El Cid Campaign Weekend: The Third of Battles

I followed a hard day's gaming by eating possibly the most revolting item ever to have attempted to pass itself off as pizza before heading off home. On arriving, tired and downtrodden after working my fingers to the bone pushing toy soldiers around I was greeted by the news that eldest child had over-enthusiastically bathed, resulting in a flooded kitchen.
Closer inspection revealed a small but regular drip in the kitchen ceiling. I sighed, but trusted that it would soon end and that appropriate telling-off had been carried out by my wife. When, however, it hadn't stopped a couple of hours after the incident I became more concerned - "just how much water did he spill?" I wanted to know. Beginning to fear for the integrity of the ceiling I made a whole with a six inch nail, got soundly wet and produced a pleasing drizzle of water. When this also hadn't stopped after a further hour or so I got really worried that we had a genuine leaking pipe and we began to face the hideous reality of calling an emergency plumber at 11.30 on a Saturday night. I was confidently expecting the phone to be answered with a sound like one of those large fruit machines at Vegas paying out and resounding cheers from the plumber on the other end. However before taking that drastic step I instead took the drastic step of enlarging the hole, figuring that at least we knew a decent builder who would be able to replace damaged plasterboard without wearing a bandana across his face and shouting "stand and deliver". Once again I got very wet but was able to establish no leaking pipes were involved and that my son had simply poured about 12 gallons of water directly through the floorboards for his own amusement.
Here's a picture of the hole for those who like to wallow in the misfortune of others.


However, you haven't come here to read about why my son will not be getting any pocket money until he's about 45 - on to the next battle!

On my drive into WW on the Sunday morning, not quite as refreshed as I'd intended to be, I formulated a new plan™. I'd noticed that shooting at stuff (especially heavily armoured knights) was both ineffective and stopped my spearmen getting into fights nice and quick, where generally they did ok. I therefore decided to abandon all shooting and march forward as fast as possible to inevitable glory (or death - either way I'd be in the bar earlier).

The third game was to be a single match-up as Ibn Coldir was sent off (without much hope on behalf of the Almoravid Senior Management Team) to bring some recalcitrant Christians back in to line. My opponent was Chris who I played in the first round of James El Cid event at Newark a year or so ago. We set up the board, drew maps and were off!

Chris' battle line takes shape

Up this hill, lads, camels are bred for hills!

Loadsa Knights

Remember, lads - shooting bad, marching good!

A rural idyll, soon to be shattered!

For a change my Christian mercenaries passed their test and moved on the first turn. However normal service was soon resumed when they charged, failed to beat and then ran from some Peons with sticks. In the centre the new "fast advance strategy” meant the big spear blocks go into combat much sooner and were generally more successful. The Black Guard lost to some First Charging knights but Stubborn and Give Ground were in their favour. (At this point I have to say I don't like how this - Stubborn v First Charge - works, really. In two games on the roll of a single dice on a 4+ they're safe, anything else they run away - and will inevitably be wiped out. As it happened both rolls went in my favour, but it just seems a bit arbitrary. I understand its two conflicting mechanisms, so maybe a single roll is fairest, but I didn't like it.)

However on the right was a tale of true glory as the Kamel Korps charged, beat and eventually destroyed a unit of jinettes! Finally vindication for Khamu Karzai and his men!
Shortly after this point we ran out of time with just three turns played (lunch was calling and we wanted the afternoon big games to start on time).

It all kicks off down the middle!

On adding up the points it transpired that apart from a few skirmishers the only casualties on ether side were Chris' jinettes and so I squeaked a narrow victory thanks to the heroic exploits of Khamu Karsai's Kamel Korps!!

Coming soon the final battle (with loads pics)!