ToILing Away With Uqaylids - Game 3 vs Normans

So after a good first day - 25 from a possible 30 points - followed by an excellent evening out, we move onto day 2.

Can I continue successfully, or will I be humbled? Read on ...

So the draw for game 3 had me facing off against the rules author himself, Simon Hall. Simon is, unfortunately, somewhat unwell at present due to a recent accident which he was lucky to survive, and it is fair to say that the after effects are affecting him such that he made some uncharacteristic mistakes all weekend.

Once again I defended in Standard terrain. We had a couple of gentle hills on the right and one on the left, all on SImon's side of the table, a piece of rough on my base edge on my right, and, most importantly, a large piece of rough bang in the middle of the table. This was round and so the game could well be called The Battle of The Roundabout 😁 I was, of course, quite happy with this as it broke up Simon's line of attack with his powerful Norman cavalry. I outscouted Simon.

Simon deployed with a small unit of Breton cavalry and skirmish infantry on each wing. Infront of his camp in the centre were a couple of units of Spearmen with a unit of crossbowmen and a unit of archers. His cavalry were deployed with an Average unit and 2 Superior units to the right of the "roundabout", and aunit of each quality behind the terrain placed so as to move either side as desired.

Rather obviously I deployed the Dailami to go into the rough with a unit of Ghilman to the right and left of them. On my right I deployed the Kurds and a unit of Bedouin cavalry, a unit of the Armoured Cavalry was placed somewhat to the rear of the Ghilman on the right. My left consisted on the other Armoured Cavalry unit, Bedouin cavalry and the skirmishing archer unit. The Armoured Cavalry were held back.

It looked like this:

First move sees an advance on my left by a mass of Norman cavalry with the small Breton unit contracting to free up room. I think Simon thought he had made a mistake here with the Breton positioning, but if he had it wasn't a biggie IMO. I pushed forward on my right aiming to chase down the isolated Bretons on that wing which drew a Norman Superior unit from the centre towards that flank. In the centre in a move that surprised nobody, I pushed the Dailami into the rough.

The following move developed this theme although, in what was to be a feature of the game, SImon was a bit hindered by his discs. My left was holding back to draw the Normans on as I wanted as much space to manoeuvre in before committing whilst on my right my Ghilman moved to cover the Normans whilst the Kurds made a beeline for the Bretons.

My Dailami stayed in the rough, at this stage their main role was to limit Simon's options by being able to threaten to flank any cavalry who tried to get past the "roundabout". I was hoping this would then let me gang up on slightly isolated units. Simon was, however, brining up his infantry to as to likewise limit the freedom of my Dailami.

The game continued along these lines in the following move as well. The Bretons on my right were drawn forward and a reception committee awaited.

Just for a change a top down shot of the table at this point as well 😀

And one from a different angle.

At this point we had a dramatic, and in some ways amusing set of discs. Out of his 11 discs Simon had 6 Black, 4 White and 1 Yellow whereas I had 6 Red, 5 Yellow and 2 Green. Pictures of these as proof are below after the narrative. 😮😮😮

To say this limited Simon's options is an understatement. Simon did manage a couple of charges with Superior cavalry one of which did contact my right hand Ghilman unit as their evade rolled a 1 and their shooting was in effective. However, instead of more or less riding over them as we expected, the Ghilman only suffered 2 bases lost across Charge and Melee combat (and inflicted 1 base lost back), and then Broke Off suffering nothing on the KaB. This left Simon's cavalry a little isolated.

Meanwhile my Kurds rode down the Bretons they had been chasing in short order.

Simon's discs the next move were not much better than the last so he was again rather limited in options. A unit of Average Norman cavalry on my left charged a unit of my Armoured Cavalry, however, I had arranged things such that they only hit with 1 base and so the dreaded Norman charge could not be too effective. In Melee I was actually up as my Long Spear in 2 ranks cancelled the Normans Melee Expert.

Additionally I drove off the Bretons and set a unit of Bedouins up to flank charge the Normans.

In the centre one of Simon's Superior cavalry units, having marched across the table and which was now close to my camp contacted my second Ghilman unit. Their charge was woeful even though they had contacted with an ideal 3 base frontage - again see further down for the photographic evidence. At the end of the move the Normans had lost 2 bases and the Ghilan were unharmed 😮

On my right by advancing my Ghilman there I created a flank charge opportunity for my Bedouins on that flank. Simon's discs didn't allow him to do anything to respond.

Next move saw a bit of chaos.

My flank attack on the right destroyed the Normans there, but in the zeitgeist of the game, despite working out the best combat order to maximise his chances of at least getting a unit of mine back, Simon's dice once again let him down utterly.

Simon took all of this is wonderful good humour, there are other players who would have been throwing dice (and other objects) at this point - and I'm sure I'd have been a bit grumpy to say the least.

The major chaos was on the left where my flank attack did not break the Normans which allowed Simon to set up his own flank attack on the bedouins with his Bretons and I set up a possible flank attack on the Betons with a small Bedouin unit - but this unit was rather badly damaged by Simon's skirmisher's shooting as so was a tad vulnerable itself as it would take more shooting when it charged.

Out of the chaos on the left all my units emerged intact, if rather battered in the case of both Bedouin units. Photo of the charge combat dice is lower down.

In front of my camp my Ghilman finish off the cavalry they were fighting.

On my right my Kurds are back and facing off a Norman Average cavalry unit - this favours the Normans, but the way the dice have been going who knows?

In the centre the Dailami are now in a position to get involved.

For reasons I won't go into at this point we had a scramble to bring the game to resolution and so there are no more pictures.

However, I lost the Kurds and a Bedouin unit, but the Armoured Cavalry on my left raced across the table and sacked the Norman's camp. The resulting KaB tests coupled with damage the Dailami had done on the Norman infantry broke the Norman army.

15-4 to me. A really good result, but I must confess that Simon's discs and combat dice were my staunch allies all game.

Proof of the terrible discs Simon had one turn, along with the great discs I had at the same time. A very very extreme split - but it can happen; it actually caused much amusement to both of us at the time.

Some examples of some of the wild things that happened in the game.

First is a unit of the Superior Norman cavalry charging one of my Ghilman units. In theory the Normans should ride through my Ghilman fairly easily, their charge especially should be devastating. As you can see their charge did absolutely nothing despite staring with an S result and so giving the Shatter bonus to the other 2 files. My unit doing no damage back was no real surprise though.

Here we have another unit if Simon's Superior Norman cavalry which, having ridden all the way across the table to attack my other Ghilman unit has also failed to do any damage and is now 2 bases and a Wound down. It will shortly break after inflicting just a single base loss on my unit.