Khitan Liao at Burton - was Badcon bad for the Liao, or good, or just mediocre? (Game 4)

 

So after 3 games I have 2 wins and a loss. Will the final game see the Liao return to winning ways or again fall by the wayside. As ever, read on to find out ...

A reminder of my army list:

The final game set me up against Lee Sanders who was fielding a Nikeforian Byzantine. Lee and I have played a few games, mostly outside competition, and he is an good player and, as some will recall, would be out for revenge from my outrageous defeat of him at Ice & Fire - https://gamer-at-the-end-of-time.blogspot.com/2022/02/early-northern-song-at-ice-fire-part-3.html

Nikeforian is a notoriously difficult list to get a good army from, but in my view Lee had managed this. It also needs a player who can coordinate things well and that can be tricky, but Lee has the skill.

The table again ended up as mostly open, with a Secure Flank on my right which had 2 pieces of Rocky Ground. Somewhat inevitably I deployed weighted away from that and Lee used this to cover his left flank.

As you can see from this picture of our deployments, Lee led with his Skoutatoi with the majority of his cavalry held back to be applied where needed and not to over-commit at the start. This is probably the best way to use the Nikeforian army in my opinion.

Obviously I was going to attempt to apply heavy pressure on Lee's right whilst delaying his left. The Skilled shooters would hopefully open things up, especially the 2 Tribal Horse Archers deployed on my far left who I wanted to get right round Lee's wing.

The opening moves went pretty much as planned. I swung my left around towards Lee's right and he brought his mass of good cavalry - including the rather fearsome Katafraktoi - out to meet me.

The following move was pretty much more of the same and mainly about getting troops into shooting range from my point of view. Lee remained controlled and did not over-commit. I get one (Average) unit of the ordo cavalry which had ArmHrs into range of one of the Skoutatoi units giving me a charge option the following move.

Having set up the charge option I gave it a punt the following move. I wasn't entirely sure it was the best move, however, the rewards if successful would be great and I had the cards for a Break Off if it didn't go well. Still, it needed to do well in this turn to get the hoped for benefits.

Alas, it didn't work out. I only knocked 1 base off the Skoutatoi and lost 2 bases of my own. Not a disaster for sure, but a bit deflating. Perhaps I shouldn't have had a go?

Still, I had better luck elsewhere and shot 2 bases off Lee's Superior Varangian Guard.

Both sides cavalry on my left, Lee's right continued to be cagey, although I now had my Skilled hors archers shooting at his right hand unit.

Following their failure to break through the Skoutatoi, the now damaged cavalry unit succumbed to Lee's other (non-Guard) Varangian/Rhos unit creating a bit of a hole in my line.

The cavalry on my left ended the next move all up close and personal as I didn't have the cards to pull them back to safer distances. It was all going to get crunchy on that wing next move. Shooting from my Skilled shooters was universally disappointing to boot.

A bit of a photo drought now ensued as the game was too absorbing and I kept forgetting.

One I did manage to record was one of those extreme shooting results where when Lee charged a unit of cavalry my shooting resulted in a hit on each dice and his unit exploded on the spot.

Rather inevitably that was the high spot of my luck and it all went a bit downhill from there. Nothing terrible, just a few things went against me.

Lee obviously charged his cavalry wing at me and as well as hitting my Superior ordo cavalry - expected as they cannot evade - also caught a unit of cavalry who rolled a 1 on their Skirmish VMD. This had been a calculated risk on my part as Run Away may have been the more logical move, but as they were Skilled shooters it seemed worth the risk - mind you, with a 1 on the VMD they'd have been hit in the back (I didn't have cards to Prompt Through Fire) so perhaps it was the right decision.

Again in shooting I was generally ineffective and Lee's better combat cavalry got the upper hand - although it must be said that the Katafraktoi did make rather hard work of things and at one point I did wonder whether I might just be able to extract myself.

Both my Superior cavalry units were broken and I only just broke one of Lee's units. The Skilled shooter cavalry did manage to extract themselves thanks to Lee rolling badly against them in combat and that they could then break off from the Katafraktoi (and the KaB failed to break them thankfully).

Unfortunately we then ran out of time to get a result which rather robbed Lee I think as he had a unit in a prime position to get the final unit he now needed to break my army.

Another excellent game though and I'm sure Lee will soon get his revenge for Ice & Fire.

Overall I was happy enough with how the army performed - 2 winds, 1 loss and 1 draw (just). I hadn't expected too much from it in this competition given the sorts of armies it might face. It could have beaten both the Early Arab Conquest and Nikeforian Byzantine on another day, but Paul and Lee were just too canny for that.

I'd happily use the army again, even in a theme like Badcon's which didn't really suit it, but I think I would swap the Average ArmHrs unit to one without the horse armour and with Short Spear and Melee Expert instead. Having 3 units that could not evade was an issue.

In the end I finished 9th from 20 so mid-table mediocrity was achieved.

A few more pictures from the last game: