WAB Age of Arthur Battle Report

The Saxons and their Romano British paymasters assemble

With Scrivs' Age of Arthur event less than two weeks away my chum and I convened for a game of WAB by way of warm-up/attempt to remember the rules.
As we'd neither of us played WAB for around six months, nor AoA for even longer (or ever in my opponent's case) we went with a simple 1600pt pitched battle affair.

My army included a unit of Gedrith, two units of Duguth, a smaller unit of Geoguth and an allied unit of Milites, together with my not yet finished archers. I also took an assortment of characters, possibly slightly more than permitted.
On the Welsh side of the table stood a big unit of Teulu, another big warband unit, two units of cavalry and a smattering of skirmishers.

The Welsh form up

The battle took a while to get going, my advance was slowed by the screening archers (who, predictably, failed to shoot anything) whilst the Welsh were stymied by deploying their cavalry behind a unit of close order warband.
I think my opponent was also wrestling with the nuances (or lack of same) of early Dark Age warfare. More used to the subtle manouverings of the Andalusians he failed to simply point his big unit of double hard warriors at the middle of my line and deliver his general to where he could do most damage.

 As dawn breaks the Saxons advance. Quite slowly.

 Steady chaps. Let the hairy blokes do the fighting

 'ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we...

 Sneaky Welshies hiding in the woods

 Big, slow warband. Note cavalry trying to get past

Sneaky Welshies leaving the woods to chuck stones

Eventually however, the battle lines crashed together (my archers, inevitably, being swept aside) and the real work began. A challenge between our generals demonstrated once again that Welsh fury (and WS6, 3A) beats Saxon power as my general was brutally cut down before he'd unhitched his buckler. However Saxon steel (and a flank charge) ruled the combat (just) and we settled down to grind, despite the death of my general causing a smattering of flight.

 Let the taunting begin

 First battle for the archers - inevitable outcome

 Steady chaps, steady...

 Wallop!

The scrum begins

On my left flank the Duguth eventually charged the Welsh warband, but came off worst and were cut down down, whilst the Geoguth were humiliatingly run to ground by skirmishers.

 Saxon bucklers, not enough to make the difference.

 Round two hundred and fifty of this combat

 Some substitute Norman cavalry sneak around the back

The Welsh general begins to run out of bodies...

Fortunately, in the centre, numbers eventually told and despite a late charge by the Welsh cavalry (which actually gave me more combat resolution) my foes broke and fled as the game ended.

So what did we learn?
That Welsh generals are proper frisky.
Subtle manouvering is not the name of the game
Cavalry are a bit bobbins
WAB and this supplement gives a great game of soldiers.

So another evening well spent.
Just got to finish the archers off and tweak the armylist a little (I think the Geoguth may be better as two skirmishing units of nine models to go and monster opposing skirmishers than a ranked unit of sixteen).
Apart from that I'm raring to go for the event