would attack. Even so I had his line covered and a spare unit to send to my left which was going to need help. I started my line forward and then could not win the advantage for the rest of the game, Andy let me get so far and then came at me. His Bucellarii hit my infantry, OK, just hold then let my numbers take him out, but no, to my chagrin his mounted tin cans beat me and my men fled. At the same time our skirmish cavalry clashed, an even combat but my men again ran, meanwhile I did get a victory in the very centre and his large infantry unit went south, my Gedriht were back on form, they now eagerly turned to get those damned biscuit eaters. I desperately needed to get the advantage but it was not to be, despite some desperate fighting from my troops I took some real punishment in the last but one turn and it was all over. A real tough slog, but no dishonour for my men, apart from the skirmishing cavalry.

My game against Andy

Patrician Romans vs Saxon Heptarchy

Phil Turner was the overall winner, he too had Patrician Romans, a good day for the end of empire, my son Stewart was second and we all had a good day with three excellent battles.

Phil 'The Winner' Turner and Rob

 All the armies were of a high standard but Andy Hawes' men were a joy to look at, they are also pictured in the rule book itself, however Andy has won quite a few awards for them and was happy that someone else picked up the painting prize, this went to Steve, our newcomer, another lovely Dark Age army. There are some really interesting armies to choose from for this period, and with their different make up and characteristics and the odd special rule they are challenging to use.

Steve's Saxon Heptarchy

Robs German Mercenaries, easy meat.

Andy's beautiful Patrician Romans

Now what about that shield comment above, well when your opponent has armour, large shield and may possibly be in shieldwall chucking armour piercing darts or heavy throwing weapons at you, trying to kill him when all you have is woollen shorts and a shield is pretty frustrating. And with the Patrican army and my sons Merovingians you can get small but highly resilient units on the table, you don't get a lot but look at the results above. In a lot of my combats I could get a decent amount of hits but simply could not convert them to kills while my men suffered very badly at times. You pays your money etc. and anyway, I still like big units and some of them did all right during the day, but I should have took two Gedriht units, I won't leave the house without them in the future.

So there you have it, a good but intense day's battling, my thanks to Andy Hawes for organising, the newcomers for turning up, my friends for being there and my three opponents for some excellent entertainment, what a great hobby. The only thing missing was the Recrimination and Bragging Phase at the bar, but that will resume in Newark in November.