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!

Age of Arthur WAB Weekender - Strike Three!

And so it was back to The Map.
Having secured a victory I was able to expand my territory and claimed Hull from Jim. For some reason he appeared not regard this as much of a loss.

Soon all Deira wil be mine...!

Then it was on to selecting opponents and seeing a sea of Purple on my doorstep I declared war on Neil and his Romano British. Someone unfamiliar with my particular grasp of tactics and strategy might question why, when I find Romans a tough nut to crack, I elected to attack Romans. My regular readership (or Jim as he's also known) will find this behaviour entirely within character.

So on to the battle. We were in competition to seize a desirable detached residence nestling on an attractive upland feature in an easy to access rural location. Neil had lots of men with big shields and a propensity to stand still.

 Smash the windinderz lads

My Geoguth immediately rushed the hill, were thrashed and ran off. To my left failed warbanding meant I spent some time bouncing off shieldwalls.

 What can possibly go wrong here...

 Oh.

 Mill around! Mill around!

Too late, as always...

Eventually most of my army had run most of the way away and Neil was able to claim the hill. However a lucky rally test right at the death meant I had a unit within six inches meaning he could claim but a minor rather than major victory!
Then we added up the VP's and realised that no, after all it was a major one.

Splendid game, with Neil very patient and gracious in explaining when I was getting the rules wrong - I think he realised it was incompetence rather than maliciousness.

So day one finished with a win and two losses, better already than the last time I played an event!

Age of Arthur WAB weekender - Double Trouble

After the first round of battles we revisited the map. Mighty victors got to take two territories off an opponent, close run victors just one, so the territory of the Yellow Angles began to diminish.

I never liked Kings Lynn anyway

Then it was on to a big old doubles game using our full 1500 point plus 300 reserve armies.
I was paired with Wayne against Big Jim and Steve, fighting over the river. Steve had chariots (as did Wayne) and had fought over the river in the previous game and felt the water rather got in the way, so the four of us had a quick conflab and agreed some amended rules that meant Steve could enjoy the game a bit more - that's what I like about these events, it's much more about ensuring everyone has a fun time with their soldiers than strict enforcement of The Rules.

Lined up, like a big long line of men with sharp sticks

With that Jim and I lined up opposite one another and left the two charioteers to fight over the ford. Jim was using his late Romans (jolly nice they are too) which I find a tough nut to crack with their Shieldwall and stuff, and with a river in the way too I wasn't terribly hopeful. Sure enough Jim raced his men to the waters edge, then dropped anchor in Shieldwall and waited for me to fail Warband tests.

On my command, hide behind your shields!

Splash, splash, splash

Soon enough my Geoguth and Wiglera obliged (they are, after all, Fierce!) and romped across the bridge into his waiting unit of Double Hard Roman types (I'm pretty sure that's what they're called in the book). Astonishingly they didn't just bounce off, but in fact hung around for a couple of turns before running off home to their mums.
 

Not yet lads...oh, bugger

Meanwhile to my right the chariot part of the battlefield was see-sawing like one of those plank based pieces of equipment you find in children’s play areas; as first Steve's chariots made mincemeat of some passing noble Irishmen before being involved in an Early Mediaeval fender bender with Wayne’s chariots and fleeing back towards the ford.

Rumble, squeak, neigh, splash

PRANG!

My reinforcement force finally turned up a few turns late on my left, but with crushing predictability appeared on my side of the river, rather than in Jim's rear area. Forgetting what I'd planned when picking 12 Geoguth in their pants as part of this force (SKIRMISHERS, you fool!) I formed them in to a spectacularly ineffective ranked unit. Then I ran away from Jim's scary Saxons with my cavalry.

Back at the river it was slow going against the shieldwalls, though at least I wasn't actually losing and eventually I gained a toehold on the far bank. By which time my ally had wiped out his opponent and was thundering along through enemy territory to show me how it should be done.

Double PRANG!

A brief conflab and we realised that we held one of the objectives and as long as I didn't fail any Warband tests I should be able to at east contest the other one, giving us the win. Astonishingly I was able to carry out this simple plan, in the face of some high class taunting from Jim, and the battle drew to a close with us gaining a Major Victory!

A great fun game played in good spirits by all concerned.

Age of Arthur Wab Weekender - the fun begins

Last Saturday I packed up the Early Saxons and headed off bright and early to Maelstrom games for a weekend of Age of Arthur gaming. True to form I'd been up the night before finishing off a few models (to a fairly rudimentary standard), frantically searching out movement trays of approximately the right dimensions and flocking a river. Friday night, a resin river and a bumper bag of static grass - truly I am living the dream.

This was my army, a full 1500 points of:
Cynning, Hail of Blows
Thegn, ASB,
Scop   
Wiglera   
Atheling
23 Duguth, Full Command   
24 Duguth, Full Command   
20 Gedrith, Light Armour, Full Command
24 Geoguth, Throwing Spear, Full Command
9 Skirmishers (slings)

And an additional 300 points
Thegn, Throwing Spear, Light Armour, Horse           
8 Mounted Duguth, Horses, Full Command
12 Geoguth

These would be used in some of the scenarios and be subject to random deployment cards to add to the fun.


On arrival I was pleased to see most of the usual suspects. Counting up I reckoned I'd played against half of the attendees at previous events so I was looking forward to getting in some games against new opponents

First order of the day was to claim our starting territories. Scrivs had made a nice map of Britain C500AD and through the medium of Tiddlywinks we built our homelands. As a practicing Anglian Warlord I grabbed the eastern counties with a fetching yellow colour.

The high water mark of Anglian exansion

We were then paired off against nearby rivals. As I'd played Scrivs (blue) in a couple of recent warm-up games that left regular nemesis Tom as my nearest rival, so I was to be fighting his Franks- so much for meeting new opponents.

The battle was to be a pitched one, so in true AoA style we lined up and went at it. Tom made some excuses about not having quite finished his army, but I think he just likes to borrow Jim's models (and who can blame him, they are rather nice). At least in this battle he was using AoA Franks who're not quite as frisky as the FotW ones he used at the last event. The result, however, was remarkably similar.

Tom/Jim's Battle Line

 

 Right men I want a steady, tactica...oh stuff it, Charge!

 Get 'em lads!

CRUNCH!

 

I chased off a few skirmishers then the battle lines clashed and then I came off worst.

 The Claw! The Claw, flee the Claw!

Run away!!!

As usual when Tom and I play we had to ask some of the grown-ups how the rules actually worked, but we muddled through in good spirits with Tom in the end getting a well deserved close run victory.
As usual a good fun game with a splendid opponent.

WAB Weekender

Spent the weekend at the excellent Maelstrom venue playing games of WAB using my Age of Arthur Saxons.
A splendid event, great company and games played in the right and proper spirit.
I'll report on the games I played over the rest of this week, but in the meantime here's some eye candy from some of the games I didn't play in (I apologise for the poor quality of the snaps, I think it's a combination of the lighting in Maelstrom not being ideal, my camera being a bit rubbish and me being a lot rubbish)

As you can see, lots of lovely armies and lots of fun games. I had a super time.