Hot Lead 2010 Part the Second

So, fortified by Mrs Miggin's famous slap-up feed it was time for some more hardcore miniature on miniature action.
Hereditary Enemies was the name of this particular game. So who would my Almoravids face? Fellow Berbers, effete Andalusians or perhaps Infidel Christian Knights?
No.
Caledonians, obviously.
Clearly these Caledonians were a bit lost but Ibn Coldir had at last left the steppes as the battlefield was a desert. I was looking forward to this as I know Jim quite well from these events. His armies are always lovely looking, he plays in the right spirit and we always seem to have a laugh and this was no exception. Tactics and subtlety were not the order of the day, Jim having picked an all warband army to save on those difficult "shall I move forward or not" decisions and me possessing a Wargames dictionary that stops well before S or T. (Some unkind souls would say it barely gets past A for Attack but it clearly gets as far as C for Charge!).
Amusingly most of the units that got Hatred as part of the scenario were skirmishers. So we both gleefully threw them forward to die. Despite some skilful manoeuvring by my mounted troops the camels died to a hump and the horse fled from the board. No change there then.
In the middle it came down it some serious fighting between ranked up units with Jim's characters (and superior grasp of rules and tactics) making the difference. My General did come off better in hand to hand with a hairy Scot but apart from that I did a lot of running away and removing casualties. However a final unlucky bout of panic gripped the Caledonians and I was the undeserving recipient of far more victory points than I warranted.
A great fun game with a top opponent.

The Black Guard pick on some weedy skirmishers

We hate you! No, we hate you!

Picking on someone their own size the BG come off worst!

You're going home in an Almoravid Ambulance

Death in the afternoon

And so to the final game. Doubles. I was drawn with a fellow Almoravid player whose name I have forgotten. Sorry. And we were to take on Case, all the way from Holland using GB's own Almoravids allied with my regular opponent John with his Andalusians. Naturally having played John many times I lined up opposite Case and we went at it. It was one of those games where everything went right for me, and everything wrong for Case. I routed his horse, wiped out his spearmen, chased off his archers and only struggled to bring down his Black Guard. My camels fled the board obviously, but apart from that I suffered very little. Credit to Case he took it all very well (better than I probably would have done) despite poor luck playing more part than any tactical genius on my part.
Over on my left John ad my ally played out a much closer struggle, but I think we just nicked the overall victory.
Anyway, pics:

The two battle lines face off

Case's Cavalry get ready to bounce off

John's Andalusians swing round the far left

Andalusian v Andalusian Action!

Clash on the hill

The Black Guard that wouldn't die!

And with that it was all over.
A charity dice roll off raised a large amount of cash for the British Legion Helicopter appeal (I may have misheard) though as usual I won nowt.
My first opponent Graeme was the overall winner (he couldn't have done it without me, I like to think) and some other prizes were handed out too. My mighty performance in the last game (sorry Case), and undeserved points against Jim raised me to mid-table respectability but that's not really the point. Four great games, four great opponents, and Martin and the Beasties making great hosts mean I'm definitely already planning and looking forward to the next one. Roll on Cold Steel!