Tuesday 7 June 2011

Nasty Little Goblinses

Some pics of a couple of units for my O&G army that I finally got round to finishing off.
Lots of pics actually as I found it tricky to get good pictures of the big units. Not sure I succeeded, but hey, it's all eye candy, right?
Click 'em to make 'em bigger!













Monday 6 June 2011

Age of Arthur WAB Weekender - The Second Day

As time is flying by and my memory growing dim I’ll conflate the second day's play into a single post.

It appeared that some of my fellow attendees had been out to sample the nightlife of Mansfield after the games had finished the previous day, with the inevitable consequence that one or two of my fellow wargamers looked a little green around the gills that morning. Maybe that would give me that all important tactical edge (I'll take anything, me!)

First things first and everyone back to the map.
My territory declined once more.


With that out of the way it was on to choosing opponents. On the way up to Maelstrom that morning I'd mentioned to Tommy (giving lifts to the organiser - there are no lengths I won't go to to ensure favourable treatment) that I quite fancied playing against one of the Welsh armies and that Craig had a nice one. Army that is.
Anyway as the plan was for two doubles games to be played that morning, leaving one pair of players to play singles Tommy duly piped up that I wanted a crack at the Taffys and so me and Craig were on.

The scenario was "seize the sacred tree" or some such - played along the length of the table with a central objective of an arboreal nature.
I finally remembered to deploy some tactics and forethought and such (i.e. I didn't simply plonk the units down and razz forward at top speed). Thus when Craig failed an all important Warband test I was actually able to take advantage and put the cavalry to use charging his Combrogi from behind. Even then I nearly managed to stuff it up and it took a couple of turns before I broke them, however with that the game was up for the Welshmen and I secured a rather surprising Victory!

 Get 'em lads


 Now what they don't need is to fail a Warband test...


 Hands off our tree, man

See.

After lunch we again revisited the map and I was able to claim the highly desirable Isle of Wight. Lovely.

That's the summer hols sorted out
 
Next up I was paired with erstwhile ally and King of the Chariots, Wayne in a pitched battle type affair. Sadly at this point tactics and the like were once more a foreign language to my Saxons and it was I failing warbands and making inappropriate charges. Before long the world had reverted to its natural order and I was shovelling off dead fellas while Wayne manfully struggled with a mild hangover.

 Ah look at the ickle puppies


 Yikes!




 Ouch!


Two more splendid games against two more splendid chaps with lovely armies (though I think Craig’s was actually another of Jim's)

With all the fighting out of the way it was back to the map for the final time. The Isle of Wight was taken from me and my Kingdom shrank once more. Final toting up showed that Tommy had the most territory, but as he was the organiser and had borrowed an army no sort of moral high ground was his.

At least we kept Hull
 
And with that t was all over.  I had a great time, the event was well run by Scrivs and Tommy, peopled with thoroughly decent chaps and played in great spirit. Numbers were a little low and Tommy has decided not to run another one in the autumn, but to come back again in 12 months time. Scrivs is thinking of putting on another one-dayer in the autumn and I'm certainly up for either or both those events. If you’ve never attended a WAB event, especially an AoA or El Cid one then I’d urge you to sign up for the next one, they’re always tremendous fun. In the meantime, roll-on Hot Lead!

Thursday 2 June 2011

An Andalusian Interlude (bought to you by the colour Yellow)

As a change from the relentless grimness of my AoA coverage here's a game I played last week against my chum John. I used my Almoravids and he bought forth his trusty Andalusians.
Under first edition WAB I regularly beat John's army, however the changes brought by WAB 2 mean they're a far tougher proposition for me and he's probably won more of our battles than me since we purchased the new rules. This is obviously because WAB 2 has made Andalusians all bent and broken and not because I'm a hopeless old conservative who can't adapt his tactics.

I apologise in advance for the yellowness of the following pictures. I did fiddle with the white balance but the combination of a yellowish gaming surface and the "energy saving" light source means it looks like we're playing on a sea of custard.

 The Andalusians assemble


 Ibn Coldir has stiffened his Almoravid ranks with some Christian sell-swords

 The Almoravids advance (on the geese)

 Tribal skirmishers are over excited on the right flank

 Ha-ha, they'll be meat and drink to charging knights!

Ibn Coldir's allied Andalusian bowmen find employ as an effective speed-bump


 Honk, honk,can't catch us!

 Slingers, slinging

 The Andalusians appear to be reversing...

 Still hanging in there...


 Yep, they're definitely getting further away...


 Berber horsemen prove their worth on the left flank

 In we go, flower of Christian knighthood!

 Oh.

 Bugger

 Everybody Flee!!!


 Go down fighting, men

Well, that could have gone better. I got impatient and charged the knights in against an undamaged unit of spearmen, and inevitably lost which caused panic all round and saw just about everything flee never to return. I struggled with the manoeuvrability of the Andalusians and let John dictate the battle. If I'd held back with charging for another turn or so my other cavalry unit were around the flanks and I could have unleashed all kinds of mayhem.
However it was a very jolly (and not nearly as yellow as it appears) game, as always.
(I would say roll on the next game, but we played again on Tuesday this week and I lost that too)