Age of Arthur WAB Day - Battle Three

Two games down, one narrow loss, one bloody stand off. I was clearly on an upward trajectory. Ahem.

Next up was Alex of Team Munky. I’m sure we’ve played one another before, but if we have I couldn’t find the report.
We were to play for possession of a Pictish erection that was standing proud, deep in a moist valley.
OK, I’ll stop now.
Set up was from the long ends of the board and whoever ended up nearest the stone effigy would be the winner. I checked the rules for contesting the stone, but as it turned out I needn't have bothered.
I placed some Geoguth on my right beyond the church then placed the bulk of my army further to the left. Alex put all his fighty foot units pointing at the standing stone with some horsemen on the right flank and some slingers and Pictish skirmishers in the woods on my left.

 Welsh shieldwall

Stout Saxons

My archers raced to take the hill, giving them a commanding view of the objective from whence they could rain death and destruction on the advancing Welshmen. Possibly. I pushed the Romans up toward the stone figuring they could make a push on the stone toward the end of the game and be hard to shift. The rest of my units began to swarm toward the right to face down the horsemen.

The yoof get stuck in

We claim this phallic artwork!

 Ooo are ya, ooo are ya?

 I think you'll find its our stone

Bring it boyos

Sadly my Geoguth proved no match for the Picts, but their joy was short-lived as they were run over by Duguth, who in turn suffered from machine gun like slings at close range. My other Geoguth saw off some javelin men before succumbing to concentrated javelin chucking by the Welsh.

 Nobody charge until I give the word

 I said nobody...oh.

Ooooof!

And then inevitably my Gedrith failed a warband test and crashed into Alex’s hearthguard unit.
The battle see sawed for a turn or two, but the Welsh warlord proved too formidable for my Cyning and chopped him down, while Alex threw attacks at my standard bearer and cut him down too.
Over on my right the Duguth saw off the slingers, but the death of my general and ASB saw my centre collapse.
The Welsh Teulu continued their rampage through into the Romans and Alex once again brutally targeted the character in the unit, hacking the Tribune to the ground. With that the army finally fell apart and the field belonged to the Welsh.

Get away from our stone!

Let's be having you, Mr Tribune!

A proper drubbing for the Saxons, although with a little more luck – and maybe more thought I might have won the clash of the commitatus units and carried the day.
Alex was a charming and very fair opponent, and good fun to play despite administering a stern schooling in the art of WAB.

And with that the day came to an end. I had to leave before final results were announced (another jet-set jaunt to Swindon), so was spared the ignominy of having a pile of coins more diminutive than the contents of Max Clifford’s trousers.

All in all a splendid way to spend the day. Looks like an El Cid version may be on the agenda for six months’ time (although I’d quite like to give Shieldwall a try at some point).
Many thanks to Scrivs for organising, all my opponents for great games and all the other WAB fans who made for a great day’s gaming.