Age of Arthur WAB One Dayer Report (Part One)

Yesterday I ventured the short distance up the road to sunny Mansfield to Maelstrom's Eye of the Storm Venue to play Age of Arthur games all day.
This was a one day event Scrivs had organised. Technically I was supposed to be helping him, but he'd got it all so well under control that all I really ended up doing was baking a ginger cake for all the players to share. To make matters worse, the night before I threw a box of Scrivs' beautifully painted Saxons downstairs as I was retreiving them from the loft to hand back to him. It's bad enough dropping your own soldiers, but when the chipped and mangled models belong to someone else you don't half feel bad I can tell you. Sorry mate.

Anyway, grovelling apologies out of the way it was on to battle.
Scrivs has already posted an overview over on his blog, so I'll stick to my version of events. Fortunately I remembered to take a lot of pictures, so I won't be writing too much (as I'm sure my regular reader will be delighted to learn). The picture quality is a little variable as the Eye of the Storm, though great for gaming isn't always helpful to hamfisted buffoons using the digital equivalent of a Box Brownie.

The first game was doubles. I was paired with fellow Saxon Mike of Trouble at t'Mill blog. Facing us were some Romano British in the ownership of Andy of Andy's Wargaming blog and Geraint who as far as I know doeasn't have a blog.
Mike and Andy are clubmates and had apparently been engaged in the unseemly practice of practicing for the event earlier in the week, so I faced off against Andy while Mike lined up opposite Geraint.
The Romano armies looked particularly splendid - Andy's I'd played against once before at Hot Lead or Cold Steel or Warm Copper or something, but Geraint's red and white colour scheme looked great too. Real inspiration to crack on with mine. I've mentioned before that a significant chunk of enjoyment for me is setting up the models and then just looking at them and that was certainly true on this occasion. Playing the game's a bit incidental after that.
So here's some eye candy:

 Saxons (mine)

 Andy's Romans

 Geraint's Red and White Boys

The lines begin to close

The scenario was Cat Coit Cumquat or something from the AoA book. Essentially the Romano British had to smuggle as many units as possible off our table edge and we had to stop them. Being Saxons we only know one way to defend, and that's CHAAAARGE!. So we pushed forward, each leaving a small rearguard.

 Into the fray!

I made first contact and one of my units puiched their way through Andy's lines. However his general's unit managed to get the drop on my Gedrith, which is never a good plan.

 Geraint's men take the scenic route

 Stab, smash, hack slay!

 Oooer, where'd they come from?

Mikes men meet stiff resistance

Andy's reinforcements, in the shape of treacherous fellow Saxon's arrived at around this point and showed the milksop Romanos how it should be done by chasing off my Geoguth. Meanwhile our generals were locked in mortal (if slow) combat.

 The Kings duke it out

 Traitors! No you are! Your mum!

The grind continues 

Mysteriously the photo of my king dying at about this point was all a bit blurry. However it spread a fair bit of panic. Andy's bodyguard unit proceeded to steamroller over my next unit of Duguth and swept forward carrying aloft all the banners they'd knicked

 

At this point it all started to quiet down on our end of the table. Andy had already sneaked his unit of cavalry off the board edge, and some re-forming meant his bodyguard unit were home free too. The rest of his army was almost certainly too far from the edge to make it.

Don't let 'em get away fellas

Meanwhile over on the right...

 

 Saxons, ahem, tactically withdrawing

Hold, men, hold....

 

 Hardcore Saxon on Saxon action

 

 That'll smart!

Geraint had got lucky with his re-inforcements roll, bringing them on in our half of the table and marching them straight off, which meant they had three units home. Mike however was making it hard work for the Romanos to get more away. My reinforcements finally came into play with only a couple of turns remaining and on the far end of the board, so they could do little. True to form, I did however mange to almost get them killed on the last turn.

In the final analysis, the Romono British alliance had done just enough to claim a minor victory. Andy had nabbed the Arthurian Artefact from my Gedrith and the Saxon empire was due to shrink by a few acres.

 

Finally some raven's eye views of the final stages of the game:

 

 

It was a splendid game, my first of WAB since Cold Steel back in January. Andy was a top opponent as always as was Geraint, though he was mainly fighting my estimable ally Mike. Like all good WAB Dark Age battles it seemed to see-saw quite a bit with the result  in doubt right to the very end.

Anyway I'm off on holiday for a couple of days now, so the other two reports will have to wait. Sorry 'bout that.