The Start of Gaming 2021 - at Last

After what seems a lifetime since the last game I played, a game of MeG finally occurred in 2021 thanks to Ray Duggins who could provide a suitable venue.

The armies that faced off were Ray's Carolingians led by Charlemagne - an army Ray has been painting up during the pandemic - and a Khazar army I put together from figures I have that are reasonably suitable (I think), although my generals had rather Chinese style banners ... Ray has used his Carolingians before; Khazar is new to me but an army I have been thinking about trying out for a while. 

The Carolingians won the initial dice off and chose to defend. The Khazars won the first play of cards and chose to invade in Coastal territory type. The PBS sequence left us in Dense terrain, however, terrain was limited to a river on the secure flank, a large central orchard and a smaller orchard on the flank without the river.

The Carolingians outscouted the Khazars by 50% so they had to deploy troops first. The Khazars decided to send part of the army of a flank march despite it being perfectly clear which side of the table it would be on. The armies lined up thus - Khazars to the left, Carolingians to the right:

The Carolingians are putting in a big push on their left with all their best cavalry whilst the Khazars are being cagey with horse archers up front and their lancer cavalry held back behind the central orchard. The Carolingians are set up to contain any flank march trying to come on behind their lines.

Some gratuitous pictures of the troops:

The Khazar flank march drew the required Red card to arrive in the very first move - being Flexible cavalry they could do so if they arrived in Skirmish formation. However, the Carolingians moved infantry to block the entrance on the part of the table edge on their side of the table.

The Khazars pushed horse archers forward on both flanks whilst holding back the heavier cavalry. The Carolingians pushed their strong wing forward a s far as they could whilst sitting just outside of Khazar shooting range to keep their options open, and advanced some infantry through the orchards.

With the Carolingian side of the table blocked, the Khazars decided to bring the flank march on behind their own line.

In the following move the Carolingians charge their big cavalry wing to drive off the most advanced Khazar horse archers whose shooting has negligible effect. On their left the Khazars push horse archers forward to get some optimistic shooting at troops in the Orchard and also try and tempt the weaker Carolingian right wing to advance.

The horse archers of the Khazar flank march redeploy towards the centre of the table to be able to intervene on the Khazar right where the heaviest Carolingian attack is coming. At the end of the move the situation across the battlefield looked like this:

The next move the Carolingians obviously continued to push on their left where their big attack was, wheeling inwards to squeeze the Khazars. Again Khazar shooting had little effect. Whilst on their right they started to push troops towards the Khazars which caused some of them to fall back a little. The Khazars moved their heavier cavalry up towards the right wing to counter the big Carolingian push there.

At the end of this move everything is still quite cagey, however fighting cannot now be too far away.

And indeed, contact is made the following move as the best of the Carolingian cavalry charge into the Khazar heavy cavalry.

The Khazar horse archers manage to evade the charge again, however, they are running out of table and their shooting remained somewhat ineffective although one Carolingian unit has now lost a base. They are still much more powerful combat troops than the horse archers though ...

On the other side of the table the cagey stand-off continues.

After the charge and melee combats where there is fighting the results were, on balance, favourable to the Khazars. The most dangerous Carolingian unit was being held to an even fight whilst the second was having the worst on the exchange and was looking vulnerable.

Overall the battlefield at the end of this move looked like this:

Surprising nobody, the fighting on the Carolingian left was again the focus of the following move and this saw the destruction of units on both sides. The rightmost Khazar horse archer unit was overrun by Carolingian cavalry despite some initial resistance, and the Carolingians pursued to the table edge.

However, the other fighting went in favour of the Khazars. The weakened Carolingian unit was broken by the Khazar heavy cavalry as was likely to happen. The other fight was something of a shocker for the Carolingians. As they charged in the Khazars caused a wound with all of their shooting dice and then went on to win the combats breaking the Carolingian unit for the loss of only 1 base themselves. The last gasp shooting came good for the Khazars. To add insult to injury, the fight between the best of the Carolingian cavalry and the Khazar heavies resulted in no additional damage to either side.

Ray might just have made a comment about dice at this point ...

Ray insisted that a picture be taken of his dead pile at this point ...

On the other side of the filed, with things not going as planned on their left, the Carolingians set themselves up to charge the following move.

The next move was the last we had time for. Being somewhat rusty after the Covid enforced game break and also chatting a lot, we didn't have time to finish the game which was a bit of a shame.

However, the Carolingian elite cavalry now finally did the job they were supposed to do and broke the Khazars they were fighting and pursued towards the Khazar camp.

Meanwhile the Khazars started circling the victorious, but now isolated Carolingian cavalry unit.

On the Carolingian right wing their charges had been evaded comfortably by the Khazar horse archers, although the shooting remained ineffective. However, it had left a unit of their cavalry and a rather weak archer unit vulnerable for the following turn - although obviously it was never played.

So, in the end the game was a 6-6 draw. A bit of a cagey affair at times but very enjoyable despite that, and lets face it, it was just great to get the toys back on the table.

I suspect that if we had had time to play on that Ray would have won the game, but it would have been pretty close. I think a 15-10 would have been the most probable outcome.

Reflecting on the game I think when I had the option to choose the territory type I should have chosen Standard not Coastal. This would have taken the Deep Water secure flank out of play and allowed a flank march on either side of the table. That said, I had thought about what I would do if the flank march could not come on behind the Carolingian lines and given the terrain the troops ended up where I would have probably put them anyway. Otherwise, I was pretty pleased with how I played the game after such a long break.

Ray reflected - "I got my army design slightly wrong and will correct this. During the game I wasn't aggressive enough with my unit of excellent foot deployed in the centre. Overall a great game against Nik "Horse Master" Gaukroger".

Now already looking towards the next game and games at other locations and with more people as the Covid restrictions continue to ease - hopefully the timetable set out won't slip.