This wednesday saw me playing DBM against Graham.

It was my Leidang against his Viking Raiders- with me taking the late option of 1133 so I could get the kights, with Graham taking the much earlier option with nearly all Bd(F)!

What made this game unusally was that after I placed my first command down on the right flank, which incidently was secured with both a WW and River – Graham proceed to palce a small command behind fortifications – the remainder of the Army was on a flank march, and consisted of 2 Wb(F) the other 70 ish elements were all Bd(F)! – a break of some 28 elements of heavy infantry.

I was able to deploy my remianing two commands facing the flank march (keeping in mind by right flank was secured by a waterway and river combo) – although I was quite cramped up

The next few turns went by uneventful with me lining my 10 Kn(F) up for a glorous charge at at the BD(F) which wouldl inevitabley arrive!

Thankfully after about 5 turns the flank march arrived and quickly moved forward, my far right flank (ie centre of table at this point!) was hard pressed so I threw out a few Kn elements to slow him down which worked, the remainder of the Kn held their ground until a combined charge of these and my Huscarls could be made, so we had fighting across some 18 element frontage.

Things went partly as planned and I proceeded to take off around 10 elements of Bd(F), things then slowed down as my Kn’s followed up and were quickly double flanked – some fairly bad rolling on both sides followed with me loosing 5 Kn with rolls of 1 – but this was compensated by the fact that the other combats although I rolled badly Graham rolled worse (usually a 2 to 1) with my quick kill so quite a few more Bd(F) added to the pile of dead – we were probably around the 20 elements to me and 8 or 9 Kn to Graham at this point!

Eventually Graham did enough to get a third of my Kn command, but the next bound I equaled that by geting a third of his large command – by this time nearly all of Grahams Bd(F) were impetuous – I suspected I would loose enough for him to get my Kn command – but at the same time this action would probably have broken is large command which was only 4 or 5 from breaking, and that woldl be the army!<p>

Key Take Aways:<p>

With one super large command on the flank of Bd(F) this army is all or nothing – luckily I got a secure flank with the WW – other opponents may not be lucky and may have to guess which side, I suspect this tactic will be very succesful against Irregular armies of Bd and Sp (but requires and early Flank arrival)… Regular armies I believe will given the bounds position themselves easily to maximise their position when the flank march arrives…

Overall – not an ideal army to take to Burton in my opinion as it only offers one person a game (although there are more than enough figures for two people to move!) and with a flank march – flank marching the command and not rolling that elusive 6 could mean for a very boring game!

I wolid if sticking with the Bd(F) option, deploy 3 commands, the CinC with majority of Bd(F) as the strike force using the CinC extra pip for holding when you roll that 1 – the other 2 commands would be based on the Huscarls with a few Bd(F) anchored with the SG…<p>

We run out of time, but a good and very unusual game was had – thanks Graham