Hot Lead 2011 - Battle Three

Game number three and I was playing James Morris, author of the El Cid list that I was using, and the Age of Arthur list that he was using. I’ve known James for a while now, but this was possibly the first time we’d actually played a game against each other. James Welsh army looked lovely. However, being an “in period purist” the slightly incongruous “time tunnel” (not to mention geographical unlikeliness) of the game was playing on James’ mind, perhaps I would be able to take advantage!

We were playing down the length of the table in the Battle in the Pass scenario. It was on the table I’d used for the previous game with two large woods that completely blocked the centre of the valley; apparently Darren hadn’t read the scenarios when setting up the tables, so deployment would be interesting. As it happened we both refused a flank meaning we inevitably swung around the woods to meet across the board in the middle. By this stage I was getting pretty bored with my defensive style of play (to be honest, maintaining it for two whole games was something of a triumph for me, despite the losses) and I knew James would favour getting stuck in, so that’s what happened. Sadly the Kamel Korps had no horse to cause fear in and so, clearly disillusioned by this turn of events they allowed themselves to be duffed up by some Welshmen in short order. The Berber horse promptly panicked and left the table, hmmm.

 What do you mean you forgot to mount up?

 The Even Thinner Than Usual White Line

Kamels in place, Skirmishers in place - right where we want 'em!

A noticably Kamel and Skirmisher free zone

In the centre my bow fire and javelining was proving ineffectual and soon enough my archers were spooked and fled abut the place getting in Ibn Coldir’s way.
Finally the battle lines clashed and James general issued a challenge. Abd Inuff bravely stepped up to the mark, but was outmatched and made his way off to paradise, followed by a significant proportion of his men. The rest were inevitably warbanded away (James felt bad about this), though they escaped, at least temporarily – allowing James to repeat the feat in subsequent turns and his warlord to amass a quite impressive flag collection.

The Saxons close in

 

Lots of colours, lots of sizes. They'll look lovely back in the rugby club.

Over on what was now my far right the Black Guard entered into a tense stand-off with a welsh warband wisely hugging their native arboreal protection. Sure enough they failed to fail a warband test and impatience and a desire to “hand it out” meant Ibn Coldir declared a charge. Penda stepped out to accept Ibn Coldir’s challenge and was (perhaps surprisingly) cut down. The welsh, fortified by their trees held out for a couple of turns, but finally broke as the game ended, coughing up their flag and allowing Ibn Coldir to claim a small amount of pride from the debacle.

Penda braces himself for an Ibn Coldir one liner

So, on balance a more aggressive style of play had, as expected, resulted in a rather heavier defeat. But it made for a good fun game. James army looked fab and he was a pleasure to play with.