Huns Rumble on the Rhine
The Ribble Warriors hosted a MeG competition over the weekend of 23rd/24th with a theme of "Armies and Enemies of the Caesars" - so Roman armies and their enemies. After some dithering about what to take I went with Hunnic. It proved to be a good choice...
My army list was:
Obviously this is an army where the shooting will be rather important, and I took the maximum number of Skilled shooters that I could reasonably fit in. However, the 2 units of Nobles and followers are pretty key as well as they are resilient and competent fighters and so provide a core around which the horse archers can operate. The unit of horse archers in Roman armour add a touch of resilience against shooting as well compared to the other horse archers.
Here is a brief overview of my four games.
First up was Ian Crosby using Palmyrans. Personally I think the Palmyran list is a difficult one to get a good army out of, but one of the 2 at the comp finished in 6th place so maybe there is something in there I haven't spotted. My feeling about facing Palmyrans is that if I can get a mostly open table I have a good chance.
Turned out that I did get a nearly wholly open table whilst defending in the Plains and also outscouted Ian by 50%. Couldn't argue with that for a nice start.
After deployment it looked like this:
The Palmyrans have anchored their left on the one piece of terrain on table (a hill) and extended their line as far as they could, but this did leave a big open flank. I have massed my Skilled shooters on my left with the intention of concentrating on the exposed flank and then rolling up the line. I plan to withdraw and delay on my right as I expect Ian to try and push there, wheeling his line towards me.
Things pan out as anticipated:
Ian's catafracts are all Average in 4 base units and I think this is a real weakness as they are really susceptible to a bit of bad luck. My first shots at his flank unit proved this:
6 dice produced 4 Wounds so 2 bases lost from the unit ...
After that it was all about systematically working down the line.
All the time I was also managing to move my Mobile Camp away from the action so creating more room for my troops from the right wing to withdraw and stay out of trouble - although one did get surrounded and eliminated with extreme prejudice.
One of my cavalry units went off and sacked Ian's camp and with the other units I had by then destroyed that gave me the win. 15-2 which is a good start.
Second game was against Matt Poole with Parthians. So more catafracts, some of which would be Superior so very hard to shoot down. Tough.
I again defended and again outscouted by 50% - no complaints from me there. After deployment it looked like this:
Whilst mostly open plains we had a small piece of Rocky Ground in the middle of the table and this caused Matt some real problems as it divided his army in half if he wanted to have a reasonable frontage, and as his catafracts are Tribal they don't manoeuvre well so this would hinder him. In the end he held the catafracts somewhat back and put his Skirmisher horse archers on the wings. I weighted my deployment to my left but with a unit of Nobles and one of Skilled shooters on my right.
Matt was cursed with rubbish discs in the first move and decided to just advance with the horse archers. In my view this was a gift as it allowed me to double move right up to these with my Protected units which have, of course, Shoot & Charge and so are really quite good at chasing down skirmisher horse archers. I also advanced everywhere to gain ground for later should I need to fall back.
This resulted in 3 destroyed horse archers units and, in reality, the surviving one living on borrowed time.
As you can see the catafracts have now moved but you can also see the problem the Rocky Ground caused.
We now got into the long middle phase of the game where I try and shoot down the catafracts and Matt tries to catch me. The 4th horse archer unit has now disappeared but the Nobles that chased them down have lost 2 bases.
The Nobles being quicker and more nimble than the catafracts can get round the back of Matt's army and threaten some weak Arab archers who are next to the camp.
The archers will reduce the Nobles to 3 bases - 1 Wound from breaking - and so I get to charge my Poor, Unskilled horse archer unit into their flank utilising their Shoot & Charge to boot; made my weekend doing that. The archer broke and the Nobles pursued into the camp and despite only 1 Wound being needed to break them also sacked the camp.
At this point I have also destroyed a couple of catafract units through shooting and flank/rear charges and so win the game having only lost 1 unit along the way. Another 15-2 so I'm on 30 points at the end of day 1.
After a convivial evening of beer and curry onto day 2.
Game 3 matches me against Laurence Donohoe (Cid) with his Later Sarmatian with a Quadi ally. Charging Lancers and big blocks of warband type infantry - tough and Cid is a top player.
For the 3rd time I defend in the plains (although it would have been plains if I had invaded as that was the only terrain available to either army) and outscouted Cid by 60%. Not sure how much difference the latter made as I think it was pretty clear how we were going to set up, but outscouting always helps in my view.
It all looked like this at the start:
There was a large patch of Rocky Ground on the right of the table as I looked at it, and we both deployed on the side away from that with Cid having a hill usefully to his front. Cid had his best cavalry up front flanked on their left by the Quadi, I massed my good shooters to my left to attack the end of his line and had a couple of the smaller units on my right to slow down some cavalry he had ready to sweep round the rough going. The Quadi ally was reliable.
After the initial advances it looked like this. I have pushed my Nobles a bit forward as I want to use them to blunt the lancers charge - I am not thinking of skirmishing with them in this game.
The horse archers are still far enough forward that if the lancers charge at this point they will get to shoot at them, but will easily get away as the Nobles may stand - or indeed charge themselves to get the benefit of the Shoot & Charge which means that the enemy do not get a claim for them having shot.
Cid, however, sensibly declined to charge me when I was basically safe - damn his skill and experience. So I decided to push the Nobles into the face of his line. This should force him to charge and still allow my horse archer to shoot and get away easily. So it looked like this:
You will note I have, however, let Cid get a unit of his cavalry into a position to charge the flank of one of my horse archer units ...
On the right flank Cid pushed his cavalry round whilst I push one through the Rocky Ground to threaten them whilst slowing them with another.
We now have a bit of a hiatus in photography.
Cid pushed forward with the Quadi and can charge my units facing them for free as his troops have Devastating Charger. However, he is hampered by poor cards and so cannot turn them inwards towards the flank of my cavalry which is what he would like to do.
My 2 units of Nobles end up fighting 4 units of Sarmatian lancers, 3 of which are Superior. However, after my units have survived the Charge Phase reasonably well - even allowing for Cid's Legendary general leading the way - I mostly have an advantage in combat. Over the next couple of moves I break his Average unit (shooting from other units assisted) and weaken a couple of the Superior ones as well, but my units are also getting fragile with one down to 3 bases.
Cid's 2 cavalry on his right charge my horse archers and catch both, however, they fail to do too much damage and in fact one of the is broken in hand-to-hand combat - I got a bit lucky there. The unbroken one then Breaks Off to try and buy time.
Meanwhile on my right my two delaying units are both about to get into combat. One in the open which I assume will die quickly, but the other in the rough where basically it is all equal and I have my general there.
The game then quickly moved to a conclusion. Whilst I lost one of the cavalry on my right and one of the Nobles, the other unit of Nobles hung on outrageously - the one that was down to 3 bases obviously.
On the right I broke the unit in the rough and on the left the now weakened cavalry who had broken off were shot down when I charged them - 4 Green dice will tend to do that.
The Sarmatians who had finally broken one of my Nobles was down to 3 bases when it pursued and was taken out by a single would caused on another Shoot & Charge and I shot away another unit to break Cid's army.
A very pleasing 15-4. OK, I think my Noble rode their luck somewhat and the score should have been closer, but as long as they weren't devastated in the Charge Phase it was not unreasonable for them to hold out for a while. After the game Cid mentioned that he had missed a trick with the unit led by his Legendary general - he should have broken them off, just a Green KaB, and charged back in to get a second bite at the Charge advantage.
So after 3 games I top the table and am the only person with 3 scores of 15. Feeling good about that.
The last game was against Mark Hargrave with his Numidians. This is a monster of a skirmishing army. 16 units - 7 TUGs of Flexible cavalry and 9 of Skirmisher cavalry, 5 of the latter Skilled shooters. Led by a Legendary general this gives them 10 PBS cards and 11 Scouting cards. Outrageous ...
I again defend and though pure damned luck am not outscouted.
Of course as Defender I still have to deploy first, but it did feel like a moral victory.
Again it was a mostly open field with one piece of rough going in the centre of Mark's table edge. You will note he has also taken the No Camp option for a wholly mounted army - not even that for me to aim at ...
I have deployed with the Nobles towards each end of my line with the Protected horse archers roughly in the middle - this seemed a good way of covering the options. Mark weighted his TUGs to his left and his Skilled shooters slightly to his right (3 of the 5 units there). His Flexibles were all deployed as Skirmishers, mine all as Loose. On balance I felt he ought to have had some starting as Loose, but can see why he didn't.
Afraid that again there is a dearth of photography for this game. Apologies.
My approach was somewhat the same as the opening moves of game 2, and I double moves my Nobles and Protected cavalry (plus an odd unit of ordinary horse archers) up as close as I could to some of his Skirmisher horse. I must confess that this approach was based partly on a calculation that I needed 8 points from the game to win the competition even if Mark beat me and scored 15. So I was not so bothered about breaking his army as accumulating a score - maybe a tad cynical...
My initial charges did little with the Shoot & Charge but I did catch one unit whose move was reduced as they ran into the rough ground behind them. Whilst I was doing this Mark was teeing up a big attack on my right.
This continued in the following move as I tried to maintain pressure and push some of Mark's units towards the table edge.
Eventually on my left I manoeuvred things so that I could essentially surround 3 of Mark's Skirmisher cavalry in such a way as that when they were charged they ended up in a big mass that one of my charging units hit thus destroying all 3 of his units.
Elsewhere 2 more of his Skirmishers were also caught, although there is no picture of how.
At the point we ran out of time I had destroyed 6 of Mark's Skirmishers and he had taken out one of my units. So we ended up with a score of 8-4 to me.
However, I am certain that had we had more time (just one of those games where we ran out) Mark would have won the game, although I had one of his TUGs pinned against the table edge whilst it was in Skirmisher formation so i would have got that one barring very unusual dice.
Mark's army was a real handful and quite unusual. A good and interesting choice.
This left me at the top of the table and I also won some figures as a prize - ironically Huns ...
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