The Il-khan's Disappointment - Part 2

 

In part one of this write up we saw how my Ilkhanate army fared against Qin and Bantu on the first day of the 2023 running of the MeG Ice & Fire competition.

That left me in "mid-table mediocrity"; would day 2 see me improve. Read on ...

So with 22 of a possible 30 points on day one I was very unlikely to be able to win the competition, but a good second day performance could propel me to a good finish, with the outside chance of a podium place depending how results went elsewhere.

A reminder of the list I was using.

So the first game on day two was against Ben Allen. He had intended to use a Muromachi Japanese army, however, due to a misunderstanding about borrowing the army he ended up using the spare army Cid had brought along just in case - Later Crusader. So we would have the classic Crusaders vs. Horse Archers match-up.

I think I defended in this one and chose Plains. We ended up with just a single piece of terrain on the table, a patch of Rough Going in one corner on Ben's side of the table. I then outscouted the Crusaders by 70% so got a good look at Ben's deployment before I had to put anything down.

Alas, Ben deployed very sensibly with his infantry up front - mixed Spear/Crossbow units - with his mounted behind, which included a Surian States ally which provided 3 units of mamluks. Deploying the cavalry behind the infantry to start with is a bang on historical tactic fro Crusaders and is a good choice in MeG - must be a plus point for the rules.

I basically picked a wing to mass my horse archers on, threw the small units on the other wing as a distraction and put the Armenians and Franks in the middle of the table to have a pop at the Crusader infantry. So things looked like this.

First moves were not really a shock. I ran around the Crusader's left whilst they moved to counter. I pushed the Armenians and Franks up to be able to charge half of the Crusader infantry and Ben pushed up knights to help the infantry out. I did consider being a bit less forceful with this, however, the opportunities from a reasonably quick breakthrough were good and worth the risks involved - and I had a contingency, the horse archer unit handing back.

Crash, bang, wallop and we charged in. I let the Armenians hit both Crusader units as this would, hopefully, mean they could avoid pursuing too soon and getting into trouble before the horse archers were in place to properly support. The Franks had to fight two units as well as Ben made the expected Intercept with his knights - as this meant the Franks may well be broken this is why I needed the contingency mentioned previously.

The Armenians despatched one infantry unit pretty quickly, but as I thought likely the Franks broke - they had also been rather disappointing in fighting the other infantry unit despite advantages and I must confess I felt a tad robbed there.

Ben also charged my Armenians with his Military Order unit, but in doing so left their flank wide open to a unit of my horse archers. That said, I think it was a calculated move as it would draw me in towards the Syrian mamluks who would be an effective counter punch. As you can see from the picture my contingency unit had also moved into position to flank charge the victorious Crusader knights. I wasn't unhappy.

In the interests of avoiding me going on a long whinge about my dice, we'll skip ahead to very near the end now. All I will say is that although I destroyed the Military Order unit quickly, the other Crusader knights survived rather against the odds, broke my horse archers and got into a potion to cause me grief. Additionally, again against the odds, the Armenians utterly failed to break the unit of infantry they had been fighting since turn two. OK, that was a bit of a rant ...

However, I had led Ben's unit of mamluks on his right away and got a rear charge on it and broke that very quickly - so it wa far from one way traffic.

Shortly after the above picture the game timed out - third in a row, not a habit I really want to get into. I did finally break the Crusader knight unit, but my Armenians were also broken.

Anyway, despite being grumpy at my dice it was a good enjoyable game, Ben kindly put up with my despair without complain - along with a bit of justifiable friendly laughter at my expense. Game score was 10-7 to me, so I'm still in "mid-table mediocrity".

So onto the fourth game, can I at last grab a victory - or to be honest even a defeat as it would mean avoiding four incomplete games.

Fate handed my Kev Brewin with Muromachi Japanese - so got to play one after all.

Kev won the PBS dice off and, inevitably (because it is sensible) chose to defend in Mountains. However, the terrain gods were not kind to him and apart from the compulsory Secure Flank pieces there was no terrain on the table. I also outscouted him by 70%.

Deployment was reasonably obvious for both of us, and indeed as Kev commented was going to be very similar to our last game at Derventio III last year. And so it proved.

The Japanese deployed with the terrain covering their flank and I deployed away from it so as to be able to bring as much shooting to bear as possible. As is usual I held the Armenians and Franks back a bit, the idea for these was to be aimed at the units which had bow (Powerbow indeed) to try and take these out, or at least take out their bow bases, even if this meant both my units would be destroyed. My thinking was that with the majority of the dangerous archers out of the way I would have the upper hand even if down a couple of units.

After our deployment it looked thus.

First moves went as we both planned. As you can see my Franks have advanced quite quickly as there is a unit fronted by Samurai with Powerbow available to be attacked. Off shot the Armenians have moved left as that is where the second such samurai unit is. They will reappear shortly (if briefly).

So a move or so later both of my Lancer units go in. They take a bit of damage from the Powerbows but not enough to stop them, although the Armenians did need to have a prompt Through Fire - but that had been planned for (the Franks were in a position where they could not be slowed enough to fail to hit).

The Charge Phase went very well. The Armenians killed all three bases of the Samurai in the unit they hit and the Franks two of the three. Alas, the Melee Phase for both were utter rubbish. The Franks broke off but the Armenians had to be left to their fate - however, they had done the really important bit; good thing as Kev had a unit ready to flank charge them ...

Elsewhere on my right we have got up to shooting positions, and on the left I have a couple of units running around to be annoying. Kev is so far keeping his army more or less together. I think at this stage we were both reasonably happy.

The Franks soon went back in, but with rather mixed results this time. Crucially they afiled to break the infantry they were fighting despite odd quite heavily in the favour. More dice grumbling from Nik ensued.

However, as a balance, on my right my shooting was effective and rather a lot of Samurai bases were removed. This was important as after they have gone the Japanese units are much easier to soot up - Green dice are in play again. I have also managed a sneaky move to get behind the flank of Kev's left hand infantry unit.

Of course being a sneaky move it doesn't work as well as hoped. Although I damaged the infantry I had to break off after Melee. However, I have now shot away an infantry unit and another is a wound off going which will leave me free to go and get the left hand unit anyway.

So despite my initial losses I am well in the game and should start to build up a lead. However, it is taking time.

The next move looked like this and in the following one I charged the rear of the infantry on my right breaking them. My Skirmisher infantry have also ceased to be, but that's what you expect from them. The game is now set up for me to swing round and pick on the bits of Kev's army I need to win the game whilst having plenty of room to fall back whilst shooting. Horse archer heaven.

Of course, with grim inevitability, we don't have time and for the fourth time I time out without completing the game. I really cannot recall the last time that happened. However, it was another good fun game so no complaints on that score. The game score was 8-7 to me.

The final scores and placings were:

Congratulations to Simon Elliott for another perfect score competition win - he is making a habit of it.

I finished just above half way so pretty much "mid-table mediocrity" defined.

I have no regrets about the army choice or composition and will definitely use it again or with a very minor tweak perhaps, but not much.

I had a bit of a theme of grumbling about my dice across the competition, but that really doesn't cut it over four games. Need to have a think about what I was doing, it suggests I wasn't quite doing what I had to.

Finally, a big thanks to all involved in the organisation and Battlefield Hobbies for hosting.

Onwards to the next competition ...