IWorg.Com The Irish Wargaming Homepage

Following Rob's Brian Boru Report, here's another account charting my
progress at what was a very enjoyable event. Having previously
fielded a massive but low quality Zanj army in competition, on this
occasion I decided to go to the opposite extreme by fielding a tiny
but high quality Early Tang Chinese army as follows:

Command 1 (12 ME)
Reg Cv (S) Sub-general
3 x Reg Cv (S)
1 x Reg LH (F)

Command 2 (14.5 ME)
Reg Cv (S) SC-in-C
4 x DBEs of Reg Bw (X/O)
2 x Reg Bw (O)
1 x Reg Ps (O)
2 x Irr LH (S)
1 x Irr Bg (I)

Command 3 (12 ME)
Reg Cv (S) Sub-general
3 x Reg Cv (S)
1 x Reg LH (F)

Command 4 (1 ME)
2 x Irr Bg (I)

Round 1 - vs. Thomas Arnfelt (Samnites)
I invaded with no weather. Thomas succeeded in placing a large wooded
hill on his right, a smaller difficult hill on his left and a patch
of rough going in his centre.

In keeping with the monotroop nature of the Samnite list, his army
comprised three commands each of eight or nine elements of Reg Ax
(S). The only variation to this was provided by his C-in-C's command,
which also included a couple of Cv (O). As you might expect, he
deployed one command on each of the hills and the third in the open
between the two features. I deployed C1-3 from left to right.

Thomas took advantage of moving first to form his centre into column
to its right and rapidly marched it onto the wooded hill, so massing
two commands on that feature. He then brought these out the woods and
formed them up to launch a concentrated attack on my left. I formed
up C1 to meet the threat, with the command's left on my rear table
edge. I mishandled the deployment however with the result that I
fought further forward than I was happy with. I also redeployed most
of C3 from my right to left, forming it to the right of C1.

Thomas now attacked and C1 underperformed, inflicting just one
casualty but losing three Cv to break. C3 did better, killing both
the Samnite Cv (O) and a couple of Ax (S) but not enough to break the
command it was fighting. Moral of the story - Ax (S) are quite tough
against Cv (S).

Meanwhile, I redeployed C2 from the centre to the right to winkle out
his Ax on the difficult hill with bowfire. This prompted Thomas to
advance the Ax off the hill to attack the Bw (X) but this failed and
the resulting toll of casualties combined with the loss of his sub-
general to a flank locking attack by my own C-in-C eventually broke
his command.

Each of us had lost about 40% of our army and neither army was
broken. However, I had lost just over 40% and Thomas just under so he
had the edge in penalty points, which translated into a 14-11 for him.

Round 2 - vs. Brian Ronayne (Han Chinese)
I defended with no weather. The only significant terrain was a large
gentle hill which I gifted to Brian on his rear table edge.

In the expectation that he would put troops on the hill, I deployed
C2 facing it with the intention of standing off and shooting at
anything on it. C1 and C3 were deployed in column on C2's flanks.

As expected, Brian deployed his main command of 20 MEs on the hill
with a block of 6 x Reg Bow (O), flanked by three elements each of
Reg Bd (F) on the left and (O) on the right, with Bd (I) in reserve.
Two Reg Cv (O) guarded the open right. On his left was a smaller
(15ME) command comprising mostly Reg Cv (O), a couple of Bw (O) and
some Reg LH (F). In reserve was a train command of 2 x Reg Bg (O)
and 1 x Art (O).

Moving first proved to be a big advantage. I marched C2 straight
forward to start an archery duel with the Han archers. I redeployed
C1 to the right where it combined with C3 to form a mass of Cv (S) to
attack the smaller Han command. Good PIPs meant I did all this in a
single bound, which meant that Brian was pinned into his position and
unable to carry out any march moves. Worse, his ability to respond
was hampered by a truly awful first PIP roll of two 1s and a 2.

The massed Cv (S) attack went like clockwork, disposing of two Bw (O)
on the hill, then some Cv (O) and finally the flank locked Han sub-
general to break the command. The way was now open to attack the Han
baggage on the rear slope of the hill but this proved unecessary as
the Tang Bw (X) decisively outshot the Han Bw (O), which lost
heavily. A Bd (O) also died in a hail of arrows while Tang Cv (S)
killed two Bd (F) and C2's LH (S) killed a Cv (O) to break the
command and make it 25-0 to me.

Round 3 - vs. Richard Murphy (Early Byzantine)
I invaded with no weather. The only significant terrain was a large
wood on Richard's left and a small gentle hill on his centre baseline.

On his right was a command of 3 x Cv (S) and 3 x LH (S) plus a
general. In the centre was the C-in-C with similar mix of Cv (S) and
LH (S) plus a couple of Bd (I). On his left was a command of 3 x LH
(S) plus a Cv (S) general. He also had a baggage command.

With more and better LH Richard's army was slightly faster than mine.
He also had parity in Cv (S), but nothing to match C2's massed bow.
This was relfected in the game which featured lots of manouvering as
he tried to get around my flanks at my baggage and avoid my bows
while I attempted the reverse. Eventually, this resulted in me
deploying superior numbers to break his smallest command threatening
my right and kill one of his centre command's Cv.

On my left however, the threat of his LH forced me to redeploy C1 in
piecemeal fashion to defend my baggage. The LH (S) proved tough
opponents and won time for his Cv (S) to come up and break C1.

In the centre, the Byzantine C-in-C had several lucky escapes from
Tang bowfire - Richard rolled a one three times at 5-3 to me, but I
obligingly responded with 1s or 2s of my own. With his left gone and
his Cv (S) neutralised by mine, Richard pulled the C-in-C back onto
the hill and formed a line with the two Bd (I).

At this point, the game could have gone either way as his victorious
right threatened to pillage my baggage while my centre bore down on
his. With two DBE's of Tang Bw (X) (supported by Cv (S)), now
readying to shoot his troops on the hill, Richard counter-attacked.
Using a brilliant stroke (it turned out I was facing Belisarius
himself) he destroyed one DBE. However, this exposed Byzantium's hero
to an immediate counter attack by one of my Cv (S), with flank lock
support from the surviving DBE. It was a 3-3 QK to me. I rolled
higher, Belisarius died, his army broke and I won the game 18-7.

Final Score
My final score of 54 was enough to put me on the podium with a third
place finish. More interestingly, this was a tournament in which the
form book went out the window as the top seeds finished down the
placings while first and second spots were taken by two DBMM
newcomers - a positive outcome as it is good for the hobby when
competitons are won by new people.